by Polly Samson
He thumped the steering wheel. ‘Everything’s your fault,’ he said.
Jimmy sat jackknifed and silent beside him with the map. I was stowed like the sulky child I’d become between our camping equipment and the luggage. Occasionally Jimmy’s hand would find me there but then so would Bobby’s eyes in the rear-view mirror.
I was supposed to have sorted it out; I’d kept them hanging around promising I would. In the end we’d had to wait until my eighteenth birthday before Bobby came over to wrestle my passport from Father’s hands. It was an ugly scene, the ugliest really. Again it passes behind my eyes, a juddering reel of a home movie or the onset of a migraine: accusations of Bobby’s corrupting influence, Father’s face boiling, Bobby throwing back at him that he only wanted to keep me as a skivvy now Mum was gone.
Father, his crazy, twisted mouth bellowing: ‘Better than you turning her into a tart for your friends?’
Bobby, suddenly very tall and cold: ‘Thank God Mum’s not here to hear you, old man.’
And Father, a chair toppling as he roared: ‘Damn you, Robert, you’re no better than a pimp. Your mother is turning in her grave.’
Bobby surprisingly fearless. ‘She had to die to get away from you … she hid everything from you because she was frightened … she was too scared to even let you know about the car, no wonder she …’ and our father came at him with the scissors I’d been using to cut coupons from a magazine, my hands too shaky to keep going. Bobby’s kick threw him off balance. Father was floored, heaving for breath, and Bobby with planted feet panting above him, the neighbours banging on the door. Father’s portrait had been knocked from the wall, the glass shattered. From behind the cracked glass, a young soldier with a trim black moustache and a pair of stripes newly fixed to his sleeve. The broken man coming roaring towards us bore little resemblance to this proud defender of the realm. He came at us with my passport in his hands, shoved it at Bobby, went to make a fist then let it drop. ‘Take it. Take her. Don’t either of you darken my door again.’
‘If it wasn’t for Erica we could have enjoyed all of this,’ Bobby was saying, gesturing at the medieval town that we were leaving in our wake.
By the time we reached the overnight ferry at Brindisi he had stopped talking to me altogether. He was morose, hunched over the steering wheel, certain that Edie would be lost. We drove straight off the ferry, queasy after the sixteen-hour crossing, and on along the coast towards Corinth, through domed villages and past tavernas, olive trees, pine forests, the constant invitations of a milky blue sea. No, there would be nothing, not even a Greek coffee.
The first time our feet touched Greek soil was close to sundown that day. Bobby pulled over for clarification on the map. The village was deserted, bathed in dusty golden light. There was only a man who looked like he’d stepped straight out of the Bible: bearded and robed and using a staff to herd a few stringy goats up a path. Jimmy sprang from the car, stretched and leapt in one bound to the top of a wall, looked around and pulled me scrambling up after him. I followed him through the silver shimmer of an olive orchard, snivelling and crying. Eventually Jimmy noticed and stopped monkeying around, blotted my tears with his thumbs.
‘He’s been treating me this way since his fight with Dad,’ I sniffed as a volley of furious Greek broke out behind us. The bearded man was waving his staff. Had he really just spat straight at Bobby?
Jimmy turned to me. ‘What the hell …?’
Bobby had his hands to his face; the man was retreating, goat bells clanging.
‘I’m not a bloody Hun,’ Bobby shouted after him.
‘Germanos, Germanos was all I understood,’ Bobby said. ‘That and “bastard”,’ and then, without warning, when I started to laugh, he launched himself at my arm and gave me a Chinese burn.
We arrived in Piraeus just one day later than planned. Edie wasn’t there and Bobby didn’t track her down for a further two hellish days. He had been tearing around looking for her; his T-shirt was stained with sweat. She and Janey were perched at a pavement table near the youth hostel, laughing with others they’d gathered along the way: a pretty girl with orange hair and a pair of muscular Scandinavians who looked like twins. Edie and Janey both wore French berets.
I saw my brother grinning for the first time since we left London as he crept up behind her and stooped to kiss, or maybe even lick, the innocent length of her neck. One of her companions leapt to his feet, ‘Hey, hey!’ but Edie was laughing and grabbed Bobby’s hand before even turning around. ‘I knew you’d show up eventually,’ she said.
Three
The port of Hydra sweeps into view suddenly, dramatically, like a curtain has been raised between mountains. The symmetry of stone walls and mansions imposes a perfect horseshoe around the water where tiers of white houses rise like the seats of an amphitheatre.
It’s a magic trick from barren rock, a theatre for dreamers. The stage is lit by sun and sea and I’m gripping the rail on deck and Jimmy’s got me by the waist as though he thinks I might leap as the port and its toy town come at us out of the blue. I look from the mountains to the ziggurats of houses and back to the colourful boats in the harbour and for the first time since we left London I’m happy. I imagine myself unfolding against the island’s backdrop of green-smudged hills, finding my way among the terraces and clustered pine. There’s salt spray on my face and my mum’s words in my ears; if I had wings I’d be soaring. Spice-coloured rocks, scrub, brush, acid yellow, herb. Pitched orange roofs and salt-white houses that rise to the gods, all eyes to the port.
People pour on deck for arrival, pointing out windmills and likely swimming spots, black cannons lined up along the fortress walls. Jimmy’s been reading Henry Miller and whispers in my ear, ‘Here it is. The wild and naked perfection.’ I shake myself free of Jimmy and hug myself at the prow as Hydra draws closer.
The fumes make you cough but I’ve been up here since Bobby announced, in front of everyone, that he wished he’d simply sold Mum’s car rather than saddling himself with me. I think my crime was losing sight of Mum’s old suede bag with the traveller’s cheques inside. I found it soon enough and mended the strap and came up here with thoughts of giving up and going home. Jimmy made a lame attempt to follow me but backed away when I said I was sick that he never bothered to stand up for me.
I immediately regretted it but was glad to escape Bobby spoiling everything; to be free of the scrutiny of the black-shawled women down below with their missing teeth and trussed-up chickens. But left alone, my thoughts swelled from my problems with Bobby to an overwhelming homesickness for my mum, and I allowed myself a good Aegean-sized cry. Mum would’ve got to the root of what was bothering Bobby and I ached for the steadying grip of her hand. I even allowed myself to think my brother deserved a good beating by our dad.
The ferry lets out two long bellows on her horns. People and donkeys are gathering at the landing stage; in the orchestra pit the painted caiques have been set swaying by our arrival. In a burst of superstition and excitement I push myself past the other passengers to be first to set foot on the island.
I step from the gangplank. Stand for a breath. The polished flagstones are pink marble. Men with wooden handcarts are unloading sacks; livestock skitters; earthenware jars are passing from shoulder to shoulder; crates of loquats and tangerines; people shouting. The port is festive with flags and bunting, blue and white like the sea and the sky. I scan the waiting people for a face that might be Charmian’s. There are women with market baskets and priests in black robes and dark glasses; shops and cafés and bars; striped awnings; donkeys decorated with beads and strung with improbable loads; drums of kerosene being rolled along the waterfront; the thump of barrels of wine being stacked.
I leave Jimmy to struggle from the boat with our luggage and run off to find her. Was I supposed to meet her beneath the clock? The chip-chip-chip of workmen’s tools rings and echoes. I can smell donkey shit and diesel and fish as I race along the waterfront to the white marble tower tha
t rises at the centre of the port. I’m ignoring Bobby, who doesn’t have an iota of faith in any arrangements his teenage sister might make. He’s yelling at me and I turn to flick him the V and catch Edie and Janey checking out a group of young seamen, dazzling in white with peaked caps.
Stonemasons are strapped to a wooden platform at the top of the campanile and, facing me, the white marble statue of the hero with his lion mounted on its pedestal, Greek flag proudly flying, and Katsikas the grocery store on the corner, Van Gogh chairs and tables on the cobbles just like she said.
I head for the entrance; she’s not out here where only one of the tables is occupied and that by two men. My eyes adjust through the doorway: oil cans, tin baths and shovels hang from the walls, bales of cotton waste. Click, click, click. Dice, tile, chessman, komboloi. A strong smell of aniseed and frying fish. Only men at the marble-topped tables and a sick feeling is dawning that Charmian Clift isn’t here and I’ll have to go back to Bobby through the Easter swarms all looking for rooms and tell him we have nowhere to stay.
At the table outside, one of the men is pushing back his chair. He unfolds like a razor, tall and raw-boned with scruffy brown hair, a jacket hanging at least three sizes too big for him.
‘You looking for Charm?’ The skin of his face appears three sizes too big for him too. ‘I’m guessing you’re little Erica from the Bayswater Road?’ He clears a throat gruff with tobacco: ‘So, big enough now to go walkabout, eh?’ and rests his cigarette on a saucer, extends a leathered hand with a strong grip.
‘George Johnston,’ he says. ‘Her hubby.’
I flood with relief as well as shyness. His is a strange sort of gaze that flicks like elastic between mischief, scorn and anxiety. ‘I don’t think we ever had the pleasure in Palace Court.’ It’s a face of contradictions. His eyes beg for a crumb but his under-hung lip is set for cruel mockery. He might bite any hand that feeds him.
‘Yes, I’m Erica …’
He inclines his head towards his drinking companion, a doleful man with a long stooping back and straggly beard. ‘And this is Pat Greer.’ The man flings George a tired grimace. ‘I mean Patrick, never Pat,’ says George with a smirk.
‘No, and by Jesus, not Paddy either,’ Patrick says, broadening his Irish accent to make his point.
I smile quickly at Patrick and turn back to George.
‘I was supposed to be meeting your wife when I got here. She wrote to me about a house we could rent?’
I shoot a glance up the port to the ragged group weaving towards us. ‘The others are on their way,’ I say, attempting to keep the panic from my voice.
A right mixed bunch we’ve managed to gather at Piraeus and on the boat, all struggling with bedrolls and guitars and easels and backpacks, Bobby shamefully red in the face from shouting my name and Jimmy hauling my luggage as well as his own.
‘Pull up a pew, Ricky,’ George says, ‘she’s not here,’ and before I can decide if I like this novel shortening of my name calls inside, ‘Hey, Nikos, get this weary girl a drink, and while you’re at it I’ll have another Metaxa.’
He taps his empty glass, ‘I take to drinking when Charm’s not around,’ and introduces the laughing proprietor as Nikos Katsikas, ‘the only man you’ll need to chat up on this island … if you don’t want to starve. And luckily for us all, one of the few who speaks English.’
‘But where is she? Where’s Charmian?’ My voice comes out squeaky. Bobby has spotted me; he’s leading the pack across the port.
George follows my gaze, turns a drawl on Patrick: ‘Here they come, more and more of these bludgers, lured by our fantastically blue water and cheap rent to live out their carefree immorality away from prying city eyes. God help us all.’
I squeak a bit more while George weighs me up from the rim of his empty glass. I sound about six, I can’t help crushing my r’s when I’m flustered, and I’m certain I’m blushing.
Patrick breaks the tension. ‘Charmian’s on Poros. She’s gone to see the bank there.’
George gnaws morosely at a fingernail. ‘She was supposed to get back this morning.’ It’s unusual to see a grown man with nails bitten to the quick like this. ‘But where Charm is and where she says she is are not always the same thing,’ he’s saying as Bobby and the others come crashing over.
‘Strewth.’ George throws himself backwards, raises his hands in exaggerated horror. ‘Ricky … how many of you are there?’
Bobby stands panting. ‘So stupid to just run off like that, Erica.’
An untidy pile of people and baggage spreads around the tables; there’s a clamour for drinks and the loo.
‘Christ on a bloody bike,’ George mutters to me. ‘Is Charmian supposed to be responsible for this whole mob?’
‘There’s just five of us for the house,’ I reassure him as he tears again at his nail. ‘The Swedes have somewhere. And I think most of the Americans have rooms at the art school.’
I motion the others closer. ‘Last thing this island needs is a load more pissant painters and pansy poets,’ George grumbles.
‘Bobby’s here to paint, as are Edie and Janey,’ I say, trying not to giggle. ‘And this is Jimmy; he’s a poet but not a pansy one. He’s been published in Ambit.’ I haven’t been able to stop myself boasting about my boyfriend’s poem but as usual Jimmy makes light of it. George pulls on a cigarette, screws up his face.
‘It’s never the poor kids turning up here, is it? Now, why the bloody hell might that be?’ he says, eyeing us through the smoke. ‘All these young Orphics with things to paint and write and sing about. It’s only ever the ones with a nice bouncy safety net back home.’
I start to protest but now George remembers Bobby from London and launches himself at him.
At the same time, the Swedes, Albin and Ivar, are deep in conversation about the number of rooms in the house they’ve been lent and Edie and Janey are pulling chairs to their table. George is guffawing while he regales Bobby with an unlikely tale involving the staircase at Palace Court.
‘You slid straight off the banister and knocked my mate Peter Finch flying, then had the bloody cheek to run back and ask for his autograph.’
Bobby is torn between defending his younger self to George, and Edie who, judging by her body language, seems to be veering towards a room with the Swedes. He excuses himself to reclaim her.
‘Of course, Mr Finch didn’t object to my wife’s consequential laying on of ice packs,’ George says. ‘He has quite a thing for her.’
‘Haven’t we all,’ Patrick agrees, and his eyes turn to a man who saunters in from a side street in a red shirt and frayed shorts. The man is small and muscular with the looks of an ageing cherub. His hair is thick and blond and a mat of golden curls escapes his mostly unbuttoned rag of a shirt. He pulls up a chair beside the girls, twirling a single white flower between his teeth.
‘Bloody hell. The day only gets better. Why does he keep coming back?’ George says, crashing his glass to the table. ‘He’s like a dog that has to keep turning around to sniff his own shit.’
The man is introducing himself to Edie and Janey, his French accent strong, his smile slow and bright.
Patrick is gathering his papers. ‘A boat that brings Jean-Claude Maurice brings a boatload of trouble,’ he groans from beneath the weight of the world. ‘Anyway, my typewriter awaits. Nancy says she’s got enough eggs for an omelette if Charm isn’t back and you and the kids need fodder later …’
The American students hover, seeking directions to the art school, and George points up the cliff and sends them sloping off towards the Tombazi Mansion with their luggage rolls and easels, the girls with horsetails swinging, the boys in blue jeans, one with a guitar strapped to his back.
‘I hope they realise how lucky they are,’ George says, watching them go. ‘You know, sometimes I imagine good old Admiral Tombazi coming spinning from his grave at what goes on beneath his classical porticos. And the monkey splat that passes for art …’ George is coughing in
to his handkerchief. ‘A right load of Pollocks and Twomblys.’
Drinks have arrived; my first retsina almost makes me gag.
‘I don’t suppose any of you have any of the rags from London?’ George looks from face to face without satisfaction. ‘Charm might have asked you to bring the TLS if she knew you were coming?’
Jimmy springs to life, dives into his rucksack, certain he’s hung on to the new issue of London Magazine. George’s glass is empty again. He has taken to shredding a matchstick while Jimmy rummages for the prize.
‘It’s got some unpublished Wyatt poems,’ Jimmy is saying, emerging triumphant, but now George has the seedy French cherub in his sights. He taps another cigarette from his pack.
‘So, about the house …’ I try again, but I’ve lost him as the Frenchman stares straight back at him, white stem twirling.
‘I imagined you’d be on Poros,’ George says.
‘Why would I want to be on Poros, when I could be on Hydra being slandered and picked on by the likes of you?’ Jean-Claude replies. Everyone is listening and watching, glasses raised halfway to lips, spoons stalled in coffee cups.
‘I’m surprised you’d show your flyblown face here after what happened last time,’ George says, but is overcome by another bout of coughing and can’t go on.
