by Chloe Rayban
The footprints were small. They certainly didn’t belong to Stavros. They were even too small for the Albanian boy. I measured my foot against them. They were definitely a girl’s footprints. I felt a quite manic rush of interest at this point. Another girl, maybe she’d be equally gorgeous? No – not equally, not possible, but she could be OK. The footprints changed direction at the water’s edge and then led off down the shoreline beneath the taverna. I was intrigued. There was absolutely nothing of interest down that way.
I stacked the equipment, puzzling over this, and then came back to the footprints. Where had whoever-she-was been going? Maybe there was another path leading upwards. One I hadn’t found yet. A shortcut to the taverna.
I’d be a fool not to check, wouldn’t I?
They were nice little footprints – they made me think of someone light and lithe. My progress was checked briefly where a wave had swept inland and washed the tracks away. But no – there they were, leading off again towards a group of rocks. I was almost at the rocks when I was stopped dead.
‘Looking for something?’
I jumped so hard I think she must’ve noticed.
It was her. Unless she was a mirage, of course. No, it was her. It was Lucy. But it couldn’t be. I’d searched the whole island for her. And here she was… Right back where I’d started.
Hang on, I was standing looking like a complete idiot. I had to say something. Inspiration please!
‘Yeah… a flip-flop.’
‘A flip-flop?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Want some help?’
‘Help?’
‘Finding it.’
It occurred to me at that point that a fictional flip-flop might be quite hard to find. A nice opportunity to get to know her – so I said: ‘Oh yeah, thanks. Why not?’
‘Right. What colour was it?’
(Jeesus, I don’t know. Think! Make it up!) ‘Umm. Blue… Blue and white.’
She started searching round her group of rocks. I concentrated my efforts on an area a bit further back along the beach. I tried to stay cool but my mind was racing. Where had she sprung from? What was she doing here? How long was she staying?
‘So you came back?’ I called over to her. (Please don’t tell me you’re just here for the day.)
‘Mmm. Mum liked it here. So I had to give in, in the end.’
‘Ohh?’
I waded into the water, pretending to search through some weed. She’d climbed down and was leaning over some kind of rock pool. She suddenly straightened up and beckoned to me.
‘I’ve found it!’ she called out.
‘Have you?’
‘Yep. But I don’t think I can reach it.’
I went over to where she was standing staring down into a rock pool. Would you believe it? There in the water was a blue and white flip-flop. It was really manky-looking.
‘You could probably reach it if you climbed down. Your arms are longer than mine.’
‘Yeah, guess so.’
We both stood gazing at it. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to poke around in the rancid-looking water so I changed the subject.
‘You staying back at the taverna?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long for?’
‘Not sure. Depends…’
‘On what?’
‘Oh I don’t know. Mum’s always getting ideas. She’ll probably want to go off and delve about in some boring old ruin or something.’
‘There’s an interesting site on the next island.’ (Oh why had I said that? They’d probably want to go there instead.)
‘Is there?’
‘Well, it’s not up to much – mainly Roman but…’
‘Whatever you do, don’t tell Mum about it.’
‘You going back to the taverna now?’
‘Mmm… sun’s going down.’
‘Maybe I’ll walk back with you.’
‘Aren’t you going to get the flip-flop?’
‘Yeah, guess so.’
The things we do for girls! The sides of the pool were caked in green ooze. I semi-slid, semi-clambered down into it. It’d be just my luck to stand on a sea urchin. I reached down and located the flip-flop. The rubber was perished, wrinkled to the touch, felt like ancient skin. Felt as if it’d been under water as long as the Titanic.
‘How can you tell it’s yours? You’d better try it on.’
I turned to her and caught her expression. She was sending me up – the minx.
‘Here, catch,’ I said.
She did a typical girl’s scream-and-duck and held out her hands in protest.
I was tempted but I restrained myself. Instead, I hurled it as far as I could out to sea.
‘What a waste,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well. What’s the use of one flip-flop anyway?’
So, she was back!
I didn’t actually walk all the way to the taverna with her. Remembering Stavros’ little lecture, I let her go on ahead and followed after a decent interval.
Her mother was up there already, waiting for her. Closer up, I could see she wasn’t bad-looking for a woman her age. What Sprout would’ve called a yummy mummy – probably followed up by some crude innuendo. I wondered why there wasn’t a dad around.
I served them drinks and chatted for a while. I would’ve liked to sit down and join them. But in my current status of waiter-cleaner-gardener-decorator I was forced to stand at a ‘respectful’ distance. I wondered if I could sneak off during the evening when Stavros wasn’t looking and find Lucy on her own, so that I could at least talk to the girl.
Stavros appeared a few minutes later. He had my brush in one hand and a new full bucket of whitewash in the other. He had other plans for my evening’s entertainment. The ‘khazi’ hadn’t been whitewashed inside for ages, it seemed.
So I spent an ‘unforgettable’ evening, stripped off to my boxers, standing on a broken stool, improving the facilities. It was nearly midnight when I finished.
Chapter Ten
The next morning I went down to my masterpiece of interior decor and had a good long shower. The place was rather more acceptable now it was white inside.
Well-showered, I set off down the goat track for the bread. I’d make sure our guests got a good breakfast – didn’t want them taking off again.
It was another brilliant morning. The crickets were chirruping away fit to bust. It was on the way back that I got around to wondering what they were so noisy about. I came to the conclusion that on a morning like this, with the sun beating down on them, and the air so clear it went to your head, they were probably a load of male crickets feeling dead randy and showing off like crazy to attract the best females. Well, that was the usual stuff animals were up to, wasn’t it?
Then I started wondering whether it was the biggest and best male cricket with the deepest voice who attracted most females, or whether it was the leanest and fittest who got them rubbing their back legs together over him. I had some rather sexy thoughts at that moment.
That’s when I saw her. As if my thoughts had materialised into real life! The lovely Lucy – she was coming along the path towards me. Well, this was a turn up…
I slowed to a trot as we came face to face.
‘Hi. You’re up early.’
‘Mmm. Seemed such a waste of time. You know – staying in bed.’
Staying in bed, her bed – my bed. I couldn’t help remembering the strand of her hair, how it had curled and clung around my finger like that. ‘Here, look. Hold this a moment?’ I blurted out.
I had to bend down and pretend to re-tie my shoelace while I recovered.
She hadn’t noticed. She was saying: ‘Fresh bread! Smells good, I’m starving.’ She’d broke off a bit of crust and was nibbling at it.
‘Don’t! Stavros’ll kill me.’
‘Blame it on me.’
‘I can’t. I’m not meant to speak to you, remember?’
‘Crazy,’ she said and smiled. There were tiny crumbs on her
lips and for a moment I imagined leaning over and… licking them off.
I pulled myself together and said something about hurrying to get back for breakfast while the bread was hot.
She turned and started walking back with me.
‘Where were you going?’ I asked.
‘Just wanted to see what was along the path.’
‘Another village.’
‘Oh, right.’
We continued in silence for a while. I racked my brains for something interesting to say. Anything to keep my mind and eyes off those wonderful long legs of hers swinging along beside me. The crickets, yes – they’d just stopped. All together. Suddenly. In that weird way of theirs. I wondered if she had the same theory about them as I did.
‘Listen.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve stopped. The crickets. One moment they’re all going for it like crazy, giving it everything they’ve got, chirping or whatever they do. And then suddenly, they all stop. All at once. Why do you think they do that?’
The crickets started up again.
‘I don’t know.’
Oh my God, I couldn’t start telling her what I really thought. That there was this incredibly sexy kind of massive insect orgy going on all around us. That they were playing a totally pornographic insect version of the Rite of Spring. So I said instead: ‘Maybe there’s one of them – like the boss. A kind of bumped-up orchestral-conductor cricket who’s in charge.’
(Naff, I know, but it got me off the hook.)
She laughed. ‘No, I think it’s more likely to be because of predators.’
‘Predators?’
‘Yes. If you really listen, there comes a point when they’re all starting to go quiet. Imagine you’re a cricket and you suddenly become aware of it. You don’t want to be the last one to chirp, or you’ll get noticed and nabbed… by a predator.’
‘You think?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Then why do they start up again?’
‘Maybe it’s a mistake. Perhaps some inexperienced cricket kind of can’t stop himself. You know, like when you’re singing at school and you come in at the wrong moment and all eyes turn on you…’
(The thought of Lucy singing at school, with loads of gorgeous girls around her. Oh man – it was too much.)
I tried to keep my mind on the crickets. ‘And then all the others feel – like it’s safe to join in?’
‘Exactly.’
And she wasn’t just pretty, she was really bright, too. There are some girls you try to talk to – you make some witty comment and it kind of lands with a thud like a dud tennis ball and nothing comes back. But everything I said to Lucy came back – with bells on.
‘No. I think you’re wrong. It’s nothing to do with predators.’
‘What is it then?’
She was looking at me. Her lips were slightly parted – expectant. There was no way I was going to be able to explain my cricket sexual serenade theory with her looking at me like that.
‘There it is again. They’ve stopped,’ I said.
We had both come to a halt. We were standing on the path listening and staring at each other – the way you do when you’re trying to hear something. But clearly, neither of us had our mind on crickets.
For one crazy moment I was about to take the initiative – to lean over and just kiss her. I could see she wanted me to. She wanted me to – really badly.
But a single cricket started up nearby, distracting her. Damn it.
I backtracked. ‘There it is. It’s in that tree.’
‘So you see what I mean?’ she said, looking me in the eyes again. (Yes, I was definitely going to kiss her.)
I think I said something like: ‘When there’s only one you can kind of home in on it.’ I moved a step closer, hoping she’d take the hint.
‘Mmm,’ she agreed and took a step back.
(Nope, not now, too soon.)
The other crickets started up, joining in louder than before – like cricket laughter.
I came back to my senses. What was I thinking of? There was no way I should think of making a move at a moment like that. Standing there in the middle of a goat track. For God’s sake – there were even goat turds lying around. Had I gone totally insane?
Chapter Eleven
We split up in the square and I let Lucy go on ahead. When I reached the taverna, I found Stavros was standing waiting for me with some money in his hand.
‘Good – bread. Now I want you go to shop. Buy honey and… What you think they like?’ He was obviously dead keen to keep them happy.
‘Proper orange juice… but the shop won’t be open yet.’
‘No worry – knock on window. Say you want honey for Stavros.’
‘OK.’
The little old lady who ran the shop got the shock of her life when I knocked on her window, but she opened up and let me in and I selected some local honey and orange juice, and I actually found some decent butter in her fridge too. She took the notes and smoothed them out and put them in her till as if they were pure gold. By the look of it, she didn’t get much custom.
The honey, it seemed, was the thin end of the wedge. My job at the taverna took on a totally new aspect now Lucy and her mother were back. Stavros had got it into his head that the whole bay needed a makeover. Well, it did. But unfortunately it was my job to do the making-over. Stavros sat in the sagging chair beside the windsurfers, reading his paper and waiting for customers, while I worked like a galley slave tidying up the stuff that had been allowed to accumulate on the beach during the last millennium.
That morning, Stavros told me to take down all the beach parasols and carry them up and stack them in the square. He’d decided to dump them. No-one ever sat under them anyway. They were stained with black mould, and most of them had broken ribs so that they opened into weird irregular shapes.
While I was occupied with this chore, Lucy and her mother came down to the beach. As I worked, I could keep half an eye on Lucy, who was stretched out on the sand. She was wearing that bikini again, the pale blue one, the one I’d seen her in the first day. Nice. Strangely enough, I didn’t really mind the work that morning – I even found I was whistling to myself at one point and I never whistle.
From time to time, Lucy would climb to her feet and go in for a swim. She didn’t go out far. I wondered how well she could swim. I wondered if I could tempt her to swim with me, the half a mile or so to that tiny island I’d discovered. The one with the chapel and the hidden beach with just enough room for the two of us…
I worked down the beach, pulling out the pegs that tethered the parasols to the ground. The last one didn’t even have a proper peg – the rope was attached to some old knife or something. I pulled it out of the sand. It was a kind of primitive penknife – just one curved blade that closed into a rough wooden handle – almost looked handmade. But the hinge had been carefully oiled so that it slid open and closed with ease and the blade had been sharpened to a lethal cutting edge.
The boy’s knife – of course! It could only be his. Nothing Stavros ever owned would be cared for like this. I closed it and thrust it into my pocket.
Stavros meanwhile had moved up to the terrace and was sitting in the shade, ‘under the tree of idleness’. He wasn’t totally idle of course – he could still use one arm to raise a glass of beer to his mouth and the other to reach out towards a plate of little snacks.
As I passed him on the umpteenth trip he said: ‘You watch what you’s doing. No watch peoples on the beach – OK?’
‘OK,’ I said and then added: ‘Look, Stavros, give me a break. I’m all in.’
‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘Go siddown. Take over at the shack. But no talk to girlses.’
‘Sure. Even if a coachload of them come to hire windsurfers. I won’t say a word. I’ll just let them walk away.’
‘What? You don’t be cheeky – OK?’
On my way back down, I noticed Lucy’s book. She’d left it open, face down on a wal
l where it could easily blow away. I stretched out and picked it up.
My Family and Other Animals. I’d read it as a kid, it had been one of my all-time favourite books. One of the reasons I’d wanted to come to Greece as a matter of fact. So Lucy was reading it now. I’d take it down to her. Maybe I’d say some cool and knowledgeable things about it. Let drop that I’d read it ages ago.
I continued down the steps and had a better idea. Maybe I’d use the book as a decoy. Get her to come over and ask for it. While Stavros was out of the way, it could start up a conversation.
Lucy and her mother were sunbathing some way down the beach. I moved the deckchair to the further side of the shack, hidden from view from the terrace. Then I settled down with Lucy’s book.
I’d forgotten what a good read it was. That crazy family with the nicely dotty mother – and the way Gerald sent his brothers and sisters up. I was so engrossed in it that I hardly noticed Lucy had got to her feet.
Sure enough, she was making her way over.
‘What are you reading?’ she asked.
‘My Family and Other Animals.’
‘Where did you find that?’
I looked up innocently. ‘Someone must’ve left it on the wall.’
‘They did – me.’
‘Oh, look, sorry – take it – I had no idea.’
‘No honestly – you borrow it. I’ve hardly started it.’ (Lies – she’d left it open a good half way through.)
‘No really – take it back.’
‘No, I don’t want it. I’d like you to have it. Mum’s brought plenty of other books.’
(OK – reading between the lines this was real bonding. A kind of literary equivalent of the way people lend each other sweaters and CDs and stuff.)
‘Is it any good?’ I asked.
‘It’s about this boy living on a Greek island and the animals he finds and his family and it’s really funny.’