by Chloe Rayban
‘Sounds great.’
‘Just let me have it back when you’ve finished.’
‘Thanks.’
She looked as if she was going to make off at that point. Don’t go, don’t go, I begged silently, racking my brain for some way to prolong the conversation.
She turned to go, and then swung back and asked: ‘Do you know that boy?’
‘What boy?’
I looked past her to where the Albanian boy was running up the beach. He had a rough-looking dog with him – looked like a stray. The two of them were having some kind of game with a stick, rushing in and out of the water like kids. Well, he was hardly more than a kid anyway.
‘Oh him, yeah – kind of.’
‘Is he Albanian? Mum says he is.’
‘Yeah, she’s right.’
‘He’s always hanging around. Hasn’t he got anywhere to live?’
‘Search me. Why do you want to know?’
I felt for his knife, it was still in my pocket. But I didn’t want to call him over and risk a confrontation.
‘He carried our suitcases. He’s really thin and he looks dead poor. I just wondered…’
It made me feel really guilty the way she said that, so I answered in an off-hand way: ‘There are loads of Albanians around. The Greeks use them as cheap labour.’
‘No-one’s using him. He doesn’t seem to have anything to do.’
‘No.’
I cast a glance up at the taverna, wondering where Stavros was. She took this as a hint.
‘Oh I’m sorry, I forgot. I wouldn’t want to get you into trouble.’
She looked straight at me with those lovely sea-blue eyes of hers. The wind was catching a stray frond of her hair and it was blowing across her face. She scraped it back behind her ear and turned to go. Before I knew quite what I was saying I blurted out:
‘I was thinking of trying out a club in the next bay tonight. It’s not much of a place but it might be good for a laugh.’
‘Really?’
I waited, hoping she’d say she’d like to come along, but she didn’t.
Instead she said: ‘Well, have a good time. Let me know what it’s like.’ And turned and walked back to where she’d been sunbathing.
After half an hour or so, Lucy and her mother collected their things and walked past me up to the taverna.
As they passed, her mother said cheerily: ‘You’ve got a nice job, sitting there in the sun.’
‘It has its good points,’ I agreed.
But Lucy said: ‘Come on, Mum. The sand’s broiling. It’s burning my feet.’
When they left I cast a sweeping glance over the beach for the boy. He was nowhere to be seen, but I could make out the place where I’d last spotted him with the dog. I walked down to where the sand was churned up from their game.
‘Hey – English boy!’
The voice came from behind a group of rocks. I made my way over to where the boy was crouching near a rock pool, the dog laid out beside him, panting.
‘Hi – I’ve been looking for you. The name’s Ben by the way.’
He stared at me, frowning. He didn’t seem to want to be friendly.
I pointed to myself. ‘Ben,’ I tried again.
I held out a hand but he ignored it. I wondered whether I should try again to explain about his job – force him to listen – but what with his lack of English I knew I’d mess the whole thing up. So instead I said hurriedly: ‘Look, I think I’ve found your knife.’
I held it out to him.
He leapt on it and opened the blade and examined it as if it was the most precious thing in this world. Then he looked me in the face for the first time – he didn’t smile or anything.
‘Thank you – English boy.’
‘Ben,’ I said.
He pointed to himself. ‘Ari.’
‘Harry?’
‘No – Ari.’
I held out my hand once more and this time he shook it.
Then he beckoned to me. ‘Come,’ he said. He was already making his way back to the rock pool with the dog panting at his ankles.
He leaned over the pool once more, staring down into the water. I bent over beside him. All I could see was our reflections in the water.
‘Look,’ he said. As my eyes focused through the water, I noticed the rocky sides were encrusted with evil-looking black sea urchins.
‘Urgh,’ I said. ‘Horrible, aren’t they?’
‘No, good, eat,’ he said.
He already had his knife in the water and was scraping one off. He balanced it on his hand very lightly, so that the prickles didn’t pierce the skin, then he deftly split it open and offered it to me. It had a kind of grey oozing jelly inside.
‘Eat?’
He nodded.
I backed away. He laughed and threw back his head and swallowed the contents of the sea urchin like someone eating an oyster.
Then he split another open.
‘Now you eat,’ he said, offering it to me on the tip of his knife.
It was one of those invitations that is very difficult to refuse without giving offence. He split the urchin further and held it up for me.
There was nothing else for it. Closing my eyes and trying very hard to think of something else, I let him slide the urchin into my mouth. For a moment I experienced a nauseous taste difficult to describe – somewhere between rancid car tyres and mucous sea water. Then I felt the brute slide down my throat.
I opened my eyes and wondered how long it was going to stay down. The dog looked at me with its head on one side.
‘Good? Yes?’ said the boy.
I nodded and swallowed hard. ‘Interesting,’ I said.
‘You want more?’ he asked, holding up his knife.
I backed away, declining with both hands. Ari laughed in a superior kind of way. Then he leaned over the pool and scraped with his knife, intent on gathering his harvest.
‘I’d better be off,’ I said. ‘See you.’
‘See you – English boy,’ he said without looking up.
Chapter Twelve
I was out windsurfing again that afternoon. The wind had shifted to an off-shore, so it took an age to tack back. Afterwards, I made my way up to the taverna, caked with salt and sweat – dying for a shower.
As I padded my way over to my ‘bathroom’, I heard a deep bass humming coming from it. Surprise, surprise, Stavros was in there. He must be having his once-in-a-lifetime shower. And using all the hot water by the look of it – I could see the froth gushing out from under the door.
I went back and sat on the terrace to wait. Ten minutes later, Stavros emerged with a towel round his waist, rubbing his hair with another. I must admit, I was quite impressed by the stature of the bloke. Without his singlet he looked even more like a minotaur. He had a great mat of black hair growing across his chest, and as he turned I saw it went right down his back too.
I had a pathetic cold shower. When I re-emerged, Stavros was dressed and standing on the terrace. He was wearing clean, newish-looking trousers and a shirt that had actually been ironed – you could see the creasemarks down the sleeves. But most surprising of all was his face – he must’ve had his weekly shave because his face was now as soft and smooth as a baby’s bottom.
‘Hey Stavros, you off out somewhere?’
‘Tonight my friend? Yes. I go out. And you – you are in charge of taverna.’
‘Oh?’
‘You have problem?’
‘Errm, well… I was thinking of going out myself, maybe.’
‘Where you go?’
‘Nowhere.’ (There was just an offchance of persuading Lucy to come along and I didn’t want Stavros cramping our style.)
‘That’s OK then – you stay here. Mind taverna. Serve peoples when they come.’
‘If they come.’
‘You don’t be cheeky. You take rubbish, stack everything in square. Right?’
‘Right. Do I have to work all night?’
‘You
work till midnight, OK. If no-one come, you shut up, go to bed. Sleep.’
I was longing to ask Stavros where he was going. But it didn’t seem to be appropriate somehow.
‘What if people come for rooms?’
‘Take money up front, understand?’
‘I think I’ve gathered that one.’
‘What?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
Stavros gave his belt another hitch and took a sidelong look at himself reflected in the glass of the kitchen window. Then he leaned towards me.
‘How I look? What you think, eh?’
‘Very smart.’
‘You think ladies like, yes?’
‘Oh yes, absolutely.’
‘Good.’ Then he went off into the kitchen humming to himself.
So much for my big night out. I sat on the terrace feeling well pissed off.
After a while, Lucy came out of her room with her hair all wet – the way it was the first time I saw her. She went to hang her swim things over the balcony rail. She caught me looking and flashed one of her smiles at me, then went back in.
I could hear Stavros preening himself. The smell of some dire kind of hair-oil wafted out, ruining the pure scented air of the evening. Stavros going out on the pull, what a laugh!
The lights were coming on in the village below. I could see the ‘lovers’’ terrace illuminated by some sort of wavering light. Blondie came out carrying a candle and placed it on the table, and Lover Boy came out behind her. He leaned on the balcony with her body caught between him and the rail, giving her a good long snog – lucky man.
I was distracted by a funny kind of buffing sound coming from Stavros’ room, I crept over to look through his door. Believe it or not, he was shining his shoes!
‘What you doin’?’ he demanded.
‘Er – just on the way to shift the rubbish.’
‘Good.’
There was more rubbish than I would have believed. Alongside the standard kitchen stuff, there was loads more to lug up from the beach. As the path was narrow I could only take so much at a time, so the job took the best part of an hour.
When I’d finished the terrace was deserted. I checked Stavros’ room. He’d left already. There was no light on in Lucy’s room, either and their key was hanging from the hook in the kitchen, so they must’ve gone out too.
I made myself a meal of some warmed-up pasta I found stewing in a saucepan. It tasted pretty vile but I guess better than the Albanian boy was having. The very thought of those sea urchins – yukk!
As I predicted, no-one came to the taverna. I washed up, swept up, cleaned the tables and then sat looking out to sea.
One by one the lights of the fishing boats traced their way out into the bay, each shrinking to a tiny shimmering dot in the ink-black sea, then disappearing. The night was so still. It really was a legendary place. I sat there drinking a beer and savouring the cool of the evening.
The only sound was the occasional drip of water from Lucy’s swimming things. I glanced over – her pale blue bikini was hanging over the railings. Just a few tiny triangles of cloth. This brought such unbidden thoughts, I had to turn my chair round and look the other way.
I tried to think of something else. I got another beer and read Lucy’s book as a distraction. In fact, I finished it. As I turned the final page, the lights were going off in the village down below – and Lucy and her mum still weren’t back. Where on earth were they?
The club. I bet you anything they’d gone to the club after all. Typical! Here was I, chained to the taverna, bored out of my skull, while they were all out enjoying themselves. Even Stavros!
I imagined him surrounded by plump, seductive Greek girls. And Lucy. What about all those gladiator types on the next beach? The guys who looked so damn loaded – looked like they flew off to their dad’s place in Monte Carlo for the weekend – had a new Porsche delivered every birthday. The thought of them having seen me surfing on my crummy board looking like a total loser! Maybe, right now, they were having a laugh at my expense with Lucy.
And I was stuck here till midnight. After that, I’d been told to go to sleep in my ‘broom cupboard’ like some dog. I sat raging against the unfairness of it all.
But hang on. Who would know if I was asleep in there on not? Stavros was hardly likely to check, was he? So what would it matter if I slipped out for an hour or so? I could walk over the top of the hill, through the olive grove, easily. Stavros would never be any the wiser.
By the time I got to the club it must’ve been well past midnight. The place was seething, man. There was a queue outside – mostly guys. They were handing notes over into a booth. I hovered, wondering what the damage would be. I still had a couple of thousand drachmas left from the money Stavros had given me as an advance. It might get me in, but it sure wouldn’t buy me any drinks.
Since the club was an open-air affair, I decided to do a recce round the perimeter, just in case there was a short-fall in their security.
Making my way round to the darker side, I caught sight of Ari. He’d set himself up behind a low wall which he was using as a kind of counter. In front of him was a pile of some sort of fruit – shaped like grenades but pinkish in colour. He was splitting them open with his knife and offering them to the passers-by. Several people had gathered round, others joined them as I watched – by the look of it he was doing a roaring trade.
It was ironic really. There they were, all these German giants, most of whom owned enough top quality sports equipment to stock an average leisure centre, queueing up for this little guy whose only possession in the world was a pocket knife.
When there was a lull in the trade, I called out, ‘Hi Ari! Yassos!’
‘English boy,’ he called back, with that arrogant look of his. ‘Come – have some. On the house.’
‘What are they?’
He said something unintelligible in Greek. They were the fruit I’d seen growing on the cactus by the roadside, but he’d stripped the prickles off. God knows how. I used to keep cactus when I was a kid and I remember the pain of a single prickle in my finger – it was too small to see, but it stayed with me for days. Typical kid, I’d made a great fuss about it. And there he was, handling the fruit as if he was immune. Watching him split one open, I realised why. His hands were work-roughened to a kind of hide. They weren’t like a boy’s hands at all – they were more like an old man’s.
I reached out gingerly but he shook his head. He made me eat the fruit from his hand. It was sweet, juicy and somehow gritty at the same time.
‘Good, yes?’
‘Better than the sea urchins.’
‘You no like?’
‘I like these better.’
He looked at me in a superior manner and patted his pocket. ‘Make plenty money,’ he said.
‘Good on you,’ I replied. ‘See you round.’
‘See you, English boy.’
I continued on my investigative tour. Yep, sure enough there was a group of shifty-looking guys hanging around the back of a low building to the rear of the club. One of them was keeping watch, and as he gave a low whistle, a couple of them were given a lift up and slipped in over the roof. It was pretty dark out here. I heard them whispering – they were English. I reckoned, if I played my cards right I could join in – gate-crash the gate-crashers, as it were. I picked up a loose stone and threw it hard into the bushes behind them. As I anticipated, they all swung round, thinking they’d been sussed.
In the confusion I slipped into the queue.
‘Move. I’m next,’ I said to the boy giving the leg up. And before I knew it, I was up and over the roof. It was a doddle the other side. Just a short drop down and I dissolved into the crowd – magic.
The place was absolutely jam-packed – heaving with bodies – mostly backpackers by the smell of them. I shouldered my way through to the bar and asked for a beer.
A Heineken was handed over and the guy demanded two thousand drachmas, more
or less all I had. Extortionate – no wonder they were pretty lax about people waiving the entrance fee. Cradling my bottle like it was vintage champagne, I made my way from the bar. This one drink was going to have to last the night.
Now to find Lucy. Not an easy task in the pulsing disco lights. I retreated into the shadowy outskirts of the club. They were playing pretty predictable dance music – the kind of stuff that was passé in Britain but still popular in the clubs on the Continent. I’d come across a lot of it inter-railing. It was a pretty international scene here tonight. I reckon I overheard every language from Gibraltar to Malmö in just two square metres.
As I’d noticed at the gate, there were loads more guys than girls. So the girls were very much in demand. I could see a couple of them in really short sawn-off shorts, dancing together with a hungry-looking male audience waiting to break in on them – practically had their tongues hanging out. But still no sign of Lucy – or her mother for that matter.
I shouldered my way through the massed ranks of blokes and then caught sight of the guys I’d gatecrashed with. They were pretty rough-looking types, but I guess everyone looks rough when they’re backpacking. I considered making my way over, thanking them for the leg-up, making a joke of it. I could do with a bit of company. I edged closer and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation. Not easy, with music playing club-pitch.
I eyed them carefully, trying to judge what sort of guys they were. Watches – they’re always a dead give-away. Hang on – that guy with the triple nose-ring had a watch just like the one I’d had nicked! An Omega with a black face – pretty unusual. I suddenly broke out in a hot sweat of anger. This must be the bastard who’d nicked my stuff. There were three of them together. Sprout had said something about three guys. They were acting in a dead suss fashion – they’d come over the wall for a start, without paying, hadn’t they?
Conviction flowed into every vein. I strode over to him.
‘Hey mate!’ He swung round. ‘Where d’ya get that watch?’
‘What?’
‘I was asking where you got that watch.’
‘Why d’ya wanna know?’
‘Had one like it myself, that’s all.’