A Saint for the Summer

by Marjory McGinn

  “And it just happened to be Greece?”

  “Where else would I go? I’d been here a few times when I was a student, as you know, trying to get some notion at least of the place where Kieran had perished. Later on, it was the obvious place to come for a long adventure and, yes, while here I did do some research, to no avail, of course. We’ve been through all this.” He gave me an exasperated look. “Once I’d been here a few years though, I liked it, and what did I have to go back to? And now Marcella’s remarried.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “I don’t know, it all sounds a bit vague. Why do I always feel like you’re not telling me everything?”

  “I am! Sometimes there isn’t a neat reason why people do things. That’s what you want as a journo, isn’t it? You ask a question and I give you a good sound-bite and you’re happy. Real life isn’t quite so tidy. I don’t know why I left really. What was going through my head then. I can’t put it all into words. I don’t even know if I want to. But maybe one day I will, then I’ll tell you. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you.”

  In a way it would have been easier if it really had all been about finding Kieran. Even a grand obsession would have been better than the blethering on about world-weariness, and the suspicion that he just couldn’t be bothered with his old life any more, or us.

  “Cynthia in the village says that all the expats are running away from something,” I said.

  “And you want to know what I’ve run away from, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, how’s this for a sound-bite? Myself!” he said, folding his hands over his chest.

  I laughed. “You can do better than that!”

  He shrugged. “I’m serious! Myself. The person I was brought up to be. Maybe I didn’t like that person much. Here, I’ve become the person I want to be.”

  “So you’ve reinvented yourself as a Greek?”

  “If that’s it, then I’m well pleased. The Greeks have the best attitude to life of any people I know.”

  “Are you happier here?”

  “Happiness isn’t part of the equation, but I want to be at peace somewhere along the line. Now I’m older, I think I will be … once I solve the mystery of Kieran.”

  I shook my head. It always came back to Kieran in the end. I would get no further today. It would have to keep for another day.

  “Let’s pay up and head back,” I said. “I’ll go to the kafeneio tonight and email the features editor.”

  He tapped the back of my hand lightly. “Thanks, love. I appreciate it.”

  That afternoon I succumbed to a siesta, the aspect of Greek life I had adopted with relish. The shutters were half open and I lay on the bed and looked about me while I waited to drift off. The room had a strange familiarity already: simple, unadorned with the icon of Saint Dimitrios on the wooden chest of drawers. Joining it was a framed picture of Kieran that Angus had given me, perhaps to inspire our mountain quest. It had been taken a few years before the war beside a Scottish loch. He was sitting on a rock by the water’s edge. He was laughing, his thick auburn hair blowing back from his face, showing a fine, chiselled forehead, one of the things that made him look so distinctive. He had smiling eyes and a cheeky grin. He was someone I would have wanted to know. He was someone the family hadn’t talked about enough − but how could they? He had been less than a shadow in our lives, almost a fantasy. Until now.

  Despite the fear that we would get nowhere with our mission, as each day passed, Kieran’s ‘shadow’ grew form and depth. It was attaching itself slowly to my life, whether I liked it or not.

  “Dear Crayton,” I wrote, from my outside table at the kafeneio, sipping wine from a chilled carafe, for inspiration of course, because I was struggling, trying to get the right tone for the grovelling missive.

  … “I hear there are changes going on at the Alba, including the features department. Sorry to hear it. This email, therefore, won’t be reaching you at a good time, but I am afraid I have to ask if I can please have another three weeks added to my leave. My father’s health is less certain than I expected. He is suspected of having heart disease and needs to undergo tests, probably in Athens, in the next week or so, to confirm the extent of the problem. He may even have to return to the UK in the end. I don’t know yet. The medical situation here is dire because of the economic crisis, I’m afraid, so it is all taking longer than expected to sort. Sorry if this is inconvenient for you. Please let me know if my request is possible.

  With all best wishes,

  Bronte

  That should do it, I thought. It sounded convincing, without too much hyperbole and grovelling, apart from the lie about the tests being lined up for the next week or so. But he’d be a heartless man if he refused. Crayton wasn’t really, but the new editor was, by all accounts, and management in general. But I reasoned that if features were having a smaller role in the paper, then one less scribe for a few more weeks shouldn’t be a problem.

  Chapter 11

  Myrto’s lament

  The metal gate on Myrto’s compound was unlocked, so I pushed it open and went inside, calling her as I did. She appeared through the olive trees, holding the end of a hosepipe.

  “Kalimera, Bronte, good morning,” she shouted as she aimed the hose into the deep feta tin that served as a water trough for Zeus. His ears flicked back and forth while she talked vibrantly to him in Greek.

  I asked her how she was and she replied in her thick Aussie/Greek accent, “As we say in Aussieland, I’m flat out like a lizard drinking!”

  I’d never heard this expression for being busy and it made me laugh, doubly so because it sounded so bizarre in Myrto’s accent. She laughed as well, slapping her hand on her thigh. She finished with the hosing by placing her thumb on the end of the pipe and spraying Zeus lightly with water. I don’t know if he loved it or loathed it but he brayed loudly several times and she mouthed a few obscenities at him, a routine that seemed perfectly normal to me now.

  “Come with me, I make you coffee.” She motioned with her hand towards her house. “Don’ worry. I make good coffee, Bronte − not that mud stuff Angus makes.” I wondered if Greeks did anything else apart from making coffee.

  I followed her into the house. The first room was the kitchen, a plain space with a flagstone floor. There was a two-ring electric cooker set on a wooden counter top and a small primus stove beside it with one ring, which she called her petrogazi, for making Greek coffee. A tall, dark dresser took up almost one wall, stuffed with crockery. In the corner of the room was an open fireplace with a chain hanging from the inside edge of the chimney with a hook attached, a kind of old-fashioned set-up for cooking in a heavy pot. The last time I’d seen this contraption was in a crofting museum in the Western Isles of Scotland. She must have noticed my eyes darting around the room.

  “Yeah, Bronte, look how Myrto lives in Greece, like a pioneer woman. If you saw my kitchen in Aussieland….” She whistled and waved her arm around. “Not like this one. And now no money to fix this shithole!”

  She laboured over the petrogazi. I glanced through an open doorway into a big room, not unlike the open-plan sitting room in Angus’s house, with the shutters closed and a heavy aura about it.

  “My papou, my grandfather, he builds this house, Bronte, and comes down every winter to escape bladdy cold winters in Platanos, like everyone. He does his olive harvest and goes back in spring, and then one day he doesn’t bother to go back. Too tired. Later dies and my father takes over the house. Then father dies and I inherit house and land as oldest child. Then my uncle Babis from Kalamata sets up my marriage with friend Fotis and later we go live in Aussieland. Easy story, eh? Glory be to God,” she said, with not a little sarcasm. I loved the way that Myrto, when she was recounting a story, would tell it in the present tense, as if it had just happened. It was probably easier that way but it was one of her endearing foibles.

  She put the coffee cups down o
n a small laminated table, where two rush-bottomed chairs were set.

  “Tell me, Myrto, I heard you yesterday from my room. It seemed like someone was giving you a hard time,” I said.

  “Ach, that was Hector, my stepson. Hector, he likes to go ape-shit now and then with things.”

  I smiled, greatly amused by more of her Aussie expressions.

  “About what?”

  “Ach, it’s like this. I inherit this house and land with trees from my father. Six hundred trees. Big land. But Hector, he owns half now. His father Fotis, not a good man. Not a good marriage. I already older than other girls when I marry. I isn’t a looker. Know what I mean?”

  I found that hard to believe, as Myrto had a strong, rather handsome face. Maybe that wasn’t in fashion when she was young.

  “Just when the family are thinking I will be spinster forever, I get landed with Fotis. He is married before and one son, Hector, who is then 21. When we marry, Fotis comes to live here with me, son stays in Kalamata. He works in taverna. Then Fotis wants to go to Aussieland, but son wants to stay in Greece. So, Fotis worries about the son now. Poor boy, no security for later and he makes me sign over half my land to Hector. Not this bit with the worm-eaten house and sheds. The other half, Bronte, with most of the olive trees and nice grazing for the goats. The best bit.”

  “Could he do that?”

  She shrugged. “Men still the boss in Greece, Bronte. And you can do anything with solicitor and some money. I am not happy. This land is mine. Is in my blood. Family land. I argue with Fotis over the land. ‘Let the boy wait,’ I say. ‘If you die first, later I leave the boy everything in my will. All his.’ But he goes mad. He says if I don’ do what he wants now he will kill me,” she said, drawing a finger across her throat.

  “No, surely not,” I said.

  “Yes, Bronte, I tell you the truth. He kills me if I make problems over it. My uncle Babis, he tells me not to come the raw prawn, as we say in Aussieland. I am old boiler when I am nifi, bride, so poor Fotis deserves something. So he wants land for Hector. But my uncle, he tries. He tells Fotis that Hector can have half land in his name, but he must never sell it while we all alive. It is an honourable agreement, cause we are all family now. If we come back to Greece, Fotis and Myrto are free to work the land and harvest the olives. If Fotis die, same for Myrto. Hector agrees. Not interested in olive trees then. So off we go to Aussieland. I think, what does it matter? I never coming back, I suppose.”

  “Why Australia?” I asked her.

  “Fotis wants to go help his brother. He is builder, doing up old wrecks in Sydeneee. Pah!” She rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. “Lot of money in building, eh? Not for us. We never get rich in Aussieland, Bronte. Only the brother gets rich. But I do everything Fotis asks. I am always in wonder of him. Little village girl, and he is a guy from Kalamata. Man of the world, handsome, a bit. Shrewd. Always in a suit with his komboloi, his amber worry beads. But underneath he is malakas. You know that word? Very important word. Means w-a-n-k-e-r!” she said, with great emphasis.

  I spluttered over my Greek coffee. She laughed loudly. I made a mental note to add it to my Greek vocabulary.

  “What happened to Fotis?”

  She put her palms together and rubbed them furiously, as if trying to rid them of something noxious. “He kaput in car accident in Sydenee, driving home one night,” she said, jerking a thumb towards her open mouth to indicate he’d been drunk.

  “I come back to Greece afterwards – eight years ago. Nothing to stay in Aussieland for. Again, Myrto’s all alone. Hector never comes around. He don’ bother me. I go on with the olive harvest, hiring Albanians now and then to help. I make enough to live and with small pension. Hector sticks to deal, he doesn’t bother about land, or never helps with harvest either. While we away in Aussieland all the trees go wild. It takes years to sort out. He never checks the house. It is full of mice and bugs when I get back. He is lazy malakas, like Fotis. Ach! These days Hector comes to his land just to fool around, shoot birds, dump old cars and junk. You can see it all there, up near the road.”

  I had seen it amongst the olive trees from the road out of the village. It was something I was getting used to here, the rural junk that lay around everywhere.

  “What does Hector want now?”

  “Everything changes with the crisis. Years ago, he buys small share in a taverna in Kalamata. It does okay, now with crisis, it struggles. He is broke. Now he wants to sell his piece of land. Forget family agreement. If he sells I lose most of income. There are only a few dozens of olive trees round the house. So Myrto up shit creek without that land. Nobody thinks Fotis is going to be kaput in accident. Nobody knows we are going to have crisis in Greece. Nobody plans.”

  “Would he do it? I mean, break that agreement?”

  “Pah! Hector, like father, has no honour. And in the crisis, I see people selling family houses, land, doing many crazy things. We are desperate people now.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But you handed over your land under duress, surely? Under the threat of death, remember.”

  “No-one takes anyone to court in Greece. Too much red tape, too expensive, too many delays. Corruption. Simple people like me, we don’ go to court in Greece with envelopes stuffed with money like the high noses,” she said, streaming off in a torrent of Greek, of which I recognised not one word, apart from gamoto, the Japanese motor scooter word. She said it several times.

  “I’m so sorry for you, Myrto.”

  “Ah, me too. Gives me big bladdy headache, Bronte.”

  “Do you have family who can talk to Hector, like your uncle?”

  “He is old now, Bronte. I have only younger sister, who lives in Athens. She is not interested in olive trees and goats. Troubles of her own.”

  “What about the other men in the village? It’s such a close community here. Can’t they frighten Hector off?”

  “Pah! You think anyone gets involved in my drama, my land? Everyone has troubles. No. Myrto is alone.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and pulled a face, her mouth a deep grimace. She took a blue spotted handkerchief from the top pocket of her shirt and wiped it over her face. I saw her wipe away a tear. I felt mortified.

  “Someone will help, surely? What about Leonidas the doctor? He will be on your side. He won’t want the land, so close to his, to be sold off to anyone, maybe to a foreigner, for a development.”

  She made a vibrant windmill gesture this time. “He don’ care! He probably like all the land to be sold. He don’ like my little farm, my goats, the smell. He likes his lovely villa there with view and everything around him to be just so.” She grimaced.

  “You don’t get on with the doctor, do you?”

  She twitched her eyebrows upwards − no comment.

  “I can’t explain more now. I say too many things already. But I see life different. Myrto is different. I move to Aussieland and have a new life. People talk more free. Like happy cockatoos. Everything out in the open. In this village, many people have secrets, and for everyone else, it becomes their job to find what it is, and then it’s not secret any more.”

  Before I left I decided to tell Myrto a few secrets of my own, describing our trip to Platanos, and the disappearance of Kieran. She listened intently, with what seemed to be rising shock in her eyes.

  “Po, po, po, Bronte! May your papou, your grandfather, rest in peace,” she said, crossing herself and wiping her eyes again. “And you think your papou was hiding in our village during that war?”

  “We don’t know. It’s a long shot, Myrto. We don’t have much to go on.”

  “Angus never say this to me. Why not? This is amazing fact, Bronte.” But her amazement quickly turned to concern. She leaned over to take my hand, examining my rings first, twisting them around, deep in thought.

  “Bronte, my advice is to forget about it, and Platanos. It will be hard job to find out, like you say, and if you do
, maybe it’s not what you want to find.”

  “What do you mean? Do you know something?”

  “No, no. How can I know anything. My family comes down from the mountains like Leonidas’s and we don’ know everything about life up there, only what the old folks tells us. Now there’s nothing up there. If your papou hides up there, and dies there, you don’ find nothing. Too long ago. You opening up worms, Bronte.”

  I smiled despite the gruesome aptness of the expression. “You mean opening up a can of worms.”

  “Yes, yes. I mean that. My English is stupid sometimes,” she said, palm-slapping her forehead.

  “No, it’s very good Myrto, really. You must be exhausted from all your English today.”

  She ignored the comment and patted my hand. “You have nice holiday, go home and forget.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but after our day in Platanos, and my chat with Leonidas, it didn’t surprise me.

  “Ah, you look sad now, Bronte. Greece giving you the heartburn, eh? When I am in Sydenee, I cry every night for Marathousa. I cry for olive trees, and yiortes, and for Easter week, and mizithra goat cheese. I can’t wait to come back after Fotis dies. Now I am in the village, I think how good life was in Aussieland. Now it is too late.”

  “Everything will work out, Myrto, You’ll see.”

  I gave her a hug as I left. I liked her a lot. There was something solid and decent about her, and more than other villagers at least she had lived in another place, had gone to the edge of familiarity and back again. It gave her a kind of wisdom that I found appealing, even if it had an oddball spin on it.

  When I got home, I found Angus sitting outside on the terrace, drinking beer and staring at his mobile phone, which was unusual. He looked up when I approached. “Just got a call from the heart consultant’s secretary. They have the results now. I’ll have to go and talk to him soon, apparently,” he said.

  “When do you want to go?”