The Art of Becoming Homeless

by Sara Alexi

  The ouzeri where she first set eyes on Dino last Christmas is open. A woman in a floral dress sits outside and a man stands next to her, with one arm around her, the other sleeve of his shirt tucked, empty, into his waistband.

  Michelle turns to look at him as they pass, trying to recall her impression of Dino on that first meeting. The woman in the chair, unaware that she is being watched, stands and wraps her arms around the man’s neck and kisses him.

  Opposite is what looks like a sandwich shop. It is only tiny, but Michelle does not remember it; maybe it’s new. The square opens out. The fountain, painted blue inside, is not working, and there are Indian men still sitting around it. The kiosk is exactly as she remembers it. So, too, is the high-ceilinged, unadorned kafenio at the top. The farmers have brought their coffees and their rush-seated, wooden chairs outside onto the square and are watching football on a big screen in the kafenio window, the waiter sauntering backwards and forwards across the road. The chairs go so far back they almost mingle with the Indian men around the fountain, but there is a definite line that divides the two.

  And on the other corner should be the little shop that sells everything.

  ‘Oh! What has happened to the shop?’ Her hand comes up to her mouth.

  ‘Haven’t a clue; looks like they are rebuilding it,’ Dino replies.

  ‘Don’t you know? It’s your village.’ His lack of interest amuses her.

  ‘When you are homeless, it is very hard to get mail without a computer or an address.’ He is smiling as he talks, but the tension in his voice is still there, thinking about his father no doubt.

  They turn right at the top of the square and walk in front of the screen. No one seems to mind the seconds of football they miss. Michelle looks back past where the shop once was. She can see the church beyond; she had been to a wedding there, of the owner’s daughter. She had gone with Juliet and her boys. Wasn’t that the same day they went for chips and met Dino and his dad?

  She shrugs to herself and faces forward again. They pass the public fresh water taps and turn left into Juliet’s road.

  Dino exhales loudly.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks, as it is an unexpected sound, the release of the tension, but he assures her that he is fine now that he is out of the main square. Michelle understands: he wants to meet his father on his own terms, not be caught unawares.

  On the narrow lane to Juliet’s, Kyria Georgia is in her neat garden deadheading some of her myriad flowers. She has a misshapen wide-brimmed hat on, and an apron down to her ankles that looks like it has never been washed, over her clothes of mourning. Her husband died—what was it—twenty-two or twenty-three years ago? Michelle has been told by Juliet, but she cannot recall exactly. Georgia’s concrete yard is a riot of colourful flowers in pots, leaving nothing but small walkways to sidle between to water them. Some of the bougainvillea tower over her little cottage. She looks up as they pass.

  ‘Oh Panayia,’ and off she goes enthusing in Greek. Michelle has had Juliet explain to Kyria Georgia many times that she does not understand Greek, but it doesn’t stop the flood of exclamations. On and on she talks, encouraging Michelle to laugh when she does and look grave when appropriate.

  They kiss firmly on each cheek. Georgia greets Dino in the same way and then points, first to Michelle and then Dino with a mischievous glint in her eye. Dino says nothing.

  After what seems like an age of not understanding anything, Georgia holds up a commanding finger for them to wait. She goes into her tiny cottage and returns with a handful of eggs.

  They continue up the lane, now laden with eggs, and Michelle remembers she has not brought any wine.

  The house next to Georgia’s is seldom visited now as the owner, who runs a shop in Athens, has acute diabetes. His grandsons sometimes visit, bringing their latest girlfriends, Juliet has told Michelle. The place looks very uncared for.

  Then there is the deserted barn with the unused land, and at the end of the rough road are the double metal gates with the arch above, covered with wild roses.

  Although this is only Michelle’s third visit, it feels like coming home.

  Dino pushes open the gate and is greeted by two cats winding around each other, the gate, and his legs.

  He shifts his bag further onto his shoulder so it won’t fall as he bends to stroke them.

  The front patio looks so inviting; the pergola over the top hangs with leaves and tiny buds that will be grapes. Juliet has a sofa that she leaves outside all summer, old and sagging but so comfortable. This year, next to the table and chairs, where they ate most of their meals, she remembers, she has slung a hammock between two of the whitewashed pillars that support the pergola.

  Michelle knocks on the open front door and savours the cool of the interior; she had almost forgotten how hot it is outside.

  ‘Juliet?’ she calls. The room is all white: old white floor tiles, another sagging white sofa, a wall lined with books, open plan to the kitchen, all old cupboards and wood. The fridge is a little incongruous in the organic environment. Everywhere dust dances in the strips of sunlight, which highlights the corners of the room.

  Michelle breathes out and Dino drops his bag in the doorway.

  ‘Hey,’ Dino calls from outside, ‘look what I have found. This yours?’

  He has returned outside and is manhandling her suitcase.

  ‘Ha, they must have sent it from the airport! Where was it?’ Michelle asks.

  ‘Just out here against the wall.’ Dino replies.

  Michelle helps lug the case indoors.

  ‘Juliet?’ she calls again, but there is no answer. She quietly opens Juliet’s bedroom door to see if she is sleeping, but the bed is made, the shutters closed. It is the coolest part of the house, the stone walls several feet thick near the base.

  ‘I think she’s out.’ Michelle puts the kettle on and makes some tea, no milk, and they go through the kitchen door to the back and sit looking out over the garden. Juliet has worked wonders; she has added a pond since Michelle’s last visit. It looks as if it has always been there, just to the right of the twisted olive tree, tall grasses growing around the edges. Juliet still has not walled the garden in, leaving in place the rusted metal fencing which time has worn almost invisible, opening the garden to the orange orchard on two sides and the disused barn and its own piece of rough land on the third. The fruit trees have grown and the flowers look well established. The lawn is patchy, but then in this heat, what could be expected?

  ‘Isn’t it perfect?’ Michelle sips her tea. The director’s chair she is sitting on feels far from firm; she tries not to shift her weight.

  Dino is sitting on a couple of breezeblocks looking at his phone.

  Dino pulls his t-shirt down and smoothes it out. He turns on his phone to see if there are any messages from his Baba. He wants to make the decision about when they will meet. It will have to be sooner rather than later, as many people have seen him walk through the village centre, and one of them is sure to congratulate his father on his son’s return to the village. He will come looking if Dino does not forestall him. But he has made a decision. Life cannot be ‘on hold’ any longer. If he had already done his service, Michelle would have taken his proposal more seriously.

  After eighteen months he will be free, and then he can get a job and will marry Michelle. The decision fills him with a feeling of power. He stands tall and puts his phone away.

  ‘Juliet!’ Michelle calls when she sees the car at the gate. She lurches out of the deep outdoor sofa and runs lightly to greet her friend.

  Juliet jumps from her car. Dino cannot hear the words they are saying, but he can see the broad smiles on both their faces. Juliet is the smaller, her hair golden compared to Michelle’s dark shiny bob. He can imagine what they are saying and is pleased for them both. They take their time to finish their initial explosion of talk and wander back to the patio, the car left with its door open outside the gates.

  Dino and Juliet shake hands, an
d their conversation is easy.

  Dino pours Juliet a cup of the tea Michelle has made. Juliet says she will get biscuits. Michelle, feeling a wave of emotion, says she needs the loo. A moment or two by herself will stabilise her. Juliet has brought past memories and feelings to the surface just by her presence.

  She loves Juliet’s bathroom. It has a curvy wall that separates the shower area from the rest of the room, but there is no shower basin. There is a drainage hole in the shower area and another by the sink, a ‘wet room’. The sink is a bowl with a hole in the bottom that Juliet brought back from a holiday in Morocco. Painted in Eastern blues, a lacework of design, it sits on a wooden plinth she had her ‘gardener’ make for it.

  Her gardener! Just last summer Michelle had been intrigued, and then just a little horrified, to find her friend had formed such an unlikely friendship. Her ‘gardener’ was an illegal immigrant from Pakistan. She had teased Juliet at the time, but Juliet never did name what their relationship was. Michelle understands it better now; the relationship was not always easily definable.

  Juliet seems to always be having adventures. Michelle’s life is dull by comparison, a black-and-white existence of all work, no play, only one way to go—push forward to get the qualification, get the job, get the security, and please her dad.

  She blows her nose and drops the paper down the loo.

  When she realised she was never going to please her dad, she can remember the momentary pause. Her life had stopped, then out from the shadows stepped Richard, as if he had been waiting for her. Rather than change her world-view, she just changed a name: Dad to Richard, Michelle Marsden to Michelle Brideoak-Grey. Life continued to be black and white. But with Richard instead of Dad dictating the path, the rules, the conversation.

  This thought causes her to sigh as she washes her hands. She picks up one of many little hand towels Juliet has folded and placed under the sink.

  That had been the biggest difficulty when he declared he was leaving her. It was not the loss of love, or even a friend; it was the big, wide-open place with no one declaring the rules. Thoughts about becoming a judge seemed to create her own black and white for a while. She looked into the process and saw it would be all work and no room for play. Even from the start, her heart was not in. Now she just doesn’t have the enthusiasm for any of it anymore; not the work, not the house, not the whole English possession-orientated thinking.

  She sits on the closed toilet lid.

  It feels beyond her control.

  But Greece, or maybe even just Dino, or perhaps Adonis’ pots—something has shown her that life is not all black and white; there is a whole spectrum of hues. To have it any other way is depriving herself of so much more than just colour. However, she is trapped.

  She begins to dry her hands but stops. She thinks she hears raised voices. She puts the towel down. That is Dino’s voice. She grabs at the latch to open the door quickly, but she fumbles. Juliet’s voice. Dino and Juliet shouting at each other?

  Chapter 21

  The latch unsticks, freeing her, and she all but runs out to the patio. There is a vaguely familiar man standing by the gate, legs apart, fists clenched. The first thing she notices is the curl of his upper lip, a sneer of disrespect. She looks at both Dino and Juliet to find whom he is addressing. Juliet looks furious and just a bit surprised, Dino is menacing and dark. The man walks with authority through the gate, the drab, shabby, browns of his clothes almost merging into the boundary wall of the disused stone barn behind him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Michelle comes up beside Dino and puts her hand on his forearm. He is standing, facing the man, his chair between them. He has the advantage of height given to him by the raised patio. Juliet stands on the step between patio and gravel drive, hovering between the two men, ready to intervene.

  ‘Themis, please leave.’ Juliet says in English.

  ‘You cannot hide him here.’ The man’s English has surprisingly little accent.

  ‘We are not hiding him.’ Michelle spits the words out. She can feel energy surging through her limbs—if this is Dino’s father, he has a lot to answer for.

  ‘Baba, I do not want to have this conversation. Whatever I say you twist it; you turn my words against me, you always have.’

  ‘You are the woman he has been with?’ Themis ignores his son and looks Michelle straight in the eye. Michelle doesn’t like the implication, but he continues, ‘Give me my son back, give me him for three days, and then he can make his own decision.’ His tone straight, like this is a business transaction.

  Michelle is speechless.

  ‘Baba, you do not understand. It is unbelievable. It is like being in prison, but with no release date. The place is sterile, there is no sun, no sea, just brick and cement and neon lights. It is like being robbed of all freedom, and there is no joy left to life, just hand-to-mouth drudgery doing something I don’t enjoy. It demands nothing intellectually and brings me in enough money to pay rent, buy food, and get the bus the next day to do it again. I cannot do it!’ Dino’s hands grip the back of the chair he stands behind, his knuckles losing colour. He mutters something in Greek.

  ‘Speak English,’ his father snaps.

  Michelle is lost for words. She looks at Juliet, who is standing mouth open. Dino is glaring at his father.

  ‘So you want to move back to here and do what?’ There is just a hint of a genuine question in the way he says the words.

  ‘I can get a job in the council, or the bank, anywhere, just to see the sun, see my friends, to be in Greece. The Greeks, Baba, have kefi, an excitement about life, the English don’t, or if they do, it is seldom and only for a good reason. Maybe it’s the sun, maybe it’s an attitude.’ Dino gives Themis no time to interrupt. ‘They work in boxes in England. Do you know how unproductive that is? Soul sapping. Every time I went to the toilet at work, the cubicles were full, the sounds of phone games pinging and tweeting from each stall, everyone trying to escape to another world. In Greece we don’t need such division; there are no physical boxes around us or on our time. No one shouts if you are a few minutes late, and no one goes home on time. In England it is all about fame or riches or being in misery wishing for them—in Greece it is all about satisfaction, relationships.’

  ‘And when you marry and you have no hope of a pay raise in your Greek job, and your wife needs new shoes for the little ones, will the sun and the sea provide that? Will your friends buy these things for you? These days in England are the beginning for you. The job being menial will not last forever. You must stick it out; you are on a ladder and each rung provides more for you until you can afford a wife, and she will be able to buy your children shoes. You will not live in a one bedroomed Greek house where you and she sleep on daybeds in the kitchen, and the children are packed into the one bedroom—you will have a proper home.’

  ‘If I get promoted I will be so desperate to get out of that shoebox of a room I live in, all the raise will go on better accommodation, the rest will go on food and travel, and again I am in the same position—just with a bigger room. It makes no sense.’

  ‘It is not like that forever ….’

  But Dino interrupts his father. ‘Michelle how long have you been working in your job?’

  Michelle hesitates; she didn’t expect to be asked to play a part.

  ‘Oh, er, twenty-five years now.’

  ‘And do you have a life? Do you have fun? What do you spend your money on?’

  ‘I don’t go out much because I’m usually working, but the money is good and it’s enough to keep house ….’

  ‘Do you love that house?’

  She cannot answer him. To say out loud how she feels about the house seems wrong. It will make her a traitor to all she has been working for, her beliefs since they bought it. It will make her a fool in her own eyes.

  ‘A house, what has a house to do with this? Buy them, sell them, you have the choice if you have the job, if you have the money,’ Themis barks.

  ‘A
nd this is the home that I bought, and I do not wish there to be shouting here. Please leave.’ Juliet finds her voice, but she is ignored again.

  Michelle tries to restore order by talking in a reasonable voice about the topic. ‘Yes, that would make sense, Themis,’ She steps toward him, takes his attention from Dino. ‘But it can be a bit of a catch twenty-two, you see. I don’t really feel I have the time to organise selling my house and finding a new home because of the amount of work I do. And I don’t feel I can stop the work because the house needs so much maintenance.’ She can see he is calming. He is looking at her now, not Dino. His breathing is becoming shallower, but it only lasts seconds before Dino shouts again.

  ‘You see, Baba, it’s a trap, and we are the ants in that trap and it is only good for the system as a whole and not the individual ants.’ Dino is sweating. Themis’ eyes flash and Michelle know she has lost him. She steps back; it feels unsafe.

  ‘Boy, you need to grow up. Everyone needs to work.’

  ‘I agree, Baba, but not that ….’

  Themis turns back to Michelle.

  ‘Give me my son back. Give me him for three days, and then let’s see what decision he makes.’ Themis’ voice booms. ‘Give me three days to remember who he is and then he is yours.’

  Michelle frowns as she takes in these words. She can feel her blood coursing through her veins, adrenaline being released, but she has no desire to take flight. Instead her fists clench as she finds her voice.

  Her voice is more powerful than she expects.

  ‘I’m sorry, what do you mean “mine”? He is not mine. He is not anyone’s, as far as I am concerned. He is not an object. Ask him for his time, not me.’ Michelle’s feet are rooted. She looks Themis directly in his face.