The Reluctant Baker (The Greek Village Collection Book 10)

by Sara Alexi

  A palm tree soars from the paved centre, casting a dappled shade over a fountain, and there is a kiosk that gives the appearance that it has burst. On the pavement around it are drinks fridges sprawling away; a freezer, offering ice creams, that reaches towards the road; magazine racks vibrant with colour beckoning the onlooker, and stacks of crates, some empty, some full of bottles, blocking easy passage.

  On one side of the small, lifeless fountain, tables and chairs have been arranged, opposite a rather stark-looking café on the other side of the road on the square’s top edge. Sarah mentioned this café in her directions. She called it kafeneio, a place for coffee and ouzo. Ellie says the word under her breath and treasures it. It was her first Greek word. Now she also knows Yeia Sou, which means hello, or perhaps goodbye, or both. She is not sure.

  The kafeneio is alive, but only with men. They are sitting, standing, laughing, shouting. It reminds her of the ants, but hopefully none of these farmers will be squashed by cars as they pass to go to the kiosk or to sit on the wooden chairs outside on the paved area.

  A truck that looks too corroded with rust to be safe on a public road chutters into the square and pulls up. The back is piled with watermelons, and hanging from a metal framework over the tailgate is a large set of scales. The driver climbs out and shouts to the men in the café. One or two stand, hitch sagging trousers, say a last word to their companions, and head toward the purveyor. From the arterial streets that join the square, three or four woman appear, colourful house coats wrapped around expanded waistlines. Some wear headscarves, some have lacquered hair, some wear curlers, two sport slippers.

  Once she has taken in everything visually, Ellie begins to notice more. There is a smell of fresh bread, grilled meat and, maybe, some sort of flower or incense.

  A man outside the kiosk is shouting at whoever is inside, but after he has shouted, he laughs, the one emotion flowing into the other. How does anyone know who is angry and who isn’t? The same pitch of conversation is being had at the café, and they sound like they are arguing, but they are mostly smiling. A giggle escapes Ellie and her neck feels hot. The heat climbs to her cheeks. She is not sure why this behaviour embarrasses her. Maybe she considers emotion is a private thing? To have so much on display seems confusing—but also emancipating. She decides she likes it.

  So, if she remembers correctly, at the square she is meant to turn right, then take the first right up behind the bakery. But she is not sure she is ready to leave the square yet and her footfall is slow. Down from the centre, on the left hand side, is another place with tables and chairs outside on the pavement. This one has a thin tree wrapped in fairy lights as its focal point. By the tree is an open door showing a dark interior and next to that are double doors, wide open, and inside, a counter is just visible. From here too voices can be heard, but not shouting, rather talking with animation, perhaps. This place is more inviting than the kafeneio and it intrigues her. Her decision to walk towards it isn’t one she is aware she has taken until she realises she has missed the right turn before the bakery. There is a small sandwich shop on her side of the road with its door open. On the window ledge is balanced a flat tray half in, half out, displaying croissants and other savoury and sugary items that Ellie does not recognise. She stops to stare.

  The talking across the road becomes louder, so she turns. It cannot be possible but she seems to recognise the woman inside, who stops what she is doing and stares back. Then it dawns on her and, before she has thought, she says out loud, ‘Stella!’ It is the hotel’s owner, whose picture is on the website.

  ‘Yes?’ the woman replies in English.

  She can stay where she is and shout across the road to her or she can take a step in her direction and speak more quietly. Really, she wished she had said nothing so she could continue on her way, but now she is stuck. Looking left and right, she crosses the road.

  ‘Hi, Stella, I am Ellie. I...’

  ‘Ah, Ellie, welcome, welcome, you journey okay? Your room alright? Did you sleep well? Do you need anything?’ With this introduction, Stella offers her hand to be shaken and then pulls Ellie towards her and kisses her first on one cheek and then on the other.

  ‘Fine. Good. Everything is beautiful.’

  ‘Oh good. Tonight we have the opening. You are coming, yes?’

  There were notices up around the hotel telling of the official opening that night, but Ellie had not paid them much attention, and she is surprised at Stella’s invitation.

  ‘It will be very noisy until late,’ Stella continues. ‘So you have no choice to hear, but come to eat. I will make you a place at my table.’ Her manner is so warm, so friendly and relaxed, it catches Ellie off guard and her initial response is to back away, make her excuses. But before she has spoken, Stella takes her hand and leads her to the double open doors with the single word ‘Come’. Behind the grill counter, a man with a craggy face and very kind eyes looks up from his work. He is wearing an apron, and in one hand he holds blackened tongs. His other arm appears to be missing, his shirt sleeve ironed flat and tucked into his trousers.

  ‘This is my husband Mitsos.’ Stella sounds proud.

  ‘Yeia sou.’ The man waves his tongs at her.

  ‘Mitsos, this is Ellie, all the way from England, by herself! She will be joining us tonight.’

  There is movement to the side of the counter and Ellie and Stella turn in unison. The man there is younger, much younger, about her age even, maybe a couple of years older. He has very short black hair and a dimple in just one cheek as he smiles. Something about him gives her a strange sense that she has met him somewhere before, which is impossible. Looking at him gives her a sense of relief that she is not alone! But that makes no sense. She returns his smile.

  ‘And this is Loukas, the baker,’ Stella says. He jumps from behind the counter and steps towards her, takes her hand, shakes it gently, and then stands holding it, staring at her.

  ‘Loukas.’ He repeats his own name as an introduction in accented English. His grip on her hand is firm and he shows no immediate signs of letting go. His dimple appears and disappears between his smile and his grin. His eyes are liquid brown, his eyebrows drawn straight across, and Ellie finds him hard to look away from. Stella clears her throat. He steps back behind the counter, repeating her name to finish his greeting, ‘Ellie.’ His tongue curls around the letter L.

  In response to his intense scrutiny, Ellie wraps her arms across her chest, feeling strangely exposed. She wants him to smile, to see the dimple again.

  ‘You want to come in and sit? Have a coffee? I have farmers to feed but…’ Stella doesn’t finish this sentence. ‘Actually, I will need to go to the hotel shortly, make sure we are ready for the official opening. So I am not sure how much time I have just now. But a coffee is just five minutes, yes?’ Stella’s invitation to spend time with her is very warming, but she is clearly distracted and there is tension in her voice that is not reflected in her movements.

  ‘Actually, I’m looking for Poppy’s shop,’ Ellie says and waits to see how Stella responds. She does not want to appear rude by declining the invitation.

  ‘Ah Kyria Poppy. Up by the bakery, round the back, then first lane to the right and you will come across her.’ Stella’s hands explain as much as her words. ‘But you are coming to the opening tonight? I will set you a place on our table so we can talk.’

  ‘Absolutely. Thank you.’ Ellie takes a step backwards and tries not to look at Loukas. Her emotional response to him alarms her; she isn’t meant to feel anything like this, not now she is married. Making a point of moving away, she confirms ‘Up there’ in response to Stella’s directions and points to the narrow lane by the open doors from which, even from where they stand across the road, the faint aroma of baking bread reaches them.

  ‘Yes, up there. Say hello from me,’ Stella says. As Ellie takes her leave, she makes brief eye contact with the bakery man again, quite against her will. The stare he returns makes her blink. Reminding hers
elf that she is married does nothing to quench her feelings. All the parts that are missing in her life, the passion, the care, the companionship, she saw them offered in his eyes. Or did she? Is that really likely or is it more like she just deluded herself with a momentary fantasy?

  Chapter 6

  First right behind the bakery is a lane lined with single-storey stone houses, years of whitewash icing all angles and smoothing the corners. The roof tiles are all shades of burnt orange and age has moved them, some slipped, some raised, the ridge on one sagging dangerously low in the middle. This one has no doors or windows, and a donkey eyes her lazily from its cool interior. The areas in front of the houses are brushed smooth and washed clean. A cat sits on top of a wall looking at her through half-closed eyes, audibly purring as Ellie approaches but nimbly disappearing over the wall and behind a house as she reaches out to touch it.

  Set against the lane, with no courtyard or patio, is a slightly more modern building, incongruous with its straight lines and hard corners. It is not new, but it is not ancient either. Floor-to-ceiling windows with metal frames allow the display of fishing rods, children’s shoes, a mangle, an armless and headless mannequin wearing a crocheted 1960s tank top and a pair of sailor’s white trousers, creased across the thigh and across the calf, with wide bell-bottom ends. A pair of green waders stands next to four tennis rackets and a pile of half-deflated beach balls, the colours faded along the folds. The door next to the window is open and a smell of incense and damp and old clothes meets her as she draws near. This must be Kyria Poppy’s. The feeling of the sun on her forearms and face was bliss on her walk from the hotel, but her jean-clad legs suffered and as Ellie steps into the shade of the shop, the relief is immediate, and for the first time since she arrived, she is glad of her long sleeved t-shirt, as it has just occurred to her that it will have stopped her shoulders from getting sunburnt.

  The shop is silent. No one is there. Next to the counter is a deep sea diver’s suit complete with brass helmet and weighted boots. It is quite eerie standing there with no one inside. On the floor is a box of blankets, badly folded, and next to that, a pair of roller skates. To her left is a rack of jumpers and t-shirts. The majority of these t-shirts are white, and when she touches them, she can tell they are cheesecloth, the kind of fabric that Marcus sometimes uses to wrap up pieces he is working on, to keep the clay damp. She can imagine that the loose weave will be great in the heat. She pulls at one to find it has embroidered flowers on the front. So hippy, Marcus would love it. She pushes it back into the over-full rack.

  ‘Ti theleis?’

  Ellie’s hand catches a shirt and it falls, only for its metal coat hanger to hook onto one of the other shirts. Her flustered fingers hasten to unhook it and she panics at the thought of how she is going to communicate.

  ‘Er hello,’ she stammers.

  ‘Ah English, yes, it was the jeans. I thought you to be Greek. Not many English would wear trousers in this weather but the Greeks, well, they will cover up until late August. Can I help you?’ The white-haired old woman has no trace of an accent. She enunciates every consonant and elongates her vowels.

  ‘Are you Poppy?’

  ‘Yes.’ The old lady was so dissolved into her chair in a dark corner at the back of the shop that Ellie dismissed her as a pile of clothes. She begins to unfold herself, with no speed, and stands up, using the arms of the chair and puffing. ‘Have you been here long? I have a tendency to fall asleep these days. I sit, I think, and then I wake up.’

  ‘That sounds rather nice,’ Ellie reflects. Some nights, she cannot sleep at all. In the evening, she always feels tired, she yawns a lot, gets ready for bed, chats to Marcus, he usually kisses her on the nose and then he turns over, his back to her, his arm behind him so she cannot curl up to him and then she lies there waiting for sleep. Waiting and waiting. Just as she feels sleep coming upon her, it is as if she needs to witness the transition and that pulls her back to wakefulness. It goes on all night until she is exhausted. About two months ago, she stopped lying there for three, sometimes four hours. Now she goes downstairs and makes herself a herbal drink and takes it back to bed with a book, by torchlight, so as not to wake Marcus. Once she has drunk her tea and read several chapters, fully absorbing the imaginary world, she can settle down with images of another time, another country. Sleep comes to her then, when she is already far away. But in the morning, it leaves her too tired to get up to see Marcus off to work, so it is usually four o’clock before she sees him, or anyone for that matter, unless she goes shopping or to the library.

  "Well, it is and it isn’t. I never get anything done these days.’

  As Ellie’s eyes adjust, the extent of the clutter in the corners is revealed and it is apparent that Poppy is good to her word. Not a lot has been done in the shop for some while, by the looks of things.

  ‘So how can I help you?’ Poppy’s tone brightens.

  ‘These jeans are actually too hot so I am looking for something lighter. I don’t know, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts perhaps?’

  ‘No shorts. That I do know. Not much call for women’s shorts. The village girls who are young enough to wear them, their mamas won’t let them, and the ones that are old enough to choose wouldn’t expose that much flesh. It’s a cultural thing. I’ve some nice dresses though.’ Ellie frowns. It feels a bit like shopping with Mother. Why shouldn’t she wear shorts? It’s up to her to wear what she wants. Poppy holds onto the counter and then grasps the back of a chair and then Ellie’s arm to propel her way to a rack near the window. She pulls out a dress in beige and Ellie recognises it as the type Sarah was wearing.

  ‘They’re a bit…’ She was going to say old for her, but she does not want to offend, ‘elegant perhaps? Do you have anything more casual?’

  ‘Well, I have some long, sleeveless t-shirts, but you would have to wear them with your jeans. I have nothing to go with them. I don’t suppose you would want a black skirt? I have a lot of call for black. The older women of the village shop here and more often than not, they are in mourning for some relative or other, or a husband long passed. Ahh.’ She sighs as if this is the inevitable end for everyone and Ellie shivers.

  ‘Can I see?’ Poppy breaks from her thoughts as Ellie speaks.

  ‘What? Oh, the sleeveless t-shirts, yes.’ A hand on Ellie’s arm, another on the chair, and she is off again from one support to another. Then, as if it is no effort at all, she bends from the hips to reach the ground, pulls one box out of the way, and retrieves a bag with holes in it. Straightening takes more effort.

  ‘Here you go.’

  The t-shirts are in great colours, including some pale green ones that are really acidy and a yellow that makes Ellie feel happy.

  ‘Can I try one on?’

  Poppy points behind where she was sitting to a navy blue curtain laid over the arms of two mannequins that are pointing at each other. The space is confined; at least all she has to slip off are her jeans. The navy blue curtain is so long, it trails on the floor and becomes entangled in her feet as she tries to take off her sandals. For a moment the curtain, mannequins and all, threaten to fall.

  ‘You need any help?’ Kyria Poppy asks.

  The combination of the curtain’s colour, the enclosed space, and Poppy’s question transport Ellie back to a day when the final twist of events reduced her world to a senseless charade.

  Her mother wore blue like these curtains. No that’s not true, her dress was more of a navy. A dark blue against her long white, netting train, which Mum had held up when she accompanied her into the church hall toilets.

  There were no bridesmaids, no flower girls, just the two of them in the powder room. Mum asking if she wanted help with the dress as she squeezed into a cubicle.

  ‘I thought the service went quite well.’ Mum’s words not quite clear as she spoke without closing her pouted mouth, her nondescript lipstick in her hand.

  Ellie lifted layer after layer of the dress as she closed the door. At first,
the red stain made no sense. She even tried to brush it off.

  Then came the realisation, which tensed every muscle in her body. She rubbed at the stain with toilet paper. The horror of explaining to her father why he would not get all of his rental deposit back brought on her waves of panic. Only after these initial feelings came, like a crushing coil of wet rope, the momentous reality of the bigger truth pinned her to the toilet seat.

  ‘You alright? You’ve gone very quiet. Do you need any help?’ Mum called in her tiny voice.

  It took a moment to regain any function. Her vision smearing as fast as she wiped at her eyes, a cold sweat breaking through her foundation on her forehead.

  ‘Darling?’ Mum persisted. ‘Shall we go?’

  There, staring at her from the lining of her dress and on a bit of tissue down the toilet, the reality. No baby. There never was a baby. It must have been the stress that stopped her body from doing what it had done every month for the last year and a half without fail. Normality returned. Normality, but now with a needless ring on her finger.

  ‘Er, Mum, do you have any thingies.’ Her voice sounded choked even to her own ears.

  ‘Oh dear, what bad timing, dear. Hang on, there’s a machine. I’ll just go and get some change from your dad if I can find him. Wait there, dear.’

  Thank goodness she had never told her parents about the baby.

  Should she go out and put cold water on the dress? Was it too late to explain the situation to her parents? Could she get the marriage annulled barely an hour after the ceremony? Would Dad let her?

  ‘You still there, dear?’ The outer door banged behind her mother’s return, followed by the sound of coins and a mechanical clank.

  ‘There you are, dear.’ Mum’s hand appeared under the door, palm downwards, as if to hide the very thing she was passing.