Aftershock

by Bernard Ashley

  ‘You know, I think you could play this with me at the Acropolis.’

  What? Makis could only sit there and stroke the small chip on the Gibson.

  ‘I mean it. Our two voices, with mandolin and balalaika – they’ll be a special item at the concert. This old man, living here a long time’ – he lifted his balalaika to identify himself, the way musicians do – ‘playing alongside the newcomer from a tragic island…’

  Hearing this, Makis wondered if he should lift his mandolin. He didn’t, because Kefalonia might be tragic now but it hadn’t always been, and one day it wouldn’t be again. But what an honour! To perform a duet with a man whose BBC violin was heard all over the world! To play his father’s mandolin with such a man! How proud Spiros Magriotis would have been. His pride would have lifted those Argostoli stones from his trapped body and freed him…

  With tears in his eyes Makis said, ‘I’ll do it, if you think I can.’

  ‘Oh, I think you can. Certainly. Just keep those fingers supple, exercise them, protect them – musicians have a duty to their hands – and at the Acropolis we’re going to make a few men cry.’

  Like me, Makis thought – but they would be happy tears, because he was so proud for his father.

  Chapter Eleven

  The semi-final against Griffin Road that Thursday was on the same pitch at Chase Fields. Makis thought Griffin Road must have played against a few easy teams in the Cup so far, because they weren’t all that good. And Imeson Street might be playing in dyed vests, but the Griffin Road team turned out in any old shirts and blue team bands, with the captain wearing them crossed – as if it was a games lesson. But nothing could detract from the way Makis played against them. From the start, all David Sutton had to shout was ‘W’ or ‘M’, and Makis and the other forwards would switch their formation and have the Griffin Road boys tied up over who was marking whom, chasing the ball about and tripping over in confusion.

  And somehow the size of the ball, the fit of his boots, and the passing with both the insides and outsides of his feet all felt natural to Makis. He obeyed his captain, but he wasn’t afraid to do his own thing. He’d never felt so much in control. He was the player who saw where the openings were – and calling for the ball, he made the best of them. Even with most of the Griffin Road team surrounding him, he could beat the tackles today and make the passes that scored goals. He didn’t score himself; he didn’t need to, because whether it was in a ‘W’ or an ‘M’, or a chase-the-ball ‘S’, the game was easily won, five-nil.

  ‘Well done, the Reds!’ shouted Mr Hersee; and he made the team shake the hands of all the Griffin Road players. ‘First time Imeson’s ever been in the final!’

  ‘Good luck to you,’ the Griffin Road teacher said. ‘You’ve got a good little inside-forward there.’

  ‘Magritis.’ Mr Hersee still hadn’t got Makis’s name right. ‘Greek lad from one of the islands. I’ve been bringing him on, nurturing the boy.’

  ‘Well done. He’ll probably win the Cup for you.’

  And Mr Hersee walked over to shake Makis by the hand – actually to shake his hand, man to man.

  Sofia didn’t think much of Robin Hood,but she worked hard at the words. She thought the story was strange – all that hitting people with long poles and shooting arrows all over the place.

  Robin was on top of the castle wall.

  The moat was down below.

  His men were in the boat.

  “Come up!” Robin called.

  “Come up by the rope.”

  Sofia read it with Makis. ‘Huh! Jump off, stupid Robin,’ she said. ‘Make a splash. Fly like Icarus!’

  They both laughed. ‘The next book’s different,’ Makis told her. ‘You’re going to like it.’

  ‘The men went to the wall.

  They went in the boat,’

  she read.

  ‘Very good!’ She was showing some of her old spirit. But they soon put Robin Hood to one side, and from behind his back Makis produced The Man Who Ran to Sparta. Sofia’s eyes shone at the sight of the cover – which showed the herald Phidippides running across rocky ground. Makis knew she’d enjoy learning to read even more if the story meant something to her.

  ‘Do you remember this story?’ she asked him. ‘I used to tell it to you as a little boy, the way my mother told it to me.’

  Makis nodded. He’d remembered it all over again when he was reading the book at Imeson Street. The famous runner Phidippides was a Greek hero – and Makis had imagined himself a hero, too, as he’d read it. It had made him feel that he had his own Greek place in the world, no matter where he was living. The world was a lot bigger than Denny Clarke’s Camden Town.

  ‘Shall we start?’ he asked.

  But there was no reply; and when he looked round at his mother he saw that her eyes were welling with tears.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. And he whisked the books away, while Sofia went quickly to the kitchen to wash some vegetables under a noisy tap.

  Makis was in the team for the Cup Final. He expected to be, after that handshake from Mr Hersee, but earthquakes do happen, and worlds do get turned upside down, so he couldn’t be sure until he saw his name on the notice-board in the school corridor. All the details of the match were there today: the date, the time, the team they were against, as if Mr Hersee had decided that this match was important enough for a full sheet of paper instead of the usual half-sheet.

  And pinned to the wall next to the notice-board was a red shirt from a sports shop, still in its boxed creases. The next morning Mr Hersee gave a talk in assembly about it – ‘Pride in the School Colours’ – holding up the new shirt.

  ‘Bet he’s only bought ten,’ Denny Clarke moaned. ‘If anyone don’t turn up, I’ll ‘ave to wear an ol’ vest.’

  Makis stared at the shirt again. Its smell of newness was special. It made him catch his breath, and he was sorry it had been taken down to be shown in assembly. He wouldn’t admit it, but every time he passed by, he made sure he got close enough to sniff it.

  Saturday morning the sixth of March! Cup Final! Makis knew his mother wouldn’t be going to Regent’s Park to see him play, but he’d tell her all about it afterwards – and perhaps somebody would take a picture of the team, if they won. It might even be in the paper. And…

  But he stopped himself thinking like that. Apart from an old grandmother in the north, there was no one back in Kefalonia to send the picture to, and that would have been the best bit of it – buying two or three copies of the paper for the village friends he no longer had.

  Chapter Twelve

  The red football shirts were given out to the team during Friday assembly, when the twelve players on the teamsheet – including reserve Denny Clarke – were called out to the front. Mr Hersee presented the shirts with two hands as if they were military honours. And when Makis got his, he only just stopped himself from giving it a good sniff.

  ‘Take these home and wear them tomorrow with pride!’

  Brian Cooper the goalie didn’t get a new jersey – his old green roll-neck jumper would have to do. And Denny Clarke had been right: he didn’t get one, either. The looks he gave Makis as the school sang ‘Glad That I Live Am I’ poisoned the meaning of the joyful words.

  ‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow, Regent’s Park. Imeson Street will be in action.’ Mr Hersee waved a hand at the line of players as he jutted out his chin. ‘Let’s have a good turn-out to support the lads.’

  And that afternoon, Makis ran home with his face buried in the brand-new Cup Final shirt in Imeson Street red.

  The night before the big match he hardly slept. He kept touching the shirt lying folded on the chair beside his bed. In his head he passed the ball with the insides and the outsides of both feet, and in a glorious jiggling run he beat four players before slotting home a cunningly deceptive winner. But that was day-dreaming; he turned this way and that, trying to get off to sleep and mostly, he turned to the red shirt side; but he was still awake. Why were nights so
long? Why couldn’t life be all days without these great waits in between? He wanted to be at Imeson Street, meeting up at ten o’clock for the team bus journey to Regent’s Park – not having to lie here in bed.

  In the end, he was deeply asleep when he felt himself being shaken.

  ‘Wake up, Makis! Wake up! It’s half-past nine.’

  He was woken by his mother – but what mother was this today? It wasn’t the Sofia Magriotis who had bravely brought him to England. It wasn’t the woman who had found ten green bottles to line up on the living-room table. And it wasn’t the laughing woman who had invited a giant squid to jump up at Sally in her paddling pool. It was the red-faced and tearful mother Makis had found clutching his father’s mandolin, weeping and rocking herself in her bedroom those weeks back.

  ‘What is it?’ He forced himself up to see his mother clamping a hand across her mouth as if she dare not speak. ‘What?’

  She turned her face away and went from his room. He got out of bed and followed her. She had been cleaning. Three cushion covers, ready for washing, were hanging over the back of a chair. The ornaments from the mantelpiece were on the table, lined up for dusting, next to the small pile of Colour Spot readers ready to be returned to school, closed and in their proper order. And lying there, too, was the book his mother was working her way through – The Man Who Ran to Sparta.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked again.

  ‘Get yourself washed,’ she said. ‘Just look at the time.’ The mantelpiece clock on the table said nine thirty-five. ‘You’re never this late waking up. What time have you got to be at the school?’

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  Makis started dodging between the scullery outside and the kitchen as he gave himself a quick wash – while his mother filled a kettle, cut two slices of bread and put them under the grill. She threw an oilcloth across the table and set down a plate, all the time keeping her face turned away from Makis, bustling about as if everything was normal. Makis knew it wasn’t, though – and this was suddenly proved by a huge hiccup, the sort that comes from nowhere after tears.

  ‘Mama! Something’s the matter – what is it?’ He wanted an answer, but he had to keep going, drying himself and looking for his trousers.

  She burnt the toast. His tea wasn’t poured. Pulling on his trousers and cramming his football boots, shin pads and the new red football shirt into a bag, Makis tried to move round in front of her, face to face. But it wasn’t easy. She scraped the toast outside the back door, she buttered it standing against the cooker. She was hiding her face from him, and she wasn’t going to tell him what this unhappiness was all about. So Makis went into the living-rooom to the book that she’d been looking at, lying upside down but open on the table. The Man Who Ran to Sparta. He turned it over.

  And now he knew. He remembered this page from when he’d read the book himself, in school.

  The picture of the runner’s face at the end of his run – the only real close-up – looked like someone he knew; someone he loved. Phidippides was very like Makis’s father – the same thick, dark hair, the same thinnish face, sharp nose and crinkled eyes. It could have been Spiros Magriotis there on the page, except that this man was in pain, his face screwed up in terrible anguish. During her tidying, Makis’s mother must have let the book fall open right here. Now, the sudden noise she made behind him was like an animal in pain. She reached over and grabbed the book to close it. But he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Is it this?’ he asked her. ‘Tell me… What is it about this picture?’

  She stopped struggling with the book and stared at him. ‘He looked like this. Your father. When they pulled the Argostoli stones from on top of him. I saw him before they…’ She couldn’t go on.

  This was something Makis had never known about, had never dared even imagine. He knew a lot about the day of the earthquake, but there were gaps.

  He hugged his mother and she hugged him back; but he wasn’t comfort enough for her. All her bravery – in coming to England, in working at a factory job she hated, in learning to talk and read in English for the sake of their new life – all this seemed to drain out of her at the sight of a picture of her husband suffering. With a wail, she slumped across the table.

  ‘Mama! Mama!’ Makis felt helpless. He ran to the kitchen and brought a cup of water. He put his arms around her shoulders. ‘Drink this.’

  She lifted her head to take a sip, spluttered and coughed, and racked her thin body. She stared at Makis and put her knuckles to her mouth. ‘What he must have suffered! Not a mark on his head or face, but suffocated, his body crushed…’ She closed her eyes and leaned her head on Makis’s shoulder, who held it there for a long time until slowly, slowly, she began to calm down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It just… caught me…’

  Makis released his grip. To think that this was the book he’d brought to please her. And with his insides churning, he heard her words again and felt the pain of his father’s death. Not the pain of the fact of his death – Makis was always feeling that, but the terrible understanding of how much his father must have been hurting to make his face look like the runner’s in that picture. He imagined the agony of being buried by crushing stones, fighting to breathe beneath a fallen building. Poor man! Poor Papa!

  Sofia was trying to pull herself together, to put on a brave face, but she looked as lost and alone as a child without friends in the playground.

  ‘What… time… is it?’ she asked.

  But right now, Makis didn’t care what time it was. Cup Final or not, he wasn’t going to leave his mother in this state. He must stay with her until he knew she would be all right on her own. Wasn’t that what his father would have done?

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Makis! It’s your football match! You’ve been picked. You can’t let your team down.’

  With a steadying hand on the table, Sofia pulled herself up straight and became his mother again. And when a mood like this overtook her, there was no ignoring it. ‘Get yourself to school!’ she ordered him.

  The clock said nine forty-five, and he needed twenty minutes to get to school, even running. He had to hope Mr Hersee didn’t march the team to the bus at ten o’clock sharp. He tore himself away from his mother and, grabbing his bag, ran up the stairs, out into the ground floor hallway, and frightened the old woman in black from the top of the house – who flattened herself against the wall. In seconds he was outside and pelting along Georgiana Street towards the crossroads.

  Please don’t go on time, Mr Hersee!

  Why can’t people in the street walk in straight lines? And why do they have to suddenly stop to look at nothing at all and get in your way? He crossed roads, he dodged cars, he swung his bag and accidentally knocked it against a woman’s leg.

  ‘Oi! Watch out!’

  ‘Very sorry.’

  He didn’t slacken his pace. He pushed on at top speed like the man who ran to Sparta, hot, out of breath, his legs aching, and his heart thumping – to turn the last corner into Imeson Street, and see the school closed. ‘Oh, crikey!’ There was no line of boys fidgeting just inside the gate like before. The gate was already locked. The caretaker had vanished. They had gone. They had left to catch the bus to Regent’s Park without him.

  So now he had three choices. He could run to the bus stop. He could go back home, but that, he knew, was not a choice. Or he could run as fast as he could to Regent’s Park – except that he didn’t know the way.

  He chose the last option: he would ask someone. He turned on his heel and ran to the main road where the buses ran. Phidippides couldn’t have run harder. He stopped for a gasp of breath and asked a man, ‘Regent’s Park? Which way? This road?’

  ‘That’s right, son, Pancras Road. And when it stops being Pancras Road, go right—‘

  But already Makis was pelting along the bus route on Pancras Road – in too much of a hurry to hear the man finish, ‘go right on’. He ran past one bus stop, past another – until, looking
up with sweat in his eyes to check the road names, he saw that Pancras Road stopped at this next junction and became Crowndale Road. What had the man said? Go right when Pancras Road stops. Makis took the turning to the right, and he suddenly recognised where he was. This was Royal College Street, and it led back towards his own home! He would have to run the length of it and ask again.

  Running to school and coming back to being level with his own street was like running from Alekata to Lourdhàta. Already he was exhausted. Even if he got to Regent’s Park in time, how could he ever kick a heavy leather ball after this?

  It was up at Camden Road that he asked the way again – and the woman he asked looked at him as if he was mad for not knowing the way to Regent’s Park.

  ‘It’s down there, i’n it? ‘Course it is. Down there, past your underground station, and straight on till you ‘ear the lions!’

  The lions? Makis had heard talk about a zoo in Regent’s Park but he’d never been there, any more than he’d been to the park itself.

  Every step was harder than the last. Now he really was like Phidippides – at that point where the hero had run beyond exhaustion. He could well understand how the runner came to drop down dead at the end. But Makis pushed himself on – past the World’s End pub, past the Spread Eagle – and what he’d give to see the sea eagles of Kefalonia wheeling above him!

  But it was push on and push on, whatever the pain. And finally, when he had nothing more to give – there across the road was an open space. It had to be Regent’s Park. He crossed the road, and was met by railings. How was he to get into the place? But taking a chance, going left rather than right, he followed the railings round until – Thank you, St Gerasimos! – there was the entrance, opening on to a space as wide as the Argostoli lagoon.

  There were several different paths, but he took the one straight ahead, and heard the roaring of a lion and the high squawk of jungle birds as he ran on and on – until he heard the welcome sound of shouting and clapping, and whistles being blown.