by Sara Alexi
The temperature drops even more when the houses that line the lane give way to orange trees. Stella walks briskly and finds herself heading towards the olive hills. She turns up a track that climbs a gully and heads towards the nearest summit. Now she knows where she is going.
The track steepens and she puffs as she tries to maintain her pace, the exertion giving her the illusion of power and with it a feeling of hope. She is warmer now. Her breathing eases as the way levels slightly and she turns with the path, from the gully, up the spine of the hill, the summit teasing as each horizon offers another, dim in the half light, until finally she is at the top.
The panorama lifts her from her worldly troubles. The whole of the plain is laid out in one big expanse, the village a small cluster of red roofs at her feet, the fruit trees sprawling out, quilt-like, to the towns dotted around the coast, the bay itself heralding the dawn as the first rays of the sun sparkle orange across its tranquil turquoise surface. The mountains beyond look so bright, so joyous, Stella forgets herself and is lost in the wonder of the new day. Anticipation of the heat to come is reflected in the colours. The sun rises rapidly and Stella looks behind her. One tall mountain is between her and her own dawn, and the sun is already peeking over the top, the first rays causing her eyes to narrow.
Her father would walk with her up here and tell her, with a smile on his face, that anything was possible. Looking over the vista she would believe him, that the world is a magical place. That was long ago.
Her bruises throb with the rush of blood the climb has flooded through her veins. The contusions have developed a purple edge. She hopes they will fade quickly and the episode can be forgotten; she cannot contemplate the prospect of a re-occurrence. She feels that there must be a mistake as to how it came about. If there was an error, she knows, surely, it must be hers. She wishes she wasn’t so physically small. Perhaps, for someone bigger, the event would have felt like nothing.
Images of her mother, and school, are banished from the processing. She will not be like her mother. She concentrates on the view, refusing to give the incident any more power. She has lost a night’s sleep, that is enough. What did Mitsos say? Don’t give it power, think of things you believe in.
The sun is over the hill and the rays warm her, her tanned brown skin turning to a rich honey in the light.
Her Baba would walk with her and, her legs going twice as fast as his, she would reach up and they would go hand in hand, somewhere beyond this point, down the dip and behind the next summit, but all she can see are bushes and scrubland, the memory faded, the promise of something wonderful just beyond reach: tatters of childhood dreams, fantasies of wishes. She turns from both dreams and panoramic view to head back down the hill. In the distance she can hear the sound of gunfire as dawn hunters shoot rabbits, their dogs barking in excitement.
Gravity adds speed to her pace, and the beauty of the sunny day a skip and a bounce to her tired tread. She feels free up here and wishes she could stay forever.
All too quickly she is back on the outskirts of the village. She waves to Vasso, who is imprisoned again. Vasso calls that Abby is still asleep and that she thinks it best to leave her, after so much travelling. She will come when she wakes, it was arranged last night. Stella goes straight to the shop and opens up to make herself a frappé.
She puts a teaspoon of instant coffee in a cup with a teaspoon of sugar and a small amount of water. The hand-held blender is noisy for the time of day but the mix quickly froths. The early morning discordant ring of church bells drowns out the electrical buzz, and rouses the village. She adds water and ice cubes, and the thick sweet foam rises to the top. She looks in the fridge for evaporated milk, which she pours in liberally.
Plonking a straw in her beaker, she flops onto the chair outside that she left only a few hours before. She slides down the chair, without the energy to sit up. She is grateful for the warmth, knowing that all too quickly it will give way to stifling heat.
The tiny sandwich shop across the road is open for breakfast, offering spinach and cheese pies, cream pasties and frappés.
The guttural sound of a tractor is heard before it is seen. It turns the corner into the village. Two dogs struggle to maintain balance on the flat back trailer it is pulling. The tractor’s rusting orange paint is a contrast to the whitewash and blue shutters of the village houses. The dust kicks up from its wide, deeply grooved tyres.
Stella catches a movement in the sandwich shop. The girl serving smiles and waves to her before the tractor pulls up, blocking her view. The driver climbs down, his wife sitting half on his open seat, half on the metal wheel arch. Her black headscarf obscures her face. She wears the uniform of a farmer’s wife, a straight skirt to the knees, ankle socks, comfy black shoes and a stained and out-of-shape T-shirt. She waits passively. The dogs curl up together behind.
The farmer returns, and the dogs spring to attention. He hands two paper packets to his wife and slides into his seat to drive across the road to the kiosk on the square. He descends again for cigarettes before approaching a group of illegal immigrants waiting, hopefully, for work, on the bench by the palm tree. They stand eagerly, in unison, to show their willingness. He selects two of the tallest and, with a twist of his wrist, points to the trailer with his thumb. The dogs growl a warning as they jump on. The farmer drives out of the square at the top end, with the immigrants sitting on the back, legs hung over the number plate.
Stella watches them depart. There are more immigrants than there were last week. She wonders where they sleep.
A familiar thin profile shuffles into the square and heads towards her. She puts up her arm to shield her eyes from the sun and pushes herself back in her seat, sitting up.
‘Hi, Mitsos. You’re up and about early. Are you hungry?’ she asks. The early morning light stretches out his shadow in front of him, his own path. ‘There’s no food on yet but I can make you a coffee.’ Stella pauses, sliding her hand under her thighs, palms on the chair, ready to launch herself into action ‘You could always get a sandwich from across the road and just come and sit.’
Mitsos raises his head from his concentrated effort and looks past her into her shop.
‘He’s not here.’ She releases her hands from under her legs and slumps back into the curve of the white plastic chair. She smiles at him.
Mitsos, with a nod and the hint of a smile, changes directions and shuffles his way across the road to the sandwich shop. His belt has missed a loop of his grey serge trousers at the back and his shirt is bagging out as a result. He would be embarrassed if he knew that, but even more embarrassed if she told him.
The kafenio has opened its doors and the two men who were waiting are now sitting inside, cigarette smoke rising from their dangling hands. The corner shop is also open and some school children come out to slouch, resignedly, at the unmarked bus stop.
Mitsos makes his way back across to Stella, a paper packet containing his breakfast in hand. Stella stands and brings a second chair from inside out onto the pavement and returns indoors to light the single camping-gas ring for coffee.
The bus comes. The children march on board to the silent beat of unheard music, wires hanging from their ears, eyes glazed. The cluster of immigrants hoping for work dwindles until there is only one left, who dozes on the bench by the palm tree.
‘Do you want to tell me?’ Mitsos asks.
Stella shakes her head.
They drink their coffees and watch the world without speaking, the sun’s heat intensifying with the passing of time, until Stella stands quite suddenly. Mitsos, startled, looks at her but she is gazing across the square to where she can see the back of Stavros as he lumbers into the corner shop.
‘Best get things going before he’s here,’ she says to Mitsos, who smiles sadly at her. She goes inside the shop and puts on a cardigan she finds on the hook. It covers her bruises.
The sink plug is clogged with chicken skin and a ring of grease circles the stainless steel sink. Ste
lla stacks the pots as best she can on the floor.
She hears Stavros cough as he comes in, a wheezing, hacking smoker’s cough. He spits; she hopes it is into the bin, or outside.
With careful movements she wipes out the sink and scrubs along the line of mildew where it joins the wall. She does not want to draw attention to herself with careless noise.
She turns on the tap and wipes away the dirt.
‘You were late last night,’ Stavros says from the other side of the grill.
‘Got talking to Vasso.’ Stella decides not to soak the mildew with bleach. She cannot raise the enthusiasm, and lifts the dirty pots back into the sink and runs hot water over them.
‘And this morning?’ Stavros is raking out the ashes on the grill. This is normally one of the jobs Stella does before he arrives. He usually doesn’t make an appearance until lunchtime service is well under way. It is not in his nature to be doing this to be kind.
‘You hear me?’ His tone is rough.
Stella squeezes more liquid on her sponge; it smells of lemons. She tries to think of what to reply but can almost not be bothered.
‘Where were you?’ He doesn’t soften his voice.
‘Went for a walk.’ She puts a dozen rinsed plates up onto the racks above the sink, where they drip warm rain.
She works her way through the cutlery and wonders what Stavros is doing now. There is no more sound of ashes being cleared.
‘You and your walks.’ He sounds displeased; she hears a glass break and he curses.
Her ‘walks’ make all the difference, and always have, right back when she was very little: ‘walks’ with Dad when she was tiny and then ‘walks’ on her own when she grew. It was on one of her walks that she met Stavros. He’d seemed so worldly; now he seems pathetic.
Having finished the pots she opens a new sack of potatoes and pours half of them into the sink and begins to peel.
Why? She has seen so many films where the women run businesses, are assassins, beat corporations that are doing dodgy dealings, even women who box. So why is she peeling potatoes when Stavros usually lies in bed snoring? It isn’t as if he sits and works through what they need to order, or does the accounts. If he did, and she couldn’t, then maybe her doing the potatoes would be a fair division of their efforts. But as it is she who orders the potatoes, chickens, ouzo, tomatoes and charcoal, and she who does the accounts, the result is that they do not get equal leisure time. Imagine how well it would run if he peeled the potatoes and she managed the place …
She throws a naked potato into the large pan on the floor ready to be cut into chips.
But what if she hadn’t married? She picks up the next potato, fumbles and drops it back towards the sink, where it bounces off the rim, hits Stella’s apron and slides to the floor, rolling underneath the grill. She sighs and takes a ladle off a hook and, bending down, begins to fish under the grill. She retrieves an empty mini ouzo bottle, a fork, a torn lottery ticket and three cigarette ends, but no potato. She gives up, leaves the ladle where it has been firmly wedged by the grill’s leg and continues her monotonous peeling.
Look at Madonna, Nana Mouskouri and Princess Diana. Stella crosses herself several times with the hand that holds the knife.
‘God rest her soul,’ she mutters.
‘What?’ Stavros pokes his head into the narrow gap next to the sink by the grill above the chip fryer. There is just enough room to see his bulging eyes and his sweating forehead. ‘Have you finished those potatoes yet? The grill needs lighting.’
Stella drops the potato and the knife into the sink, wipes her hands down her apron and comes out from behind the grill. Stavros has cleared too much ash from the long grill pan; it is going to take longer to heat up now.
‘Why are you sighing?’ Stavros cuts each word. Stella backs away from his menace. She puts her right hand over the bruise on her left arm before turning away.
‘I’ll just get some more charcoal.’
‘There’s plenty here.’ Stavros comes out from the space between the grill and the counter to let Stella in. She can smell ouzo. He picks up his glass and takes it outside. The postman passes on his moped and Stavros waves and lights a cigarette.
The charcoal bag is lighter than the potato bag. She pours plenty in, until it empties, then she scrunches up the wrapping and puts it in with the charcoal. She turns to see if he is looking. He isn’t. She takes out a small bottle of lighter fluid she keeps under the counter and squirts it over the charcoal: her secret. Stavros fails to light the charcoal every time and Stella gets an - admittedly, childish –satisfaction from lighting it with the first match. It makes Stavros cross, and it pleases Stella no end to see his face after he has been trying for a quarter of an hour to get it to catch, and her kindly relieving him and having it blazing within a minute. He doesn’t think to use lighter fluid.
‘Ha!’ She exclaims as one match kicks up flames to the grill hood. She looks round to Stavros, who is motionless in the white plastic chair in the sun, his back towards her. Stella watches the flame curling and splitting, the orange against the grey of the steel. It might be hot enough in half an hour even without the ashes, she concedes.
She doesn’t suppose Grace Kelly ever had to light a grill pan, or split a chicken come to that. She washes her hands in the sink. With the half-peeled potatoes, a bag of plucked chickens and the butcher’s knife from the hook on the end of the grill, she goes into the area with the tables. On the window sill is balanced a cutting board which she lays on one of the tables.
‘Oh, hi.’ Abby announces her arrival. ‘Hope I’m not too late.’ She walks past Stella and into the toilet cubicle.
Stella cracks open the first chicken and puts it on the next table, ready to lay it on the grill bars.
‘That looks so satisfactory,’ Abby says as she comes out wiping her hands on a piece of toilet paper.
Stella brings the knife down with such force that the table wobbles.
‘Did you sleep well?’ Stella asks, breaking chicken bones, thinking how barbaric her job is. She doesn’t like chicken. She lives mostly on chips and salad from her garden.
‘Yes, thanks. I was so tired. It was an effort even to get out of bed this morning.’
Abby had every intention of getting up as early as possible and going into town to try her luck at getting a job there, with the vague plan that if she didn’t find anything she could get back to the village before lunch.
But when Vasso had come in the night before, Abby had woken and got up for a glass of water and they had talked, or mostly mimed. Vasso had been so funny. Abby had laughed until her sides hurt when Vasso asked if she wanted milk in her tea and mimed milking a cow whilst sort of mooing. At least she thinks it was a cow, maybe a goat. The thought makes her start to giggle all over again and she tells Stella the tale.
‘She is very funny lady,’ Stella agrees, laughing herself.
‘Anyway, what shall I do?’ Abby looks around.
‘Potatoes, in the sink.’ Stella crashes the meat cleaver through the bones of another chicken.
‘Ok, but can I ask, why don’t you buy ready-cut chips? It would save you so much time.’
‘Yes, but not money, potatoes are cheap.’
‘Yes, but your time is valuable. Imagine how much you would have to pay someone to make chips and see if ready-made aren’t cheaper. I bet they are.’
Stella looks at her, brow lifted. ‘I had never thought it that way around.’ She brings the cleaver down again with a loud crack.
Chapter 9
The insecurity of her position urges Stella to continue with her routine as if nothing has happened. She knows things must change, that they will change but while she is unsure of what action to take her normal routine is very comforting. As usual there are no customers before eleven. Abby and Stella talk about costing up someone’s time to see which day-to-day tasks are viable. Chip-making clearly is not. Stella is amazed at how much she doesn’t know about running her own business an
d asks Abby where she has learnt so much. It keeps her from brooding over Stavros
‘School. I did business studies at GCSE. I wasn’t really interested then as it was all theory. This is much better, sort of on-the-spot training.’
‘Yes, but who is training who?’ Stella laughs.
Stavros barks Greek at them from the chair outside.
Stella jumps at the suddenness and the loudness. She looks at Abby.
‘What did he say?’ Abby whispers.
‘Why you whisper, he no understand.’ Stella glares at the back of Stavros’ head. ‘He says we not to talk English, you need to learn Greek, but really he does not like that he doesn’t understand. How you say in English “Fork him!”?’
‘It’s not pronounced exactly like that.’ Abby giggles, but Stella is not listening. She stabs a sausage on a long two-pronged fork and jerks it upwards in a rude fashion in Stavros’ direction. He is facing the road, watching the world, unaware, calmly smoking. What is the point, Stella asks herself? She looks at the sausage on the fork, why continue as if nothing has happened, it cannot stay the same, everything must change, is there any point carrying on these day to day chores when tomorrow who knows where they will be. She returns the sausage to the grill muttering Greek swear words under her breath until she grows calm.
Abby is working well today.
‘Hey Abby, what would you do with the ouzeri so it makes more money?’ she asks. Abby’s eyes shine and she becomes quite animated.
‘First thing I would do is I would wrap fairy lights around the tree outside, show something is happening.’ She goes on to say that she would open the door to the restaurant part and put more tables and chairs outside. Stella laughs at this and says that she has been saying it for years to Stavros but he doesn’t want to unstick the door.
‘Why don’t you just do it?’ Abby asks
‘It is not like that, I can’t just do things. I watch my Mama make my Baba happy but she had to ask for everything. Then I watch her make the ‘uncles’ happy and the only way she got anything was to ask. Then I watch Stavros’ Mama make Stavros and Stavros’ Baba happy but she no ask for things, but then she didn’t have anything either. It feels wrong just to do something without asking.’
