The Art of Becoming Homeless

by Sara Alexi

  Dino gazes at her intensely.

  ‘We sat and had dinner. I had a lump in my throat and could hardly swallow. Mum kept asking me why I was so quiet. When it was finished and all washed and put away, and Pen had gone off to our room, he said to me, like he had just remembered, “Oh, didn’t you have something to tell me? Sorry for earlier. Penny felt quite unwell. Let’s go settle ourselves in the sitting room.” But I had just seen Penny helping herself to seconds of pudding and I knew she couldn’t be that unwell. I looked at Dad and he looked at me with love, but he also looked afraid, ashamed, guilty. I didn’t understand. But the outcome was clear, so I thought, what’s the point? I went into the sitting room and I told him my results and he acted pleased, but I felt like I was just going through the motions.’

  ‘Ah, so she is jealous of you, your sister, and manipulates your parents?’ Dino hasn’t moved. With his eyes shut, he basks in the heat.

  ‘No! Well, maybe. It wasn’t seen that way. It was seen that I was always bragging, or at least that was how I was made to feel. I felt I was being uncaring to Pen and pushy about my exam results. I felt I bragged about my ‘A’ levels, I felt I was being a know-it-all with my degree, and then my law conversion was just not spoken about and after that whatever I did was just ignored. I hardly ever see them now.’

  ‘Did your parents side with her all the time?’

  ‘It wasn’t that they sided with her. When she would feel ill, she wouldn’t say anything, it was just this look she would get, and then Mum would notice and tell Dad, and then all the focus was on Pen. So if I was enthusiastic over my studies and she pulled that look, Mum and Dad fussed over her. If I mentioned my studies again, then I was being unsympathetic to Pen and self-centred about my own achievements. And you can’t argue with illness, can you? I mean, health comes first and all that …’

  ‘She sounds like a bitch to me,’ Dino says. Michelle grimaces over his choice of words.

  ‘Oh no, she never does anything mean.’

  ‘No, just making sure you never get credit or attention.’ He drops back onto his elbows. ‘It’s amazing you didn’t just stop studying.’

  ‘Well, exactly! Dad was a painter and decorator, and when we were children, he would soliloquise that university was something to aspire to and how he wished he had had the opportunity to go, how we would have ended up with a bigger house where we wouldn’t have been on top of each other, a bedroom each for us girls, how fantastic life could be with that sort of education, until Pen scraped through with just three ‘O’ levels.’ Michelle makes a snorting sound. ‘It was obvious after that that she wasn’t going to be an academic, and God forbid anyone hurt her feelings ... Until then he saw education as one of the great gifts of the “modern age”. Back then the government not only paid your tuition fees, but they actually gave you a grant to go. How things have changed. Now you have to pay for everything.’

  ‘Oh God, and don’t I know it? How many years of oranges has my education taken? So your dad and my dad did the same thing—they both pushed us into going to Uni. and guess what …?’ He begins to laugh.

  ‘What?’ Michelle cannot help but smile when he laughs; it’s an infectious sound.

  ‘They both ended up with what they feared most.’ He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye.

  ‘You’re making no sense at all.’ She laughs nevertheless.

  ‘I am. My Baba ended up with his worst fear—a drop out. And yours ended up with his worst fear—a success. We should swap; then they’d be happy.’ He stops laughing and sits up to look over the sea. ‘They both got what they deserved. That’s karma.’

  Michelle ponders on this.

  ‘Well, it gave me a very strong sense of fair and unfair, right and wrong. The whole law thing, if I think about it, started from wanting to fight the case of those not being treated fairly.’

  ‘Reporting the vases, does that fit in?’

  Michelle looks back into the cave.

  ‘It’s wrong, Dino.’ How can he not see that?

  ‘I cannot put my name on any report.’

  ‘Fine.’

  But inside it’s not fine. She feels he has stepped far away, to another world, where the lines between right and wrong are blurred; a world that belongs to criminals and dirty companies. A world of lies, fakery, and ultimately hurt, to a world where she cannot follow.

  ‘I’ll go with you, though.’

  ‘Oh!’ The knot untwists. Thoughts of her father fade, and in her mind’s eye, Dino steps back over the blurred line to where the air is clear. Her shoulders relax. ‘I just want to have a last look.’ She shuffles back into the cave. Dino steps out onto the rocks and pulls the boat closer.

  The journey back seems to be much quicker.

  But not quick enough, as they find the council offices have closed and will not be open again until the next day.

  They wander the streets for a while, Dino sharing his childhood haunts and memories, until the sky begins to turn pink, the sun surrounded by a blaze of red which extinguishes as it dips into the sea.

  After another leisurely dinner, they wander back to Zoe’s, where Dino wishes her a gentle goodnight.

  But this evening it is Michelle who lies awake, struggling with Dino’s presence just along the balcony. The story of his mother, his reluctance to do what Michelle knows is right, has brought a fragility to the relationship, it might all disappear tomorrow, the next day, with a mood, a new bit of information. She wants to hold onto it tightly, pour glue onto it so it stays. Quietly she opens the door and steps outside. It has all gone too far anyway. If she tiptoes along to his room they would only be confirming what they both already know, cement the inevitable.

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday

  Her door creaks as she opens it. Funny how she had never noticed that during the day. Maybe he is asleep already.

  The moon is bright as she pushes open her door, and in the distance the sea is visible, glinting and shimmering, alive black silk.

  What if he is a virgin?

  She stops in her tracks. No, that’s ridiculous. No one is a virgin at twenty-four these days. Are they? The looks he gives her are too knowledgeable. He’s been to university, for goodness’ sake. It is impossible. But his reserve suggests he could be. The emotion, the passion in his kisses, there is no doubt as to his desires. Could he be shy?

  Another step and she is outside.

  ‘Poios einai?’ Michelle recognises it as Kyria Zoe’s voice.

  ‘Oh, er.’ Why on earth would Kyria Zoe be out at this time?

  Zoe is lying on the balcony in her nightdress, head propped on pillows, facing down towards Dino’s door. Surely she is not sleeping there? But then again, the air is deliciously cool out here, compared to the stuffiness of the room. But now what? How to explain why she is out at this time?

  ‘I just wanted some air,’ Michelle blurts out and retreats back into her room.

  A stream of garbled Greek follows as she closes the door.

  Back in her own bed she giggles and concludes that perhaps it is for the best. It would be funny to share what has just happened with Dino tomorrow, but then she would have to confess what she had on her mind.

  Best leave it be.

  ‘Yes, I understand what you are saying. What are you wanting me to do about it?’

  ‘Don’t you have procedures? They need to be in a museum.’ Michelle can feel her temper rising.

  The girl, not long out of school by the look of her, finally heaves her slight weight from her chair, puts down her coffee and cigarette, and opens the drawers of a grey metal filing cabinet which is jammed in a corner against the back wall beside a table piled high with papers.

  ‘You have been in Greece many years?’ she asks as her back is turned.

  ‘No, I am only on holiday.’

  ‘Ah.’ The girl sighs this utterance, as if that explains everything, and turns her attention to Dino.

  Dino would rather not even be addressed. If he beg
ins to talk, she might ask his name, write it down somewhere, put it on her computer. But then again, as this girl is saying, this is Greece. The cogs here grind slowly, and even if she does stab his name into the computer, the chance of that being hooked up to a database of the army? Nil! He laughs. The girl turns and rewards him with a smile. She all but flutters her eyelashes at him. Too much makeup, and her skirt is way too short. He feels Michelle’s eyes on him. He looks from the girl’s leg back to her. Her mouth is slightly open, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘What?’ he asks in English, but as he does so the realisation crashes upon him. He flicks his eyes up into his head, a Greek ‘no’, but Michelle’s expression does not change. The girl’s back is towards them, Dino slides over to Michelle, ‘Ela!’ he whispers. ‘Come on! Come off it!’ he repeats in English. Surely she knows it is unthinkable.

  ‘Here, fill this in.’ The girl pushes some papers across the counter at Michelle.

  ‘But they are in Greek.’ Michelle stands tall, a little disquieted by Dino’s roving eye.

  Reluctantly the girl pulls them back. ‘OK, date of find?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Time.’

  Michelle looks around for a chair. This looks like it is going to be drawn out.

  ‘So sign here.’ Michelle does as she is asked. ‘And you.’ The girl pushes the papers to Dino.

  ‘He is not involved,’ Michelle parries and pushes the papers back. The girl looks disappointed. Dino walks out of the office into the sun.

  The girl takes the papers and places them on top of the nearest pile stacked on the table behind her and returns to her computer.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Michelle regains her attention. ‘Will it ever be seen there?’

  ‘Everything will be seen, eventually.’

  ‘But isn’t this important?’

  ‘Lady, everything on the table is important.’ She lights another cigarette, having forgotten the one burning in the ashtray.

  ‘Well, that felt like a complete waste of time.’

  Dino smirks at Michelle’s observation.

  ‘Although it had its perks for you,’ she adds.

  Dino grins and shakes his head, steps towards her and slips his arm around her waist, his face moving towards hers. The sky goes black, her heartbeat throbs in her throat, her ears ring, and she is overcome by the need to sit down.

  He relaxes away from her; his hand slackens around her waist.

  ‘Will you stop doing that?’

  ‘You want me to?’

  Michelle smiles. Their hands find each other, fingers interlinked. With her other hand she wipes her lips.

  They begin to walk.

  ‘Pots are found all the time, you know,’ Dino begins.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Found and smashed.’

  ‘Very funny.’ Michelle feels a lightness within, the sun on her face.

  ‘Really.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, why would anyone smash them?’ The way narrows and the sun is hidden by the houses on either side. In the shade Dino’s t-shirt turns a dull brown.

  ‘It’s the law,’ he replies. Michelle stops walking and laughs, but his shaded face looks sad. ‘If you dig and find a pot, you must stop digging and the archaeology authorities must come.’

  ‘Well, that’s as it should be.’ Michelle smiles.

  ‘But they have few people and there are many digs and each one costs a lot of money.’

  ‘But the government’s duty is to preserve the country’s heritage.’

  ‘But it is not the government who has to pay, it is the landowner.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘And even if they have the money, they must wait. There is a backlog.’

  Michelle is no longer smiling. ‘Of how long?’

  ‘Years.’ Dino walks on and turns away from the port, his face suddenly in the sun. ‘But mostly the landowners don’t have the money, so they choose.’

  ‘Choose to smash them?’ Michelle supports herself with a hand on a flaky whitewash wall as she climbs some steps.

  ‘No, choose to have a home. They have the land, they need a house. If they stop for a pot, the money they have to build a house will be spent on the archaeologists, who will take years anyway. Better to say nothing.’

  ‘Don’t people take them home?’

  ‘No!’ Dino turns to her in horror. ‘If you get caught with that stuff, you will never see daylight again. Best to smash it.’

  Michelle stops to take a breath. They have been climbing from the port area for a while.

  ‘Where are we going anyway?’ It comes out in gasps.

  ‘I want you to meet Koula.’

  Michelle, still breathing hard, frowns slightly and shakes her head, a non-verbal ‘who’?

  ‘Adonis’ mother,’ he replies. Michelle scowls. ‘As a child she was like a second mother to me. Trust me.’ He takes her hand and pulls.

  ‘What if Adonis is there?’

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  The way seems to get harder, even though it is all on the flat now.

  ‘Come on.’ Dino seems excited.

  Turning a corner reveals bougainvillaea that almost covers a narrow passage leading to an isolated stone house. A figure can be seen through an open door in a rough wall that encloses a small courtyard. Dressed in black, with a headscarf and apron, the old lady puts her hand to her brow to shield her eyes, trying to focus, and as she recognises Dino a smile lights up her wrinkled features.

  ‘Ah, Dino …’ shouts Koula excitedly. The rest of the Greek flows fast but gentle from this lady, and Michelle cannot understand a word. Koula is older than Michelle had expected, certainly older than herself, which she notes with relief. She invites them up on to the terrace where she fusses over Dino, allowing Michelle to take a good look at the garden below. But it is not the garden that commands her attention so much as the view. They are halfway up the tumble of houses that forms the town, and directly in the middle overlooking the port. It could be a painting. Below her the orange roofs step down, glimpses of whitewashed walls between them, the occasional blue or grey shutter peeping in amongst the cubist abstract. The port a deep semi-circle containing the whiter-than-white boats and bluer-than-blue sea. The whole scene in dazzlingly bright hues as the sun finds every corner.

  A rustle in the garden catches her attention. Autumn leaves from last year still pile up against the walls, high walls, too high to see over. It is an oasis of calm and green. Vines cover a paved area, supported by a pergola and providing welcome shade. The garden steps down to an area planted with flowers and herbs, and then steps again to a narrow strip with a single orange and a single lemon tree, the land so steep Michelle can see the port over the top of them.

  There is a rustle again. A lizard darts across the flagstones directly in front of her. Already she is used to seeing them; it causes no alarm, just curiosity.

  ‘Michelle, you want a coffee?’ Dino beckons her inside. She goes into the tiny house to discover that inside is just one room, two beds with cushions posing as sofas, the kitchen in one corner, and a wardrobe screening the shower and toilet. It is hard to believe that people are living in such little space in this day and age. She reassesses Adonis’ arrogance and wonders how much comes from covering up a fundamental feeling of inferiority—or is that just a British way of thinking?

  ‘Hello, Michelle.’ The words slow and pronounced. Michelle kisses Koula on each cheek, soft and slightly fuzzy. Close up she seems much younger. People here dress older than their age perhaps, or westerners dress younger.

  She turns to Dino to say something.

  ‘She says you are very beautiful, like a queen.’ He looks at the floor, hands stuffed in his front pockets. Michelle notices there is a rip in one; it must have happened on the cliff.

  He speaks some more to Koula in Greek, one minute laughing, the next scowling. There is no way to guess what is going on.

  ‘She says she wants to call Adonis, bring him here so we are al
l together. Are you OK with that?’

  ‘I suppose, if you are.’

  Koula pulls a mobile phone from her housecoat pocket.

  ‘He is out. Wait, I will call him. You are still as handsome as ever, Dino, and you have a fine woman to suit you.’

  Dino feels his cheeks colour. He concentrates on the beep of the phone as Koula presses the buttons. ‘Let’s face it; you were never going to get yourself a local girl, were you? Destined to get yourself something a bit more …’

  Another phone rings somewhere in the room. Koula pushes Dino aside to get to it, sweeping cushions into a pile on one of the daybeds and fishing down the back to produce the source of the ringing.

  ‘Would you look!’ She ends the call and throws Adonis’ phone back onto the bed. ‘He is always losing things. I don’t know how many phones he has had and you know what he lost the other day? He won’t admit it, but he cannot tell me where they are. His grandfather’s komboloi!’

  Dino shrugs. He is familiar with Adonis’ attitudes.

  ‘They were all I had left of my father. Beautiful, they were, red with silver tips.’

  Dino can feel the blood drain from his face. He sits on the sole wooden chair. Michelle puts a hand on his shoulder. Her face enquiring.

  ‘Like these?’ he draws the beads from his pocket and lets them hang from his fingers.

  ‘Oh my goodness, where did you find them? If only I had two of you instead of Adonis, bless him and love him as I do. You are a magician, Dino. One minute I think they are gone forever, the next they are in your pocket. But you must tell me, where did you find them?’

  He pulls himself together. The sight of her perplexed features calls on him to soothe her, repay the kindness she has always shown him.

  ‘It is natural, Koula. He laid them down in the boat, a wave tossed the boat, and the beads were on the floor. Could have happened to me, to you, to anyone.’

  ‘You are a good boy, Dino.’ She grabs him in a bear hug and kisses his jaw lines; it is all she can reach.