by Sara Alexi
Stella nods; Spiros grins.
‘I think I might use one of these right now, though,’ Spiros says, pulling out a gold coin from between his fingers.
‘For what?’ Stella asks.
‘For new curtains for mama and some flowers to go all the way around the borders of her terrace and, if you will accept it, to take her home some chicken and chips with lemon sauce.’
‘It’s on the house, partner.’ Stella grins.
Chapter 9
Spiros arrives at Babis’s house a little late.
He has been with Ilias at the wood shop, learning how to use the tools that will be needed to make the internal cosmetic repairs on the boat. Ilias appreciates the same things in life as him, it seems: the smell of freshly cut wood, the wildlife around them. He even has a box of mice that he rescued from inside someone’s house when he was repairing the back of a built-in cupboard. They were so small, and Ilias let him feed them. In a few days, when they are stronger, Ilias will let them go.
Spiros dusts off the last traces of wood shavings as he nears Babis’s door.
‘Ah, Spiro, come in,’ Babis greets him.
Takis is already there, looking grumpy. Spiros has managed to avoid meeting Takis over the last two months, and it is strange to look him in his face. He seems more weathered, somehow, the lines between his brows deeper, his mouth harder-set, turned down at the corners. He does not look a happy man.
‘Right, so we are on the very last leg of probate and today the boat will be signed over to you, Spiro – if that is what you still want to do, Taki?’
‘I sure do! That boat is nothing but a pit to pour money down. In fact, if anything, I feel I should be compensated …’
‘Taki, can I stop you right there and suggest that we deal with what we are here for, please.’
Babis stands and places his hands on the table, leaning his weight into them, taking control of the room. Takis falls silent.
‘Right, so I need you to sign here and here.’ He pushes a single sheet of paper towards each of them. ‘Taki, your accountant will tell you that even though the transfer is immediate on completion of probate, you will have to include the boat in your tax return this year. It’s just a paper exercise.’
‘I have no doubt that my accountant will charge me for it, though,’ Takis grumbles as he signs where Babis has indicated.
‘Right, so there we have it. Taki, you are now officially relieved of the boat. Spiro, the boat is now all yours until …’ Babis gathers up the papers and starts to sift through a pile on the chair next to him.
There is a knock on the door and Stella pushes her way in.
‘Morning, boys,’ she greets them, her face shining expectantly.
‘Eh?’ Takis opens his mouth as if to ask something, his eyes swivelling from Stella to Spiros to Babis. But no words come out and his mouth hangs slightly open.
‘Ah, Stella, good timing. So, Spiro, if you sign this one’ – Babis pulls out another official document – ‘and Stella, this one.’
He pushes more papers across the table. Takis puts out his hand to receive his but Babis only frowns. When the papers are signed, Stella takes a brown paper bag from her pocket, opens it, and pulls from it a bundle of cash. She counts out piles of notes and puts them in front of Spiros.
‘What’s going on? Did you sell the boat? Are you pulling a fast one?’ Takis growls, his voice uncertain and quiet.
‘A sale, but not of all the boat. Oh, isn’t it exciting!’
Stella turns to Spiros all smiles and shining eyes. Spiros loves to see people look like that.
‘Isn’t what exciting?’ Takis says.
‘I’ve bought your half of the boat. Spiros and I reckon that will be enough to pay for the boat to be refurbished inside. We’re going to carry on where George left off.’
‘You bought my half? Then why are you giving the money to Spiros?’ Takis reaches out to take the money, but Babis’s hand beats him to it and lands flat on top of the pile.
‘You gave your half away, remember,’ Babis says in a cold, matter-of-fact voice.
‘Now just a minute!’
Takis is already shouting. But Babis, Spiros and Stella turn their gaze on him and lock him in a steady stare.
‘I mean, had I known … No one told me. Why was I not given the option …?’
His voice trails off to nothing and Spiros begins to gather up the cash, stuffing it into his pockets. Takis’s shoulders slump.
‘Well, like I said, it is a pit to pour money into, yours or hers. You’ll both go broke!’ Takis speaks the words, but they sound hollow.
Spiros feels he has got the hang of distinguishing when Takis is being defensive or aggressive, and right now he is like a wild animal reduced to snarling as it licks its wounds. Normally he would never in the world hurt a person, but for some reason, with Takis, this feels fair.
‘I don’t think we will lose money,’ Stella bubbles. ‘In fact, I think we will do quite well. We’ll be taking tourists from the hotel, a full boat every time. It’s going to be such fun.’
Stella looks into the distance as she talks, as if observing the future in her mind’s eye.
‘My kitchen will make packed lunches and I will deal with the port police,’ she adds, before breaking her stare and looking at Spiros, who is not sure whether to join in with Stella’s joy or be worried about Takis, whose countenance has darkened, his mouth, which was set in a tight line, now twitching. Takis hisses, a thin sound through clenched teeth.
‘I supplied George with a full boatload just about every day for the last six months he was working the boat,’ Stella explains.
‘He never said.’ Takis’s voice comes out in a whisper, and his face has gone very white. The tense muscles in his cheek are now growing slack and lifeless.
‘I don’t think he was – er, being correct with the paperwork.’ Spiros speaks equally quietly.
‘The sly dog!’ Takis mutters, and then, louder, ‘You sly dog!’ He turns on Spiros: ‘You cunning, vicious, nasty fox! Well, stuff you – and you as well’ – he turns on Stella, too, and kicks his chair back as he storms out of Babis’s house.
‘Sharks, the lot of you!’ he bellows, and he slams the door behind him.
Spiros did not see Takis leave the village. Some said he went to an aunt’s in the North, others that he took a holiday on Santorini and liked it so much he decided to stay. Nowadays Spiros rarely thinks about him. He is so busy – the captain of a yacht now. He got his skipper’s licence much more easily than he expected, but that was ages ago. He has been taking Stella’s guests out on the boat every day for the past two weeks and loving every minute of it.
This morning, he has received a postcard – his first communication from Takis. The picture is of a strange stone structure, perhaps a church of some kind, but not like any church Spiros has ever seen. He thanks Cosmo, who has come to his house specially to deliver it.
‘It’s from Takis,’ Cosmo comments. ‘From Thailand. It seems he has been there the past two weeks.’
The postman revs his little bike, and with a cheerful wave he bounces back towards the village centre.
Spiros turns the card over. Just the mention of Takis’s name causes the muscles around his eye to tense. He takes a deep breath to calm himself. He has a yacht and a job and he works with Stella now. Takis has no further hold over him. With this in mind, he begins to read.
Hello, old friend. Having a wonderful time. Everything is so cheap here I am living like a king. I hope that damn boat has not eaten all your money. You would have been better off coming out here with me.
He used to think he had a close friendship with Takis, but now wonders where his half of the money went, from all the jobs they did together. Takis may have been company, but he was not a friend. What about that time Takis got them a very shady job in which they were meant to frighten Babis the lawyer! True, that was ages ago, but it sticks in his memory. Takis pointed out the wrong man, and so instead o
f a lawyer they frightened a donkey man called Yanni from Orino Island. That was bad. That was very bad.
Spiros heads inside his house and puts the postcard on the mantelpiece, but he has no time to ponder over the card or the past now. The yacht and the tourists are waiting.
Another postcard arrives ten days later. It says pretty much the same things, but this time Takis mentions that despite the low cost of living, his money does not seem to be lasting. But he goes on to dismiss this as unimportant compared to the fun he is having. Spiros puts this new card next to the first on the mantelpiece.
Over the following weeks, five more cards arrive, each encouraging Spiros to come and join him – and then a sixth announces that he is coming home.
Just for a second, Spiros worries how he will react to this. Will he feel pressured to be the Spiros he has always been for Takis, or is he his own man now? Spiros lines all the cards up evenly on his mantelpiece. The pictures are colourful: beach scenes, smiling people, monkeys and temples. They seem to match how life feels for him. Every day is like a holiday, with a new group of people on board his yacht addressing him with respect. And every day he gets to sail, feel the wind in his short hair, which Athena now cuts regularly. His body has grown strong, too, with pulling the ropes and swimming every day, and he doesn’t have to think about lunch, which Stella’s kitchen always provides. Most evenings Stella will offer him food, either in the hotel restaurant or chicken and chips at her eatery. And his mama is so proud of him too.
‘I never imagined you to be such a man,’ she says, her voice cracking with pride, when he delivers to her food or a freshly caught fish.
A few days later, he has forgotten all about the cards, which he gave away to one of the village children to use in a school project.
The day has been unremarkable: the wind light, the sea calm, the tourists happy. A pod of dolphins joined them briefly, to the tourists’ delight. Spiros looks towards the shore. A black figure stands upright on the end of the pier. The figure appears to have his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
Spiros assigns to one of his group of ten tourists the task of lowering the anchor as he swings the boat around to go in stern first. He directs the other ‘crew members’ to put the fenders over the side. Pulling his black captain’s hat more fully down over his eyes against the glare, he steers the boat with ease. He has done this so many times now he could almost do it with his eyes shut. The man is still there, standing quite still now.
‘Drop the anchor,’ Spiros calls to the tourist at the bows and he hears the clanking of the chain against the roller as it is lowered.
‘Two people, please, one to jump on shore with that rope and one with this,’ Spiros says, and two of the company hurry to oblige.
They draw closer to the jetty, and as they do Spiros finally recognises Takis. He has grown thinner during his time away, and his hair is longer. He strolls along the jetty and holds out a hand, waiting for a mooring rope to be thrown. He ties it loosely to a wooden upright on the jetty and Spiros shows the thrower how to use the winch to take in the slack.
Takis waits, hands in pockets, as the tourists stream off past Spiros, smelling of sun cream and sea, each one thanking him and shaking his hand.
‘So, I see you have the boat in proper working order,’ Takis says finally, his hands still in his pockets.
‘Been working her for two months now.’ Spiros smiles. It’s the second of the month, which makes today his two-month anniversary.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that. So you won’t mind treating your old pal to a chicken dinner, then,’ Takis says. It is not a question.
‘Don’t you have any money?’ Spiros asks, checking each winch and closing up the hatch.
‘I had the craziest time, Spiro. You should have come. I found I had a skill in gambling … Well, perhaps not so much a skill as a bit of an addiction, really … But no worries, life is sweet – easy come, easy go. So how about that chicken dinner, then?’ There is a touch of desperation in his voice.
‘There’s something I need to do, but you go ahead, I’ll catch you up,’ Spiros says, and after a brief hesitation Takis leaves.
Spiros watches him go. He had expected that seeing Takis again would bring up a little fear in him, or at least the pull of a long-term friendship, but he feels nothing, not even compassion. He snorts his surprise at feeling so little, and he gathers up the food containers that he returns each day to the hotel kitchen to be filled again for the following day.
He is about to leave the boat when he stops and puts everything down. He opens the hatch again and goes down into the cabin, which he uses on the occasions when he sleeps on board. He slips his hand under the mattress and retrieves the tube of sovereigns, noting his name still scribbled down the side as he turns it around in his fingers. Then he opens the cupboard under the sink, removes the panel at the back and tucks the sovereigns deep down behind the lower shelf. Once lodged there, the tube is invisible even if you put your whole head in the cupboard, and to the hand it feels like a piece of pipe. Spiros replaces the panel and the pots and pans and shuts the cupboard door.
‘I think you picked the best place on the boat to hide something, so this can be our secret, eh, George?’ He looks up; he is speaking to a place beyond his sight.
He stands silent for a moment, focusing on George, on how lucky he is to be in business with Stella, to have the boat at all. Then he climbs into the cockpit, closes the hatch and surveys the beach, the dark of the orange groves beyond, the bright lights of the hotel to his left.
An owl hoots. Two calls – hoo, hoo – the second wavering to its end.
Takis will be waiting for him. It gives him no cause for concern; he might not even go to Stella’s eatery tonight, he hasn’t decided yet.
Hoo, hoo. The owl calls again as Spiros steps off the boat. Perhaps Stella can give Takis a job in the kitchens. Or maybe she can give him work keeping the grounds. The dimos are also hiring, he has heard.
‘Whichever way you look at it, Takis is not my problem,’ Spiros says to himself as he sets off towards the hotel. ‘The only people I have to look after are my mama and myself.’
Hoo, hoo, the owl calls again, and Spiros stops walking to try to spot the caller in amongst the trees. ‘My mama and myself,’ he repeats to himself.
‘Who, who?’ his feathered friend repeats, and it becomes a question.
‘Myself!’ Spiros replies as he spots the bird on a low branch. ‘Captain Spiros.’ He touches the peak of his black captain’s hat to salute the bird. ‘Captain Spiros at your service!’ he giggles.
‘You, you!’ the owl calls, and Spiros, with a nod of agreement, turns from the darkening evening into the bright foyer of the hotel, where Stella and Apollonia wait to greet him.
The boatyard owner let him have the dog, said he didn’t have the time to look after her, and she was a poor guard dog anyway. Apollonia’s haunches wiggle in excitement at the sight of him, but she tries to remain seated, and her tail whacks the floor. She tries ever so hard, but her excitement is too much and she suddenly stands and runs full pelt at him, jumping up to eagerly lick away the salt the sea spray has left on Spiros’s face.
Also by Sara Alexi
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