After a half hour of bargaining conducted by Tinos, and the scrutiny of my passport, international driving licence, English driving licence and proof of address, I was able to purchase a four-year old Fiat Punto in white. I passed over my credit card, then we waited and drank his awful coffee while he did the paperwork and gave me the papers that proved it was a roadworthy vehicle. Hurray! The easiest first step of my plan was complete. The fact that I had never driven abroad didn’t dawn on me until I put the key in the ignition and had to remember to drive on the wrong side of the road, and not to keep trying to change gear with my right hand which would only result in me pulling on the handbrake. Yes, Will had always driven when we went to Italy or France. The litany of shame continued.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Tinos, ‘you’ll soon learn, and now you will be free!’
I drove them, as slowly as an arthritic grandma, to a fish restaurant on the promenade. I wanted to treat them both for helping me, and we all wanted to avoid Maria’s. Especially Tinos.
Over fresh bouillabaisse we talked over the taking out of dual citizenship. Cassia agreed that it was a good idea. She had spent years trying to find ways for refugees to be accepted into Greece, and understood the system. My Greek parentage meant that it would be a formality, but I still wanted her help as my Greek wasn’t good enough for the more formal stuff. I’d have to settle for three-month residency passes for the moment though. I hadn’t realised it would be years before I could apply for permanency.
‘What are you going to do now, Tino?’ I asked, as he finished his glass of white wine and folded his napkin.
Tinos ran his finger around the rim of the glass. ‘I am a chef by training,’ he said. ‘I know Cassia and our parents would like me to go home to Athens for safety, but I have made my home here. There are still many young people who need my help. And’ – he drew himself up in his chair – ‘I am not of a mind to allow him’ – he gestured over his shoulder and up the road with his thumb – ‘to bully me off the island. No, I shall look for a job, save money, and then try again.’
‘Meanwhile, I have lost my home office,’ said Cassia, ‘but I am sort of enjoying the company of my annoying little brother.’
‘Five minutes younger,’ he said, ‘and she never lets me forget it.’
They were such nice people, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. How I used to long for a brother or sister to share what had been a lonely childhood. I’d had pretty much anything I wanted as a child, except my parents’ time. The restaurant always came first. And there were no more children after me. For long, countless evenings alone in the flat upstairs, all I had was the TV and my books, drawing and painting and the fantasy worlds into which I escaped.
I hadn’t had any wine with lunch, I was way too scared to drink and drive. I paid the bill and then drove the twins up the street and along the main road to Cassia’s apartment. Having dropped them off, I negotiated the petrol station, filling the car up to the top and buying a bunch of flowers for Mrs P, and then found the smaller road that led to my house. There were cars parked and even double-parked at odd angles all the way up the road. Nothing stood in the way of a Cretan ready for his lunch, especially not road markings. I was dreading having to reverse at any point, but luckily, the fact that it was still siesta time meant that the roads were quiet, and I was able to draw up outside my house without mishap. Well, possibly I could have got a bit closer to the kerb, but who was checking?
Once inside, and having checked at least three times that the car lock worked, I let out a little whoop and danced around the living room. I was mobile. I could get soil and plants for my garden, carry groceries, go for drives across the mountains, visit historical sites. The island was mine to explore. I was a resourceful, independent woman, on the verge of my new life.
I drank down a pint of water, standing at the sink. I think I may have sweated it out trying not to run anybody down.
I can honestly say that at that moment I was happier than I had been for a very long time. I was home.
Four o’clock came quickly. The flowers looked better when I rewrapped them in plain paper and hand-tied the bunch with raffia, so I held them in front of me as I tapped on the door. Mrs Pantelides appeared and gave me a warm smile, taking the flowers from me and kissing me on the cheek. She looked completely different. It was the first time I had ever seen her without a headscarf. It revealed hair dyed an interesting shade of brown and carefully curled. Gone was the permanent apron over the long black skirt, and in their place was a flowery dress and silver earrings. ‘Wow, Mrs Pantelides,’ I said, ‘you look wonderful!’
She blushed and ushered me inside. The living room took my breath away. Every single shelf, corner, tabletop and cupboard was covered in Cretan pottery. It looked like the inside of an artisan shop. ‘This is amazing. Have you collected all of this?’ I couldn’t help picking some pieces up and looking at them. ‘So delicate and so beautifully painted.’
There were ranks of photographs on the shelves of the old oak dresser that backed against the adjoining wall. It felt rude to do more than glance at them, but I could see proud young men dressed all in black carrying rifles, and young children sitting on the knees of old ladies. Priests and a younger Mrs Pantelides dressed in traditional costume celebrating Easter, perhaps. What a wonderful family history in this small room. How I would love to have had something like this. I patted the folder of photos that was tucked under my arm. Surely I could get some answers here?
I was so engrossed I didn’t notice that someone else was there, sitting in the kitchen. He was a priest, a large, portly man with a huge beard and a kindly face, dressed entirely in black, of course. He pulled himself to his feet but remained where he was behind the table. I walked through and shook his hand, feeling a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed him. ‘How nice to meet you, Father,’ I said in Greek.
He, of course, replied in English. ‘Father Georgiou, but Stav will do fine here with family. It is good to meet you too,’ he said. ‘My mother has told me much about you.’
‘Sit down, Anna, sit down,’ said Mrs Pantelides, before I could ask what she’d been saying about me, and settled me at the table. The table was also covered in Cretan pottery, but each bowl and plate was full of pastries, fruit, and cake. It was a feast, and not what I had been expecting. Clearly Easter fasting in Crete was a bit different from how people did it in England. Not that I took part anyway. I’d walked away from religion as quickly as I had walked away from home. Ran, truthfully. Even now, meeting a nun unexpectedly kicks my ‘fight or flight’ response into action. A childhood spent in a catholic school with a sarcastic nun had firstly frightened me to death with the fear of damnation, and then made me angry that they got away with such behaviour towards children.
‘Help yourself,’ she said, handing me a small plate. ‘Would you like tea?’ She poured it from a huge black metal teapot, and returned it to her range, from which heat warmed the room.
Father Georgiou, how could I call him Stav? Father Georgiou said, ‘My mother didn’t collect the pottery, Anna, she decorated it. She is a well-known pottery painter in Crete. Very famous, eh, Mama?’
Mrs Pantelides blushed and shushed him.
‘You decorated it all? It’s beautiful work.’
Mrs P wafted her face with her hand, but she was pleased, I could see. ‘It was my job, Anna. I don’t do it anymore, I am too old, but I keep my favourite designs and pieces. They comfort me.’ She bit at the corner of a sweet cake dripping in honey and I observed her new look while we ate.
Older Greek women still go into mourning and wear black when their husbands die before them. I thought the tradition was only meant to last a couple of years, but I had seen many old ladies wearing black for the rest of their lives. Probably because there’s always someone popping their clogs that you know, I supposed. I wondered what had caused the change. ‘You look very nice in your dress, Mrs Pantelides. I’ve only seen you in black until now.’
She shook her head sadly. ‘It is twenty-three years since my beloved first husband died, five years since the second, but only two years since your grandmother passed over,’ she replied. ‘My son tells me I should come out of mourning, at least on some days of the week, even though I feel it is too soon. But he is the priest, so how could I disobey? This seemed like a good day to start.’ She patted her hair. ‘You don’t think it looks too young for me?’
Father Georgiou kicked my foot under the table and I got the message. ‘No, I really do think you look lovely, and you have a beautiful home.’
We ate and drank some more. The honey cakes were delicious even if they did spray crumbs all over the tablecloth. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Oh, many years,’ she said. ‘I remember you as a tiny child coming to stay with your mother. You won’t remember, but Stavros took you to the beach when he was back from the seminary for holidays.’
I looked hard at the priest, who was jaw-deep into pastry. If he’d shaved the beard off, and lost thirty years, and at least thirty pounds, I might have been able to place him. ‘No, I must have been very young. I don’t remember you, Father.’ Then I looked properly at Mrs P. ‘It’s strange, I think I do remember you, though, Mrs Pantelides, now that I see you dressed so differently. You used to come to see my grandmother, with my great aunt. Is that right?’
The priest swigged down tea, cleared both his throat and the front of his cassock and gave his mother a look and a nod.
It was happening again. People knowing things without telling me. I felt like Alice in bloody Wonderland sometimes.
‘Anna, you should know that Pantelides is my married name from my second husband.’ She crossed herself and gave a deep sigh. ‘To lose two husbands, eh? No, I was once a Georgiou, like you and like Stavros, who is my child from my first husband.’
‘Oh! Are we related? Are you my cousin, Stav?’ I felt quite excited, even if an Orthodox priest wasn’t top of my list of lost relatives.
Mrs Pantelides reached over and took my hand. ‘My first husband was your mother’s uncle. I am not sure what that makes us, so call me Irini, please.’ She smiled. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you!’
‘So you’re my what? I mean what relative are you to me? Great aunt?’ I was beginning to sound like someone off an episode of Long Lost Family, but I was completely taken by surprise. ‘No, that’s not right.’
I tried again. ‘Okay, so you are my great aunt by marriage? Possibly?’ I would have to get to grips with the family tree later. Were they all called Georgiou? The same surname on both sides of the family, or were we all related? Yipes, that could be interesting. ‘So I can call you Aunt Irini, perhaps? But why didn’t you tell me? Why have I lived next to you for six weeks and you haven’t said a word? I feel like an idiot.’
Father Georgiou intervened. ‘It seemed like a good idea to wait, as we know your mother has told you little of your family on the island. Since your father left, things have changed here in Kissamos. It seemed better to say nothing.’
I thought about Kokorakis, and wondered if he had something to do with my father leaving the island all those years ago. ‘Do you know why my father left? And why he won’t talk to me about Crete?’
‘I have already told you, Anna,’ said Mrs P, or Irini as I should now call her, ‘the story is your father’s to tell. But Stavros and I, we feel there are things you should know.’ She got stiffly to her feet and went into the front room, returning with a gilt-framed photograph. She put the picture on the table and stood between me and Stavros, leaning heavily with one hand on the back of my chair. ‘So, this was taken when you were a very little girl,’ she said. ‘Who do you see?’
A younger Irini holding an enormous teapot, and Stavros who was a plump youth lurking in the background, and there was my mother, only in her early twenties, with me, no more than three or four years old sitting on her lap. ‘It’s me and Mum,’ I said, tracing Mum’s face with my finger.
‘And this lady.’ Irini pointed to the chair next to Mum’s, where a vigorous-looking woman with black hair and large eyes sat with a plate in her lap. ‘This is Nyssa, your paternal grandmother.’
The breath caught in my throat. What? ‘So who’s this?’ I asked, pointing to the other woman sitting next to Mum.
‘That is your maternal grandmother, Cybele.’
I was struggling a little. I’d never seen pictures of my father’s parents, of course, but this was the grandmother I had stayed with as a child. Nyssa. The other woman was an aunt, I thought, who we visited. ‘So, Mum and I stayed with Nyssa, whilst my dad thought we were staying with Cybele?’
‘Yes. That way Nyssa could get to know you. And, until today, we have never told anybody about what your mother did. It was a great secret.’
‘And risky. If Dad had found out, he’d have been furious. It was a betrayal of him.’
Stavros chuckled. ‘That is a harsh interpretation. Your grandmother had done nothing wrong, except to be married to your grandfather, so why shouldn’t she see her only grandchild?’
I sat back in my chair. This was a lot to take in. So my mother had lied to Dad for years, thirty-five years to be exact. ‘Nyssa’s wearing black, did my grandfather die young?’
Stavros sent a warning glance to his mother. ‘He died some time after this picture was taken. Nyssa lived alone in your house.’
‘So they didn’t live together.’ I searched the photo, trying to bring it back. ‘There was no man in the house that I remember.’ I thought about my dad again, and wondered for the hundredth time if this was all about an actual family feud, and now I wanted to know if Nyssa had been a victim as well as her son. ‘Is this all to do with the reason my father left and moved to the UK? To do with his father?’
‘Yes, this we can tell you,’ he said, topping up his tea.
Maybe, finally I was going to get some answers. I leaned forward and placed the folder of photographs on the table, taking each photo and placing it between the plates. ‘What else can you tell me? Who are these people?’
They looked at each picture, Irini sighing at some of them. ‘They are your family, Anna, but I cannot say more.’ She pointed at the one of the young woman with children on the beach. ‘That is your grandmother and some of the local children.’
‘Is one of them my father?’
Reluctantly, she pointed out a small boy with his back turned to the camera, playing with the sand.
I picked it up and looked more closely. ‘And the other children?’
Irini didn’t answer, but got up and poured yet more tea.
Father Georgiou wriggled on his hard chair. ‘It is difficult to break a promise,’ he said, ‘but, I believe you have met the Kokorakis family?’
‘Yes, I met Delphine Kokorakis a few days ago. She has invited me for dinner.’ Why was he changing the subject?
Aunt Irini covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I wonder what she really wants from you,’ she murmured.
‘She wants me to help put right a wrong that her husband committed,’ I said. ‘You know about the fire in Paleochora?’
Father Georgiou crossed himself and held onto the crucifix that sat on his ample stomach amongst the cake crumbs. ‘A terrible deed that I fear cannot be put right with money. What does she want with you, Anna?’
‘She wants me to help her decorate the interior of the new house she is going to buy for the Andreanakis family. That’s all.’
The priest caught his mother’s eye. ‘Then maybe that is all, God willing. Delphine might have a good heart under her hard face.’
Aunt Irini clutched at my hand, however. ‘Be careful with that family.’
‘I will,’ I said, squeezing her hand, ‘I’ve been to Paleochora. I’ve seen what Kokorakis can do. The young man whose business was burned down is the brother of my Greek teacher. I want to help, but I will take care, I promise.’ I took my hand back and drank the tea, stewed though it had become.
‘Well, that is what we wante
d to tell you,’ said Aunt Irini. ‘To be careful. Perhaps that is enough for now.’ She picked up her teacup, but her eyes were fixed on those of her son.
‘I know there’s more,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m not a child. You can tell me what you are hiding.’ I gathered up the photos and stuffed them back in the folder.
Irini took a deep breath. ‘No, I cannot. But, yesterday I talked to your mother on the telephone, and she agreed that despite what your father says, it is time that you met some of your Greek family as you have come home to live, and here we are, meeting you.’
‘You talked to my mother?’ I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that Irini had hidden her identity from me, and that she and my mother were obviously talking about me behind my back.
‘I talk to her every so often, she is like a daughter to me, and I like to know how the restaurant is going, and how you are.’ She dropped her eyes to the tabletop. ‘I have to tell you that I have been reporting back on how you are doing. But I have said only good things, please believe me. You are fitting in so well here, making friends, even a boyfriend.’
Her unstinting help with the builders suddenly became clear. My mother would have asked her to step in and make sure it all went well, because I was clearly unable to manage it on my own. Obviously. Do mothers ever stop interfering? Do they ever allow their children to grow up?
Suddenly it was all too much. Too much information and too much lack of information. I wiped my fingers on the paper napkin and stood up. ‘Thank you so much for a delicious afternoon tea, Aunt Irini. It was lovely to meet you, too, Stav. I hope we’ll see more of each other soon. I have to go now,’ I said and tucked the folder back under my arm.
Irini’s old face was a map of worry as I slipped out the door and went home.
I slammed my door tight behind me, flopped down onto the sofa by the window and sulked. After several minutes of fuming I had a self-pitying weep and found myself using the bottom of my T-shirt as a handkerchief. So I got up, found a tissue, blew my nose and went upstairs to wash my face. It was not a pretty sight. I couldn’t have explained to anyone exactly why I was feeling sorry for myself, except that I felt I could never get away from the prying eyes. From all the people who knew best how I should live my life. Even when I was gifted the house, and thought I was finally free to make my own way in life, my mother was still there, interfering, spying on me. And I’d bet a million pounds she was feeding it all back to Will, who had already told her he was waiting for me to ‘get over my midlife crisis’ and go back to him. As if. I glared at the phone. I should ring Mum and question her about her secret double life, but I couldn’t, I’d get angry, or upset, and that wouldn’t get me anywhere. Cool and calm I needed to be when I had that particular conversation.
Those You Trust: compelling women's psychological fiction Page 9