by Sara Alexi
Stavros does not reply but goes out into the sunshine and across to the kiosk for a paper.
Stella had done the sums over and over. At one time she had not even thought how much money they made in the ouzeri. When she needed to pay the butcher she took money from the till. But as time passed there seemed to be less and less money in the till and more and more unpaid bills. Stella began to wonder where the money went. Slowly she began to take notice, then she started to do the maths.
After they were married and had settled down with his parents in his home town, Stavros and his Baba would often get together to play cards. The mood was jolly. Stavros’ Mama rustled up plates of food. With the shutters closed they would settle into a night of joking and fun. The men would laugh and Stavros’ mother would prepare coffees and chasers. Sometimes they would stay up so late Stella would go to bed and wake in the morning to find Stavros’ Mama asleep where she had sat the night before in one of the chairs.
Sometime Stavros would go out and play cards with his friends. Not often, but when he did he would not come home until very late and would be grumpy for several days, or elated, and his wallet would close or open correspondingly. His Baba laughed and slapped him on the back either way. His Mama was given a handful of drachmas when he won.
His card-playing away from home increased as time passed and Stella continued not to conceive. She had had tests done. It wasn’t her. Stavros had refused to believe it was him; it was too big a knock to his self-image. He said less and played more. His mama said it was God’s will and who are we to question what God decides? He would have his own reasons beyond our comprehension, He could see all.
Stella nips behind the grill to see how Abby is doing.
‘Alright?’ she asks. Abby starts. Stella wonders why she has her bag over her shoulders. It looks heavy and it cannot be easy to work like that. ‘Do you want to hang your bag here?’ She takes some coats that have been left for as long as she can remember off a peg on the wall at the grill end. Abby looks around for somewhere to dry her hands. Stella steps forwards and lifts the bag from over her head, being careful not to mess her hair or touch her wet hands.
‘Thank you. Erm, can I ask what the pay is, please. I need to make plans to get to this job. I promised to be there …’ Abby blushes.
Stella takes a breath. ‘Today we try you. Tomorrow we pay you when we see how much more we make. OK?’ It doesn’t even sound ok to Stella. She feels her own cheeks grow hot.
‘A trial?’ Abby asks.
Chapter 5
The grill spits and hisses. Stella leaves Abby’s question unanswered to attend to it. The tongs grip the chicken’s legs and the splayed bird flips awkwardly onto its back.
‘Why are you making this so hard?’ Stavros hisses in Greek. He flicks his cigarette end into the gutter before entering the ouzeri.
Stella throws the spatula onto the counter and turns to face him.
‘Now what have I made difficult?’
‘Vasso, she tells me she has already said the girl can sleep at her house.’
‘We do not have money to pay Vasso for somewhere for the girl to sleep and the girl cannot pay because we are not paying her.’ Her hand on her hips.
‘Well, it’s done, it’s agreed, tonight she sleeps at Vasso’s on trial. If she stays, she pays.’ He takes out another cigarette.
Stella sighs. It feels like they are dividing Abby up between them like a roasted goat. The poor girl should be on a boat to Saros, to a real job, a teenager’s job, a bar, life, young people, not stuck in this village to serve old farmers.
Stavros sits inside on one of the wooden chairs and puts his feet up on one of the tables to read his newspaper.
‘Abby.’ Stella goes behind the grill. ‘I must be true.’ She is sure that she is not using the right word in English, perhaps honest would be a better word, but she goes on. ‘We do not have the money to pay you to work. If tomorrow we make more money because the farmers like your pretty face then we can pay you. So it is a trial for us both. Vasso, that is the woman from the kiosk, she has a room for you. If you stay, after tonight, then you will agree a price to pay. This is all I can offer. I can offer no more. It is up to you.’
Abby finishes washing the glasses and wipes her hands dry on some kitchen roll.
‘I have been thinking. You have been very kind trying to arrange a job here for me. I am happy to work today to pay for my meal but I think that perhaps tomorrow it is best if I go and get a job in the town.’
‘Yia.’ A gruff goodbye comes from Stavros as he leaves the shop.
‘He is going for a sleep, it is his habit at this time of day. You need a sleep?’
‘I did earlier but I am past it now.’ Abby looks around the counter area. There is a picture of the old Greek King and Queen on the wall. ‘How long have you had this place?’
‘Seven years, since my Baba died.’
‘Baba?’
‘Dad.’
‘Oh, I am sorry.’ Abby looks at the ground. ‘Um, can I use the loo I am bursting?’
‘No need to ask!’ Abby feels Stella watching as she takes the kitchen roll with her through to the presently empty café. When she returns Stella asks, ‘You like Greece?’ as she tidies the high counter.
‘I have only been here, well, less than a day, but it’s amazing. The people are so different.’ Abby folds her arms and slouches to rest them on the counter top, still standing.
‘Yes? Different how?’
‘Oh, I don’t know ...’
Abby cannot quite articulate the differences she is feeling. Sure, Greece looks different and it’s hotter. A donkey brays and Abby declares, laughing, that this is just another difference, there are few donkeys in England, and none in the towns. But it is more than that. The heat relaxes her, as it seems to relax everyone who lives here.
She lowers her head onto her arms and stares. The walls are green in the counter area too, but in here they are streaked where condensation has run down them. She recalls standing at a bus stop near to her house, the rain streaming down the glass sides. Two of the people in the queue for the bus were people she knew: one was her next-door neighbour and the other the lady who used to feed their cat when they went away on holiday. But they didn’t speak to each other. It was not as if anyone was being rude, it was just that it was cold and wet. Abby remembers pulling up the collar of her coat and trying to dip her chin inside for warmth. The neighbour had put on a see-through plastic head covering that tied at her chin and everyone had pulled their shoulders up around their ears and tucked their arms into their sides to keep warm, hands deep in pockets. No one was going to expend energy or expose themselves to the chill wind just to have a conversation.
Here the sun has people lifting up their faces to feel the warmth, arms unstuck from their sides as they try to create the biggest surface area to cool themselves. There is no possibility of rushing in this temperature and, as things happen slowly, there is time to talk. She sees the people in the street demonstrating this all the time. The man who brought the bread this morning must have tarried for ten minutes or more talking to the lady from the kiosk. And the man who came out of the grim café at the top of the square to buy cigarettes from the kiosk seemed quite happy to wait, leaning on her counter, until she finished her chat and wandered with no hurry back to serve him. He had stayed and chatted with her a while as well. People are important here, more so than the jobs they do, it seems.
A restrictive weight is lifted from Abby with this thought. On reflection, she finds herself smiling despite her circumstances and she experiences a strange confidence that everything will be fine.
Stella, if nothing else, is being honest. Maybe they do need her help and really cannot afford it. Maybe they don’t need her help and are being kind. Either way, she wants to stay for the ‘trial’ day to thank them for their kindness, and besides, she has got a tasty chicken dinner out of it.
Standing up straight she eases the strain on her full stomach.<
br />
Tomorrow she will go into town, but for now she has landed well and truly on her feet.
She must ring Dad though, and let him know she is safe. Stupid man.
Maybe she should take Modern Greek. Languages are always useful. Even Stella, a Greek village woman, speaks English.
The other thing about Greece, Abby ponders, watching Stella adding some numbers in the columns of what looks like a home-made accounts book, is that it feels very safe, even as a single female. She has been into London with friends before and there were some areas where she was not sure she felt safe. Pickpockets, maybe even muggers worried her. But here she feels she can leave her bag unattended, hanging on the hook at the end of the grill with all her belongings and her phone, and no one will touch it, she is sure.
So much for England being the supposed civilised country. Half a laugh escapes her. Stella briefly looks up but her eyes are un-focused, she turns back to the ledger on the shelf behind the raised counter.
Abby leans against the door frame, the heat is making her feel sleepy. Her eyes close and she imagines what would have happened if she had turned up in some district of London miles away from where she was supposed to be. Abby doubts that anyone would care, let alone find her a job and a place to sleep. They would either just walk past her or, worse, someone might even try to take advantage of the situation. There is no way anyone would offer her somewhere to stay for the night. They would be fearful she was a psycho or, if they did offer a place to kip, they themselves might be the psycho. She would instantly be another homeless person, curled up in a shop doorway. But she cannot conjure up the feeling of cold, the sun is too strong, sweat runs down her temple. She opens her eyes and steps from the doorway into the shade.
‘Greece is an amazing place,’ Abby concludes walking round to see what Stella is studying. She points to a number on the page. ‘Shouldn’t that be a three?’ Abby asks. Stella makes a sound of relief and quickly rubs out the eight, and pencils in a three.
‘Are you missing your Baba?’ Stella continues, looking at the book.
Abby had forgotten about Dad again. He will have read her note by now and no doubt has been trying to ring her. What were they, two hours behind in England? If everything had gone to plan she would have been at her job on Saros where someone would have a phone charger and she would have been able to tell him where she was and how successful she had been in getting the job and getting there. She swallows.
She wonders what he would have had to say about that, if it had all gone to plan. She had been really looking forward to the shock of doing that. ‘Hi, Dad. I am in Greece working at a bar called the Malibu with Jackie. Earning money to put towards Uni.’ Now she will have to wait, and so will he. Well, it serves him right.
She has done so well with her GCSEs, she knows it. Why did he think she would not put the studying into her A levels? Actually, she does understand. The whole “not working hard enough” thing was just a ploy. What he really meant to say was, ‘What was the point in her taking her A levels as no one could afford to send her to university?’ So she might just as well start working from sixteen and contribute to the household. Well, here she is, working at sixteen. But not for him. She will save enough to pay her own way through Uni. If she can make the tuition fees then a bar job while she is there will take care of the rest. Besides, there are always student loans.
‘He has no faith in me.’ she blurts.
‘Faith, like you are God?’ Stella looks up from the book with wide eyes.
‘No, faith, like he does not believe I can do things.’ Abby steps towards the door before turning to lean against the counter again.
‘Oh. My Baba used to say: “How can you know what you can do until you try?’ Stella shuts the book and puts it on the bottom shelf, out of sight.
‘That’s what I said, that I should try, and if I can’t then I will give up.’ Abby decides she likes Stella.
‘It’s the only way. You want a frappé?’ She lifts her own empty glass.
‘What’s a frappé?’
‘Coffee with ice.’
‘Water’s fine, thanks.’
‘What you want to do that he doesn’t believe and you haven’t tried yet?’ Stella spoons coffee granules and sugar into her glass.
‘I want to go to university.’
‘Ah, university. What a lovely idea. I would like to study something.’ Stella uses a little electric whisk on her coffee and sugar with the smallest amount of water. The mix turns brown and then cream-coloured and shiny. She turns off the whisk and adds water and evaporated milk.
Abby says, ‘Really! What would you study?’
‘Business, I dream of owning an international business. Like the women in Hollywood films, who tell the men what to do and don’t need them.’ She laughs at her own joke and Abby joins in. She too would like to tell Dad what to do and not need him. Even without understanding the language she relates to Stella.
‘Who is the man, is he your brother, your husband, what?’ Abby nods her head to the door, indicating the departed Stavros.
‘Stavros, he is my husband. He saved me from a hard life, makes me belong.’
‘Oh’ is all Abby can find to say. From what she has seen of him and the way he treats Stella the price seems a bit high for whatever it is he has done.
Stavros stamps up the couple of steps into the kafenio. He grunts a hello to the men he knows and clicks his fingers at the owner for his ‘usual’. Stella is just unbelievable. It is almost as if she wants things to get worse. His idea to get the tourist girl working there is just logical. Stella knows they need to pay things off, so they need to make more money. Something has to change. The first thing that should change is the way Stella behaves. The locals must be so heartily sick of her flirting ways; it’s amazing anyone comes in at all. The same old stuff over and over.
He pictures Abby’s face, glad for a new mental image to look on. And it is a face that doesn’t show as many years as his wife’s. Doesn’t Stella realise how unseemly it is for someone of her age to carry on the way she does? She should take better care of herself. She should take better care of herself for him. She would be the first to complain if he wandered.
His coffee arrives and he grunts a thank you. Who is he trying to kid? His mind wandered after the first year of wedlock. He should never have married her, stuck the rumours out; they would have stopped eventually. The young girl would have grown soon enough and then some local boy would have plucked her and he would have been forgotten.
He takes a sip of his coffee. The kafenio will close soon; the owner, Theo, has a nap in the heat of the day. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows give Stavros a view of the whole square. There are very few people making their way anywhere at this time, which is a relief; he does not want to see any of the men he owes money to. He should have quit with the first debt. He can see now that trying to win enough to cover that debt somewhere else had been a mistake, as had the loan. But these things happen. It will sort itself out, just not today, and not any time soon unless Stella gets off her high horse and starts working with him, gets this foreign girl behind the counter. A young tourist in her little T-shirts and white shorts should bring plenty of locals in. For a while, anyway.
Why would the girl’s father let her come to another country alone? The western ways make no sense. A girl of that age around here is seen in one of two places, on the school bus or at home, and with good reason.
The girl from his village returns to his mind. He cannot even recall her name, but he remembers her big wide eyes and hair that shone and was so soft to the touch. Why had she been allowed to sit so long outside after church? No one came to take her indoors. What did they expect? She had spoken to him, not the other way around, asked him the time.
Stavros takes a sip of coffee, picks up the saucer and moves to a table nearer the back. Perhaps it’s better not to be too visible, not when he owes money to so many people. He uses the teaspoon to scoop some undissolved grounds off t
he top of his coffee and curses Theo under his breath for not taking the time to make it well.
They will need to increase the takings by quite a lot. There’s no cutting the outgoings. The butcher, the baker. Besides, he can’t stop now, his bad run will have a season, it will end. It’s not like he owes anybody a huge amount. It’s just the number of people he owes now, it’s getting awkward. Although if Stella would listen and stop piling extra chips on the portions, cut back a little here and there, count the cents. She thinks that grovelling to people with big portions impresses them. She was fairly pretty once, but that was years ago. Flirting with the farmers. It is demeaning, to her and to him.
He sighs and takes another sip. Theo makes the best, despite the grains.
He drinks the water that came with the coffee and lights another cigarette. He watches a woman and child walk across the square, the child reaching high to hold her hand, her little legs almost running to keep up. And all that nonsense about him not being able to have children. It was her, she didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive, let alone a child. Now, all day he has to listen to her nonsense. Spouting about how the business should be run, as if he doesn’t pull his weight. She flits about the tables laughing and joking when he is sweating at the grill.
The problem is the village. Nothing but farmers and farmers’ wives. Not much money. They will sit for an hour with one drink, taking up the table space. Tourists are the ones with the money, he has said it for years, but will she listen? She’s learning to speak English, so why does she not put her efforts into finding tourists to come to the shop? They will pay double, and they do not sit all evening.
His coffee is nearly finished. He swirls the grounds in the bottom and waits for the liquid to settle on the top.
And this sitting all evening is Stella’s fault too. She encourages them, tries to make it feel like a home from home. It is not a home from home, it is business. McDonald’s does not flirt with you and give you extra chips. No! It encourages you to buy and move on. That is what they need, tourists who will buy and go, and make room for the next. Not locals who come in every night to chat with Stella and buy so little.
