Footprints in the Sand (Back-2-Back, Book 1)

by Chloe Rayban

  Once out from the shore, I had a good look at the surfers from the next bay. I was totally upstaged – their equipment was brilliant. From their shouts to each other I reckoned the majority of the guys were German, and by the look of it, all victims of what seems to be a German obsession – the need to own the very best and latest gear. It’s a trait that sends us Brits AWOL – but I reckon that’s because we’re just plain envious. Those German guys didn’t just have harnesses, they had complete ridged bodysuits that made them look like gladiators, with the harnesses built in. All in all, surfing with them made me feel like a kid in armbands who’s accidentally landed himself in a poolful of Olympic swimmers.

  When I’d gone out as far as I dared, I started to do some pretty neat tacking back towards the shore. My equipment might be Stone Age, but I reckoned I could still show those prats a thing or two.

  It took me an hour or so to get back into the lee-side of Paradiso bay. The dredger must’ve knocked off for the day because it was dead quiet. In the lighter winds I could relax and enjoy the more meditative side of windsurfing. It’s not something I talk about much, but when I get into that kind of mood it’s like becoming part of the elements.

  Just the two – air and water – I can totally lose myself in the sound and the feel of them. Water – sluicing and rushing, licking at the board, slapping and splintering into droplets; one moment refreshingly icy on the body, the next, drying saltily in the wind. The wind, the totally sensuous wind, wrapping itself around my body – cool as I head into it, and then as I come briefly into the lee of the rig, as warm as human breath on my skin.

  Typically, lost in it all, I forgot all sense of time. I didn’t notice until I’d beached that the bay was deserted. The boy was nowhere to be seen. I separated the rig, rolled the sail and pulled the board well up on the sand, and then noticed the heat for the first time. The sun was at its highest point in the sky. Out at sea, deceptively cooled by the wind, I hadn’t realised how hot it had got.

  No doubt most people were sleeping it off in the shade. I felt angry with myself. Too many people get burned sailing in a strong breeze like I’d had this morning. I’d be lucky to get away with it. I raked out my bumbag from where I’d buried it under my clothes, and smeared on some sun cream. Too late, probably.

  I wondered where the others had got to. They were probably well round the bay by now, dossed down in the shade of those acacias. I faced a long hot walk along the rocky path to the far side of the bay if I wanted to join them. Not a very inviting prospect while the midday heat raged.

  On the other hand, there was a welcome patch of shade between some rocks. Come to think of it, I’d hardly slept last night. After hours sailing I was all in. Too tired to feel hungry even. I took a long draft of water from my bottle and rolled my clothes into a comfortable pillow, within minutes I was dead to the world.

  I woke feeling cold and cramped. It was pitch dark. I couldn’t believe it! I’d slept right through the afternoon and into the evening. I reached for my watch and remembered that I’d left it in the pocket of my backpack. And the backpack was with Sprout. And Sprout and Mick were… God knows where.

  I got to my feet and strained my eyes into the darkness. The lights of the taverna were shining down on me from the headland. In contrast, the rest of the bay seemed inky black. I moved out of their range and stared into nothing but matt-black darkness. The night was moonless and starless. It must’ve clouded over while I’d slept – rare in the Greek islands, but it could happen. Peering into the distance, I couldn’t see any campfires or anything. The wind direction had changed and it was feeling really chilly.

  I considered trying to find my way along the path to the other side of the bay where I guessed they’d be. But my torch was in my backpack, and without it I risked a headlong fall from that dodgy path.

  Oh thanks a lot, guys, for leaving me here. I might have drowned as far as they were concerned. I decided there was nothing for it but to make my way up to the taverna and hope the others would turn up.

  On the terrace, a group of blokes I took to be fishermen were drinking ouzo and playing dominoes. They eyed me non-committally and went on playing. I sat down at a table. Stavros, the bull-headed taverna owner, was nowhere to be seen, but the boy was there, hovering in a doorway, looking arrogantly at me. I nodded to him and he came over.

  ‘You want?’

  I wanted all right. I was ravenous. I tried to remember how much money I had left in my bumbag – not a lot. But on the other hand, as soon as the others turned up, I’d have plenty. I hoped that the range of the menu had improved since the morning.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘We have ecs,’ he said.

  ‘Fish?’

  ‘No fish.’

  ‘No fish?’ I said, indicating the fishermen.

  ‘No fish tonight,’ he said. He pointed at the fishermen and looked up at the sky. I stared up to see where angry clouds were gathering. It looked as if we were in for a storm.

  So I settled for egg and chips. When I’d finished the plateful I settled for another plate. As I wiped the second plate clean with my bread the wind really started to get up. Thunder rolled in the distance and with the total predictability of Greek electricity – all the lights went out.

  The sudden eclipse of their game was greeted without comment by the fishermen. There was a lot of scraping of chairs and Greek farewells and they made off into the night. The boy brought a lantern, which was immediately blown out. It was some storm. I could hear the sea raging on the shore below. We were in for a rough night. What a bummer. No sleeping bag and only the shirt, T-shirt and jeans I was dressed in for warmth. I didn’t even have my sweater. My sunburned skin felt hot and shivery at the same time. There was no way I could sleep out in the open on a night like this.

  ‘Do you have a room?’ I asked the boy. ‘Cheap room?’

  ‘Room? Sleep?’

  I nodded.

  He beckoned and I followed.

  It was a pretty good room from what I could tell. Big, with a good dry concrete floor. And since the windows were covered by shutters it had retained the heat of the day. I felt my way across and found a bed. It had a mattress and a pillow and what felt like clean starched sheets.

  The boy had gone ahead of me and was opening a further door.

  ‘Private facilities,’ he said in the first perfect English I’d heard him speak.

  ‘Lush,’ I said.

  I leaned in and groped. It was a proper flush-down and there was a basin too – I turned a tap. Hot water! This was the ultimate in luxury. If I could scrounge a bit of soap I’d have a proper fresh-water shower and a hairwash.

  ‘Soap?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  I sat on the bed luxuriating in the warmth and comfort. My full belly gurgled gratefully. I was starting to feel deliciously sleepy. I’d stopped caring how much it cost, I’d economise somehow later. The boy came back with soap and two threadbare towels.

  I had the shower of a lifetime. And then I climbed into bed feeling warm and relaxed. Outside the wind howled and its sound was joined by torrential gusts of wind-blown rain. It was a good feeling to be in there, safe in the warm, listening to the sound of the weather raging through the thin roof. The sheets felt clean and wholesome against my bare skin. I even smelt good, a kind of soapy smell. Made me feel dead sexy which started me wondering if the others had made any headway with those Nordic babes. Whether they had or not, Sprout would be bound to make a big thing of it. Sprout had elected himself the expert of our trio on sexual matters. I reckoned it was mainly boasting. I bet he hadn’t got much further with a girl than Mick or I had. But I could hear him now, telling us in minute detail how one, or maybe even two, of those girls had begged to get into his sleeping bag with him because of the cold and the rain. And how epic the night had been. Good thing Mick was with him to give me a truthful account.

  But then on the other hand, maybe they were all crouching under som
e shelter somewhere, freezing their backsides off, and dodging cold rivulets. Rain always finds a way in somehow when you’re sleeping out. Huh! Serve them right – going off with my stuff like that and not even coming back to check on me or tell me where they were, or anything.

  As the storm raged, I drifted in and out of sleep.

  The next morning, I woke up gazing into whiteness. In the few seconds it takes the brain to readjust and recall the current situation, I thought I was back at home and it was my bedroom ceiling I was looking at. I leaned over for my watch, which wasn’t there, of course. And then it all came back to me.

  By the light that filtered through the cracks in the shutters I could now see that the room was large and bare. It had two narrow wooden beds, each covered with rough, homespun striped sheets, and there was an oval rag rug on the floor. Besides the beds, there was just one rickety table, a typical Greek rush-seated chair, and a bare electric light bulb hanging from the ceiling, a fly-paper sticky with corpses attached to it.

  I sat up on the bed and inspected my skin condition. Luckily I wasn’t too burned from the day before. Over the two weeks we’d been in the islands, I’d built up quite a protective tan. With any luck, if I kept my shirt on for a day or so, I’d get away with it.

  I went into the bathroom. It was a lot less glamorous than it had seemed the night before. The drain was a rough hole in the floor and the whitewash was flaking off the walls. My morning shower wasn’t as luxurious as the night before, either. I reckoned the taverna’s standard form of heating water was the sun on the tank on the roof.

  Washed, dressed and back on the terrace again, I found there was little sign of last night’s storm. The boy was sweeping up a few leaves with a rush broom. The wind had blown itself out in the night, and the sky was pale and clear apart from a few streaks of high, windblown cloud.

  ‘What time is it?’ I asked the boy, indicating where my wrist watch should be. He shrugged and looked at the sun.

  ‘Six – seven?’

  I’d no idea it was so early. I gazed over in the direction of the campsite. Now it was daylight, it would hardly take more than half a hour to reach it by the path. But if the others had had a rough night they wouldn’t take too kindly to an early morning visit from me.

  I sat down at one of the tables. I was famished again – egg and chips don’t stay with you for long.

  ‘Brekfuss?’ the boy asked.

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘Tost? Ecs?’

  ‘Even better.’

  ‘You want?’

  ‘Anything you’ve got, mate.’

  He brought me an ace breakfast. Two fried eggs with some slices of salami. A couple of pieces of toast, and the inevitable thick, sweet Nescafé.

  I’d finished the bread and wanted more, so I walked with the plate to look for the boy. He was sitting in a room the size of a broom cupboard. He had a worn-out mattress in there. It was the sort of place you’d hardly keep a dog in.

  ‘Could I have more bread please?’

  He jumped to his feet. ‘No bread. Come soon.’

  ‘Can I have another coffee, then?’

  ‘Coffee, yes.’

  I was just finishing the second coffee when I heard the crunch of heavy footsteps. Sounded like Stavros coming back. Sure enough, he appeared from the direction of the goat track. He was carrying a loaf of bread – and I could smell its lovely fresh-baked smell. It must’ve still been hot from the oven.

  ‘Ah, bread!’ I said, meaningfully.

  Stavros ignored me. He took one look at the plates in front of me and roared for the boy. There were some quick exchanges in Greek and the boy looked nervous. He backed away into the kitchen, and Stavros followed, slamming the kitchen door behind him. Then I heard him shouting at the boy – some kind of serious argument was going on.

  I was just finishing the dregs of my coffee when Stavros strode past me again. He picked up his red plastic bucket and walked through the vines to the pump.

  The boy came to me. ‘He want you pay now,’ he said.

  ‘Ahh-hh,’ I said, and made a big act of delving into my bumbag. I knew I was practically out of cash. At most I had five hundred drachmas or so – barely more than a pound.

  ‘How much?’

  The boy handed me a paper napkin with some rough biro calculations on it. The total came to ten thousand drachmas, a whole week’s budget! My heart sank: Mick and Sprout sure had something to answer for. I was going to give them hell when they showed up.

  ‘I pay later,’ I said.

  ‘No, now!’ said the boy, looking anxiously over his shoulder in the direction of Stavros.

  ‘I do not have money now. My friends…’

  Stavros joined us at this point and caught this phrase.

  His face seemed to turn black. Fire didn’t actually come out of his nostrils but pretty nearly.

  ‘You have no money?’ he roared.

  ‘No, you see, my friends…’

  ‘What friends? Where?’

  I pointed in the direction of the backpackers’ camp.

  ‘Those your friends?’ He turned to the boy and shouted at him in Greek again. The boy flinched and edged away, almost falling backwards into his broom cupboard. And then Stavros swung round to me. ‘No money! You pay or I get police.’

  ‘No, you see, my friends—’

  ‘You sit here. You eat dinner. Big brekfuss, sleep in my rooms and you have no money…’

  ‘If you’d just let me go over there and get my money from my friends, I could pay you…’

  ‘My friend,’ he said, putting his face very close to mine. ‘You are not leaving here. Oh no. Not leaving until you have paid.’

  Oh, I got it now. He thought I was planning to do a runner. Clearly, he wasn’t going to let me out of his sight until he had the money in his hand.

  ‘OK. You’ll get your money. I’ll just have to wait here for my friends to come here.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, and shot me a look of total disbelief.

  Chapter Three

  Mick and Sprout didn’t show up until around midday. I had the most awkward morning of my life – sitting feeling like a virtual prisoner while Stavros and the boy worked around me. My eye kept on sliding down to the boards. The wind had settled back into its usual direction. If this whole stupid situation hadn’t come about, I’d be out there right now, gliding across the water having the best time.

  The dredger started up around nine, and the sound of it added to the edginess of my nerves. I can tell you, by the time I sighted those two familiar figures picking their way along the path, I was pretty glad to see them.

  I stood on the edge of the taverna terrace and waved both arms. I saw Mick look up, shade his eyes from the sun and then turn and say something to Sprout, who was behind him. There was something odd about the way they were moving. They looked pretty dejected. But I guess they’d had a rough night. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Metaxa had come into it somewhere – Greek brandy, absolutely lethal – I never touch the stuff.

  As they came within earshot, I shouted: ‘Boy, am I glad to see you!’

  Neither of them responded. They just climbed up the final flight of rock steps that led up on to the terrace.

  ‘Had a good night?’ I asked sarcastically as I saw the expression on their faces. Boy, did they look green.

  Sprout exchanged glances with Mick, but Mick didn’t say anything.

  ‘Look, for God’s sake. Where were you last night? I think at least I deserve an explanation!’ I burst out.

  ‘Listen!’ said Sprout. ‘Stay cool – OK?’

  ‘Cool! If you’d like to know, I’m being held prisoner here because I didn’t have my gear with me—’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ cut in Mick. ‘You see… our gear. It’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘Last night, we were having a bit of a party when the storm blew up. We would have come to get you, mate, but…’ Sprout was being unusually nice to me.

&
nbsp; ‘What do you mean? Our gear? Where’s my gear?’ I demanded.

  ‘Look chill, man – it’s probably fine. There were these guys who kind of cut in on the party and then, when the storm came, everyone split up and tried to find shelter. That’s when our gear went missing… They’ve probably got our stuff…’ said Mick.

  ‘What d’you mean, got our stuff? Where the hell are they?’

  ‘We’ve been searching the beach all morning…’ said Sprout.

  ‘What about my sleeping bag?’ I demanded.

  ‘Look, mate. That sleeping bag of yours. It was festering. It’s no big deal!’ said Mick in an exasperated tone of voice. ‘At least you’ve got your dosh…’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’ve got your bumbag – that’s more than we’ve got,’ said Sprout.

  ‘Don’t tell me they stole those too. Oh, Jeesus.’

  ‘We don’t exactly know they’ve stolen them – they may still turn up,’ said Mick.

  ‘Yeah. They’re probably looking for us right now,’ agreed Sprout. But I could tell from his voice that he didn’t have much faith in the idea.

  ‘Fat chance!’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, well. You may have to tide us over. Till we, like – catch up with them.’

  I spoke very slowly: ‘My dosh – was in my sock – and my sock – was in the bottom – of my sleeping bag.’

  ‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ said Sprout.

  Mick sank down on to a chair.

  The dredger slid another earsplitting torrent of stones into the sea, tactfully blotting out the puking noises Sprout was making behind the vines.

  ‘Wha’s goin’ on?’ demanded Stavros, who had arrived in time to shoo Sprout further away from the terrace. ‘Where’s my money?’ he added, slamming a fist down on the table.

  When I explained to Stavros what had happened, and it had become clear to him that he wasn’t going to get his money, he called the police. Well, that saved us the job anyway – we needed to report what had been stolen. After that, Stavros disappeared inside. We could hear his voice through the walls as he interrogated the boy. The boy replied in monosyllables. He didn’t sound arrogant any more. He sounded as if he was practically crying. I felt really bad about it. It wasn’t the boy’s fault.