Plain Sailing

by Sara Alexi

  ‘Oh, okay, I see – yes, that makes sense.’

  Spiros frowns slightly. He is still thinking about what Aleko has just been saying. He thinks he understands it all, but then he often thinks that and finds out he is mistaken. But time is ticking and he must find Takis, convince him to part with his half of the money for the truck driver, and then meet the truck driver.

  As luck would have it, Takis is sitting in Theo’s.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’ he grumbles as Spiros approaches.

  ‘The truck man is coming here at ten and he wants his money.’ Spiros’s smile fades.

  Takis makes as if to stand. Is he going home – to hide, perhaps?

  ‘Wait.’ Spiros grabs Takis’s arm.

  ‘We have nowhere to put the boat, so I have nothing to say to the truck man,’ Takis explains. He does not sound angry, or sad, even. His voice is just flat.

  ‘Listen,’ Spiros says, ‘we must put a new engine in her, right? And we must do the electrics so we can put her in the harbour. So Aleko has agreed to do both jobs, and he says we can put her on his land.’

  Takis looks blank for a second, but slowly the life returns to his face.

  ‘That’s brilliant!’ He smiles now. ‘And then we can put off fixing the engine and the electrics until we find someone to buy her as she is! You’re not as dumb as you look, Spiro!’ He pulls his arm free of Spiros’s grip to pat him on the shoulder.

  ‘Er, no, we should put the engine in and do the electrics,’ Spiros counters.

  ‘Why? Why on earth would I throw more money into the damn boat?’ Takis scowls.

  ‘What can I get you, Spiro? Milkshake?’ Theo greets him warmly and Takis falls silent.

  ‘Hi, Theo. Er, thank you, I’m not sure if I’m staying – later, maybe,’ Spiros replies.

  ‘Always here for you, Spiro.’

  Theo looks at Takis, who is still standing, and looking like he is about to leave.

  ‘That will be a euro, please, Taki.’ Theo picks up the empty cup and Takis fumbles in his pocket, then throws a coin on the table without a word. Theo takes the money and the cup and stalks off back to his counter.

  ‘Right,’ says Takis. ‘Let’s go and get the truck driver’s money and get this over with. It’s a small price to pay. Once the boat is at Aleko’s I can draw a line under this whole thing.’

  Spiros wonders if this is the moment to say what Aleko had suggested, about probate and talking to the lawyers, handing the boat over; but he cannot remember exactly how to phrase it, and in his confusion he stammers, and no words come out. Takis gives him a derisive look and stamps off to the door of the kafenio, leaving Spiros to follow in his wake. Spiros is not sure if Takis has agreed to put the engine in or not, but he feels as if he has not. The whole subject is making him feel slightly sick.

  Ten minutes later, back in the kafenio, they have not exchanged a word. The truck driver is waiting on the steps with a face like thunder.

  ‘Give me your money,’ Spiros says to Takis. ‘I’ll deal with him.’

  ‘You?’ Takis scoffs.

  ‘Me,’ Spiros answers, and to his surprise Takis does as he has asked.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ Spiros approaches the truck driver, holding out the money and smiling. It seems like the best way to avoid an argument. They have tricked the truck driver and used his truck for three days now, and he would be quite right to be angry. Maybe other people had booked it – how would the truck driver deal with that? He would have to cancel his other jobs. What if his other jobs were important? Whichever way Spiros looks at it, the situation is not fair.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, loud enough for the truck driver to hear but soft enough that Takis, who is hanging back, can’t. He takes a little extra money from his pocket and offers it. He understands that this sort of thing helps when people feel they have been wronged.

  The truck driver looks at him and then over to Takis before he takes the extra money, puts it with the rest and quickly flicks through the bundle of notes with a finger and thumb. Finally, he rolls the notes up into a little bundle and pockets it.

  ‘Now, where are we going to put her?’ he asks, the scowl on his face softening a little.

  Aleko moves all the parked cars out of the yard, and they take down his wife’s washing line, but it’s still a tight fit getting the yacht into the small space. They have to call the crane driver to lift the boat off the back of the lorry, and Takis grumbles about the cost, but finally George’s pride and joy is resting on her keel next to Aleko’s house, with a series of thick posts and railway sleepers supporting her on either side.

  Aleko put his hands on his hips to admire their work. Spiros notes that the deck is about level with the roof of Aleko’s house. The yacht looks enormous in the small space, with little village houses on either side. Takis looks as if he has had enough, and he turns to leave without a word.

  ‘She’s a good-looking boat,’ Aleko calls out. ‘And you are now the proud owner, I hear, Taki?’

  ‘Me?’ Takis replies.

  ‘Yes, didn’t you say, Spiro, that you are going to sign her over to Takis the moment probate is through?’

  Spiros looks at the ground and rubs a hole in the dust with his toe.

  ‘What?’ Takis glares at Spiros, who decides that now might be a good time to leaf through the air-conditioning manual on the table under the lemon tree.

  ‘A nice gesture, and I can understand his thinking,’ Aleko says lightly.

  ‘So can I!’ Takis barks.

  ‘Of course, it would be a responsibility for you,’ Aleko continues, ‘and something of a chore to deal with the engine and the electrics all by yourself ….’

  Spiros glances over at them. He can see the whites of Takis’s eyes all around the coloured bits. His mouth hangs open and he waits, expecting Takis to explode with anger. But the moment passes; Takis’s eyes are still wide but his mouth is shut. His brow creases as it does when he is thinking. Finally, he speaks.

  ‘You’d better get on with it then!’ he snaps.

  ‘Oh, okay,’ Aleko says, as if taken a little by surprise, but nonetheless happy with the idea. ‘I’ll need a down payment for the engine, though. Two and a half thousand from each of you. As soon as I have that I can place the order.’

  Takis neither speaks nor moves for what seems like ages to Spiros, who begins to wonder if he has changed his mind. Aleko starts organising his tools, whistling a jolly tune as he does so.

  A car pulls up outside the yard and the driver beeps for the mechanic’s attention, and this seems to break Takis out of his frozen state. Aleko leans in at the window, listening to the driver’s complaint about the rattling sound his car is making. Aleko replies and seems to say enough to reassure the man, who drives off smiling. At this point, Takis walks away without a further word.

  ‘Soon as you like with that down payment,’ Aleko calls after him. Aleko watches him turn the corner into the square and chuckles.

  ‘Well, that went well!’ he says to Spiros.

  ‘Was he very angry?’ Spiros asks. Sometimes he is not sure, and he has never seen Takis behave like that before.

  ‘Things are going the way things need to go, I should say. He’ll calm down. Once the work is done you can always say you’ve changed your mind about signing it over to him.’

  ‘Meanwhile he is very cross with me.’ Spiros’s mouth feels dry.

  ‘Is that so unusual? And like I said, he will get over it.’

  Takis is true to his word and brings the money for the engine later that day, but it takes a week for it to arrive from Athens, all boxed up in a big wooden crate, on the back of a truck. During this time Spiros spends very little time at home. He leaves at dawn and returns after dark, checking in on his mama mid-afternoon when she retreats indoors and turns her air-conditioning unit on full. He knows Takis will be sleeping at these times.

  His days are spent at Aleko’s yard, helping him take the old engine out of the boat. He learns a
lot and he is delighted with how much he seems to remember of what is explained to him. By the end of the week he can pass Aleko the tools he needs without getting them mixed up, and he understands a little about the engine, which Aleko is happy to explain to him.

  ‘How do you understand it all?’ Spiros asks.

  ‘It’s easy. You see that tube? That’s for the cooling system. Look, the water comes in through this tube, goes round there through that pump and out again through the exhaust. Simple, yes? It’s the same with each part of the engine. Each system is contained and simple.’

  Aleko responds to his questions as if they are valid and interesting, and he takes the time to explain, speaking to him as if he is an equal. Spiros feels he gets it, as least in general terms.

  The actual lifting out of the engine is a little scary: the thing is so heavy. But Aleko’s confidence is infectious. Between them they rig up a block and tackle from the boom, and together they winch the engine up through the hatch until it is suspended above the deck: a rusty-looking lump of iron. Aleko peers at it for a while, then swings the boom out so the engine is slung out, dangling in mid-air over the side of the boat. Then, using the block and tackle again, they lower it onto a waiting pallet on the ground.

  ‘There!’ Spiros says with such excitement bubbling in his stomach that he hops from foot to foot.

  ‘Good job,’ Aleko replies.

  The evening has drawn around them by this point and Aleko’s wife comes out with a tray on which there is a plate of spinach and feta pies, a beer for Aleko and a home-made lemonade for Spiros.

  ‘Can we have it in the cockpit?’ Spiros asks, looking up at the boat.

  ‘What?’ Aleko chuckles.

  ‘That’s a nice idea,’ Athena says, laughing and shaking her head, and together they clamber up the ladder again to sit level with the roof of the house, looking out over the tops of the olive trees that surround the back of the house. In the distance the sea glows in the sun’s dying rays.

  ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ Spiros says.

  ‘The view?’ Aleko asks, taking a long drink of beer.

  ‘No, what you do. I was afraid of that engine before today. I thought it would eat my fingers. Now I understand it – the tubes, what happens inside. Lifting it out has made me feel’ – he pauses to think – ‘… satisfied. It is much better working here than sitting in a café in Saros all day long!’

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, Spiros leaps out of bed before the sky has even started to lighten, and he dresses hurriedly – not because he wants to avoid Takis, although he would rather avoid him if possible, but because he cannot wait to get to Aleko’s yard to work on the boat. The new engine should be here today, and that means more winching, finding the right tools for Aleko and learning new skills.

  He arrives so early at the yard that the shutters are still closed and the house is silent, but he doesn’t mind. Feeling it might be impolite to make himself at home on someone else’s property, he waits on the road, shuffling from foot to foot.

  The morning light slowly creeps into the sky, and a cockerel announces the arrival of a new day. Then the dogs stir and start their chorus, which echoes around the village, and finally the cicadas, which were silent only briefly, when the temperature fell just before dawn, start up their rasping again. Spiros wonders if their song has a meaning to it: words that convey some message.

  He is contemplating this when the dull clunking of goat bells is added to the morning’s symphony, and he looks down the road in the direction of the square to see the animals coming up towards him. They are packed tightly together, a patchy mass of brown, black and white that seems to flow up the road as one body. Spiros watches them pass, noting that some stop to munch on the weeds by the side of the road, then become spooked and rush off to join the pack again, whilst others plod steadily on, keeping pace with the herd. The music of their bells is a delight to his ears, and he stretches his arms up, yawning and easing out the tension in the morning sunshine.

  ‘Morning!’ It is Mitsos, who is following some way behind the herd of goats. ‘I haven’t seen you around for a while – where have you been hiding?’

  He stops to lean on his shepherd’s crook. The animals continue on their way, disappearing around a corner a little way up the road.

  Spiros points to the boat. ‘The new engine arrives today,’ he says, unable to conceal his excitement, and he feels his stomach turn over with the anticipation.

  ‘Ah! George would be so pleased.’ Mitsos looks up at the boat, scratches his chin.

  Spiros fondles the tube of mints in his pocket. He wonders if he will ever eat them now; there’s something comforting about having them in his pocket.

  ‘Stella’s guests loved going out with him on the yacht.’ Mitsos’s eyes go a little bit glassy as he says his wife’s name, his love evident. Spiros wonders if his own eyes go like that when he talks about his mama, or about animals. He feels they might.

  ‘Well, I’d better catch the goats up before they get into someone’s vegetable garden. Let me know if you have time to take them out yourself one of these days.’

  He smiles and nods, and ambles away in no great hurry.

  The shutters of Aleko’s house are flung open with a bang, and Aleko himself, in a clean pair of overalls, comes stretching and yawning, out into the yard. His wife follows with a tiny cup of coffee, which the mechanic accepts with a smile. He gives her a peck on the lips and she returns inside. Spiros presses down his fringe, which is not lying flat, as usual.

  Aleko sips his coffee; he doesn’t notice Spiros at first, but when he does he calls out, ‘Hey, what are you doing out there? You want coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Spiros answers the second part of the question but he doesn’t know what to say to the first part so he ignores it.

  ‘So, today’s the day, eh?’ Aleko sounds as excited as Spiros feels.

  Aleko finishes his coffee and says he might as well start on the electrics, and that it might be hours before the engine arrives. This makes Spiros feel a little foolish for having leapt out of bed so early, and he wonders what he will do. Aleko suggests he might use his time tidying the yard, and Spiros embraces the job, which takes his mind off thinking about the engine.

  He enjoys laying the tools out neatly, so they can be got at easily as they are required, and he takes satisfaction in organising the rest of the yard; tyres are stacked in one corner, wooden boards in another, and soon the place looks neat and tidy. There is still no sign of the engine, though, so he climbs the ladder and descends the steps into the boat, where Aleko has removed the cover from the electrical panel above the chart table and is muttering to himself, poking a screwdriver into the mass of wires that are now exposed.

  ‘White to white first, or red to red …’ he mutters. He has a manual in front of him, the bottom corners worn dark with oily fingermarks.

  Spiros is opening his mouth to ask what he should do next when suddenly sparks fly from inside the electrical panel where Aleko has poked his screwdriver, and the mechanic swears heartily. Spiros judges it wise to retreat.

  Up on deck he stretches his arms up above his head and looks out at the view, which might just be the best in the village. From here he can see over the fluffy tops of the trees, over the tops of the houses, their roofs a patchwork of terracotta tiles burnt by the sun to a myriad of hues. He walks up to the bow of the boat and peers down the lane for a sign of the truck that is bringing the engine, but the road is empty.

  By his feet is the anchor windlass – the big metal winch that lifts the anchor up and down when you press the red button on the control box. The windlass is a solid-looking lump of metal that was clean and shiny before the boat was sunk in the harbour but which is now covered in a kind of crusty white deposit that looks like salt. It does not respond to the red button. Squatting, Spiros examines it. Machinery in general seems intimidating, but he takes his time to sit comfortably and just look at the windlass. There is a rolle
r on either side of the main block, and the anchor chain runs over one of these rollers. There are grooves in it, like teeth, to engage with the links of the chain so it doesn’t slip. Clearly, in order to get it working again, if that is possible, someone will have to take it apart, clean every last bit and reassemble it. Aleko will probably do this. There’s a screw in the centre of one of the rollers, and Spiros fetches a screwdriver and tries to undo it. He may as well make a start taking it apart and save Aleko a job. The screw is very tight, and even with all his strength he cannot move it, so he borrows a can of something he has seen Aleko use to loosen tight screws, sprays it liberally and waits a few moments for it to work. When he tries again the screw is still tight, but it does turn, and soon he has the first part of the windlass off. He inspects the inside of it and finds that this too is corroded and covered in the salty deposit. It will need cleaning, perhaps with wire wool, and maybe oiling.

  Slowly and methodically Spiros removes the parts of the windlass. Piece by piece, he takes it apart and cleans each bit in turn with a little bit of wire wool, and then he oils each piece and lays them out in a line across the deck, so he can remember the order in which they all fitted together. He is surprised and a little disappointed when no more parts will come off, so he sets about cleaning the large body of the winch that is bolted to the deck, taking delight in getting it to shine again. He lies on his stomach to do this and it makes him feel like a real mechanic.

  When all the parts are cleaned and oiled, he slowly starts to reassemble the whole thing, putting each piece back in reverse order. He is just about to screw the last part on when a pair of feet appear beside him.

  ‘Lost in your work, eh?’ Aleko laughs. ‘Didn’t you hear the truck?’

  Spiros looks up to see the truck parked on the opposite side of the road.

  ‘It’s here?’ he shouts excitedly, and he jumps up, heading towards the ladder to hurry down.