by Sara Alexi
‘Turned out that she lived in Bradford too,’ Abby adds, looking across the patio at the plants in pots. One tall pot’s neck glistens, filled with water. A wasp hovers in the cool over the surface. One of the cats slinks towards the earthenware urn and, in one elegant move, places its front feet up on the rim and elongates its neck to drink.
‘Bradford! Is that where you come from? I grew up there.’ Juliet smiles, the sober mood held on pause.
‘No?’ Abby’s face brightens a little and she turns to look at Juliet, re-assesses her, looking for familiar traits in her face.
‘Yes, first seven years of my life. You don’t have an accent?’ Juliet says.
‘Neither do you. I was born in Kent, then we went to live in Warwick. We’ve only been in Bradford since Dad got the job there, four years.’
‘Small world. Stella, more tea? I think it will have brewed now.’
‘Yes please Juliet, milk no sugar.’ Stella speaks carefully, forcing an English accent. Both Juliet and Abby smile, hanging on to the chance to keep the mood lighter.
They focus on the tea tray, their faces grow stern again.
‘So what’s the problem - you don’t like Sonia?’ Juliet’s voice falls back into a lower cadence.
‘She tries to act as my mum, and then, other times, she acts like a friend, which she’s not. But mostly it’s Dad.’ Abby’s voice holds anger, her face fierce.
‘Sugar?’ Juliet asks. Abby nods and holds up her index finger.
‘He says it would be more useful if I stay at home to help with the baby. He says there is no point in doing A levels.’
‘Education is never wasted.’ Juliet emphasizes her words with the baton of a delicate silver teaspoon, the residual drops of tea falling to the tiled floor, creating dark spots.
‘But he sees A levels as what you do to get into university, and seeing as university is not a possibility I may as well stay at home and help Sonia look after the baby.’ Abby’s eyes are on the fallen tea-drops which widen as they soak in.
‘Not possible because you have to pay now, you mean?’ Juliet asks. Abby nods before looking up to say, ‘That’s why I came to Greece. A friend of mine told me about this bar and I emailed the guy. I thought if I could show Dad how I could earn money in the summer to pay for my uni fees he might let me stay on to do A levels.’
‘Ah. This is the job that you were trying to get to Saros for, but ended up here instead,’ Juliet clarifies. Both Stella and Abby nod. Juliet sits drinking her tea, her eyes not focused on anything outward.
‘So, is your dad adamant that you will not stay at school?’ Juliet asks.
‘It was the way he said it, that it would be better if I helped Sonia look after the baby. Like I should not think of myself any more,’ Abby says. ‘I grew up with no mum. When I was tiny Dad looked after me but as I grew it became more even. I did jobs around the house, made breakfast, washed up. I can remember, when I turned thirteen, thinking that I was a teenager and that I must learn to cook properly. So I did. That year I took on the cooking, not just the breakfast, and also the clothes washing. I even took on organising the money, paying the bills and stuff ’cause I am good at maths.’ Stella looks at Abby sharply at this comment. ‘Dad and I were very close.’ Abby stops to drink some tea. Stella opens her mouth to speak but Juliet, almost imperceptibly, purses her lips and raises her eyebrows in a Greek ‘no’. Stella closes her mouth and responds with an equally imperceptible nod of agreement.
‘Then he started to say I should go out with my friends, find a boyfriend, have more fun. I thought I must have upset him so I worked harder at school to please him and did more at home. But it still seemed like he wasn’t pleased with me. So I worked harder still. Then he seemed to relax a little and it was like old times.’ Abby grabs for a tissue, pre-empting her next response. ‘Then I found out about Sonia and it all fitted. His relaxedness, his happiness was not from me working harder but because he had met her.’ She dabs at her eyes.
‘And that is how it has been ever since. Sonia first, me forgotten.’ The tears come with noise, and both Juliet and Stella lay comforting hands on her back as she sobs.
‘That is hard.’ Juliet’s voice is soft and kind. ‘It sounds as if you feel you have lost him to her.’
‘Yes, yes, that is exactly it!’ Abby’s voice, through her tears, excited to be understood. Juliet strokes Abby’s hair until the initial tears subside to a snivel.
Juliet takes a breath and says, in a very measured tone, ‘Let’s just say you did go to uni, you would make lots of friends …’ She pauses to allow the words space to become real. ‘Even if you went to Bradford uni the chances are you would spend all your time either in lectures, in the library studying or hanging out with friends.’ She lets these thoughts dangle for a moment before adding, ‘Staying overnight with friends, now and again perhaps.’ There is a slight pause before she adds, ‘There would be a pretty good chance you would meet someone, someone special.’ Juliet waits.
Abby looks up at her, curiosity on her face.
‘Do you think that all sounds possible?’ Juliet asks her.
Abby nods.
‘If you met someone special you would probably want to spend all your free time with them. That’s usually how it goes.’ She smiles kindly.
Abby’s wet eyes are held fixed on Juliet’s as she continues to predict the future.
‘So with you in lectures and the library all day, and with friends, and maybe someone special, the rest of the time you may make it home just to do your washing or sleeping, unless you bunk on someone’s floor.’
‘Bunk,’ Stella repeats, testing the word. The finality of her pronunciation indicates she has clearly understood its meaning and seems to enjoy the word.
Abby doesn’t hear Stella, she is still staring at Juliet.
‘If that person is special, who knows what may follow after university? But whether they are or not you could go on to do more education or you could take a job that follows on from your degree. That job could be at the other end of the country.’ She takes another sip of tea before asking, ‘Do you think that all sounds possible?’ Abby nods. Juliet puts her cup down. Stella and Abby wait for what Juliet will say next. Juliet becomes aware of both of them.
‘Well?’ she asks and looks at them both. ‘With no Sonia, where would your dad be when you, the love of his life, are doing all this?’
Abby’s eyes widen, her lips part.
Stella sighs her understanding and nods sagely.
Juliet drinks her tea.
The cats bump heads and one begins to lick the other.
A donkey on some distant hill hee-haws his loneliness.
‘But he hasn’t just found Sonia as a convenience, he says he loves Sonia,’ Abby says quietly. Her voice sounds younger than her years.
‘We find what we need in life. He may not have known it clearly but he needed to find Sonia. Sonia, and the baby, are his future. You have yours.’
Stella grabs a tissue and dabs at her eyes.
Abby grabs a tissue and blows her nose.
Juliet picks up a cat and strokes it.
‘When I started doing my GCSEs I got different teachers that year. It was suddenly all changed.’ Abby looks for somewhere to throw her now-scrunched tissue, but finding nowhere continues to hold it. ‘Because I began to do so much at home I related more to the teachers.’ She smiles and gives a short laugh. ‘I swapped cooking tips with my maths teacher and I even gave my drama teacher advice on how to unblock his sink. I felt different from the other kids, but different from the teachers too. Neither one nor the other.
‘This was at the same time that Dad first got together with Sonia, and I would see him, he would act one way with her and then another way with me. I accused him of being two-faced but a part of me saw he was in the same position as I was at school.’ Abby looks out towards the far mountains. ‘But I was … too angry … or selfish perhaps, to admit it.’
With no warning she begins t
o cry loudly. Stella shuffles closer to her and gathers her in her arms, rocking her, kissing her hair. Juliet puts a hand on Abby’s back and pats her.
‘And I just left him,’ Abby blurts between sobs. ‘I told myself I was coming to Greece to prove I could work my way through uni, which is sort of true but … oh Daddy, I came to hurt him. To show him how painful it would be if he pushed me out, if I was gone.’ She sobs anew. Stella grabs some more tissues and blows her own nose while still holding Abby.
‘I need to call him,’ Abby says, sitting upright and breaking free of Stella’s comfort.
‘Yes, it would be a good idea,’ Juliet agrees.
Abby looks expectantly at her. Stella glances inside.
‘But … here’s a thought,’ Juliet says slowly. ‘If you call him now, of course he would be delighted to hear from you, but you are calling him upset and in a tough spot, as they say.’
Abby and Stella look at Juliet as if she is about to predict the future again.
‘What if we could sort out the tough spot, and maybe then you could call offering only good news?’
‘You have an idea?’ Stella asks. Abby holds her breath.
‘Oh no, no, not at all.’ Juliet’s eyes widen. She waves her hands in front of her to dispel any misunderstanding.
‘Oh. You sounded like you had thought of something.’ Stella sounds disappointed.
‘I don’t know.’ Juliet rubs her forehead. ‘I was kind of thinking of the whole thing. Abby needing funding, you needing something to fall back on depending on what happens with Stavros.’
Abby looks up at his name. Stella holds her protectively. ‘Let him try!’ Stella hisses. ‘Oh Juliet, listen.’ She adds, ‘I learn a new word. He is bars-tard.’
Juliet shakes her head and her eyebrows raise in the middle. ‘Well I guess it is a word used often by English people, but I wouldn’t use it if I were you.’
‘He is bars-tard, even if I don’t say it.’ She hugs Abby to her. ‘Anyway, what you were saying?’ Stella urges Juliet on.
‘I was thinking of your dad’s place. I am glad you have found it, by the way. You have mentioned that memory a few times so I am glad it is a real place.’
‘What about my Baba’s place?’ Stella pushes.
‘It was also the look that you gave Abby when she said she was good at maths and did the family bills. You were going to say something?’
‘I was going to ask her if she would do my numbers for the shop.’
‘Accounts,’ Juliet prompts.
‘Yes, accounts, but now is not the time to be talking such things.’
Juliet is still frowning. She stands up and goes inside. She is gone for some minutes.
‘It’s easy, look,’ she shouts from inside.
Stella gets up and Abby follows her. Juliet is sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop.
‘What’s easy?’ Stella asks looking over her shoulder at the screen. ‘Oh that’s like the table for the candles up at my Baba’s apothiki.’
‘”Hut”,’ Juliet corrects, but Stella does not hear her as she watches the video of a man doing what she remembers her baba doing.
‘I love YouTube,’ Abby murmurs. The two-minute film comes to an end. Stella sniffs.
‘Baba did that,’ she says sadly.
Juliet types and presses return, another video. They watch for a moment in silence.
‘Yes, look, he will take the frame off and cut the soap now. It used to smell so good.’ Stella is almost bouncing on the balls of her feet. Abby smiles at her animation. The film comes to an end.
‘We should do it!’ Abby says. Juliet smiles at her.
‘Do what?’ Stella asks. She looks from Abby to Juliet for the answer but it takes her by surprise when it comes from inside herself.
‘Panayia!’ she crosses herself, but as quickly as she is animated she slumps again. ‘Who would buy? I can make all the soap and candles in the world, but if no one buys …’
They all stare at the now-still screen. Eventually Abby wanders back outside. She shields her eyes against the sun and wonders how the cats manage in their furry coats.
‘Yia sou, Yia?’ a woman’s voice shouts from the lane. Abby cannot see her for Juliet’s car but she recognises Vasso’s voice.
‘Yia sou Vasso,’ Abby says, using the only Greek vocabulary she feels confident with.
‘Abby? Yiati eisai edo?’ Abby hears the intonation and understands she is asking a question but she is lost as to the meaning.
‘Juliet, Vasso’s here,’ Abby calls indoors.
‘Vasso? Really? Oh, I am coming.’ The sound of a wooden chair scraping across rough tiles is followed by Juliet’s light step.
‘Vasso. Ti kanis?’ Juliet says. Abby looks at Stella who has also come out.
‘She asks how she is,’ Stella translates over the top of Vasso’s talk. ‘Ah, it is nothing, some letters have arrived for Juliet, and Cosmas, the postman, has left them at the kiosk.’
‘Yia sou Stella,’ Vasso greets Stella. ‘Ti ginetai edo?’
‘I love that about the Greeks,’ Juliet says to Abby. ‘They want to be involved, know what is going on. In England I always feel it would be impolite to ask why someone is somewhere or what’s going on.’
Stella speaks for some time to Vasso in Greek.
‘Is she telling her about Stavros?’ Abby asks Juliet
‘She hasn’t yet. She is talking about her dad’s place and the idea of getting it running.’
‘Tea, Tsai?’ Juliet invites. Both Abby and Stella shake their head.
‘Nero,’ Vasso requests, and Juliet goes inside to get her some water as Vasso talks to Stella some more. Abby hears the name ‘Stavros’ and watches a range of fleeting expressions pass over Vasso’s face as she is updated. Vasso mutters some words that sound harsh.
‘She’s telling him the rumours about Stavros when they were first married.’ Juliet reappears with a glass of water for Vasso who is now looking at Abby. ‘Now she is asking your age.’
The conversation continues. It grows increasingly serious in tone and Vasso begins to raise her voice. Stella calms her down and then suddenly they both laugh.
Juliet doesn’t join in or translate. Abby watches the two friends talking. Juliet leans her head back, her face in the sun, apparently in her own world until she exclaims, ‘Oh my goodness! Vasso’s right. There are more Greeks living abroad than in Greece.’
‘So?’ Abby asks.
‘Well, as Stella said, you can make candles and soap till it comes out of your ears but if you have no one to buy them what’s the point? They say tourism’s down over thirty per cent. Judging by what you see in the town, I would say more.
‘But Greeks abroad are very nostalgic, and Australia is not in recession. There are more Greeks there than anywhere. Stella, do you remember my friend who helped me clear the garden?’
‘The illegal Pakistani?’ Stella almost sneers.
‘Yes, Aaman.’ Juliet gives Stella quite a hard look and sits up straight. ‘He went back to Pakistan and got a job there writing web sites. Well, he has just emailed me to say he has got a job offer in England. Didn’t I tell you?’ She turns to Abby, who shrugs. ‘Guess where? Bradford! A business somewhere up behind the university.’
‘Am I meant to understand something?’ Stella asks.
‘Vasso’s right. More Greeks outside Greece than in, all missing home,’ Juliet states.
‘Sell to them,’ Abby concludes, ‘through a web site. I can do accounts and manage the site. I could do it from here or England.’ She jiggles in her seat.
‘Ti, ti lei?’ Vasso wants to know what Abby is saying. Stella translates. Vasso replies with a grin and then laughs.
‘What?’ Abby asks, smiling at Vasso’s laughter.
‘She has just joined our merry team by offering her olives for the oil for the soap, and apparently she has bees, which I didn’t know.’ Juliet listens to Vasso for a moment. ‘Ah, she says her son had the bees but when he went
to Athens some cousin offered to look after them. Huh, in other words they are his now, but Vasso says she has no shame in asking for them back, he has only had them a month.’
‘Does she know how to look after bees? Besides, wouldn’t we need, like, loads of them for enough wax?’
‘No idea, but we can find all this out.’ Juliet sounds calm, assured.
Vasso addresses Abby. Abby looks to Stella and Juliet, who both start to translate at the same time, Stella allowing Juliet to finish.
‘She says Stella says you are good at adding numbers.’ Vasso speaks further and Juliet translates. ‘She says if this is true you have a job every year doing her books if you want, she cannot get the hang of it.’ Juliet smiles at Vasso.
‘And mine?’ Stella adds. ‘We will pay you, but not as much as the numbers man …’
‘Accountant,’ Juliet interjects.
‘… in town charges,’ Stella concludes, ignoring the correction.
‘Oh, wow, yeah, that would be so cool. As well as the candle soap thing, you mean, not instead?’ Abby says. Stella nods. ‘Would I need to speak Greek to anybody to do the accounts?’
‘I don’t see why,’ Juliet says.
Abby smiles as she looks from one face to another.
‘You wanted to be like the women in the films, Stella, and run an international business. Bet you never thought it would be in candles and soap.’ Abby cannot hide her joy. ‘This is like your dream.’
Juliet leans in to Vasso and translates.
‘And like your dream,’ Stella replies. ‘If we do this and make money you can go to university.’
Juliet mutters to Vasso. Vasso mutters back.
‘Vasso says it is like her dream. Someone else to do the books, the olives and the bees, and make enough money to get some help in the kiosk.’
‘And your dream, Juliet?’ Stella asks. ‘Is it your dream?’
Juliet laughs a gentle, pealing sound. She looks across the mountains, she looks around her garden, she looks at the cats and she looks at her friends.
‘I am living my dream already.’ She smiles, the sun highlighting the red flecks in her blonde hair.
Chapter 19
