“You’ve got a deal,” Quentin agreed, having once done the accounts for a store that stocked tinners and still offered him an excellent discount. Applauding himself that for once he’d got the best end of a deal with the hardware shop man he decided to treat himself to a kafenion coffee. He was in no rush to return home and possibly be confronted with the squatting stalker as he’d had just as much crazy women as he could take for now.
Koula practically floated back to the ‘Lemoni Spiti’ on a cloud of love. She had waited all her life for Prosperous Pedros to come along and was already planning every last meticulous detail of their wedding in her mind. Sneaking round the back of the house she hurled herself inside through the kitchen window she’d left open earlier, landing in an unruly heap at the feet of the man she had now so casually mentally discarded.
“Got you,” Socrates shouted, snapping her wrists together with the furry handcuffs.
Emboldened by copious amounts of Metaxa Deirdre confronted the intruder, saying “How dare you squat in my house and scribble all over the mirror with my best lipstick.
Socrates was completely taken aback to receive what appeared to be a genuinely contrite apology from his crazy stalker who no longer looked quite as unhinged as she had earlier. “Please forgive me for my behaviour before; I can’t begin to imagine how I ever found you attractive.”
“It’s not that implausible,” Deirdre offered, “Socrates isn’t completely ugly, in fact he’d look halfway decent if he shaved off those bushy sideburns.”
“Get a grip Did-Rees,” Socrates admonished. “How attractive you find me is not the issue, this mad woman has broken into your house and terrorised Stavroula with her relentless campaign of heavy breathing phone calls.”
“I’m so sorry, I’ve no idea what came over me. I think discovering the frozen remains of father’s unmarried sister in the deep freeze led me to act out of character,” Koula improvised, desperate to extricate herself from this tricky situation and the furry handcuffs so she could start stalking Prosperous Pedros.
“You poor dear, that must have been a nasty shock to your system,” Deirdre consoled. She could sympathise with the squatter’s desire to flee a home populated by a frozen corpse in preference for her own lovely ‘Lemoni Spiti.’
“Please don’t call the police, I promise to go quietly and never again enter your house,” Koula begged with apparent sincerity.
“Not so fast,” Socrates objected. “There’s the small matter of my braces and underpants to fathom, how on earth did you get your hands on them?”
“Forgive me; I took them from the washing line,” Koula admitted.
“And what else have you been stealing from washing lines?” Socrates accused, recalling the elusive underwear thief had never been identified.
“Nothing at all, I swear. You’ll find the things I took have been carefully laundered.”
“That’s true, she’s done a lovely job with my bedding, the sheets have never been so well starched,” Deirdre piped up, feeling nothing but a rush of pity for this pathetic creature. “Was it just a bit of a crush that got out of hand, it’s easy to get carried away in the first flush of love?”
“Any love was not only unreciprocated but completely delusional,” Socrates insisted, still feeling uneasy in Koula’s presence.
“It’s finished, I don’t love you anymore,” Koula insisted. “Surely you can just let me go and say no more about it. I’ll never bother you again.”
“If I let you go do you promise no more heavy breathing phone calls and absolutely no harassing Stavroula with your jealous nonsense?” Socrates demanded, annoyed Deirdre’s sympathy appeared to be contagious.
“I promise. If I could just take my camera as it’s an old family heirloom you won’t hear from me again.” Turning to Deirdre she added “I meant no harm staying in your lovely house. I’d like you to keep the embroidered toilet roll holder and the knitted bride loo brush cover as thank you gifts. Socrate, perhaps you could give the photos I took of you to Stavroula.”
“I’d rather burn them, she’d be livid to see how you cut her head out of them.” Unlocking the kinky cufflinks Socrates advised her to make her way back to Osta and try to put all this crazy business behind her.
“Yes, I’ll do that, just please don’t tell my sister Soula about it,” Koula said, having no intention at all of returning to Osta. She was desperate to escape and had heard of the perfect place to squat on the gossip village vine. Thea’s empty harbour-side house in Astakos was close to Pedros and if she was very discreet in her comings and goings no one would have a clue she was in residence.
“You have one chance. If you come here again or bother me and Stavroula, I’ll have you locked up with your father,” Socrates threatened.
“You won’t see me again,” Koula promised, discreetly sneaking the furry handcuffs into her pocket.
Koula was almost at the garden gate when Deirdre caught up with her, thrusting an old coat round her shoulders. “Take this; it’s getting a bit chilly.”
“I can’t help it, I feel sorry for her,” Deirdre said to Socrates as she waved to the retreating figure. “When all’s said and done she was a far better house guest than those two old hags next door.”
Chapter 21
Spreading The Tzatziki
After downing a kilo of black coffee Deirdre had sobered up enough to join Quentin for an evening at ‘Mono Ellinka Trofima’ with their Greek friends. She had taken Socrates advice and binned the stifado, despite its delicious aroma. Even though she wasn’t convinced crazy Koula had spiked it she worried some of the contents may have been lifted from the deep freeze that had unhygienically harboured a corpse. Quentin and Deirdre were greeted warmly by Takis and Yiota who were delighted to have the Americans back, having grown very fond of them.
Prosperous Pedros turned up in a breathless temper after being summoned by his mother to inflate an airbed for Melecretes to sleep on. Fotini insisted it wasn’t seemly to expect her guest to blow up his own bed and because the pump was broken Pedros was forced to inflate it using his lung power. In a fit of pique he had surreptitiously stabbed the inflated mattress with the handy darning needle kept in his pocket, amused at the thought the resultant slow puncture would guarantee his mother’s irritating house guest an uncomfortable night gradually sinking into the cold tiled floor.
Melecretes tagged along with Pedros to the taverna, unaware his grating company was less than welcome. He was eager to taste genuine Greek cooking on Greek soil. “Call me Mel” he invited, enthusiastically lifting Takis in an unwanted bear hug and giving a covetous look to the grill he was itching to take charge of.
Pedros had barely sat down when his mobile phone rang. “What is it now mother?” he asked with a sinking feeling. Fotini had only been home for two minutes and already her demands on his time were becoming outrageous. “Save me a plate of vegetarian lamb,” he called out to Yiota. “I ‘ave to go the ‘ardware shop and purchase a lobster adorned shower curtain for Melecretes to use as a waterproof bedspread.”
“Yous mother is so thoughtful wanting me to ‘ave all the homely touches,” ‘call me Mel’ beamed, impervious to the scowl on Pedros’ face. Elbowing Takis out of the way, the proprietor of ‘Granny’s Greek Gyros’ grabbed a bowl of tzatiki, saying “let me show yous the special way I have of spreading tzatiki on the tastiest pita gyros in Idaho.”
Before Takis had the chance to show ‘call me Mel’ how he personally smeared tzatiki on pushy know-it-alls who had the temerity to wander behind his counter, the situation was defused by the entrance of mail order Masha and that old fool Vasilis.
‘Call me Mel’ dropped the cucumber yoghurt dip, along with his jaw, exclaiming in awestruck admiration, “What a vision of statuesque beauty,” at the sight of Masha with her new ‘You Say Potato, I Say Vodka’ tee-shirt straining to contain her voluptuous silicone bosom. She flaunted her exposed pregnant stomach like a fashion accessory in a low slung pair of skin tight pink leather t
rousers, complementing the new pink streaks in her long blonde hair extensions.
As the mismatched couple sat down Melecretes told Yiota, “I just love bein’ back in my ‘omeland, Greece is so family orientated. How lovely it is to see an old grandfather bringing his granddaughter out to dinner.”
“That’s not his granddaughter,” whispered the hovering Yiota. “That’s the old fool Vasilis with his mail order bride Masha. He has to bring her out for dinner as she can’t cook.”
Yiota’s response elicited a feeling of déjà vu in Quentin who recalled he’d made exactly the same erroneous assumption the very first time he’d clapped eyes on Masha and the old relic together.
Mail order Masha pushed a Tupperware bowl of home cooked borscht into Yiota’s hands, asking, “Can you heat this up? It’s the only thing I really fancy eating at the moment.”
“Well it’s not really the done thing to bring your own food, Masha,” Yiota tutted disapprovingly.
“Po po, I never ‘ear yous complaining when the fishermen bring their own catch and some of it not even gutted. Yous is happy to cook their fish up in a lemon dress,” that old fool Vasilis piped up. “My wife is very particular what she eats at the moment as she struggles to control her insatiable sweet pregnancy cravings.”
“I spent all afternoon slaving over an ‘ot stove so I could stick to my diet,” Masha lied. She had just come back from the presenting the weather at the television studio and that old fool Vasilis had collected the borscht from his daughter Stavroula who had perfected the Russian soup when practising foreign dishes for the disastrous televised cooking show.
Melecretes’ excitement at the sight of Masha was only surpassed by the nostalgia that overwhelmed him when the taverna’s next customer entered. The Pappas had come off worse for wear during a fight with a rooster gifted by one of his parishioners. He had intended to cook the rooster up for his evening meal, but the pesky feathered creature had evaded his clutches and was last spotted squatting on the top of the chimney stack, staring malevolently down at the Pappas who had slipped in the mud as he’d chased it round the yard with a meat cleaver. “Bother that ungrateful Iraklis not being here to climb up and get it,” he’d shouted. With not a scrap of food left in his pantry he’d decided to treat himself to dinner at the taverna.
The Pappas was surprised to be confronted with a noisy American-Greek giving him a hearty handshake. “What a sight for sore eyes,” Melecretes boomed. “’Ave yous any idea ‘ow long it ‘as been since I saw a genuine Greek Orthodox priest in a long black dress an’ a chimney-pot hat? Let me buy yous a drink.”
Unused to be being greeted with such bonhomie, the Pappas eyed up the stranger, calculating if he was likely to be an easy touch for a generous donation to the church collection plate. “Well young man, I would be most delighted to see you in church.”
“Call me Mel,” Melecretes urged. “Perhaps you could pose for some photos. I’ve an idea to redecorate Granny’s with black and white pictures of old world Greece.”
Having no idea the Granny alluded to was actually ‘Granny’s Greek Gyros’ restaurant, the churlish Pappas replied huffily “It wouldn’t be seemly for me to be posing with your Granny, I’ve my reputation to consider.”
“Granny’s dead. I wasn’t suggesting we dig ‘er up so you can pose with ‘er corpse,” the now affronted ‘call me Mel’ pouted, turning his back on the insensitive priest. The tense atmosphere was lightened by the return of Prosperous Pedros, accompanied by Tall Thomas and Vangelis the chemist.
“’Ere, I trust yous is capable of putting this waterproof bedspread over your inflatable bed without my assistance,” Pedros said sarcastically, thrusting the lobster adorned shower curtain he’d just purchased from the hardware shop into Mel’s hands.
“There was no need to go wasting money on that,” Tall Thomas told Pedros. “Aunty Nitsa brought a potato adorned shower curtain back from Idaho that Mel could ‘ave slept under.”
“Nitsa bought that for a gentleman called Bald Yannis who has a very special place in her heart,” call me Mel interrupted. “I refused her kind offer to use it as it meant so much to her to gift it to him in pristine condition. Anyway this one is much more patriotic.”
Pedros was furious to have been sent on a wild goose chase to the hardware shop when there was already a perfectly adequate shower curtain to serve as a waterproof bedspread under his mother’s roof. Mel’s assertion the potato adorned shower curtain was meant for Bald Yannis at least cheered up Tall Thomas who concluded if his Aunty Nitsa was still hankering after the hardware shop man she couldn’t be too serious about Fotis who he suspected was courting his Aunty to get his hands on her inheritance.
A cold draught blew into the taverna at the entrance of Gorgeous Yiorgos and Petula. “I tell you there was definitely someone pressing their nose up against the taverna window. Suppose they were hungry and couldn’t afford a meal,” Petula anxiously whispered to Yiorgos.
“You were seeing things, my love,” Yiorgos reassured her, having failed to spot crazy Koula creepily spying on Prosperous Pedros in the darkness. Petula instantly forgot all about the possibly starving figure as she clapped eyes on her estranged husband the Pappas, greedily dipping a chunk of bread into a plate of fava. The colour drained rapidly from her face, until Yiorgos reassuringly pressed her hand, reminding her “there, there, he cant’s do any harm to yous now.”
Firmly planting her back to the Pappas, Petula accepted the chair proffered by Quentin, saying “it’s so good to see you two back. How were things in Idaho?”
“Cold and snowy,” Deirdre replied. “I was happy to return to Greece, this cold spell here is quite mild, nothing like a winter in Idaho.”
“Po po, if you think a winter in Idaho is cold you should try the frozen wastes of Verkhoyansk,” Masha shivered, recalling the sub- zero temperatures of her Russian hometown where the prowling wolves were chased off by armed men in snowmobiles.
“Oh good, Adonis has arrived,” Quentin said, pleased to see his good friend had made it. Adonis joined the others, ruffling the hair of his cousin Petula with obvious affection.
“Did-Rees, K-Went-in, it is goodly to see you back my friends, ‘ow was America? I kept an eye on the ‘ouse and can report it is still stood up.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t notice it had been invaded by a squatter,” Quentin pointed out, eliciting a nervous laugh from Adonis who hadn’t actually been anywhere near the ‘Lemoni Spiti’ in their absence.
“’Ave yous thought of letting the ‘ouse out to the end of the worlders, you could make a bigly profit?” Adonis asked.
“We’ve only just got back and rid the place of a nuisance squatter, why on earth would we want to rent it out?” Quentin asked, being clueless about Bald Yannis’ end of the world scam and its enthusiastic reception by the other villagers.
“Can you believe Quentin has bought a goat from Bald Yannis to keep Fotini from beating a path to our doorway,” Deirdre said before remembering Fotini’s son was sat at the next table. “Oops, no offence intended Pedro.”
“None taken Did-Rees, think nothin’ of it,” Pedros assured her, thinking he would invest in a goat deterrent himself if his mother ever took to visiting him in his cottage. “That was a rum do you ‘ad to endure at the airport K-Went-In, if I’d known the trouble that parrot would cause I’d never ‘ave bought it for mother.”
“Well hopefully the parrot will be as terrified of the goat as your mother is,” Quentin said, unconsciously rubbing the permanently indented scratch marks etched in his scalp by the parrot’s unnatural attachment to him. “Bald Yannis has promised to deliver a ferociously handsome specimen with sharp horns in the morning.”
“It’ll be worth gettin’ up early to watch him tryin’ to deliver a horny goat on ‘is bicycle,” Vangelis the chemist chortled, jumping to his feet to hold the door open for Mrs Kolokotronis.
“Ooh, such a gent,” she cooed, not budging from the open doorway. “Come on, they won
t’s bite,” she called out to the hovering young Iraklis. “Yous deserve a treat after all that ‘ard work at the supermarket.”
The Pappas went puce with rage at the sight of the nervous Iraklis following Mrs Kolokotronis into the taverna.
“Welcome, welcome,” Takis cried “It’s the first time we’ve ‘ad the pleasure of yous company as a customer Pappas Iraklis.”
“Please dispense with the title of Pappas, I am simply Iraklis now,” Iraklis humbly requested. “I am done with the church.”
“Stop doin’ yourself down, there’s nothing simple about yous, yous is a clever lad,” Mrs Kolokotronis gushed, on a mission to boost his confidence. “Now what do you fancy, this is my treat?”
It was quite obvious what Iraklis fancied as his eyes were protruding on stalks at the sight of mail order Masha in her bosom clinging tee-shirt. He was so engrossed staring at Masha he failed to notice the brooding presence of the irate Pappas, until he was shaken out of his reverie by a litany of harsh words.
“‘Ave yous no shame, flaunting yourself in ‘ere without your clerical dress. Yous is a disgrace to the church. Yous poor mother would be turning in her grave if she was dead, but no doubt your selfish plan is to put her in an early one,” the Pappas thundered, standing over Iraklis. He cast a ridiculous figure with breadcrumbs stuck in his shaggy grey beard and visible stains of red mud smeared all down the front of his long black clerical dress.
“Call yourself a man of the church. How dare you carry on in this bullying way,” Mrs Kolokotronis shouted, standing up to shield Iraklis from the older man’s rage. “It is yous that should be ashamed of yourself, treating this sensitive young boy no better than a dogsbody.”
“It’s only what yous would expect from the God-bothering fraud. Look ‘ow he treated my Petula, always free with ‘is fists he was when he’d ‘ad a drink,” Gorgeous Yiorgos shouted, standing up to protect Mrs Kolokotronis in case the Pappas turned nasty.
Goatly Goings On Page 8
