How Greek Is Your Love

by Marjory McGinn

  Angus went inside and came back with a bottle of white wine.

  “Might as well have another drink,” he said, pouring two glasses. “I hope you got stuck into Leonidas for the Phaedra fuck-up,” he said, not-so-delicately.

  “Not really. And anyway, he denies having anything to do with it.” Angus rolled his eyes. “But I told him I was cooling things for a week or two. I need time to think.”

  “Oh dear! I know how much you like Leo, but if you don’t mind me saying … maybe it’s just a kind of holiday affair after all.”

  I was shocked. “It wasn’t just a holiday affair to me.”

  “You know what I mean. It was the circumstances, wasn’t it? Our search for Kieran. The high emotions of that time. And Leo helped us. I mean, he’s a great guy. I like him, but as a potential husband ... It’s the Greek thing, the pitfalls of another culture.”

  “Polly always said Greek men have a huge sense of entitlement.”

  “Polly’s right. They get spoilt rotten by their mothers. And here’s another thing, Bronte, I’d have thought you’d have met his parents by now. They live in Kalamata, don’t they?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, why have you never been taken over to meet them if he’s so in love with you?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps Leo’s worried they won’t like their son being in a relationship with a foreigner. Maybe they’re like Thekla, and I’m better off not meeting them yet.”

  “Well, if they’ve got strong feelings about their son hooking up with a foreigner then it doesn’t bode well for the long run, does it?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  We lapsed into silence. A song with Levantine mournfulness rode on currents of hot air from Villa Ambelia. It seemed to chime with the downbeat conversation we’d just had.

  Finally, Angus squeezed my arm and said, “You know, pet, you don’t have to stay in Greece if you don’t want to.”

  “That’s a strange thing to say right now. And I know that anyway. I’m not a prisoner here.”

  “Don’t you miss your life in Scotland, in journalism? I often wonder if this is enough for you. I mean, I love the fact you’re here and how you helped me sort out my health problems, and the situation with Kieran, but I don’t want to keep you here if you think you’d be better off back home. You’re not my carer.”

  “I’ve never thought of myself as that, Angus. You don’t actually need one – yet. As for the other bit, you’re always saying Scottish journalism’s going down the pan. You told me last year when I left The Alba and took redundancy that it was the best thing I could have done.”

  “It was, but there’s always London. There’s plenty more on offer if you want it. You’ve got good contacts. You could build on that. Your friend Eve has contacts in London in publishing, and journalism, I’m sure.”

  “She has and she’s already told me she can help me to get more work if I want it – freelance that is. But I wouldn’t have to leave Edinburgh for that.”

  “Well, think about it. I’m sure you miss the excitement of your old life. And you’re a good journalist.”

  “I miss seeing Marcella and Shona. I miss some of my friends, of course, but honestly, I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. I don’t give up on things that easily, you know that. And I love Leonidas. I would miss him dreadfully if I sloped off back to Scotland.”

  Angus had his chin leaning on his hand, staring over the gulf, looking a bit distracted.

  “Tell me, Angus, do you miss Scotland? I mean, if you wanted to return, I’d go back with you, at least till you settled.”

  He turned and looked at me with startled eyes. In the light outside I could see how hazel they were, with flecks of green and pale brown. It was a combination of colours that changed according to the place and the mood. Now they looked browner, darker.

  “I don’t want to go back to Scotland. Not because I don’t love it. I do. And there are lots of things I miss, like those baldy wet hills we used to struggle up, remember? I miss having a blether with old friends in the pub. Apart from that, and Shona of course, and the grandkids, there’s nothing for me over there now. I can’t pull up stumps and start again, not at my age. And I love it here too. My heart may be Scottish and falling apart, but my soul is Greek.”

  I smiled at that. I think he was right. He was as Greek perhaps as a foreigner can be. Angus had told me the ancient Greeks believed that if you spoke Greek, you were Greek – and he spoke Greek well enough.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with us today, we’re awfully moody and reflective. It’s all Thekla’s fault. She’s stuck her witch’s broom into everything,” I said.

  “What was she like today, with that muckle big hair and dripping in gold!”

  We laughed heartily. I hoped the noise would carry down to Villa Ambelia.

  “What we need, Bronte, is to conjure up a plan to put Thekla off village life and send her scuttling back to Athens, where she belongs.”

  “Okay, let’s think of something, and soon,” I said, more to humour him because I feared it would take a miracle to lever her out of Marathousa.

  I left him sitting at the table, staring into the distance. I could tell by the set of his mouth and his eyes narrowed in concentration he was already hatching some crazy plan.

  Later that night when I went to bed, I lay for a while thinking about what Angus had said – about going back to Scotland. It seemed unimaginable, a few days ago at least. I had walked away from my career, and the country I had always thought of as my home, and my family and friends, and mostly because of my love for Leonidas. I was infatuated with Greece too, little by little. But perhaps it was time to consider that my existence here was just an entertaining experiment in living abroad, and that I might have to slope off one day with nothing but my modest victories and failures packed up like disparate souvenirs, like some of the framed images that now adorned my chest of drawers.

  There was the picture of Kieran that was precious to me, in his Royal Army Service Corps uniform, his hair thick, dark and wavy with its widow’s peak above the forehead, his eyes hazel like Angus’s. He looked happy. When we uncovered his fate in Greece, it meant finding Kieran for the first time in my life; fleshing out a grandfather who had been little more than a ghost up to that point. That was my greatest achievement here at least.

  There were some lovely pictures of Leonidas and me in the village but my favourite was one he’d given me last year, an old one of him as a child up in the village of Platanos, in the Taygetos mountains where his family had come from and where by co-incidence our search for Kieran had led us. In the picture, Leonidas was serving tables at a local yiorti celebration, looking so handsome even at a young age. And innocent. It was touching.

  And finally, the small wooden icon of St Dimitrios, the dark-haired saint riding his russet-coloured horse. It was ironic, the way I had come across the image by chance, as he would be the character who would play such a crucial but unexpected role in solving our family mystery – and a saint who hadn’t rolled out all his miracles yet.

  What enticing and uncertain images would I add to these in future months and years, if I was still here?

  As if he’d read my mind, Zeffy came crashing into the room, a blur of thick fur, a faint aroma of kokoretsi and chlorine. He leapt onto the end of my bed. “What about me?” his chestnut eyes seemed to say. “What could I do to get my mug on the chest of drawers?” A picture would be required, I thought, but until then I would forever have a vision in my mind of Zeffy diving into the pool with the ‘sausage’ in his mouth, swimming in crazy circles, cocking a snook at the anti-dog league, mad aunts, minxy dentists and fickle doctors.

  The next morning, Angus brought me coffee and found Zeffy sleeping under the top sheet, his head on the pillow beside me. How and when he’d arrived there, I had no recollection. I wish I could have said the same for the lunch the previous day, but there would be no chance of forgetting it, or the unexpected infamies it was abo
ut to spawn.

  Chapter 19

  Grime and punishment

  “Bronte, I had to call and find out what’s happening with you and Leonidas since the Phaedra woman turned up. My God! I was floored by that. Talk about making a dramatic entrance, stage left, darling!”

  It was Eve at nine in the morning the following Tuesday. I was having breakfast with Angus on the balcony off the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Eve”, I mouthed softly. He did an exaggerated eye roll, even though I suspect he found her quite entertaining.

  “Leo and I are cooling things for a bit.”

  “Oh! That’s a shame, but I quite understand. But I have to tell you I didn’t see much evidence after you left that things were hotting up again with those two. He spent his time fussing over the guests. Such a lovely man. I never saw him talking to Phaedra or the batty aunt. But I didn’t stay till the bitter end. Angelos invited me to have coffee at that nice Kefi Beach Bar at Santova. He left his car at Myrto’s farm and I drove down. It was rather nice. He’s such a gorgeous guy, isn’t he? So like Leonidas. Much less serious though. And such good company. I wish I were a few dozen years younger, I can tell you. I left him at the beach. He wanted to swim but I came back home. He asked me out to dinner some time. What do you think?”

  What did I think? Jesus! A friend of mine going on a date with Leonidas’s nephew, half her age? Leonidas would kill me, unless Thekla throttled me first. This would not be good. And I wondered how it must have looked to some of the Greeks at the lunch, them leaving together. Gums would already be bumping around the village.

  “I don’t know,” I said in a tinny voice full of apprehension. “No reason why not, I suppose. If you think you can handle it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well you know, don’t get too serious …”

  “Don’t fall in love you mean.” She laughed theatrically. “One little dinner. How can that hurt?”

  Oh it could, I thought, but I decided not to say anything else. It wasn’t my problem – today. I had my own issues to mull over. My mental health shelf stackers were working overtime.

  When I hung up, Angus grilled me over the call. I told him about Eve and Angelos. He tipped his head back and roared with laughter, nearly overturning the chair.

  “Oh, another clusterfuck!” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I never thought life in this village would end up like a Christmas pantomime.”

  “Calm down, you’ll do yourself some damage.” I watched him eating his breakfast, spreading a great slick of butter over his toast. I could almost feel his lipid levels rising like a Jellystone Park geyser.

  Later in the week I was in the Zefiros, checking emails. Leonidas had organised wifi in Villa Anemos but it was sometimes unreliable, and I liked going to the kafeneio to escape the confines of the house, to have some time to myself, though that was rare in a Greek village. Elpida, as usual, sat down for a while at my table for a gossip. She had a twinkle in her eye.

  “So, Bronte. How did you like your Sunday lunch at Leonidas’s house?”

  “Lovely, thank you. How was yours?”

  “Oh, same as always. Too much food, too much bla, bla, bla!”

  She had her elbow on the table, her chin leaning on her knuckles. She bent in a bit closer to me. “So, I hear that Phaedra, she turns up at lunch. Po, po, po!” She windmilled her arm at me.

  I didn’t answer straight off. I was no longer shocked at her candour. And I wasn’t surprised at the speed with which one of the villagers at the lunch had foghorned this bit of gossip all over Marathousa.

  “Yes, she was there.”

  “Don’t you worry, my girl. Leonidas, he is smart. He never did follow her to England as they planned – remember? Now he’s with you. End of the story,” she said, smacking the flat of her hands together with vibrant finality.

  When I said nothing, she continued, “And I hear that it is Thekla who brings Phaedra. Panayia mou!” She crossed herself three times. Yep, it was that bad! “You know, when I first heard that Thekla is coming back to the village I feel it can’t be good. I know her. Gets bored, wants to stir things around, like poking a stick in the sfika nest. Hornets, Bronte. Poli kako. Very bad ….”

  While I found her conversation entertaining as always, I was distracted after a while by the sight of two men on the road talking, their heads close together. One had a cigarette and was blowing smoke out of the side of his mouth. It was the creep, Dionysos, with another man, bald and shifty-looking, whom I thought was an expat I’d seen in the Zefiros before.

  I interrupted Elpida’s monologue. “Elpida, who’s that man down there talking to Dionysos, the guy I keep seeing on the road?”

  She squinted towards the pair. “He’s a xenos, British man, Derek, lives down the hill,” she said, waving towards a low-lying valley within the vast stretch of olive orchards, north of the village. “I don’t like that one, Bronte,” she added, with a vibrant grimace.

  “Does Dionysos speak good English?”

  “I don’t think so. But Derek speaks Greek. Not good like your babas, Angus. But okay.”

  “Are they friends?”

  “Seems to be.”

  When I got home, I told Angus about the incident.

  “Are you sure the expat was Derek?”

  “That’s what Elpida said.”

  Angus frowned. “Don’t you remember we were in the Kali Parea one night and a table of expats were sitting outside? He was in the group with the cackling coat hanger, remember?”

  An image leapt into my mind: a thin woman with a disproportionately loud and annoying laugh. “I do, but why would Derek be friends with the creep?”

  “Derek’s a bit of a numpty, ex-army, likes guns. Likes to hunt with other expats, but mostly Greeks. Likes wild boar and shooting thrushes – disgusting business – to make those appalling pickled delicacies called tsikles. Derek’s one of those expats who says he loathes Britain but spends all his time reading news reports about Britain on the internet or watching the BBC on satellite TV. The fact he might hang about with Dionysos doesn’t surprise me. Derek’s very right-wing, so he would hang about with supporters of the EPE party like Dionysos. Give guys like Derek a big body swerve. They don’t do anyone any good.”

  I felt uneasy when I went to bed that night. Zeffy came bursting into the room after me, carrying a lamb bone in his mouth.

  “Get out. That’s disgusting!” I said. The lamb bone was obviously from his cache of Sunday lunch offerings he’d hidden somewhere in the house. He ran out of the bedroom and I decided to put his dog bed just outside the door for the night and shut it in case he tried to bring in more food. He had to learn the bedroom wasn’t for stashing treats. I could hear him moaning outside but tried to ignore him. It was my fault because increasingly I let him sleep on the end of my bed. It was a bad habit now but I found it comforting. Zeffy and I had bonded well. I liked the fact we were, in our different ways, both xenoi, outsiders, genial misfits, if you like.

  I slept badly. Somewhere close to dawn Zeffy started up a low growl outside the door, which exploded into a barking session. I got up and went into the sitting room, where he was dancing about the front door. I try to quieten him down before he woke up the neighbourhood. The front windows were shuttered but with slats that could be angled different ways. I peered outside. There was a glimmer of pearly light behind the mountains. Nothing moving on the road, or anywhere for that matter. There was no other noise, apart from a few dogs on chains barking back. A donkey brayed, probably Myrto’s.

  I went back to bed and Zeffy followed, jumping onto the bed. I let him be. I felt uneasy, thinking about the creep, wondering if he would ever come to the house with mischief in mind. But why would he do that? When I got up, I let Zeffy out through the back door into the garden, as I often did before his first walk of the day.

  “Did you hear Zeffy barking in the night?” I asked Angus, sitting at the dining table. He shook his head. He must have slept more soundly
than I had.

  After breakfast I got a call from Leonidas. He sounded irritable.

  “Bronte, I know you do not want to talk to me at the moment but something a little disturbing has been brought to my attention. I don’t like to get involved in village gossip if I can help it and I have six patients outside waiting to see me right now. But this is something I don’t want to ignore. I hear that your friend Eve has become very friendly with my nephew Angelos. They’ve been seen together down at the beach. Is it what I think it is?”

  “They’re just friends. They were chatting at the lunch on Sunday. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “Yes, agapi mou, but a woman like Eve … she doesn’t just have friendships with men.”

  “I don’t see why not,” I snapped, just to annoy him. But this was what I’d been afraid of. Eve and Angelos, and I knew what he meant. The Eve I’d seen lately – not the one who was guarded and a bit flaky but the relaxed, sexy Eve – gave the impression of a woman who would go to bed with a man and then have him for her next meal. Hell, even floss with him afterwards!

  “Angelos is a young man trying to find his way in the world. He’s intelligent and very handsome. I don’t think Eve has his career in her mind.”

  I laughed, a nervous girly giggle. God, but I wasn’t in the mood for this now.

  “Don’t worry, Leo. It’s a harmless friendship. She’s going back to London soon.”

  “Good. Forgive me, but rural Greece is not Mykonos. Perhaps you can persuade your friend to move her attentions elsewhere while she’s here.”

  I stared at the phone after he’d hung up, wondering if I’d just woken up in a parallel world where Marathousa had just collided with a Jane Austen novel. I felt like Elizabeth Bennet being chastised by a pompous Mr Darcy.

  It was quiet in the house now. Angus was in the shower. I went outside. Zeffy was nowhere to be seen among the fruit and olive trees and the oleander bushes that grew right to the boundaries, which were marked out by a sturdy wire fence. I called but he didn’t come. I noticed the side gate was open, which was unusual. We always shut it at night.