Desperately Seeking Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘Theo?’ Abby said. ‘Is everything OK?’

  He realised then he had been looking at the phone for a long time. He pressed to ignore the call, returning the phone to his pocket. ‘Just a friend,’ he told her. ‘I will call him back later.’ He reached across the table, taking her hands in his as a waiter arrived with their food.

  Fifty-two

  En route to San Stefanos

  Abby’s stomach was as content as it had ever been. Filled with courgette pie, chicken souvlaki and three Paloma cocktails, she was finally starting to feel in the holiday mood.

  Leaving the stunning vistas over Logas Beach behind, they were bumping back up and down the hills in Spyridoula’s unique vehicle. Somehow, over the delicious food, she and Theo had talked about anything and everything – music, films, Brexit, and how terrible it was that croissants seemed to be getting smaller (more on her part than his, if she was honest) – but he still hadn’t revisited the remark about him not being rich. She looked across at him, watching him expertly steer the car around tight, winding bends and the odd rogue goat. She liked him. She really liked him. No matter how soon it was after Darrell. She hadn’t been looking – she had hardly ever looked in her life – and she didn’t care how much money he had or didn’t have. What she did care about, however, was his story. And there had to be one. There was more to him being here working a bar and needing to forget he was a Pappas, she could sense it.

  ‘How about a detour?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Do you have time?’

  ‘Well,’ Abby said. ‘I haven’t had any frantic calls from my mum or texts containing numbers instead of letters from Melody.’ She smiled. ‘I have time.’

  They travelled on until the road became a little less crater-filled and more familiar to Abby. The tree-covered hills and olive grove copses that lined the road toward San Stefanos looked glorious as the sun began to set. Instinctively, Abby knew Theo was going to turn towards Pelekito and Stamatis’s workshop in the woods. She had loved the cavern of hand-crafted treasures but she didn’t have the cash to spare for a sign. She and Melody had done their best using the most appropriate font Microsoft Word could offer and laminated it before sticking it to a piece of wood crate. It was cheap but effective … and the main thing was it wasn’t pink.

  ‘Theo, I love Stamatis’s work, but I still can’t afford one of his signs.’

  ‘It is OK,’ Theo said, smiling at her. ‘I have not brought you here to spend your money.’

  He pulled the car to a stop in his usual spot and killed the engine. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let us go and see what he is up to today. My guess is eating something disgusting from a tin.’

  Theo opened the door of the car and breathed in the scent of woodland, olives, dust – all fragrances that brought back fond memories. Running through the trees with Leon and other friends on Corfu for the holidays, making bows and arrows, getting all kinds of muddy …

  The door of the workshop opened and Theo prepared for Stamatis to greet him with the usual mix of annoyance wrapped up with genuine affection, but it wasn’t Stamatis he saw first, it was his aunt.

  She was smiling, with her eyes, as well as her lips, her skin glowing, her cheeks a little flushed as she turned to look back at her companion. Theo felt a little like he was intruding and he had the sudden urge to jump back into the car.

  The sound of a breaking twig had Spyridoula turning, and catching sight of him and Abby.

  ‘Sorry.’ Abby pulled a piece of stick out of her sandals.

  ‘Ah! Here is my car! Not stolen but joyridden by my nephew!’

  His aunt was back in her usual firm form, marching away from the workshop, gesticulating at him. Theo’s eyes went to Stamatis. Quiet, assessing.

  ‘Did I not teach you to ask before you take something? Do I have to again bring up the rizogalo situation when you were seven?’ Spyridoula was now stood right in front of him.

  ‘I left you a note.’

  ‘I did not see a note.’

  ‘Is that why you came here?’ Theo queried. ‘To see if I was here … with your car?’

  ‘Yes,’ Spyridoula stated. ‘Of course that is why. Why else would I come to this awful, insect-ridden, hole of filth?’

  ‘To see Stamatis?’ Theo offered.

  ‘Why would I want to see that … dust-covered, annoying, grumpy old man?’ She sniffed. ‘Where have you been, Daughter-of-Jackie, Abby? Has my nephew taken you somewhere nicer than this weed-covered shack?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Abby answered. ‘We have been to Logas Beach.’

  ‘Logas Beach,’ Spyridoula said, sucking in a breath. ‘Very nice views. Very nice cocktails too, I remember. Now, what is to happen with my raffle prize?’

  ‘Oh,’ Abby began. ‘It’s all going to be sorted out very soon. The trip is in a few days. I will let you have the details.’

  ‘Very good,’ Spyridoula stated with a nod. ‘I am looking forward to it.’ She began to walk towards her car.

  ‘You are taking your car?’ Theo asked. ‘Now? Abby and I need to—’

  ‘I am not taking the car,’ she replied. ‘I am taking Stamatis’s moped.’ She pointed at the vehicle parked nearby. ‘The seat is torn and there is more rust than there are olives in these woods. If it gets me back to San Stefanos it will be a miracle, but do not worry.’

  ‘If you wait for a little while I can take you home,’ Theo offered.

  ‘Why would I want to wait?’ Spyridoula asked with a tut. ‘I have already spent too much time here. If I stay any longer I will turn into a piece of wood and the crazy man will hang me from his ceiling with all the other old, warped bits of things.’ She hoisted up her skirt then deftly mounted the moped, picking up the helmet and strapping it to her arm. ‘Do not stay here too long either,’ she called. ‘He might make you into a coffee table.’

  With that said, his aunt set the moped engine roaring and took off up the track, a plume of dust circling in her wake.

  ‘Gosh,’ Abby said. ‘She’s ever so good on the moped.’

  ‘That is my aunt,’ Theo stated. ‘Always full of surprises.’ He wondered what mode of transport Spyridoula used to get here from San Stefanos. While he was debating this with himself, a voice called from inside.

  ‘Are you coming in? Or are you going to stand out there until it is too dark to see?’

  ‘Come on,’ Theo said, holding his hand out to Abby. ‘I want to show you something.’

  Fifty-three

  The Olive Way Workshop, Near Pelekito

  ‘You would like some bougatsa?’ Stamatis offered.

  ‘Is that food?’ Abby asked. ‘Because we just ate the most wonderful and rather huge meal in Peroulades. I couldn’t fit in another thing.’

  ‘I did not know they sold bougatsa in tins,’ Theo remarked as they walked into the main area of the workshop. It was brighter today, like someone had opened up the back doors and let the outside flood in.

  He then saw the custard and filo pastry pie on one of the work benches, in a rather familiar bowl.

  ‘Why are you here today?’ Stamatis asked. ‘Why come here after a dinner of romance on the west coast?’

  Theo saw Abby blush, and in the time it had taken for him to look away and back again, Stamatis had covered the pie with a piece of fabric.

  ‘Do you still have some of my work?’ Theo asked the man. ‘Or did you sell each piece for hundreds of euros the second I was done?’ A part of him secretly hoped it was the latter. It would be good to think that the old man had made some profit from some of his summers of carving.

  ‘You want to show off your wood-making skills to your girlfriend?’

  Was it just him or was Stamatis being a little inflammatory today? A bit more mad with the world than usual.

  ‘Theo told me more about the summers he spent here over our dinner,’ Abby said. ‘I’d love to see something he made.’

  Theo eyed his friend. Then Stamatis nodded and began walking towards where the light was coming in.

&nb
sp; ‘It is too hot for him today,’ Theo said as he and Abby followed Stamatis through the granular atmosphere. ‘He should rest more. Get some fresher air.’

  ‘You care about him a great deal, don’t you?’ Abby whispered.

  ‘He’s not getting any younger. He moves a little slower.’ He sighed. ‘Maybe he put my things in his shed of rubbish.’ He shrugged then, as if it didn’t matter. ‘Maybe they are not as good as I remember them.’

  ‘The only thing I ever made was an awful coaster that wasn’t even flat,’ Abby admitted. ‘My dad still put it on his desk at work and let his coffee rock up and down on it.’

  Theo then realised Stamatis was heading outside of the main workshop and they followed him through the open doors – the last rays of sun lighting a path – into his patch of garden to the rear of the shop. Compared to the inside of his building, this was a virtual oasis of calm and was – almost – tidy. Part grass, part forest floor, it housed a small wooden table and matching chairs, a bench in the shade and a few planter boxes containing what looked like vegetables. It seemed like another section was behind a low row of bush and this is where the owner seemed to be heading.

  ‘This is so pretty,’ Abby remarked.

  ‘The vegetables were never here before.’ Perhaps Stamatis had started looking after himself a little better.

  ‘Ela!’ Stamatis called, beckoning them further into the garden.

  Theo and Abby stepped behind the hedgerow into a section Theo had never seen before. There was a wooden slide and climbing frame, a sand pit and in the corner, enjoying both sun and shade, was a rockery garden, fragrant herbs of green and colour sprouting forth as water trickled gently over the traditional rocks that surrounded them.

  Stamatis plucked a wooden figure from the rockery and held it out to Abby. Theo recognised it immediately, despite it being weathered. Abby took it in her hands.

  ‘Meet Theo’s father,’ Stamatis said, his lungs producing a heavy, crusty laugh. ‘Little Dinis. It is a good likeness.’

  Theo shook his head, a little ashamed. He hadn’t always been at war with his father, but they always had the kind of relationship that had mountainous highs and earth’s-core-deep lows.

  ‘It’s so detailed,’ Abby remarked. ‘How old were you when you made this?’

  Theo shrugged. He had been hoping Stamatis had kept some of the more refined pieces.

  ‘He was twelve,’ Stamatis said. ‘It was his second piece. The first Little Dinis he made, the head fell off.’

  ‘His neck was too thin,’ Theo explained. ‘And I had not got proper control of my tools.’

  ‘This train could have been sold many times but I decided to keep it,’ Stamatis said, picking a beautifully carved locomotive with three carriages out of the sandpit and lifting it for Abby to see.

  ‘Stamatis, what is this place?’ Theo asked, taking in the sunflower carvings on the back fence and drawings of happy, smiley faces.

  ‘Are you stupid?’ Stamatis asked him. ‘It is for the children. You make the children happy, the parents stay longer to look at expensive olive wood.’

  ‘But how long has it been here?’ Theo queried. ‘Did you make it all?’

  ‘They have crazy golf at Pyramid and a rotating gorilla ride at Finikas Bar. I was advised to … think of the children.’

  ‘Advised,’ Theo repeated.

  ‘And it has been successful,’ Stamatis stated. ‘Only this morning, three children run around throwing sand in each other’s eyes while their parents ordered a large dining table.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ Abby told him. ‘Isn’t it, Theo?’

  ‘You still have no other staff?’ Theo queried. ‘No one else to help you?’

  ‘You are my manager now?’ Stamatis questioned gruffly.

  ‘Well, what does your adviser think of you working this place on your own?’

  Stamatis focused on Abby, almost dismissing Theo with the shift in his glance. ‘This is one of my favourite pieces that Theo made. A wind chime.’

  Stamatis pointed to the olive-wood circle hanging from the tree outside the garden, whose branches extended over the rockery. Suspended from the circle were delicate, slender wooden tubes – shaped like long pieces of macaroni – gently swaying together to produce a gentle, almost ethereal sound. He had worked so hard to get the balance just right. Each tube he had engraved with tiny woodland creatures. He watched Abby creep closer, admiring the lizard, the owl and the cicada.

  ‘He was sixteen when he made this.’ Stamatis came up behind Abby and gently pushed the wind chime to make it sound again. ‘It is as good as anything I have made.’

  ‘That is not true,’ Theo said straightaway.

  ‘Take what I say, Theo, after all, you bring your girlfriend here to show off your talent, no?’ He grinned at Abby. ‘To show her there is a side to you that does not involve making millions of euro. You would like to see Theo’s puppet now?’

  Abby nodded. ‘Very much so.’

  Stamatis put a hand on her shoulder as he moved forward. ‘I will go and find it. I am sure the little devil gets up in the night and walks the floor.’

  ‘I will help you,’ Theo said, following the man. He looked at Abby. ‘I will be a moment.’

  ‘I’ll sit down,’ she answered. ‘It’s so peaceful here.’

  He followed his friend back into the workshop, eager to get him on his own and follow up on the real reason for this visit.

  ‘Stamatis,’ he called as the man turned left into one of the twisting trails of wooden shapes. ‘There is something I want to ask you.’

  ‘I am sure there is, but it really is not for me to answer.’

  ‘What isn’t?’ Theo said.

  ‘What do you want to ask?’ Stamatis turned right then quickly left again, the space seeming to narrow.

  ‘I made some money today. I worked, helping Abby at her mother’s party, making cocktails for her guests, cocktails I will pay back Hera for. I made almost a hundred euros in tips.’

  Stamatis pulled a ladder out and proceeded to lean it against one of his unstable-looking racks then started to climb. ‘Very good. Do not spend the money on Mythos.’

  ‘I know what I want to spend the money on,’ Theo swallowed before continuing. ‘Would you make a sign, for Abby’s mother’s business?’

  ‘Ah, here it is.’ Stamatis stood on tip-toes, reaching up for a large leather-clad box. Theo reached out, steadying the ladder as the old man climbed down.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Stamatis?’ Theo asked him. ‘I know the sign will cost more than what I have, but I will pay in instalments or I will help here when I can.’

  The woodworker popped open the lid of the box and took out the Pinocchio-like puppet. It wasn’t a boy though, it was a cat, roughly scoured to create the illusion of fur. Its eyes weren’t straight and one of its legs had had to be repaired. ‘He can still dance,’ Stamatis said, moving the cross-shaped controls to make the strings shift. ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘Tycherós. Lucky.’

  ‘Ne, Tycherós.’ Stamatis made the wooden cat gallop in the air.

  ‘Stamatis,’ Theo said. ‘Please, will you make Abby a sign?’

  Stamatis answered. ‘No.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You are a woodworker too, Theo,’ Stamatis reminded him. ‘And you should know that something from the heart cannot be made by anyone else.’ Stamatis put a hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘You come here. You take your pick of the wood and you make the sign. But there is one condition.’

  ‘What?’ Theo asked.

  ‘I want you to ask Spyridoula about the bougatsa.’

  Theo took a breath, looking at the old man and trying to decide if he was serious. Nothing but the depth of his sincerity was reflected in his eyes.

  ‘We have a deal,’ Theo agreed, putting out his hand.

  ‘Good,’ Stamatis answered, dumping the puppet cat in Theo’s palm. ‘Now let us show your Abby your fine feline creation.’


  Fifty-four

  Desperately Seeking

  ‘Oh, here she is, Mum. Abby, the Dolan daughter moving from man to man in the blink of an eye. And you thought I was fickle!’

  Melody was stood on the terrace guzzling from a bottle of fizzy wine. How her sister could handle more alcohol after all the cocktails she had drunk throughout the day was anyone’s guess. It took Abby a second to really take on board the slight.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ she began.

  ‘I’m only joking,’ Melody stated with a laugh. ‘So, how is he in bed?’

  ‘Melody!’ Abby exclaimed.

  ‘Ssh,’ Melody said, putting her finger to her lips. ‘Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about that in front of Mum.’

  ‘I do know how these things work, you know,’ Jackie commented. Abby watched her mum snatch the bottle of fizz from Melody and begin to pour some liquid into two glasses. ‘Come on, Abby, come and have a glass of this. It’s the best the supermarket had.’

  ‘Are we celebrating the success of the party?’ Abby queried, moving onto the terrace and stopping at the table. Everything was almost back to normal apart from the bunting that Melody wanted to stay (plus she hadn’t been able to get it down). Stripped bare of the gazebo, the extra tables, Donald Trump’s wet sponges, it was almost like the party hadn’t happened. Apart from a rather full list of names on sheets of paper, signing up for the Desperately Seeking newsletter.

  ‘Not just that,’ Melody said. ‘We sold two houses.’

  ‘Two!’ Abby exclaimed, taking the offered wine flute.

  ‘Meredith liked the two-bedroomed property. The owners wanted to see her three-bedroom property. They liked that. Two for the price of one,’ Jackie stated joyously. ‘Easiest sales I’ve ever made.’

  ‘That’s fantastic! Well done!’ Abby felt a rush of love and pride run all the way through her as she looked at her mum and her sister. It felt like success. Well-deserved success for all their hard work.