by Sara Alexi
Once the front door is fixed, Miltos collects a screwdriver and some bulbs from his desk drawer and makes his way back through reception to head to the beach. His progress is halted by a couple coming out of the breakfast courtyard arm in arm. They are not young; in fact, the man has a grey streak that dominates his neat haircut. As Miltos walks behind them, slowing his pace to match theirs, he begins to think how, if things had been different, this could have been him and Marina, and a familiar feeling he hadn’t expected to return now comes over him.
Chapter 44
It is a feeling he has felt on and off all his life. He has often named it loneliness, and associated it with the notion that he does not belong, having no family, but he has no reason to feel it now. He has a son, a family! He is no longer alone. But the familiar feeling is there anyway. Until now he always thought it meant that something was lacking inside of him, something that needed to be acquired from an external source. Sometimes this feeling has been so strong that it has reduced him to tears – over weddings, for example, or young lovers, or sad films. But right now, walking from the hotel down to the beach, with the sun turning the deep-blue sky almost purple, the sea sparkling and the cicadas blanketing the scene in their own musical mating call, he recognises it for what it really is. It is not the need to take something in, but rather the desperate desire to give something out. And that something is love! But he can give love now, to Petta and to Angelos.
With this thought comes the realisation that he possesses a skill he thought he did not have. He suddenly has the ability to distinguish between different types of love. The love he feels for Petta is a deeper, heavier love than the light, exciting love he feels for Angelos, which is different again from the calm love he feels for Irini and the more personal, but equally calm, love he feels for Marina. Suddenly he is seeing the whole world in terms of love. He hardly knows Ellie, nor is there any reason for them to become closer than the friends they are now, but he feels love for her too – just a tinge, a protective tinge – and he even feels love for Loukas, just because he is Ellie’s partner. He also loves Stella, and definitely Mitsos. What a guy! Yes, he loves that man.
The feeling that is upon him now is the love that he has been holding back all his life. The feeling is the love that, until this point, has been extended to only two women in his whole life: his mama and the girl who no longer really exists, whom he called Melissa. But this is the love he most wants to give and is missing – the love for a woman. He feels this need even more acutely now, and his unused love wants to break open his chest and be poured over someone. He wants to give protection and kindness. He wants to release the floodgates of his emotions and give all that he has to offer in terms of that intimate care. He is ready. Probably for the first time in his life, he really feels that he is ready to fall in love.
‘A penny for your thoughts.’
The expression shocks him out of his thoughts and he does not look over until he has wiped away the tear that has made its way down to his chin.
‘Juliet, kalimera,’ he replies in Greek. It feels safer somehow, just in this moment.
‘Kalimera. You were deep in thought? But then I can imagine you have a lot to think over, with all that has happened.’ She is sitting on one of the sunbeds marking papers, a large book balanced on her knees for a table, a pen in her hand, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose. In the morning light her hair shines gold and orange and pale yellow, and her skin has the deep, even tanned look of someone who does not sunbathe but just lives outdoors.
‘It has been quite a … siezmos.’ He cannot think of the word in English for upheaval so he uses the Greek for earthquake. He feels it has more expression anyway.
‘To be honest I cannot imagine what it has been like for you. To find your old love must be one thing, but to discover that you have a son and a grandson too. Wow!’ She waves her hand in little circles to express what a storm he must have been through.
‘May I?’ He points to the sunbed next to her.
‘Please.’
He sits on the edge, looking at her.
‘It has been amazing, Juliet. May I tell you?’
‘Oh, please do.’ Juliet puts the book and the papers down on the sand, her pen on top, and rolls onto her hip to face him.
‘It is as if I have been born.’ He scans her face. ‘I know it sounds trite but that is really what it is like.’ He looks away, out to sea. The blue is the deepest he has ever seen, the silver wave-tops the most reflective he has ever witnessed. ‘I feel as though I have been born and I suddenly have a family and a village and I can feel things I have never felt before. I did not believe such love was possible, nor that love could ever be as strong as the love I now have for Petta, and he is a grown man too! I love a grown man! It is breathtaking. It’s as if a casing has been broken away from the outside of my heart and now I can feel things I have never felt before. This morning, for example, I felt love for Ellie and Ellie’s unborn child.’
He looks back at Juliet and he can feel his cheeks colour at this display of emotion, but he does not care. He wants to shout his life out to the world; he cannot hold himself back.
‘And what I feel for little Angelos, as God is my witness I would die for that little man.’ He pauses and looks down at the sand. Juliets papers are ruffling in the slight breeze, and without thought he pulls out the book from underneath them. The cover makes him look twice. It is a book on Berthe Morisot, the impressionist painter. The cover shows a painting he thinks is called The Cradle, which he saw in France. He places the book on top of the papers and continues.
‘It has also made so much sense of other parts of my life.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I understand now why I have held back.’ He pauses. ‘It was all for the love that I never dared feel for my mama. I closed my heart and I kept moving all my life, Juliet, because I was afraid. Should I be ashamed to tell you that? I feel I should, but I am not. I want to shout it from the hills.’
He lifts his arms and throws his head back. ‘But I am not afraid now.’ He lowers his hands. ‘Last night, I will tell you, Juliet, I cried. I wept and sobbed like a baby. Not from the happiness I should have been feeling at finding my son. No, I cried for the mama I lost when I was five. This is the first time I have done this.’
He looks at her but she says nothing, her face serene. ‘And I also cried from relief because I knew these feelings would be sad and that they would hurt, but I knew they could no longer overwhelm me. I knew I would survive because I could no longer drown in these feelings because I have a son, I have a future, hope!’
He stops and breathes deeply. A tear or two escapes him now, but he does not wipe these away. After a moment he gathers himself.
‘I hope I have not bored you.’ He puts his hands on his knees, ready to stand, giving a little sniff.
‘Absolutely not.’ Juliet reaches out and touches his forearm, a gesture suggesting that he should stay. ‘I lost my father,’ she says quietly. ‘I was only small. He left me and my mum and wrote letters to me, but my mum, she hid them from me. However, the first letter I did get was to tell me he had died. I know that pain.’ Her eyebrows rise in the middle as she speaks.
He can hear the pain behind her words but he can tell that the wounds she is talking about are not fresh, that they have healed, she has dealt with them, and he looks at her again to find the strength that must have taken. All he can see in her countenance is kindness and compassion.
‘Here is the weird thing, Juliet.’ Her hand is still resting on his forearm and he has an urge to touch her fingernails but he does not give in to it. ‘Instead of pulling me under, those tears, painful as they were, they lifted me up. They showed me how great it is to love and how I have not loved all my life because of fear … But I am repeating myself now.’
The need to express himself has subsided a little and he looks away. He is taking up her time, she has her teaching papers to mark. Perhaps he has been selfish to talk to her like this.
‘I am so sorry, Juliet. I hardly know you and here I am unloading my world onto you. I am so sorry …’ he starts, but she interrupts him.
‘You said that this morning you felt love for Ellie and Ellie’s unborn child. I understand this. It may be the world’s best-kept secret.’ Her voice is calm and unhurried.
‘Secret?’ he asks.
‘Yes. Well, it seems to be, because if it is not a secret I cannot understand why more people are not living by it.’ Juliet takes away her hand but it does not go far. It hovers in the gap between them.
‘What secret is this?’ he asks. The urge to touch her fingers has returned.
‘That it feels so absolutely amazing, so much more fulfilling, rewarding and powerful to be the giver of love rather than the receiver!’
‘Exactly!’ He almost shouts the word.
Chapter 45
The collar is too tight and the suit jacket is a little short in the arm, but the colour of the tie matches Marina’s dress, and this gives Miltos a measure of confidence.
‘Well, don’t you brush up handsome.’ Stella comes in as Miltos is admiring his reflection in the wardrobe mirror. She brushes his shoulders free of invisible lint with her hand and gives him a more studied appraisal. It was her idea that he borrow one of her husband’s suits for the day, and Mitsos insisted that he come over in the morning for coffee and that they all get ready and walk down to the church together.
‘But at this rate he is going be going barefoot. I am a size smaller in the shoe than Miltos.’ Mitsos pops up from the far side of the bed with a black, dust-covered shoe in his hand.
‘I guessed as much,’ says Stella. ‘So I’ve borrowed these from Petta. I reckon he is your size.’ She takes her shopping bag from her shoulder and fishes out a slightly worn pair of dark brogues. ‘I will get the polish.’
Miltos insists he polishes them himself even though Stella offers to do it for him. He takes them into the kitchen so she can get ready in the privacy of her bedroom. True to Stella’s prediction, the shoes fit him perfectly. He will be walking in his son’s shoes and this makes him smile.
‘Right, then we should go. Mitso, come here, your belt has missed a loop at the back of your trousers.’ Stella comes into the kitchen looking startlingly glamorous. Mitsos allows her to rearrange his belt, her arms around his waist, and he steals a kiss, making her smile. Miltos slips from the room, out onto the compacted mud of the backyard. The edge of this area is defined by small, brightly painted olive oil drums, from which burst brightly coloured geraniums. Beyond these, in one direction, is a small almond orchard, between the house and the top of the hill, and in the other direction a narrow lane leads past the end of the house and down towards the village.
His village. It gives him such a strange and wonderful feeling to consider that this is his village.
He spots Theo at the kafenio, arranging the last of the chairs ready for the celebratory dinner that will be held in the square after the baptism. Eight trestle tables fill the area around the palm tree, between the empty fountain and the kiosk. In front of the kafenio, on the road, a small stage has been set up for Sakis, who has offered to play for little Angelos’s baptism. It is beyond belief.
A splash of colour catches his eye. Juliet, who is walking with a couple of women he does not know, approaches the square. She was so kind and compassionate yesterday, and he could have talked to her for hours. In fact, they talked for over an hour, and he made her late for her lesson. Her confirmation that he no longer needs to be afraid of anything he feels had been such comfort. It was a clever way to explain it, he thought, hooking into his love of driving.
‘Like indicators on a car,’ she said, ‘feelings just let you know where you are and which way you need to turn. The feeling itself cannot harm you, any more than an indicator can. It is our actions and reactions to the indicators that keep us on the right path.’
‘Or cause us to crash,’ he added to make her laugh, which she did.
It turned out that the book on Berthe Morisot was not actually hers. It was one she had found at a flea market and it was intended as a present for her son in England. He felt a little disappointment at that.
‘But do you like French impressionism?’ he asked anyway.
‘I think I would if they had not been used so commercially over the years,’ she said, and then they went back to talking about languages. However, when she looked at her watch, gasped and hurriedly packed up her work, she added, as she picked her way, shoes in hand, across the hot sand to the hotel’s lawns, that he could borrow the book before she sent it off, if he would like that.
‘Ah, there you are! Shall we go?’ Stella comes out, squinting in the sunshine.
‘You look magnificent.’ Miltos cannot help himself.
‘Here you go.’ Mitsos comes out with his jacket on, looking decidedly hot. In his hand he holds three little shot glasses. ‘Just to fortify ourselves,’ he explains and, with a clink and the call of yeia mas, they drink.
By the time they get down to the square the tables are set with clean tablecloths and vases of flowers, and children are running around in their best clothes, chasing each other and being scolded by their mamas.
People are filtering from all the lanes towards the church.
‘I am feeling a little on display,’ Miltos mutters to Mitsos.
‘Ahh, they have nothing to talk about for years and then a stranger walks into the village laying claim to Marina’s son, whom she only discovered a while back. They are bound to be curious.’
‘Keep walking, man, or you will be late and then all eyes will be on you for sure,’ Stella urges, and she links one arm through his and the other through her husband’s, and in this fashion Miltos’s new friends deliver him to Marina’s house.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Marina has a new blue dress, and the tie she bought him is the perfect match. He wonders if he should have got her something, a pin or a brooch, or just a handful of flowers, as a token of thanks for her generosity. He is not good at thinking about other people, after a lifetime spent making sure that he did not need to. He is going to need to make a more conscious effort until it becomes second nature.
‘Right, so where is Petta now?’ Marina turns to go back inside. Miltos puts one foot over the threshold.
‘I’m here,’ a voice booms from above, and with a thunk-thunk-thunk down the stairs Petta almost collides with Miltos, whose heart swells at the sight of him – so much so that he has to fill his lungs with air to make more room, letting it out slowly as they shake each other vigorously by the hand and then pull in for a hug and a backslap.
‘Irini, do you have Angelos’s clothes?’ Marina asks, turning one way and then another but accomplishing nothing.
‘They are here.’ Stella, having pushed past Miltos, finds them hanging on the back of a chair in the kitchen, on a small coat hanger, protected by a transparent plastic dry-cleaning bag. It is not a big house, and with all of them moving about, looking in mirrors, Irini searching for a comb for Angelos’s hair, and Marina losing a shoe, it seems smaller by the minute.
‘Come on, let’s wait outside.’ Petta gives Miltos a nudge and the two of them go out into the street, where people greet them and then stare at Miltos as he and his son make their way to the church behind the shop.
‘You see, we would not have this problem if we lived on a boat,’ Petta says. ‘There would be just the sun, the sea and the sky and no expectations.’ He chuckles, a noise that bubbles up from inside his chest.
‘You’d better build it big enough for three.’ Mitsos joins them. ‘But no bigger or the women will want to come.’ The men guffaw.
‘What are you lot gossiping about?’ Stella is the first of the women out of the house, her hair already springing back to its normal frizz.
‘Building a boat to get away from you women,’ Mitsos teases her as they link arms.
‘Irini, come on, the bells have started,’ Petta calls, leaning inside.
The scuffling and bumping sounds inside the cottage increase until, finally, Marina joins them on the street; Irini, carrying a sleepy-looking Angelos, follows, and they walk with the others from the village up and across to the church.
Chapter 46
The village swarms out of the church, the men pulling at their ties and the women dabbing at their faces with handkerchiefs. There is a general clicking of lighters, and a hum of conversation. The children break from the confines of the church, running, shouting, chasing one another.
‘Kostantino, not too fast, you’ll fall. And leave Kristina alone,’ a woman calls.
‘Ah, leave the children be, let them burn off their energy.’ Her husband takes her hand. ‘They are excited for the music and food that is to come.’
‘They will not last the night.’ She leans in towards him.
‘Then we can dance under the moonlight, just the two of us.’ He inclines his head sideways against hers.
‘Na sas zisi,’ everyone wishes Miltos, ‘May he live!’
In the church he stood with Marina on his arm and Petta by his side and he felt a pride he had never experienced before in his life. He expected tears to run down his cheeks, and he had even tucked a handkerchief, which Petta gave him, with black butterflies embroidered on it, up his shirtsleeve just in case he needed it. Surprisingly, though, his eyes remained dry and his chin stayed high and he felt just fantastic.
‘He is a fine boy, Petta. A fine boy,’ Miltos shakes his own son by his hand, again.
‘And tonight we will dance,’ Petta says, and he slings an arm around his baba’s shoulders and the two of them wander, a head height above everyone else, down to the village square.