Aftershock

by Bernard Ashley

  And on he went with the song, knocking the bottle over at the end of every verse. Nine, eight, seven, six… She probably didn’t understand ‘hanging on the wall’, but he would come to that later. Meanwhile, he was strumming the mandolin strings and Sofia was picking up the tune and joining in with the words. Her mood was definitely up, and with the sound of the mandolin still in their ears, Makis suggested they leave rescuing Sally from the giant squid until the next day. She smiled as she put the bottle away; and riding the moment, Makis told her about the game coming up at Chase Fields. His mother nodded OK – not overjoyed, but not pulling a face, either.

  Wasn’t it peculiar, Makis thought, how something good could come from nowhere and pull you out of a hole?

  Denny Clarke reminded Makis of something – and on the day of the match, when he saw Clarke staring at the altered team sheet in the corridor, he realised what it was. He had seen fish looking like Clarke in his father’s nets: big staring eyes and a pouting open mouth. Clarke’s hair was always stuck close and shiny to his head as if he’d just been fished from the sea, which made him a real brother to a barboūni. As Clarke read his name on the playing team sheet, he looked like a red mullet. Paul Chambers was off with flu, so Denny Clarke wouldn’t be the travelling reserve after school today – he’d be playing.

  Chapman played at right half, which meant that Clarke would be behind Makis – and as soon as playtime came, David Sutton made them practise in those positions. But Clarke annoyed Makis from the start.

  ‘Why don’ you drop back, Greekie,’ he kept saying. ‘so’s I can overlap you?’ All the same, he stayed too close, crowding Makis; he wanted to be where Makis was all the time. Clarke was bigger and should have fitted better into the half-back line, but he just didn’t try – and that wasn’t a good sign for the game that afternoon against Larkson Lane.

  Even Mr Hersee saw it. He must have been watching from his office window, because out he came. ‘Clarke!’ he shouted. ‘Dennis Clarke!’

  ‘Wha’?’

  ‘Drop back. Keep in line with your centre-half.’

  ‘The Greek kid gets in my way.’

  ‘And you, Magritis – ‘ the man still hadn’t got hold of Makis’s name – ‘be aware of what Clarke’s trying to do.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It wasn’t worth moaning about Barboūni Boy. There’d be more space for keeping out of his way on the big pitch, wouldn’t there?

  Mr Hersee paid the fares, and they all went on a double-decker bus to Chase Fields, which was different from their Prince’s Fields home ground. The goal posts were round instead of square, and they had nets up. Instead of changing under a tree they changed in a council changing-room, and as Makis ran out on to the pitch with its fresh white lines, he suddenly felt smaller. It was a big-time game, all right.

  This being a quarter-final, a teacher from another school was going to referee.

  It started at a cracking pace. The ball was pumped up hard and it travelled fast, causing mistakes all over the pitch by both sides. But the teams soon settled, and Makis could see how Larkson Lane was different from the teams they’d played before. For one thing, this team had a real coach. Mr Hersee liked football, but he wasn’t the same as Mr Laliotis with music or Mrs Pardew with reading. David Sutton said he’d never even played the game. But these Larkson boys had a master who was shouting at them the whole time, telling them where to run and when to drop back. In his football shirt and goalie’s cap he bullied, raged, scorned his players, while Mr Hersee in his suit and glasses was just a high voice calling, ‘Well done, Sutton’, ‘Bad luck, Magritis’, ‘Keep at it, lads!’ and, ‘Come on, the Reds!’

  Another difference between the two teams was that Larkson Lane had been taught their positions as if they were First Division players. Imeson Street were more playground juniors who followed the ball wherever it went. It wasn’t just Denny Clarke crowding Makis against Larkson Lane, it was everyone crowding everyone else – until one long ball from the Larkson defence found their left-winger waiting in a park-full of space. They didn’t score – but it was clear that like this they would soon go a goal up.

  Imeson Street was out-manoeuvred all the time – but not always out-played. When, from a scrimmage, the ball suddenly came to Makis, he went on a run with it, and if Denny Clarke had had his wits about him Imeson Street could have got somewhere. A big left-half came charging at Makis, who was going to get flattened whether the boy won the ball or not. But if Denny Clarke had been Paul Chambers following behind him, what Makis did would have worked. As the tackler’s shoulder came heaving in, there was just a split second for Makis to step over the ball and back-heel it. But Clarke wasn’t there. He’d run up inside Makis on his left as if it was a race; and when Makis picked himself up off the grass, there was the Larkson left-half running with the gift of the ball towards the Imeson Street goal – where his forward line was in formation for a slick tap-in.

  One – nil.

  It wasn’t all Clarke’s fault, it was Makis’s as well – he should have been more sure someone was following to collect his back-pass – but it was rotten missing a good chance on the break to go one goal down.

  ‘Bad luck, lads – but we’ll come back second half.’

  David Sutton saw the problem better than Mr Hersee, and he told the team what they’d got to do. ‘Backs stay back, half-backs only up to halfway except for corners and free kicks; and forwards and inside-forwards – we keep our shape: the “W”.’ He eyeballed his team. ‘Stop chasing the ball all over the pitch!’

  ‘Exactly, lads,’ said Mr Hersee. ‘Hear-hear, Sutton. The “W”.’

  He drew a quick diagram in the back of his diary, showing the normal line-up of attackers as printed in match programmes.

  And with a lot more shouting between the players on the pitch – ‘Keep position! Stay there!’ and more from Mr Hersee, who started running the touchline from end to end until he was exhausted – Imeson Street got back into the game. They’d got the ball skills, it was the match skill they hadn’t mastered, until David Sutton had spotted what was wrong. And by not chasing the ball all over the pitch and keeping their shape better, they competed well – and in the end got a goal back through a sizzling left-wing centre from Ray Hickson that Micky Long chested into the net.

  One – one.

  The Larkson coach shouted his throat inside out as the teams lined up again. ‘Balstock, you idiot – don’t leave that winger all that space! Get inside his shirt! Fewtrell, what the hell were you doing? Sit on that scorer – take him out of the game! I don’t want to see daylight between you backs and those forwards!’

  ‘Play up, lads!’ shouted Mr Hersee from the other side of the pitch. ‘Come on, you Reds!’

  It was tense, it was tough, and with the teachers trying to move the players around like puppets, it was stalemate: two good teams cancelling each other out.

  But David Sutton wasn’t finished. Making a clearance, accidentally-on-purpose he booted the ball hard and long off the pitch so that Mr Hersee had to run eighty yards to get it. Urgently, Sutton called the Imeson Street attack together.

  ‘We’re getting nowhere like this. Do what QPR did the other Saturday. Forget the “W”. We go for an “M”.’

  ‘An “M” – what’s that?’

  ‘A “W” inside out. The two wingers and Long drop back, and inside-left and inside-right go up. They’re marking us one for one: they won’t know how to mark us then…’

  By now, the ball was back on the pitch. Steered by Sutton, Makis and Tremaine went forward to become the front line of attack, and Hickson, Long and Gull dropped back to play just forward of the half-backs. And the captain was right. After yelling for a few minutes, the Larkson coach went quiet as he tried to work out what to do. But before he could, Sutton’s ploy paid off. With the Larkson full-backs drawn too far forward, still sticking tight to the Imeson Street wingers, there was suddenly a space for a looping clearance by Nichols up to Kasoulides on the left – who passed a c
lever ball through to Tremaine upfront, who jigged about and beat their centre-half – to slide the ball under the diving keeper.

  ‘Goal!’ shouted Mr Hersee.

  ‘Offside!’ shouted the Larkson coach.

  Solemnly, the neutral referee had the ball thrown to him. What was he going to do with it: place it for an offside free kick, or give the goal?

  Without a word he ran to the centre spot and made a note in his referee’s notebook.

  One – two.

  ‘Three minutes to go!’ shouted Mr Hersee in the loudest voice Imeson Street had ever heard from him. ‘Three minutes!’ – for the benefit of the referee.

  ‘Right – everyone back!’ David Sutton instructed. ‘Micky Long, you stay up, in the middle on your own. The rest of us back!’ And with a look at the Larkson touchline, he shouted, ‘Get inside every one of their bloomin’ shirts! I don’t want to see no daylight!’

  Copying the other side’s tactics, Imeson Street hung on by dogged defending. The Larkson’s coach could shout ‘Four minutes!’ when there were two, and ‘Three minutes!’ when there were none, but the referee blew his whistle on time – and the Reds were through. Imeson Street was in the semi-final of the Fred Berryman Trophy.

  And Makis went home late, but elated – to find another sort of line-up on the kitchen table.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Saint Gerasimos!’

  Makis’s mother had put ten bottles in a row on the table – not all green and not all the same size; but ten, anyway. There was the cleaning fluid bottle, pint and half-pint milk bottles, a medicine bottle, a lemonade bottle, a stone hot-water bottle, a bottle of sauce, an eye-drop bottle, and one full and one empty jam jar. Makis’s face lit up when he saw them, with his mother standing to one side as if she’d had nothing to do with them getting there.

  ‘They look like the school team!’

  ‘Ten green bottle,’ Sofia said.

  Makis counted them aloud in English, putting a finger on each. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten! Now you say it with me.’

  Which she did.

  He went to the wall for his mandolin, and tonight he used the new plectrum. With a quick tune-up – and satisfied with less than perfection so as not to lose the moment – he found his chord and began strumming. And they sang the song, Sofia in a stronger, more certain voice today.

  With smiles and some doorway-dodging, they put the bottles and jars back in their places, and after a meal of toast and sardines they spent a serious hour on the Green Spot book. Sofia went through it well, even if she did make the English words sound more like Greek. This was excellent! And because the more advanced Colour Spot books could be found in the junior school, Makis wasn’t too worried about getting hold of them to keep up their lessons.

  His pupil was doing well; which had to say something about the teacher, too.

  The following Sunday morning, Makis and his mother went to the Cathedral; and on the way back, the hoarding at the corner of the High Street caught their eye. It was advertising Canada Dry Ginger Ale. Makis recognised those four words in English. They had the same meaning as on the advertisement back home in Metataxa Square.

  ‘Look at that!’ he said. ‘Canada Dry Ginger Ale.’ Then he said it in English.

  What would his mother think? Would seeing the advertisement from the past make her sad, or— ‘

  ‘Canada Dry Ginger Ale,’ she said in Greek. And repeated what he was saying in English – ‘Canada Dry Ginger Ale’ – with understanding in her voice.

  Makis showed the palms of his hands, like a conjurer after a trick. Perhaps he’d be a teacher one day, if he couldn’t be a fisherman.

  What a different atmosphere the house had!

  Mr Laliotis was given a smiling welcome when he came later that morning; and he was geniality itself. His white hair was fluffed up like a maestro, and in Sunday mood he wore a woollen pullover knitted in geometric patterns – eye-catching enough for Makis to stare at.

  ‘I wear it for the Greeks!’ Mr Laliotis said, waving at the designs. ‘Isosceles, Euclid, Pythagoras!’

  ‘Mathematicians,’ Sofia said.

  ‘I wondered if Makis might help me,’ the musician went on.

  But how could Makis help Mr Laliotis? It wouldn’t be fish boxes he’d want scrubbing out, the way Makis had helped his father; and he wouldn’t be hauling in a full net.

  ‘Mrs Laliotis is organising a musical evening at the Acropolis restaurant. She’s going to play piano. Together we shall play a violin and piano duet. The men will sing, and I shall play balalaika. But…’

  But, what?

  ‘I remember a song from Kefalonia that speaks to all Greeks of their homeland.’ He looked hard at Makis. ‘I wondered if you knew it from your father?’

  He could ask my mother, Makis thought, but for some reason he’s asking me. ‘What song is that, Mr Laliotis?’

  ‘Do you know, “To Taste the Assos Honey”?’

  ‘Oh!’ Sofia gasped, and made a small sound in her throat. She looked as if sadness had come in through the door like a winter wind. ‘Spiros…’

  Makis jumped in quickly. ‘Yes, I know it.’ People kept bees all over Kefalonia, but the bees from Assos produced the best on the island.

  ‘Then please will you come upstairs with your mandolin and help me?’ Seeing Sofia’s sudden look of sadness Mr Laliotis seemed embarrassed, but with a jut of his chin he went on. ‘Please?’

  Makis looked at his mother.

  ‘Of course you must go,’ she said.

  Makis went upstairs feeling that he was on two missions at once: for Mr Laliotis, and for his absent father.

  Mrs Laliotis was there today; but instead of being third musician, the tiny woman stayed mainly in the kitchen where she was cooking. From time to time Makis could hear her humming along quietly.

  After tuning their instruments and a short practice with ‘The Cuckoo Sleeps’, Makis found the pitch and a starting chord for ‘To Taste the Assos Honey’, and slowly he picked out the notes of the chorus – making mistakes, going back, correcting – but finally, putting confident words to the island song.

  I cross the blue Ionian Sea,

  the blue stripes flying at our stern,

  but when my sands are running out

  to Kefalonia I’ll return

  to taste the Assos honey.

  ‘Bravo!’ Mr Laliotis had joined in as Makis went on. ‘Again.’ And together they played the chorus once more, bringing it up to something like its proper tempo.

  ‘Well done!’ came from the kitchen.

  They worked on the first and then the second verse; and after Mrs Laliotis had come in to play the notes on her piano keyboard, Makis wrote the words of the verses and the chorus on a sheet of music paper.

  ‘Sweet and simple!’ Mrs Laliotis said. ‘The Acropolis is going to be delighted when Yiannos performs this beautiful song.’

  ‘Yes.’ And thinking of his father, who had never performed but simply played and sung, Makis was suddenly overwhelmed by sadness, the way his mother had been when he’d found her cuddling the Gibson mandolin.

  But in his moment of sadness, he realised how well she was doing, slowly pulling herself up from that deep unhappiness.

  It was Makis’s week of weeks. In the classroom it was easy to ask to be a book monitor and to hide the next few Colour Spot readers in his desk. School books never went home. They were stamped with the London County Council stamp, counted often, and called ‘stock’. History and Geography and Nature Study books were given out for each lesson and checked back into the cupboard by monitors, but readers and arithmetic books were always being changed in the different divisions of the class. So in his desk, ready for his mother, Makis had hidden the Orange Spot and the first of two Colour Spot Story Readers – Robin Hood and The Man Who Ran to Sparta.

  Sofia was keen to go on with the series. In Kefalonia, she’d never pulled a face at anything because it was new. Makis knew boys whose
mothers wouldn’t listen to new singers on the radio or buy a modern style of dress. They were the ‘old’ village – as much part of it as the ancient stone houses. But Sofia Magriotis would always try new things – just coming to England to make a new start showed the kind of person she was. So for the past couple of weeks she’d been doing her homework like a student who wanted to get top marks. And now, how about that second story book – The Man Who Ran to Sparta? Wouldn’t she love a good Greek story?

  And the same week, although Makis hadn’t played brilliantly in the matches so far, he was picked to play in the semi-final of the Fred Barrowman Trophy. With Pearson back at school, Denny Clarke was chosen as reserve to travel, giving him another excuse to shout abuse.

  ‘Rotten Greeks! All over Camden Town like a plague of rats! Magriotis gets to be teacher’s pet just because his house fell down. Well, so did mine, in the war – but my mum didn’t push herself on other people.’ After the team sheet had gone up, Clarke made so much fuss in the corridor that Mr Davies came out of the staffroom and sent him to stand in the hall during playtime – which gave Makis a little lift. And for the first time, seeing his name on the sheet didn’t make him feel all mixed up. He might not go home afterwards to ten green bottles on the table, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find his mother crying in her bedroom.

  It wasn’t often that several sides of his life looked up at the same time. Back in Kefalonia, he might have had a good day in school, and in the afternoon he might have dived for an octopus among the rocks for his mother to fry – but then he’d drop a fish-cleaning knife overboard and he’d be scolded. But this week in Camden Town, even Mr Laliotis was giving him a boost.

  That night, with his violin case still tucked under his arm, he came to invite Makis upstairs for a rehearsal of the Kefalonia song. And after a good session, with Makis’s fingers surer and surer on the mandolin, he quietly dropped a big surprise.