Goatly Goings On

by Katerina Nikolas

  “Dont’s be daft, Kazakhstan is a made up place what that hilarious Borat character showing ‘is bits in a mankini came from,” Tall Thomas argued.

  “Of course it exists, it is the largest landlocked country in the world,” Prosperous Pedros insisted, showing off his superior book learning.

  “Fancy not ‘aving any sea to swim in. Well let’s hope Kazahks are partial to gyros. Bald Yannis reckons we can make ready cash from somethin’ called glamping, an’ he only wants me to deliver gyros to rich malakas in posh tents,” Takis said.

  “I thought yous and Bald Yannis never spoke on account of yous ongoing feud about Yiota putting feathers in ‘er vegetarian pies.”

  “That’s true, but he reckons there’s a lot of money in delivering gyros to glamping Doomsday trippers so I made an exception and we agreed to put our feud on hold till the world ‘as ended.”

  “Well nobody makes gyros better than yous,” Tall Thomas said.

  “That Melecretes malaka what is stopping with yous Aunty Nitsa would beg to differ, he thinks he’s the world expert on gyros.”

  “Appen yous could rope ‘im in to give you a hand if demand gets too much from them Doomsday trippers,” Tall Thomas suggested. “An’ Iraklis could deliver ‘em on the supermarket tricycle now he’s finally got the ‘ang of it.”

  “Humph, I’ll ‘ave to think on that,” Takis mused, wondering if he’d been a bit hasty in banning ‘call me Mel’ a day earlier in a fit of pique.

  “It’s a bit dead in here tonight,” Vangelis the chemist declared entering the taverna. “No sign of Toothless Tasos. I just came by the harbour and noticed lights flickering upstairs in Thea’s house. I thought the place was still empty, but she must have managed to rent it out.”

  “That’s odd,” Tall Thomas replied. “Only this morning Tasos was despairing they’d ever find anyone to rent it and they could do with the income on account of Thea’s extravagant spending on the ‘ome shopping channel.”

  “Well someone must be in there now, I definitely saw lights in the upstairs window,” the chemist insisted.

  “Yous should give the old tightwad a call to be sure, I ‘eard on the village gossip vine that a squatter moved into K-Went-In’s ‘ouse while they were back in Idaho,” Yiota said.

  “Another missed call from the heavy breather,” Pedros groaned, retrieving his phone to call Toothless Tasos. “That makes seventy three today. ‘Ere Taso, Vangelis says there are lights on upstairs in Thea’s empty ‘ouse, ‘ave yous found someone to rent it?”

  Two minutes later Pedros’ phone trilled again and Pedros shouted, “Tasos says it’s not lights, Thea’s ‘ouse is on fire. Hurry we must form a human bucket chain from the harbour to the house.”

  Everyone rushed from the taverna to the harbour where Toothless Tasos was ineffectively attempting to douse the upper storey flames single-handed with a leaky hose pipe.

  “’Ave yous called the fire brigade?” Vangelis shouted.

  “Aye, but they wont’s be ‘ere for a good half-hour, they was parked up at the lookout spot on the mountain,” Tasos replied.

  In no time at all a human bucket chain was formed, comprising Prosperous Pedros, Tall Thomas, Vangelis the chemist, Takis, Moronic Mitsos and Toothless Tasos. Socrates and Stavroula dashed out of the rival taverna to help after being alerted by Thea, and Iraklis was summoned to lend a hand by Yiota. “It’s lucky the kitchen window was open,” Socrates declared as the bucket line was extended inside the house and up the stairs.

  “’Ere comes more ‘elp,” Tall Thomas shouted, flagging down Nitsa’s taxi returning from the hospital with Bald Yannis, Gorgeous Yiorgos and mail order Masha.

  “Oh goodness, there is someone trapped inside, I can see a figure in the upstairs window,” Stavroula cried, recoiling in horror at the prospect of someone burning alive.

  “We can’t reach ‘em from the staircase, there’s too much smoke,” Moronic Mitsos screamed, rushing out to refill his bucket.

  “I’ll grab a ladder from the ‘ardware shop,” Bald Yannis boomed.

  Everyone watched with bated breath as Bald Yannis positioned his ladder beneath the upstairs window and bravely ascended. “Stand back,” he shouted, breaking the window with his mallet.

  “What a hero,” Nitsa called as Bald Yannis entered the burning room. An ominous silence descended as everyone waited for Bald Yannis to step back onto the ladder. A cheer broke out as he eventually put a tentative foot on the top rung, a dangerous and difficult manoeuvre considering he had hoisted Quentin’s ginormous horny goat over his shoulders.

  “Ow on earth did a goat get into Thea’s ‘ouse?” Toothless Tasos questioned. “Was there anyone else trapped upstairs Yanni?”

  “No, just the poor goat,” a soot covered Bald Yannis assured them between hacking coughs. Everyone burst into spontaneous applause, slapping Yannis on the back as the village hero, just as the fire engine pulled into the village and the firemen took over, successfully stopping the fire from spreading beyond the upstairs bedroom.

  “I cant’s understand what K-Went-In’s goat was doing in there,” Bald Yannis told his captive audience. “Only this afternoon I found it wandering and tethered it back up in his garden.”

  “Well if truth be told it was wandering loose earlier, terrifying my mother and eating its way through the horta in her garden. I promised ‘er I’d put it on the boat overnight till we could decide what to do with it as obviously K-Went-In isn’t capable of being in charge of a living creature,” Prosperous Pedros revealed, clueless it was actually Nitsa that had axed through the goat’s rope with his mother’s encouragement.

  “But ‘ow did it get from yous boat into the upstairs of Thea’s house?” Toothless Tasos asked, still puzzled.

  “Someone ‘ad left the kitchen window open, perhaps it just climbed in,” Socrates said, even though his suggestion didn’t explain how the goat got off the boat.

  Fortunately for crazy Koula none of the villagers considered exploring Pedros’s boat for clues and thus failed to discover her hiding there. As she watched the flickering flames spread she cursed the goat for knocking over the candles and starting the fire, sobbing quietly over the loss of her precious photographs of Prosperous Pedros, engulfed in the fire. As the crowd began to head to ‘Mono Ellinika Trofima’ to toast Bald Yannis, Koula muttered “I’ve just time to pop by and plump up Pedros’ pillows.” It hadn’t dawned on her yet that the fire had left her with nowhere to squat.

  Chapter 34

  Goat Is Off The Menu

  Hoisted aloft on the villagers’ shoulders, Bald Yannis was carried to ‘Mono Ellinka Trofima’ to be toasted for his heroic bravery and made welcome for the first time in years.

  “The very thought of that poor creature nearly being burnt alive ‘as put me right off cooking goat in future,” Yiota lamented. “I know we all appreciate a bit of road-kill goat now and again, but no one would want to see a goat go up in flames.”

  “That’s all right, we can ‘ave lamb this Easter,” Takis assured his wife. “’Ere Yanni, tuck into this plate of vegetarian chicken, yous must be famished after scaling that ladder an’ rescuing that ginormous goat from that fearsome inferno.”

  “It certainly gave me an appetite,” Bald Yannis said, wiping his soot stained brow.

  “I still cant’s fathom ‘ow the goat managed to get into Thea’s ‘ouse,” Toothless Tasos said.

  “It’s a mystery ‘ow it got off my boat,” Prosperous Pedros mused. “I left it securely tied up.”

  “Goatly goings on is often a mystery. I’ll ‘ave to ‘ave words with K-Went-In tomorrow, I dont’s think he’s taking his goat responsibilities seriously,” Bald Yannis told them, patting the rescued goat busily licking a saucer of ouzo to help with the trauma. Yannis was quite prepared to hold onto the goat if he suspected Quentin was incompetent, but he had no intention of returning the Christmas tinner payment.

  “Yous will ‘ave to wait till he gets ‘ome from the hospital,” Fat Chr
istos reminded him.

  “Oh goodness, what ‘as ‘appened, ‘as K-Went-In had an accident?” Yiota asked in genuine concern.

  “No, ‘im and Did-Rees is stopping there to look after that old fool Vasilis. He flopped face first into his dinner after overdosing on Viagra,” Fat Christos explained.

  “’Ow come yous isn’t at the ‘ospital with yous ‘usband, Masha?” Takis enquired.

  “Well someone ‘as to be at ‘ome to feed the pregnant donkey. An’ there was a right old pervert of a doctor who was a bit free with his hands an’ who knows what diseased place he’d just ‘ad ‘em,” Masha shuddered in disgust, having failed to see any charm at all in her latest admirer.

  “He was a big fan of yours. He couldn’t wait to be rid of Vasilis until he knew he was married to yous,” Fat Christos said. “Still I does feel a bit guilty lumbering K-Went-In and Did-Rees with ‘ospital duties after their hospitality in Idaho.”

  “I’ll go and collect ‘em in the morning,” Prosperous Pedros volunteered, thinking it was the least he could do, suspecting Nitsa and his mother had conned him into kidnapping the goat.

  Takis and Bald Yannis sealed their tentative fledgling friendship over a glass of ouzo and their gyros delivery plan, deciding they would case out the caves along the coastline the next morning. As the caves were being promoted as the unique spot to survive the impending Armageddon, they decided they would erect some signposts as handy pointers to salvation for the impending Doomsday trippers to follow.

  Thea, attempting to be stoical about the fire which had ravaged the upper storey of the harbour-side house, lamented the loss of the potential rental income she had planned to extract from the end of the worlders.

  “Dont’s worry about it my little bougatsa, the insurance payment will more than make up for it,” Toothless Tasos comforted her. Thea burst into tears, confessing to her fiancé she had splashed out the money for the insurance premium on new underwear to replace the frillies that had disappeared from the washing line. Her confession sent Bald Yannis into his first ever guilt trip as he realised his innocent pastime of stealing underwear could have dire repercussions.

  “I’m sure if we all muck in to repair yous ‘ouse we can ‘ave it ready before the end of the world arrives,” Bald Yannis magnanimously suggested. His words were so out of character the others immediately felt obliged to offer their help too in sorting out the fire damaged house.

  “Yous is all so kind, such good neighbours,” Thea gushed.

  Yawning with exhaustion after all the excitement of the evening, the villagers started to make their way home. “Where’s Nitsa got to with ‘er taxi?” mail order Masha asked. “She was supposed to be dropping me ‘ome but I ‘aven’t seen ‘er since we stopped at the fire.”

  “I think Aunty might have been distracted by all them ‘andsome beefy firemen in uniform,” Tall Thomas suggested. “She needs a bit of light relief after the way that malaka Fotis Moustakos was using her.”

  Fat Christos offered Masha a lift home on the supermarket tricycle, but her leather trousers proved too tight for her to get her leg over. “I can drop you off in the pick-up Masha,” Prosperous Pedros offered, clueless his innocent act would incite raging jealousy in the bosom of the stalker whose existence he never even suspected.

  Koula was lurking outside Pedros’ stone cottage as he drove by with the silicone beauty in the passenger seat. “Pedro, how could you be unfaithful when we are about to be married,” crazy Koula howled at the moon. Pulling herself together she cried, “Pedro I know you are innocent, after all we are soul mates destined to be joined as one. I will save you from the clutches of that blonde trollop.”

  Prosperous Pedros was relieved to drop Masha off as her vampish ways always made him nervous. Arriving back at his simple stone cottage he was surprised to discover a grotesque knitted bride covering his roll of kitchen paper and a solitary clementine sitting atop his pillow. “Mother was adamant she hasn’t been in, I wonder if it could be Nitsa. First thing tomorrow I am changing the locks,” he said to himself, peeling the fruit. Climbing into bed he failed to notice crazy Koula ogling him through the bars of his window with a glazed look of ecstatic adoration on her face.

  “Sleep tight, sweet Pedro,” she whispered, blowing him a kiss. “Don’t worry, I will get rid of that other woman and I promise we will be together forever.”

  Koula stepped away from the window, shivering in the cold night air. Her clothes were still damp from her earlier dip in the sea and Deirdre’s cast-off coat had been burned to a crisp in the fire. She hadn’t dared steal another of Pedros’ pullovers, settling instead for one of his old white sheets. Her teeth began to chatter. Her jealous rage had drained the last of her energy and she succumbed to a bout of violent sneezing. Cursing the goat for starting the fire and depriving her of a place to sleep, she stalked wearily away, desperately hoping the lock on the church would be easy to pick.

  Chapter 35

  Gloria Gets Deflated

  The Pappas was cursing the overly pious Kyria Sisyphean who he appeared to be lumbered with. She had made no attempt to persuade her son to return to the church, being more intent on creating a scene and accusing Iraklis of nefarious goings on with Mrs Kolokotronis. The Pappas was hopeful she would adopt a more conciliatory tone the next day and in the meantime his best hope was in offloading her for the night at Adonis’ hotel.

  “What do you mean you are full? It isn’t the tourist season yet,” the Pappas argued with a pyjama clad Adonis who insisted there were no available rooms. “This poor woman has endured an arduous bus journey to reach Astakos and is in need of a bed for the night.”

  “What’s wrong with yous own bed? Yous is supposed to be a Christian man, but that’s open to interpretation the way you knocked my cousin Petula round,” Adonis shouted.

  “It wouldn’t be seemly for me to sleep under a strange man’s roof, which is why the Pappas suggested your hotel,” Kyria Sisyphean said sternly.

  “Well this place is full of strange men. There’s religious nut jobs arrived from all corners of the globe convinced Astakos will survive this Doomsday charade,” Adonis said, slamming the door in their faces.

  “Doomsday; what sacrificant talk. I hope you intend to give that man a stern talking to in church, Pappas,” Kyria Sisyphean declared. “He’s obviously a heathen attempting to malignancy your good character by implicating you were harsh with his cousin.”

  “I was married to ‘is cousin Petula, but she left me for another man,” the Pappas confided, pulling at his straggly grey beard as he contemplated what to do with the overbearing woman.

  “How unfortunate, it wouldn’t have been unseemly to stay at your house if the presvytera was there,” Kyria Sisyphean said, using the formal term for a priest’s wife. “However, now both your wife and Iraklis are no longer living there I will have to take your bed while you make altercations arrangements. Perhaps you have a chicken coop or goat pen you could bed down in?”

  “I can sleep on the sofa,” the Pappas said.

  “Don’t be so ridiculous, I have my reputate to consider. The goat pen is more than adequate for a strong man with your consternation.”

  “As you can’t even say reputation properly I think you are overly bothered about preserving it,” the Pappas hissed under his breath.

  “Preserves. Yes indeed a dish of olives would be most welcome,” Kyria Sisyphean said, barging into the Pappas’ kitchen. She was shocked into silence at the sight of such squalor, taking in the kitchen sink overflowing with filthy pots and the floor slick with spilt olive oil and feathers. The Pappas’ success in finally catching the recalcitrant rooster was apparent as the evidence of its decapitated head was lying discarded on the kitchen table, emitting a pungent stench.

  “You need a woman that does,” Kyria Sisyphean decreed, rolling up her sleeves and preparing to set to. “I daren’t unpack my bible until this place has had a good scrub, I couldn’t bear to desiccate it.”

  “I’ll
just pop along and tidy the bedroom for you,” the Pappas said rushing out of the kitchen, thinking if he had to endure one more of the woman’s mutton-headed malapropisms he wouldn’t be able to control his temper. He couldn’t afford to offend her as she’d implied she was on close terms with the bishop. She was obviously a tittle-tattle, so he was forced to humour her.

  “Goodness Gloria, I’m going to have to deflate you before that harridan claps eyes on you,” the Pappas apologised to the blow up sex doll sprawled on top of his grubby sheets. “I can’t risk leaving you here for her to find,” he muttered, desperately trying to squash its slowly deflating body into a suitcase, but only managing to let the air out of its lower limbs. Securing the lock with relief, he tossed the suitcase out of the window and surveyed the mess in the bedroom.

  “Kyria Sisyphean is right about one thing, if I can’t guilt trick Iraklis back to perform his dogsbody duties, I will have to get in a woman what does,” he sighed. After sniffing the malodorous sheets he straightened them because he didn’t have any clean ones to offer his unwanted guest. He kicked his smelly socks under the bed, cursing the lack of holy incense on hand to waft about the room to disguise the fetid stench.

  “This room is disgustful, I will have to sleep on the sofa,” Kyria Sisyphean complained, entering the Pappas’ bedroom and immediately polishing the icon above his bed.

  “Whatever you think is best,” the Pappas concurred. “I really must be off now, it wouldn’t be good for your reputation Kyria if the villagers found out we’d been alone under the same roof; they are such dreadful gossips. I will see you in church in the morning.”

  With that the Pappas legged it, his long black clerical dress flapping behind him, only stopping to retrieve the suitcase he’d tossed in the garden. He had no intention of sleeping in the goat pen; he hadn’t even expected his pet goat Nero to sleep in it. He decided to bed down in the church until morning.