by Chloe Rayban
We hadn’t any idea where we were heading, so we bought tickets to the end of the route – reckoned the further we could travel from civilisation, the less likely we were to get moved on. Eventually, the bus drew into a turnaround in a kind of rough cobbled area and sighed to a halt. Outside was a ramshackle general store, a chapel with a blistered whitewashed dome, a signpost and a telegraph pole.
The driver jumped down and turned to us with a smirk. ‘My friends,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Paradiso.’
‘Is this the end?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said with raised eyebrows. He threw his cigarette butt down on the cobbles and ground it with his heel as if to indicate his opinion. ‘This is the very end.’
So this was it.
‘Where’s the sea?’ asked Mick as the bus rattled off again, leaving us standing marooned beside our pile of backpacks.
‘Can’t be far away, can it? The island’s only a mile across at its widest,’ I pointed out.
‘Do you think that place is open? I’m starved,’ said Sprout.
The general store wasn’t, and a sign in its fly-spotted window indicated that it wouldn’t be – until nine. Another couple of hours.
Mick was already picking his way up a rough goat track.
‘Come on! We’ll get a better view from further up!’ he shouted. ‘Maybe there’s a village.’
He was already quite a way up the track, and once we’d struggled into our packs we started after him. The path was steep and rough underfoot. Mick got to the top of the rise and then he stopped short.
‘What is it?’ I called.
He swung round. His voice was caught and swept away by the wind.
‘What?’
I drew nearer and he turned again.
‘Epic,’ he repeated.
With a final effort I came up next to him.
It was – quite literally – epic. We were standing on a headland which jutted out into the impossibly blue sea. On the one side, beneath us, the cliff was criss-crossed by paths and dotted with tiny whitewashed buildings built into the cliffside – half-cave, half-cottage. Nets hanging to dry outside showed they were probably fishermen’s dwellings. And sure enough, down below was a jetty with a row of anchored boats. On the other side, to the lee of a further headland, I could see what promised to be good camping country. A thin wisp of smoke was already rising from between the rows of acacia trees and a ragged line of washing fluttered in the wind. Sure sign that backpackers had already taken up residence. But I reckoned, plenty of room for more, and it looked like a good sheltered space too. I knew even Sprout would be impressed. He came level, puffing and fussing about the climb. He just grunted at the view.
It seemed breakfast was still uppermost in his mind because he suddenly burst out: ‘Hey look man! Salvation! It’s a taverna!’
I turned and followed his gaze. It was hardly a taverna. It was a mere apology of a place. A strange construction of tumbledown, whitewashed stone, sun-bleached driftwood and rusting chicken wire – but it did have a telltale pile of soft drink crates outside and a sign, which proclaimed proudly in Roman characters: TAVERNA PARADISOS.
Underneath this, a handwritten sign advertised:
TOST
BREUAKFAST
FRESH FISH
FRIED SQUIB
We made our way over, and found it had a terrace supported by breeze-block pillars. No great shakes in the architectural sense, but the terrace was half-shaded by vines entangled in the chicken wire and it had a view to kill for.
We decided to celebrate our ‘find’ with a proper sit-down breakfast. A rare luxury on our budget. Having hauled off our backpacks, we sank gratefully on to the taverna’s rickety, rush-seated chairs.
Sprout was already running through the menu of his ‘fantasy breakfast’ – it had become longer and more elaborate as the holiday wore on.
‘Eggs sunny-side up with crispy bacon rashers and pork sausages so well done they’re bursting out and crunchy at the ends, with fried bread and baked beans, thick white toast and—’
‘I reckon ninety-nine percent of your waking life is spent thinking about food,’ interrupted Mick.
‘No, man, there’s drinks too…’
‘Quiet!’ I cut through them both. ‘Listen.’
They listened for a moment. The bay was so still, you could hear the water lapping in the harbour down below. You could hear the ringing of a halyard tapping on a masthead. You could even hear chickens’ claws scrabbling in the soft dust.
‘What?’ asked Mick.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Sprout.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you noticed? It’s so quiet? No cars, no roads, nothing…’
A cock crowed.
‘Yeah well, I heard that all right. Reckon it’s just laid an egg.’
‘That’ll be a first,’ said Mick. ‘That was a cock.’
‘Well, just maybe he’s got a wife. When are we going to get some service round here?’ asked Sprout, rising from the table and pacing around.
‘It’s a bit early,’ I pointed out.
‘So? We might go away and they’ll lose the only bit of custom they’ve had this decade by the look of the place. Hell-o-o-o! Anybody th-ere?’
Sprout started knocking on the closed doors.
‘Shut up, you’ll wake everyone.’
‘That was the general idea.’
Sprout knocked harder and finally got a response. Someone was moving inside.
‘Hell-o-o-o!’ called Sprout. ‘Anybody—’
‘Yes?’
Sprout jumped back. A huge man had appeared out of the doorway. He had a head like a bull set on massive shoulders. He was wearing nothing but a worn singlet and baggy boxers and the hair on his chest thrust its way through the holes in the vest. He was a huge minotaur of a man. I almost expected his lower half to have hooves.
‘Whaddyou-wan?’
‘We were hoping for service,’ said Sprout. ‘You know, breakfast? Eggs? Bread? Coffee? Nescafé?’
‘Huh,’ snorted the man and slammed the door in his face.
‘Well done,’ said Mick.
‘Bollocks,’ said Sprout. ‘I’m starving. I’ve a good mind to go into his kitchen and help myself.’
But more sounds were coming from behind the bloke’s door. Sounds of thumping on an internal wall and the guy’s voice raised – shouting at someone. A few minutes later, a skinny youth emerged from the door next to his.
I guess the boy was about our age. He was wearing the sort of trousers you get in charity shops – nylony material the colour of weak coffee and a thin T-shirt with an ad for Lexos printed over the front – the kind they give away as freebies. But the thing that caught my eye, the thing that made me think he was dead poor, was his shoes. They were down-at-heel, black leather slip-ons – shoes like no-one’s worn in years. My eyes kept returning to them. I didn’t reckon he was the guy’s son or anything – the boy was too old for that.
As a waiter he didn’t have a lot going for him – couldn’t seem to look us in the eye. He just kind of stood there waiting to be asked for things.
‘We want ham and eggs,’ said Sprout, taking the initiative.
He shook his head. ‘No hev ham, no ecs.’
‘You must have eggs. Listen,’ said Sprout. He flapped his arms and made chicken noises and indicated where the sound of chickens was coming from.
‘No ecs,’ insisted the boy.
‘What do you have then?’
‘Brekfuss.’
‘Yeah, for breakfast.’
He held up four fingers. ‘Four brekfuss?’
‘No, three breakfasts,’ said Sprout, and added in a resigned tone of voice: ‘Look, just bring us what you’ve got, mate.’
‘Nescafé? Hot, yes?’
‘Nescafé, hot, yes.’
What he had was yesterday’s stale white bread, a thin sliver of margarine each, and the world’s lowest form of jam – it tasted like watered-down red jelly. Any relati
onship it had ever had to fruit was extremely distant. The Nescafé came in glasses – it was hot and strong, made with condensed milk. I drank it gratefully and dipped my bread and jelly in it.
Sprout moaned about the quality of the meal but demolished most of the bread all the same, and then asked for more.
The Minotaur emerged from his room as the boy was bringing the extra bread, and he shouted at him in Greek. The boy answered back in a sullen tone, put the bread down and disappeared along the path that led back to where the bus had stopped. We heard his hard leather shoes against the pebbles getting further and further away.
‘Nice guy to work for,’ commented Mick as the big fellow, who was obviously the owner, walked past us to a pump in the vineyard and filled a plastic bucket with water. He doused water over his head, shook himself like a dog, then turned to us and was about to say something when his voice was drowned out by an ear-splitting noise. It sounded like an earthquake. We all kind of ducked, instinctively. And Sprout knocked his coffee over. The landslide noise tailed off with the sound of falling debris and was followed by a thudding chug-chug-chug of a heavy motor revving up.
As the noise subsided, the guy stood grinning at our reaction. ‘Come!’ he said, beckoning to us.
We got up gingerly from the table. He led us down a path, through a hanging curtain of vines, to where we had a view that had previously been hidden by an outcrop in the headland.
Out in the bay a dredger was at work. But a dredger like I’d never seen before – pre-war, I mean pre-World War One. It looked like it was made of solid iron, and so rusted it had turned a deep encrusted ginger all over.
‘Jeez! It’s an antique,’ said Mick.
‘What a beauty!’ I said. ‘How d’you think they’ve kept it going?’
‘How old is it?’ asked Mick.
The guy shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ he replied. ‘It work good. Soon we have big boats come here.’
‘That’ll be a shame,’ I said. ‘This place is so quiet…’
The sound of another slide of pebbles instantly contradicted me. As it blasted the airwaves, we watched the avalanche fall into the waiting barge.
‘Quiet no good for business,’ was all the guy said, and he turned and headed back towards the taverna.
We went back to finish our breakfast, and we took our time over it, luxuriating in the warmth of the rising sun. Some time later, the boy returned with fresh bread and the menu took an upturn. We even lashed out on another round of coffees.
By the time we’d finished, the sun was well up, and I was anxious to get down to the shore and take a closer look at those boards. I wondered when they would be open for hire. I couldn’t wait to get out there and have a trial sail. But there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge of them right now. As the sun moved round and lit on the shack, I found I could read the peeling words painted on the side:
STAVROS HIRE
Windsurfers – Pedaloes
Good price
I went over to the taverna owner’s room and knocked on the door. He was drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, sitting on his bed.
‘Yes?’
‘Who is Stavros? Where will I find him?’
‘You want windsurfer?’
‘Yeah.’
He got up from the bed and his face broke into a smile for the first time. He held out a hand.
‘My friend. I am Stavros.’
It didn’t take us long to discover that Stavros ran just about everything in the village. Donkey hire, village rooms, local telephone booth, boat hire, soft drinks, ice-creams – you name it. It seemed he had the Paradiso financial empire all to himself.
He told the boy to take us down to the boards. He was dead casual – didn’t ask if we had certificates or whether we’d even surfed before. He didn’t seem to care.
They were pretty dated flatboards, thick and chunky but there was a choice of rigs. The sails were rolled so I couldn’t check their condition, but there were a few that looked as if they had potential. Altogether things were looking good.
I got the boy to unroll the best-looking sail and fingered the edge of it to check its weight. It was adequate, as long as the wind didn’t get up too much. But as I’d noticed earlier, the bay was pretty sheltered. We’d be likely to have more problems from calms or lulls.
‘I can’t wait to get out there,’ I said to Mick.
‘You’re obsessed, man. Don’t you at least want to find someplace to sleep first?’
‘No, look. The wind – it’s perfect. It’ll probably shift round later in the day,’ I lied. By the feel of it, the wind direction was unlikely to change.
Sprout was fussing about stocking up on food for lunch while the store was open. We’d had a few bad scenes in the past. Greek store-keepers generally shut for a kip between one and four – and you can get pretty hungry by four.
‘Relax. It doesn’t need a group outing to go shopping. Or sorting out a place to sleep, for that matter. I’m happy to leave it to you. And one of us ought to check out the surfing conditions. They might be lousy. We might want to move on.’
Again, I knew they wouldn’t be. I have a pretty good gut instinct for these things, and my gut was telling me they would be radical. Just enough challenge to keep the adrenalin flowing, without getting too scary.
The others seemed content with the plan. In fact, Sprout looked really enthusiastic. He even offered to take my gear for me. He seemed in a hurry for some reason, and then as I looked across the bay, I sussed why.
There they were. The three of them, picking their way down the cliff path. The three girls we’d met on the boat last night. Scandinavian types, blondes – one in particular was quite a babe. Sprout had made a bit of a hit with her. At least, that’s what he thought. Girls generally take to him, not that he’s that tall or anything, but he looks a bit like Leonardo DiCaprio – hence the nickname. Well, DiCaprio does look like a sprout, doesn’t he? Anyway, this tag was useful for bringing Sprout down a peg when he got carried away by his infinite pulling power.
The girls had backpacks on and were obviously heading for the campsite. ‘Oh I get it,’ I said. I swung my pack off my back and handed it to Sprout. ‘Wouldn’t want to hold you up, mate.’
Mick took the bedroll with my sleeping bag in it. I was about to hand him my bumbag too, and then I thought better of it. If the sailing was as good as I thought it was going to be, I might want a second hour and I’d need enough money on me for that. But I didn’t want all my money. I tried to remember how much I had in the bag. There was enough for a couple of sails and a drink or two, anyway.
Money had been a constant problem all through our trip. We’d got pretty fed up with waiting around for banks to open – one weekend we’d spent two whole days surviving on bread and tomatoes because we’d missed the opening times. So on the last island we’d cashed all the travellers’ cheques we had left. I felt pretty nervous about carrying all those drachmas around. So I’d taken one of my only pairs of socks and transferred my money into it and tied it in a knot and stashed it away in the torn bit of lining in the bottom of my sleeping bag. I reckoned it would be safer than in the bumbag.
Sprout couldn’t wait to be off. The girls had already spotted him and had paused and waved. So he and Mick went off in a bit of a hurry.
I turned back to the boards. Lifting one of them, I tested it for weight. It was OK. Then I ran my hand over its surface. I felt a cold shiver of expectation run through me.
If we searched the entire coastline of Greece, complete with all the ins and outs and around every one of the islands, we’d never find a place to match this. We practically had the bay to ourselves.
It was sheer perfection.
Chapter Two
I was right about the windsurfing. It was brilliant. In fact, it was about the best I’d ever experienced. So good, I stayed out all morning in the end.
The boy from the taverna had been sent down with me to unlock the boards and take the money. He counted the n
otes carefully and put them in his pocket. Then he picked up the board I’d selected and carried it to the water’s edge. I noticed that in spite of his size he was quite muscular; he carried the board easily. He took his time walking back for the rig. In fact, he did everything at such an arrogant, leisurely pace that I got really pissed off with him.
I was literally shaking with anticipation, so I waved him away, indicating that I was perfectly happy to set up the board myself. He sat on his haunches some paces off, watching me and tossing pebbles into the sea – irritatingly enough, scoring an almost perfect duck-and-drake each time.
I tried to ignore him as I tensioned the ropes. It’s all too easy to get impatient setting up – you’re dying to get on the water, so you rush things and make a mess of them.
And infuriatingly when I inserted the mast foot I got sand in and had to wrench it out and start over again. The boy watched, expressionlessly, chewing on a toothpick – I was practically willing him to go away.
All through the process, he’d kept up his deadpan vigil. But then, just as I was about to shove the board out into the water, he leapt to his feet and pushed me roughly aside.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I check.’
I watched as he worked fast and nimbly, checking all the knots – he really knew his stuff.
‘OK,’ he said. He was treating me as if I were the kid – not him.
As I set out from the shore he watched me for a while, resting back on his haunches, judging me. And then he seemed satisfied that I knew what I was doing, and he went back up to the terrace.
Once in the water, I hauled the sail up neatly and easily There was an instant of breathless anticipation as I turned the rig to catch the wind, and then I was off. OK, OK, I’m not going to bore you with a long account of every luff and run – suffice it to say I only fell off three times; well, four if you want to be petty about it. But that last fall was more of an emergency stop, as some idiot from the neighbouring beach, on a harness that he obviously didn’t know how to use, cut in on me.