Being Enough

by Sara Alexi

  She is a yiayia!

  Her chest seems to feel it first: a sort of bubbling, rippling feeling. It quivers in her throat, making her giggle. The feeling surges up and out. It explodes in one syllable. ‘Ha!’ There is no suppressing the extraordinary feeling. She is a yiayia! How suddenly and totally it changes her perspectives. Her existence has meaning. No, not meaning – justification … No, wrong again, it is continuity. She cannot find the word, but nor does she care. She giggles out loud now, all nervousness gone. Visions of white-haired old ladies, sitting on park benches, holding babies, spin through her mind, but they distort, they become younger, lose their grey hair, stand and skip, and the babies smile. She is on her feet, coffee forgotten.

  ‘Where are they?’ She turns one way and then the other, ready to march immediately, her bad leg forgotten. ‘And why are they here?’

  Christos stands in a more leisurely fashion. Taking a second to look at him, she can see that he is tired, as well as excited. His familiar face is such a welcome sight, all his faults forgotten. She releases the ridiculous ideas that he was here to meet an old love. He is here as a proud baba and even prouder papous!

  ‘Just a holiday, then the baby decided to come.’ He yawns and stretches, hands to the ceiling.

  The relief comes in a wave, like water flowing across her brain, cooling, restoring. Her breathing grows deeper, easier, and the tension that she did not know she was holding in her neck untwists, the hint of a headache that she has had since leaving Orino now gone. All her fears for her future are erased. She sees herself and Christos in the future, white-haired, wrinkly-faced, still holding hands. Her Christos.

  ‘Come.’ He throws an easy arm around her shoulder and turns towards the corridor. ‘Oh, you are limping, what have you done?’ He stops immediately.

  ‘Oh, it is nothing, a burn from a bike exhaust.’

  ‘A bike exhaust? You, on a motorbike? But you don’t drive?’

  Rallou blinks several times and wets her lips. Hobbling back to her coffee she uses the dregs to down the painkillers.

  ‘I think we have much to say to each other,’ she says, ‘but first I must see my grandchild.’

  Christos first frowns and then raises his eyebrows, obviously confused. He wears his innocent, slightly lost expression.

  ‘Just to be sure,’ she asks cautiously, ‘you are only here for Natasa and the baby, right?’ It is ridiculous, but she just needs absolute confirmation that the whole thing has been in her head. If he has no idea what she is talking about she will brush it off, make a joke of it, deflect the conversation, but she just needs to be absolutely sure that this has all been created by her imagination.

  His immediate response is to laugh. At first it is genuine, as if she has made a joke, and then less so, with an edge of confusion.

  ‘I don’t understand. You got the message, right?’ There is the slightest pause. ‘Of course you did! How else would you have known to come here?’ There is a sudden levity to his voice, as if he has forgotten her question. ‘Which did you get first?’ He sounds excited now. ‘I told Yanni, and I left a note on the kitchen table …’ He is grinning again, supporting her more firmly than her hurt leg actually requires as he starts to lead her back to the corridor.

  She stops again.

  ‘Oh, Christo, you haven’t seen the news?’ she asks. There must be televisions in the hospital, and people would have talked about it. He would have heard, surely? The shock of their loss hits her all over again. The photographs of the children when they were young, instead of hanging proudly on their wall, are buried under roof tiles and wreckage, the details of their life in fragments under crumbled remains. All material evidence of their years together is destroyed.

  ‘I have done nothing but talk to Anikitos since I arrived. The doctors were in with Natasa.’ His eyes leave her face and he looks to the floor and shakes his head slowly. ‘I feel I have done nothing but worry and talk, worry and talk.’ He speaks dismissively of what must have been an anxious time.

  Rallou knows that when he says ‘worry and talk’, it will have been Anikitos doing the talking. Christos will have listened – worried and listened. He needs to listen again right now, this time to her, but instead he continues, ‘He was so worried for her and their baby. He was so desperately trying not to cry, and I wanted to say to him, “Cry, feel how you feel.” But I felt it best to stay silent. The doctors, they did not seem too worried. So I said to Anikitos–’

  ‘Christo, there has been a bad earthquake on the island.’ She is prepared for him to stop walking but even so he halts more abruptly than she reckoned on and she almost trips over her own feet. The bandage on her bad leg scuffs against her right calf, chafing the burn underneath, making her wince.

  For a moment he says nothing, and a dozen expressions flit across his face. His eyes grow dark and then become light again, his breathing quickens and then slows. He is regaining control.

  ‘Your baba, he is all right?’ The anxiety in his voice makes it slightly higher-pitched than normal.

  ‘Yes, Korifi is fine but the town …’

  ‘The house!’ His eyes widen.

  Rallou doesn’t want to tell him. She pulls a face, grimacing and closing her eyes. She can feel tears coming again.

  ‘How bad?’ he asks softly.

  ‘Gone,’ she says, and waits for his reaction, his realisation that all his past efforts have gone to waste, of the future building work he will have to do, of their life together laid flat. But none of this comes. His arms are around her, he is holding her so tightly.

  ‘My poor Rallou, you must have been so scared. Oh, my little one, and I was not there for you.’ He gathers her in his arms and holds her as if he is frightened of losing her, as if she will disappear into a cloud of earthquake dust.

  Rallou suddenly lets go, just lets go of absolutely everything: her crazy ideas that he is chasing a young love, worries about the house and their future, passing thoughts such as where they will sleep tonight. Every single thought is allowed to drift, melt into nothing. There is just him and her, and right now she feels the need to be very small, to be embraced completely, to hold him tightly in return and know that she is safe. She has him, they have each other. Whatever she thought was going on was inside her head. He has not gone, he does not think the marriage is over. She holds him even more tightly, her tears wetting his T-shirt. It is a blue one, faded on the shoulders, bleached by the sun. This is not a good time to remind him that this is now the only T-shirt, the only piece of clothing, he now owns.

  She buries her face deeper, into the familiar warm, sensual, earthy smells of her Christos.

  ‘So,’ Christos mutters back into her hair, as if the words are his declaration of love. ‘We start again. A new house.’ There is a throaty chuckle to his voice that does not fit the severity of their position. He pulls her from his chest and gives her a strong, reassuring smile. ‘But for now, my little Rallou, we are far away from the island.’ He exhales. ‘Although’ – now he pauses as if to make it more dramatic – ‘we are very close to where our first grandchild is sleeping!’ He grins.

  Their first grandchild.

  Her Natasa is a mama!

  The delicious feeling soaks in a little more: she is a yiayia! A new baby! Her breathing stops. Before taking another step she makes a solemn vow to herself that she will never tell Natasa what to do or how to bring up her child. This feels important, very important. A frown flits across her brow and then it is forgotten. She is a yiayia and she breathes deeply and smiles widely.

  Pulling out of his arms, she tries to contain her excitement. The news of the quake will be a shock for him, and it will take time for him to absorb the impact on their lives; he won’t fully realise the extent of the devastation until he stands in front of the pile of dust that was once their home. All that is to come, and must be faced – but right now she must see her granddaughter.

  ‘Can I see them?’ she asks. The need to be small has passed. Christos seems
lost in some faraway thoughts and it takes him a moment to bring himself back to the present.

  ‘Yes.Yes. Come.’ But his pace is not too quick. ‘Arapitsa is fine, right?’ he says.

  ‘I haven’t seen her. I thought she would be with you.’

  ‘But you know where she is? I told you in the note. I told Yanni to tell you she was with him?’ He is half laughing, but there is fear in his voice.

  ‘I wasn’t in the house before the quake,’ says Rallou. ‘I stayed with Baba.’

  ‘I guess if Korifi is fine, then Yanni’s house on the ridge is fine. I cannot believe he forgot to tell you he had Arapitsa.’ He shakes his head.

  ‘I haven’t seen Yanni. He left the island.’

  Christos stops walking and laughs, throwing his head back.

  ‘Yanni leave the island? That will be the day!’

  ‘No, he has. He’s gone to buy a donkey,’ Rallou says, smiling at his response as she turns her back to the windows. They have hardly left the cafe area yet and the sun from the windows is right in her eyes. She should have told someone about Dolly.

  ‘Really?’ Christos sounds incredulous. He puts his hands in his front pocket. ‘So if you did not see the note’ – he looks away from her for a moment, concern in his eyes, most likely thinking about the house that no longer stands – ‘and if Yanni didn’t tell you, how did you know to come?’ Now he looks her in the eye.

  Chapter 27

  ‘I thought you had a girlfriend and I was stalking you.’ Well, that is one answer she could give him …

  ‘I thought you had walked out on me so I was off to explore the world.’ That would be slightly less true, but not entirely false.

  ‘I had a fantasy that you were running off with a girl you knew for a week when you were twenty-four, so, with no home left after the earthquake, I jumped on a bus, fell asleep, woke up in Patra, got given a ticket to come here as a gift from two people who just got engaged to be married, shared a cabin with a woman who knows your second cousin, and who introduced me to a boy who is less than half my age, and we drove about on a motorbike until I burnt my leg, so that brought me to the hospital to get it treated, and the long and the short of it is I met you by accident!’ This last version is truthful – and completely unbelievable. Isn’t it? Maybe she could pretend to be dizzy again, deflect the question. No, enough of that. Think smart.

  ‘Oh, Christo.’ She links his arms and faces down the corridor again. ‘I will tell you all about it later, but’ – here, she quotes the ticket seller in Patra – ‘what it boils down to is that life offers you what you need when it has set a path for you. Now, let’s go see our girls!’

  ‘Very mysterious, but that is my Rallou.’ He smiles and pulls her closer as he takes the lead.

  They spend a few hours with Natasa and the baby, but when the darkness under Natasa’s eyes grows deeper Rallou knows it is time to give both Mama and her little moro a break. Anikitos is already asleep in a chair. Christos, on the other hand, gives the impression that all his fatigue is forgotten.

  The cafe Christos takes her to is in a building that is four storeys tall, with an impressive covered walkway along the length of the building on the ground floor, with stone arches facing the street. Chairs and tables are packed into this shaded area. Each arch has its own awning that is pulled down so the sun can only touch the shoes of those on the outermost tables. There is a dull hum of casual chatter, children laughing and white-shirted waiters deftly carrying trays over the customers’ heads. She is a little taken aback by the crispness of the male customers’ shirts, the cufflinks and the mother-of-pearl buttons, the tailored look of the women, with their smooth hair and painted nails. Not even the wealthier visitors to the kafenio she briefly worked in in Athens made as much effort. Perhaps it is the Italian influence. She looks down at her own faded clothes, the worn and bobbled threads on her skirt. Finding that every table is full, she is inclined to back away, but Christos is insistent.

  ‘You cannot come to Corfu and not drink a coffee on Liston Square!’ he whispers to her, and just at that moment a man at a nearby table folds his papers, puts some coins on his saucer and indicates that they can sit if they wish. The colour of his leather belt matches that of his shoes and he wears a gold-and-black onyx ring on his little finger.

  Christos sits and Rallou pulls out her own chair and takes up the menu.

  ‘It’s a bit pricey,’ she whispers, leaning forward and using the menu to hide her face from the passing waiter.

  ‘Ah, but today we celebrate being grandparents.’

  ‘She was so beautiful, wasn’t she!’ Rallou is transported back to Natasa’s room. Natasa herself looked tired, and Anikitos seemed relieved. The little baby could have been Natasa herself when she was born, with her little turned-up nose and the creases between the eyes: so perfect.

  A group of elderly men, wearing fine tweed jackets despite the heat, sit at the next table. In Saros they would be farmers, or shopowners. Here, who knows? One of them catches her looking and winks. Rallou grins back at him.

  ‘Today I am a yiayia,’ she says. Nothing will spoil her joy.

  ‘Na sas zisei,’ the man replies with a nod and she turns back to Christos, who is grinning like an idiot.

  They drink their coffee and reminisce about the births of each of their own children. The youngest, so clever to be at a foreign university on a scholarship, was born at home, with only Christos there to help. He takes her hand now and kisses her knuckles. When the coffee grinds sitting at the bottom of their empty cups have gone cold, they leave and wander for a while around Corfu town. They spend twenty minutes watching a man making a portrait of a tourist who sits self-consciously, before wandering on, with no speed to their movement. As they pass a hotel, a girl asks if they have anywhere to stay. Rallou has the impression that Christos spent the night in the hospital; for tonight there is always Toula, or even Anthea if they have enough money, but right now she is not ready to think about the practicalities of life. The enthusiastic girl pushes a map of Corfu town into her hand and says that when they get lost they should remember the hotel is marked by a big cross, and that she will be happy to see them again.

  Christos takes the map and his pace picks up momentum.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Rallou asks, but Christos doesn’t say. They walk along the water’s edge until they enter a park that follows the curve of the coast, where they can walk in the shade of the trees. When the trees end and a fairly main road begins Rallou pulls back.

  ‘Where are we going? I am exhausted,’ she pleads.

  ‘No, we must go on, I have somewhere I want to take you!’ Christos insists, and soon the main road becomes a minor road. As they walk, they talk of their courtship. He is holding her hand like they are young again. Their surroundings go unnoticed, so wrapped up is she in all they are saying, in every movement Christos makes.

  ‘You know something, Christo?’ Rallou feels a thought forming and she wants to share it, but then she realises that if she does she will have to tell him about her hunt for him on the back of Ilias’s bike. But it feels important, and maybe she can tell him a half truth.

  ‘I met a friend of yours on the boat. Well, not exactly a friend, but someone who lives in Theo’s village.’

  ‘Cousin Theo?’ Christos smiles as he speaks. His pace is slowing and it feels like they have no direction. She nods.

  ‘Well, when I got to Corfu a friend of hers offered me a roundabout lift here.’ Well, it is sort of true. ‘We went first to one place and then another and I felt like I was taken around half the island. I mean I wasn’t, we were mostly in Corfu town or just on the outskirts, but – and this is the point – I think I gave away any decision-making to whoever would do it for me, or who I thought should do it for me.’

  Christos is smiling down at her and he squeezes her hand.

  ‘I am serious. I think, actually, when I think about it, I gave up the decision-making after meeting Toula.’ This is also true, but the wh
ole truth would be that she gave up her decision-making to the ticket man in Patra, or even when she got on the bus on the mainland, or perhaps even when she told the first lie to Vasillis, and Eleftheria presumed she was going to Corfu to join Christos. The point is that at some point she passed the decision-making somewhere else. She did not take control and then, as if the world was designed to please her, she expected a happy outcome. How crazy was that! Christos clears his throat.

  ‘I think it was just easier to say yes to whatever was happening rather than actually making a decision.’

  ‘I sort of understand. But we all say yes if it fits in with our plans, don’t we?’ Christos asks.

  ‘Maybe, but I am just having a little wonder.’ She is actually thinking about her hesitation over boarding the boat at Patra, dithering, whilst Christos had already made the decision and gone. ‘I am wondering if, right back when we got married, I didn’t just sort of – well, presume that you would make all the major decisions. You know, form our lives. And then when things didn’t go as I thought they would I blamed you.’ It feels hard to say.

  Christos stops walking.

  Chapter 28

  ‘And how did you think our lives would go?’ Christos is not smiling now.

  Rallou swallows.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she stumbles. How did she think their life could have gone? More travel, maybe, but then perhaps that was never realistic with the first child coming so quickly. For all the world she would not have left the children whilst they were growing, so when exactly did she think this travelling would take place? They are still walking, towards the sea, which glistens and sparkles at the end of the lane below a cloudless sky. In the far distance is a dot that draws nearer. With it comes a hum, that becomes a rumble, and soon the lights on the wings of the plane are visible. As they reach the lane’s end the aircraft appears to be heading straight for them, and the high-pitched roar changes tone as it passes low over the ground just to their left. There is no point in talking; the noise would drown out all conversation. After it has disappeared from view Rallou is left looking in the direction it went.