by David Loftus
Tuesday 10 July
I wonder sometimes if one lived somewhere like Paros, and threw open the shutters to the blissful battering of the senses daily, would one shout from the rafters every day, ‘Damn it’s good to be alive!’ or would one become somehow used to it. I believe I could seat myself at my bedroom window here, staring out at the ever-altering shimmer of the darkest blue Aegean, and be pretty contented for the rest of my days. It’s hard to describe the difference being here to being elsewhere in words, when one has been day by day using illustrations and then photos to explain oneself. Yesterday I took a few photos on my old Leica in black and white, and some infra-reds on my phone, and it’s still so unmistakably Greece, the seas are black with pin pricks of over-exposed white stars and spangles, much like last night’s sky, the architecture and clouds impossibly bright and white, the pines and cypress, casuarina and olive, juniper and pistachio also unmistakably Parian or Cycladian.
Pascale’s reading of Kafka, Timmy’s of Solzhenitsyn and Paros’s endless medical textbooks do not ideal holiday reads make, though I can also remember lying under the casuarinas at Agios Fokas sleepily reading Camus’ A Happy Death, nursing my ouzo hangover and hopeful of the ‘clip clop’ of Kalá’s doleful hooves. I can remember contemplating ‘a happy death’ as I read the book, the rarity in life that one can die content, happy and well.
Sadly we don’t choose when we die, generally, unless it’s through some violent self-inflicted wound, and even if we could choose, how would we know the moment at which to pull the plug and to die a happy death? I so understand my Mother’s ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ notice on the necklace around her neck. Nowadays, as happened when John died, there is the immediate rush for the defibrillators and life-support mechanics. John was already on life support and his life was ebbing slowly away, but there was still the demand to try to revive him until my Mother had to hold them back. Did he die a happy death? Absolutely not, he felt wronged and robbed, confused and deeply, deeply traumatized though he rarely showed it except in the occasionally tear-filled breakdown, mainly with me, maybe because he was looking at the healthy ‘him’.
I still occasionally catch myself in my mid-night half-sleep, saying a prayer for John and for Papa. A hypocritical semi-conscious prayer to a God that I don’t believe in, that didn’t answer us in our hour of need or the needs of so many others, where I ask him to look after father and son and to protect my loved ones and keep them from ill health and its evil consequences, and to protect me from disease and cancers, knowing that it would be highly unlikely that I, like my Mother now, would accept treatment. I would rather die an early and happy death than find myself in a situation where I am no longer rational enough to make that decision for myself.
I draw myself back to the moment and list what is stunning before my Cycladian window:
The isles of Antiparos, a soft arid cut-out on the horizon, visible in the early morn before it vanishes in the haze, the Mary Celeste of islands.
The white, bulbous lines of the Cycladian houses, as if moulded from thick marzipan and icing, smooth and curvaceous and solid.
The flash of aqua blue in the dark Aegean, of Panteronisia, a little slice of Bahamian blue between a tiny cluster of unknown islands peppered, or should it be salted, with small white yachts and caiques moored for a day of picnicking and diving.
The bougainvillea, a riot of iridescent pink fronds, like huge fingers of a dazzling beast in a Ray Harryhausen Jason and the Argonauts movie, wafting in the morning breeze.
The bees, busy as ever, not fooled by the fake promises of the bougainvillea, instead concentrating their buzzy business on the flowering thyme and rosemary and oregano.
Wednesday 11 July
It’s interesting how hard I find it to write while for once I have time to sit and do just that. I am so overcome by the emotional impact of each small step on this trip that the further I walk the harder I am falling.
Yesterday, Tuesday, was Naousa on the north coast of Paros and, even now, sitting at one of the cool marble tables in our villa’s garden, listening to the hum of the honeybees, I find it hard to put words to my feelings. I took my old Leica with me yesterday and Ange commented that it was the first time she’d seen me shooting for pleasure rather than just work.
I’ve come down to the small pebbly cove to watch Paros and Timmy ‘tombstoning’ from the marble rocks into the deep blue sea to snorkel their merry way around the bay. I love listening to their banter and tomfoolery, carried by the wind. Reverting as we all do, to the unselfconsciousness of excitable children, two little boys playing and mucking about. As I look out at them now, post mid-jump photo, I’m aware that I have, in the desk on the boat, an almost identical photo of John and me, with Peter H, at the same age, twenty-one or twenty-two, wearing snorkels, pretending to synchronized swim, like hieroglyphics in the sea at Agios Fokas. Thirty years and a generation apart, but still up to the same innocently daft mischief. It’s easy to forget the sheer simple joy of sitting here, on a rock, feet in the cooling, clear water, the only other sounds the waves on the shore and the wind in the pines. Paros has brought me two simple spoils from the blue yonder, a seagull skull and a green and yellow anemone, which I shall add to the Cabinet of Curiosities when home.
After an early-morning cold glass of white wine we drove the windy stony road to the boatyard at Noausa and the monastery of St John Detis in Ormos Ay Ioannou. The youth all headed to cool off in the sea as Ange came with me to wander slowly through the propped-up hulks of old caiques and fishing vessels. The boatyard seemed unchanged in thirty years, as I picked my way through the rusting paint-peeled remnants of past berthings in their oily piles, wondering whether the carpenters and repairers ever cleared anything away, making it the most photogenic and sketchable place to be. I tried to visualize the illustrations that remained of John’s; there’s one above my desk, on the boat, and I think I managed to find an angle to shoot an identical photo on the old Leica. As far as my memory is concerned it could be the same spot, and even the same boats. John would sit by the monastery, until now I hadn’t realized it was called St John, which towers on a rock above the boatyard, then sit in Naousa port selling his sketches to fund his summer stay. It’s a sadly haunting place, beautifully neglected, brightly painted woodwork of deep blues and oranges among the paint-stripped carcases of maritime workmanship.
We negotiated our way through the detritus to St John Detis, ‘detis’ meaning to ‘make well’, although poor St John, who gave shelter to passing fishermen in distress, was beheaded for his troubles. We climbed up the rocks that the monastery seems to grow out of, blending itself seamlessly with its surroundings, a low dry stone wall between it and the old boatyard. It’s an idyllic spot and Ange and I dived into the water to cool down and cleanse ourselves after the dustbowl surrounding the boats. You can stand on the roof, next to the dome with its white cross, painted blue so that the white cross appears to be floating against the sea and the sky, and look out over the bay at the boatyard and Naousa beyond. All from here seems virtually unchanged.
Dinner is back in Aliki at our new favourite spot, Taverna il Balcone, set upon a beautiful stone jetty that juts out into the sea, allowing us to sit close enough to the water to feed our bread to the fishes and watch the promenaders strut their stuff. Parian rosé is drunk while tucking into chicory and gigantes beans, octopus tentacles and fresh tuna as the sun sets, turning the still water from an inky, silvery, pink-stained blue to black as the sky begins to show off its Milky Way. I do love it here, surrounded by those I love.
Thursday 12 July
Agios Fokas, sitting with a Parian rosé at sunset
Yesterday was hard, but not as hard as the day before, and not as hard as today was. I realized that Wednesday was also Tim and Izzy’s wedding anniversary and, as each other’s best man, we like to remember it. Today he sent me a small portion of his best man’s speech.
I always longed for David to find a soulmate. And then one day Ange arriv
ed. And I hoped and prayed that they would give full rein to their intense and moving love. They have done that, and we – all of us at the wedding today – are their proud witnesses, their greatest supporters and their lifelong companions and journeymen.
I speak for many people when I say thank you for your love, and I wish you all the love and luck in the world, as Mr and Mrs Loftus.
Ange and I dropped the girls in to Parikia and drove up a dusty track through sparkly new-builds, past the beaches that Peter and I used to trudge past, having jumped on the little caique from the port. The new track sadly veers from the path we used to take, studded with molten wax candles used to light the path to Agios Fokas, the acres of oregano and thyme plants now dotted with holiday villas. Agios Fokas and its environs were happily untouched though, its running lighthouse and the beach between its rocky headland and the church just the same, still empty, still a secret to a few, not loved by those that like a sandy beach due to its ‘ticker tape’ seaweed piled up on the beach, but when tried, like a perfect mattress beneath a wicker beach mat.
I so clearly remember the day Johnny showed me this beach. He was brown as a berry, his little linen knapsack containing his sketchbook and pencils and something I hadn’t seen before, but nowadays you see everywhere, a cotton kit for making woven friendship bracelets which he would wear around his ankles and sell to hippy travellers doing the island-hopping trail. He was so proud of everything ‘new’ and discovered alone, without his younger twin. I wandered around the old chapel. Traditionally Greek Orthodox chapels are kept unlocked, but times have changed so I tried the door expecting it to be closed, but no, the heavy wooden door creaked open, letting me enter the cool and dark, lit by its tiny yellow stained-glass windows and a single candle. I lit a couple of tall tapered beeswax candles for Father and Johnny, sat for a few minutes, the silence only broken by the waves and the constant scratching in the pines of the cicadas. Even the tiniest chapel is a beautifully cool and calm place to sit, surrounded by the Byzantine icons, black and white photos, wooden altar pieces and candles burning. The tiny chapel of Agios Fokas will always have a special place in my heart.
Leaving the darkened cool of the chapel, we hung our bag in the windswept pines and clambered over the beach for a swim. Even the rocks and weeds underneath seemed strangely familiar. If ever there had been a ‘Johnny’s beach’ this surely was the one and only. Swimming in the chilling water, looking back at the chapel with its broken wall of pines, our wicker bag hanging and the ticker tape of seaweed blowing in circles in the breeze, the only thing missing in the picture was him. I know that as I sit in my dotage one day this will be the moment most reminiscent of him.
Evening
Lefkes village
Paros and Timmy have been harping on about going back to Lefkes so we drive up the mountainous roads to watch the sunset and have dinner. The satnav in our crappy Nissan Micra decides to send us the ‘scenic route’ up through the mountains on a dirt track, an experience I love, but the boys don’t, howling occasionally in fear at the steep drops either side as we climb higher and higher through the vineyards and olive groves and flowering oregano all backlit by the setting sun.
I let the boys lead us through the narrow streets up to the church of Agia Triada, loving the way they show us the village as if I’ve never been, insisting we climb down the steps of the cemetery, where widows in black tend the white marble tombs, to a pine-fringed plateau to look out at the view towards Naxos, the hills all around us edged with derelict windmills, and then back up to their favourite bar, joyous that the bar owner recognizes them, to order ‘the finest cold beer ever consumed’ and a cold white Meltemi wine for me, along with a round of stuffed vine leaves and anchovies.
The boy Paros is such a sensitive soul and he mentions the moment I saw him jumping from the rock in our bay into the sea and tells me that as he jumped and saw me on the shore taking his picture silhouetted against the setting sun, he was aware of the memories in me that that moment would conjure. And he was right, I have an almost identical photo of Johnny, in those pyjama shorts, jumping off a rock in Agios Fokas. As I look now at the silhouette of him on my phone it could so easily be Johnny, same wild hair, knees tucked in for maximum splash, same deep tan and little tummy from too many gigantes and Mythos. It’s a truly memorable and beautiful evening, so lovely to spend time with Ange and the boys in such a sublime setting.
Friday 13 July
Aliki
I spend the day today trying to collect my thoughts, coping with repeated nightmares through the night, mostly medical and hospital related, and many featuring Mother and John. I’m very aware that I haven’t fulfilled my list, but Cine Rex is showing a violent movie and I am becoming increasingly sensitive to violence, so Cine Rex can wait.
Ange and I decide to walk and talk and wander along the coastal path sharing the smells of limes, pines, juniper, and the company of wagtails and a pair of bullfinches. Ange is so supportive of this journey I am taking and walks with her good left arm placed between my shoulders as she calmly questions me about John and his island. We lunch at our usual spot, octopus and chilled Meltimi wine.
The evening meal is a hoot, the boys make meatballs with the local olive oil and herbs from the garden, and chicken souvlaki following a starter of watermelon wrapped in local ham and sprinkled with feta and oregano, all washed down with a lot of laughter and a few bottles of the local rosé and ouzo. As the sun goes down and the sky over Naxos and Sikinos turns an impossibly vibrant gradation of orange to deepest blue, we are joined by three bats making the most of the bugs in their hour of feeding.
Saturday 14 July
Last day in Paros
We have last-day blues; the week seems to have gone so quickly, as holidays always seem to, so we wake early, skip breakfast and all six of us trot down to the sea. The water is chilly and refreshing and we all agree a return to Aliki is a must.
I march Paros and Pascale round the church to the jetty we used to dive from and tell them the story of the place, the church, ‘meloni, meloni, butterfliesonmydonkey’ man and Kalá the donkey, the metal charms in the chapel and the oregano-scented path lit with candles. I show them where John and I lay on our ticker-tape seaweed mattresses and green-lined wicker beach mats. I show them where we snorkelled and swam and mucked about with our unsynchronized swimming, and then I tell them what I had seen out in the water two days earlier, the perfect Parian scene of the bag hanging in the dusty pines, the chapel, the rocks and the jetty and that the only thing missing in that picture was Johnny. I think they understood the intensity of my feelings for the place.
Ange buys me a small white dove from Yria’s pottery shop. Carved out of snow-white clay, it fits perfectly in my hand.
The main street is still as beautiful as I remember, the bougainvillea-covered chapels, ancient fountains, every flagstone rinsed in fresh whitewash, every olive tree and plant, their trunks painted white to head height. It’s a dazzlingly gorgeous and romantic sight. Paros and Timmy at one point stop at a small t-shirt printers to print Paros a ‘Paros’ t-shirt and as I stand in the door waiting for them I realize I am standing opposite the cinematically stunning barber shop, perfectly preserved. The barber who used to cut John’s and my hair, a German who settled post-war, a man so lovely that even the Greek islanders adopted him as their own, is now long gone, but peering through his windows I see his portrait framed beside the razors and soaps, preserved by his daughters. Once a week we would come to him for a short back and sides, reading our cricket scores and crosswords in The Independent, followed by an ouzo in the Pirate bar, which is still there, next door. Reading our books, Johnny his Tolkien, me my Zola, before taking them to the bookswap store in a small square set off from the seafront, to swap it for some other book to try to impress passers-by.
I snapped a few shots of the corner, realizing that it still remains one of the most beautiful spots I know and we strolled around to the seafront to eat lunch and natter. As the others or
dered, I excused myself and walked a few blocks up the seafront to an atmospheric little ouzeria called Meltemi, the wind of the islands. I’d been told that George, the old owner of the Rendezvous, where John, Peter and I took our sundowners, now owned the place and I nervously popped in to enquire about him. Sadly he wasn’t there, but the three Greek ladies working there brightened as I entered and told them my story. Very quickly George was at the end of a crackly line. It was hard to talk, his English was never great and my Greek is far worse, but we remembered old times and promised to meet upon my return. His voice was so lovely to hear, deep, smoker’s Greek, full of depth and character, taking me straight back to our first meetings, our many drunken nights, downing tequila slammers together, and the time I came back to Paros alone, telling him that John was here no longer.
Back at the restaurant we ate stuffed vine leaves, courgette fritters, fried Greek pancetta and crispy calamari and then lovely Jane arrived for farewell drinks and photographs, Ange taking a lovely black and white of us both laughing, me kissing the side of her head. As I walked her back to the cab rank to take her home, and us to pick up the car and the girls to get to the airport we said our farewells, with hugs and kisses and promises to return soon, see a movie together at Cine Rex, to photograph her copy of Johnny’s Lord of the Rings and maybe, just maybe, to create a little version of home on the island, a home away from home.
Sunday 15 July
Back home, there’s a stunning crescent new moon above the Chelsea rooftops this evening. It’s rare to see the moon so low in the West.
Six items I brought back from Paros:
A small, light blue ceramic head of Aphrodite on a little chalky plinth, a present from Pascale.
A heart-shaped chalky stone, reddish in colour, found by Paros on the beach at Aliki, ‘Papa, it can replace your broken one.’