by Sara Alexi
‘Yeah, but we are not children!’ Abby seems to find it rather amusing that Stella, and the Greek women Stella knows, need permission to do things.
‘Maybe I am just not strong enough to unstick the door,’ Stella says, but she doesn’t open her mouth very widely as she says it and the words are muffled.
‘Have you tried?’ Abby looks at the door.
Stella is brushing the floor around the tables and Abby is cleaning the glass of the picture of the donkey with the hat on. Stella chooses not to answer. There is a commotion in the takeaway and they both look round to see the two boys from yesterday, along with four more.
‘Yia,’ Stella greets. ‘Go on, you serve them,’ she whispers loudly in English to Abby. Abby blushes and puts down the window cleaner and goes to wash her hands. The one who spoke the day before asks for six giros in Greek, but Abby doesn’t move. Her eyes wide, she appears rooted to the spot.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Stavros barks. He has raised his weight from the chair outside and stands leaning against the door frame. The boys turn around and stare at him.
‘She does not understand and it is making her scared. You understand being scared, Stavros,’ Stella snaps. Two of the boys snigger and Stavros’ face tenses, his eyes popping out and his face going extremely red. ‘Abby, they want a giro each, one horis kremidi – er, without onions,’ Stella tells Abby.
Abby jumps into action and makes a great job of the giros. She hands them out to the boys who randomly take them. As she passes over the last one she says, ‘Horace cream midi.’ The boy who had looked at her the longest yesterday makes a point of touching her fingers as he takes this one and thanks her in English, prolonging the eye contact.
‘Dodeka evro. Twelve euros,’ Stella calls, and each boy hands over two euros to Abby. But when she counts it all together there is an extra two euros. The boys leave smiling and Stella tells her it is a tip. Stavros steps in and takes the twelve euros before it even makes it into the till. It is the first time he has done this openly. Stella feels a strange relief that at least there is no more pretence. He walks off towards the kafenio. Stella hopes he will pay off some of his debts rather than just drink it away.
‘Shall I write a note to say what he has taken and put it in the till for when you cash up?’ Abby asks.
‘What is this “cash up”?’ Stella flops onto a chair, and exhales. It all seems such a waste of effort.
‘You know, at the end of the day, see how much you have made, so you can calculate your profit.’ Stella loves what Abby is teaching her but just at the moment it feels too much. The change in her position with Stavros lurks in her mind. His actions convincing her that he has debts. It weighs heavily. How big are the debts?
An hour later two more boys come in for giros and then towards lunchtime a mix of regulars and new faces sit down for chicken and chips and salad. They each leave a tip and Stella watches as Abby smiles, her stack of euro coins growing in the dish Stella has put out for her.
‘It won’t be many days before you can go to Saros with these tips,’ Stella says kindly, but with a sad edge. She is enjoying Abby’s company and she loves that she is speaking and improving her English every day.
‘Yeah,’ Abby says. She looks at the clock. ‘And I have been in Greece just over thirty hours.’ She gives a brief laugh before her smile fades. She looks at Stella, her eyebrows rising slightly. ‘It will be strange starting again somewhere new, getting to know people and things, again.’
‘And exciting,’ Stella announces. The girl needs her freedom. What Stella wants is just from selfishness, replacing what she lacks with Stavros for good companionship. It would be easy to pull Abby into her life for her own needs, but it wouldn’t be right.
Abby takes a bowl, the potato sack and a knife to a table, the light shining through the window making the drops of water on the bowl’s edge glisten. She runs her finger around the edge before beginning to peel and watches the remaining traces of water evaporate in the heat. Stella crouches behind the counter. The thin bottom shelf is only used for one thing. She blows the dust off as she gets out the accounts books again. If she does a little every day she might get up to date. Taking them to the table next to Abby, she looks through. So much is missing, days and days of takings not written down. Now they have to give receipts by law, the roll on the till will have to be added up for each day and the amounts entered in the book. It is a mammoth task. Stavros has never even opened the book. He probably doesn’t even know of its existence.
Stella looks at the pages again and the job seems almost too big to even begin. She looks over at Abby; her potato-peeling is getting quicker. One column: Stella will do one column and then the job has begun. She is a little amazed at her decision and, application.
The day is getting hotter; the sound of motorbikes and tractors passing decreases. Dogs stop barking, the cicadas increase their decibels. Stavros rolls down the awnings outside using a long metal pole with a hand-turned crank at the bottom. It squeaks as it turns. He has a cigarette in his mouth and Stella can see the ash getting longer and longer with each turn of the winching handle until it finally falls onto the crease of his T-shirt above his stomach. Half the profits are right there in that round belly of his, the other half spent on his debts. Stella has not had a new dress since the one Vasso gave her last year, and that was a cast-off from one of Vasso’s nieces. She turns back to the books.
The early afternoon passes quickly. Stavros announces he is going for a sleep. As he walks away four hungry farmers arrive, order chicken and chips and wait, impatiently, to be served.
After eating, the farmers seem to string out their meal. Every time Abby stops busying herself in the safe recess at the back of the grill, she goes through and asks, with her freshly learned phrase, if they are all right, ‘Ola endaxi?’ She smiles as she speaks, a tell-tale red flush beginning on her neck. They take it in turn to ask her for a variety of things, gently teasing her lack of Greek, enjoying her smile, her freshness.
Eventually, very full and happy, leaving much of the extra ordered food on their plates, they say they will return tomorrow and that it has been the best meal they have had in a long time. They meander out, eyes lingering on Abby. Stella has a sinking feeling that Stavros might have been right. Abby is creating more business. It should make her happy but she cannot see this ending well.
The farmers all leave a tip. One leaves two euros.
Abby seems happy and takes the pots to be washed.
‘Abby,’ Stella calls to her behind the grill. Abby has put the radio on. ‘Usually it is very quiet now for a couple of hours. I go to my English lesson with Juliet. Usually I close if Stavros is not here. Today I leave you in charge?’
‘Oh! Er, OK. What if it all goes badly wrong?’ Abbey twists the tea towel she is holding.
‘Don’t worry, I will tell Vasso to come in if she sees anyone coming this way and you can go to her if you have any problem.’ Stella feels no qualms in leaving her. Abby is picking up the basic words quickly. Besides, she needs to believe she is fine to be left. Stella must talk to Juliet alone. Without another word she marches out into the heat of the sun.
She lets Vasso know to keep an eye on Abby as she crosses the square. Vasso tells her that the cardigan she is wearing is hers; she has been wondering since last autumn where it had gone. Stella smiles, keeps it on and walks off. The sun feels very hot today, the cicadas’ grating hum so constant it becomes unnoticeable. They normally don’t start till later in the year but the heat is bringing the seasons forward.
Mitsos is just leaving the kafenio to go home. He calls out to let Stella know that his nephew will be baptised soon and the whole village will be invited: will she come? Stella calls back that of course she will, she wouldn’t miss it for the world, and as she walks on she knows Stavros won’t go and this could be an afternoon for just her and kind old Mitsos. It makes her feel quite excited. She turns down Juliet’s lane and relishes the peace and quiet. It is so ce
ntral and yet feels almost as if no one lives in the lane, it is so private. She couldn’t live there, she would be afraid to be so isolated, but she loves to visit.
The cardigan is very hot and she would like to take it off.
Full of flowers and blossom, the garden is introduced by wild roses trailing on the metal arch over the gate. Juliet’s car stands in the gravel courtyard which is bordered by huge spiky plants in ceramic pots along the wall and across the front of the house. Down the right-hand garden wall are pomegranate trees, twisted and split, laden with last season’s dried and cracked fruit hanging close to the ground. The raised patio in front of the house has a table with chairs around it, to one side a big sofa with a white throw.
‘Hi. How are you?’ Juliet greets. She gets up from the sofa, putting her books down.
‘I am fine, how are you?’ Stella responds parrot-fashion, wondering how Juliet can wear jeans in this heat.
‘Very formal. I think we are past that stage. A little bird told me you have a visitor.’ Juliet smiles.
‘What is this “a little bird”, like in the trees?’ Stella is amused.
‘You say that when you want to say you have heard something from someone and don’t want to say who it is or when you can’t really remember who you heard it from.’ Juliet clarifies. She takes her red-blonde hair out of its pony tail and smooths it across her crown before restraining it again.
‘Ah, I see, so a little bird means someone in the village told you I have a visitor.’ Stella smiles. ‘I like this “little bird” talk. Yes, she is called Abby and she is from England and now I speak English all day and she says that I am improving.’
‘You have improved. It is flowing more. Well done.’ Juliet seems a little taken aback by Stella’s sentence.
Juliet sits down on the sofa and a cat jumps onto her knee.
Stella strokes the cat and sits next to Juliet, perched on the edge of the sofa as if she might slip off. Juliet lays one arm over the back of the seat, relaxed, assured. Stella’s toes have turned in. Her shoulders rounded, she looks like a child beside Juliet. The cat jumps from Juliet’s knee to hers.
‘Do you want some tea, or some iced water?’ The pergola over the porch is dense with a passion-flower vine. The sunlight pinpricks between its foliage but the shadow does not diminish the heat.
‘Yes please, either, either.’ Stella pronounces the word in both of its possible forms. In one of her lessons with Juliet they watched a black-and-white video of a song by a couple who could not get on because they pronounced things differently. She had enjoyed the song but it did make learning English difficult if there were different ways to pronounce everything.
Juliet, goes in for the drinks, giving Stella a moment to think. She strokes the cat, who settles on her knee. Juliet knows so much; she has lived in England all her life. How long has she been here? Only a couple of years. She is worldly, she is divorced and probably, and most importantly, she does not gossip.
The tray is laden with iced tea, biscuits and napkins. Stella dreams of being this civilised. But with Stavros, what is the point?
‘Stavros,’ she says out loud. Juliet is with her in an instant.
‘What has he done?’ She looks at Stella and settles back into the sofa as if she has all the time in the world.
Stella takes off the cardigan. Juliet sits upright, and her eyes widen as her hand goes out to touch the bruises, but stops before it reaches them.
‘Oh my God, are you ok? What happened?’
Stella can hear Juliet’s breath has quickened as she asks.
Stella relates the incidents. She hears her voice tell the tale and in the telling it seems unreal, something out of the newspaper. It feels so unfitting that she begins to doubt that it really happened, at least not to her. She strokes the cat quite rapidly. Over the wall, across the hills, there is a movement, and in the turning of her head to see the goats scramble up the hill she is given proof that it was all real. The pain shoots down her neck into her shoulder.
She winces and turns back to Juliet to finish her tale.
Juliet has tears in her eyes, her face drawn down with sadness. Stella is shocked. She had expected her to immediately jump into the: ‘I am so sorry this has happened to you’ spiel. This is not what she thought would happen. She feels guilty for bringing Juliet into her sordid life. The horror of the event becomes more real; her own tears well and silently fall.
Juliet sits quite still, looking straight at her, until she finally says, ‘What do you want to do?’ This completely takes Stella off her guard. She wasn’t aware that she could ‘do’ anything about what has happened.
‘How do you mean?’ she almost stutters.
‘If he has done it once it is unlikely that he will not do it again, which leaves the question, “What do you want to do?”‘ Juliet is firm but kind.
Stella has no idea if she wants to do anything. She wants life to be as it always was, running the ouzeri, maybe even improving it, living next to Vasso, waving goodnight to Theo, cutting up Mitsos’ food. She suddenly misses Mitsos quite violently and sucks air in, a reflex to the surprise of her attachment to him. No, she does not want to change a thing. Except Stavros: she wishes he just didn’t exist.
‘I want Stavros to not exist.’ Stella laughs before tears blur her vision and she shivers into sobs. Juliet is by her side with an arm around her shoulder. Stella turns her face against Juliet’s T-shirt. Juliet rocks her gently.
‘I have done “bad marriage”, Stella,’ Juliet says. ‘It dragged me down and kept me under. I did the classic, I worked harder at it. He didn’t. But you know, you know deep down in your gut, whether something is worth working for or not.’
Stella emerges from Juliet’s T-shirt and Juliet uses the shift to nip inside and bring tissues. Stella blows her nose noisily. The tears on her cheeks have dried in the sun to salty war paint, white against her dark skin.
‘Sometimes the event, like catching someone kissing another woman, can mean nothing, the woman he is kissing just a tool, an invention to bring a crisis to a point, so that deeper issues, that are too scary to broach, can be talked about. It is possible, in talking, that you can come together again, even better than before. The event, the woman, is just meaningless. Then, if you love him, it is not about moving apart, it is about moving closer together. Both of you work through the pain, not of him kissing another woman, but the problems you have together, that were the catalyst for that kiss.’ Juliet takes a breath.
‘Other times the event is for and because of itself. He wants that event to happen. Then you know there is no point in working, trying. It’s time to part. Sometimes, I know, you can confuse the one for the other and stay working and trying hard with something that is dead and buried.’ Juliet looks at Stella. Stella looks puzzled. She has not understood all that Juliet has said. The ideas are too complex for her comprehension of English, the speech too fast.
‘You know, Stella, deep inside, if it is worth working for,’ Juliet concludes. Stella understands this but it brings her no joy.
‘The feelings say “no”, there is nothing to work for, but then I remember how he saved me.’
‘Saved you?’
‘Yes, from the bullies and the bad words about me being a dirty gypsy. He gave me, er, I do not know the English word for it, er, axiopistia, how you say?’
‘Credibility,’ Juliet mutters before going on. ‘But Stella, he did not marry you to give you credibility. That was not his reason for marrying you?’
‘Well, no.’ Stella wipes her eyes. Another cat appears and sits at her feet, staring up at her.
‘So his reason for marrying you was some other reason, love, whatever. It is you who sees that he gave you credibility, it is not he who gave you it. It was a fortuitous consequence.’
‘Fort tu tus co …’ Stella begins to spell out.
‘Luck,’ Juliet condenses.
‘Yes, but being married to him did give me this, without that I could never have
opened the ouzeri, I would not have dared, and no one would have come to the “dirty gypsy”.’
Juliet shakes her head at Stella’s last two words.
‘Yes, but like I said, these were consequences, results,’ Juliet states. ‘He did not marry you to give you all that, without benefits for him. He loved you and wanted you and all the other things that were his reasons. The bottom line is you do not owe him.’
‘But without him …’
‘Without him who knows what you might have done? Maybe you would have set up the shop, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you would have found a business partner in the town and set up a taverna there and been even more successful. Maybe you wouldn’t.’
‘But …’
Juliet takes Stella’s hand. The cat decides he has had enough of all the commotion and jumps onto the floor to be with his friend.
‘I’ll tell you an old Chinese tale.’ Juliet settles herself, inviting Stella to do the same.
‘There was an old farmer who worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbour came to visit. “Such bad luck” he said. “Maybe”, the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful”, the neighbour exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbour again came to visit saying, “what bad luck”. "Maybe," answered the farmer. The day after, the army came to the village to enlist the young men. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, he was no use to them and they left him. The neighbour congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe”, said the farmer.’ Stella smiles at the tale. Juliet continues.
‘For years I stuck by Mick. First I worked at it thinking that it was me, then I worked at it for the boys, then because I felt I was being harsh, then because I felt I owed him. I thought of all the good things that had happened since we had been together and then I got real.
