by Jo Bunt
Without hesitation my arm shot out with viper-like accuracy and snatched it before it exploded on the ground. Relief turned to dismay as I saw that the content of my glass pooled in decreasing puddles across the map.
“Shit! Bugger! Bollocks! Arseholes!”
I tried to shake off the sticky bubbles but they seeped into the paper and hung heavily upon the printed grids. With its foot in the door, self-pity entered stealthily into my mind where it took hold with a vice-like grip. My ‘can-do’ attitude of barely ten minutes ago had fled and left me wondering what the hell I was doing here. I flung the sodden map to the floor and retreated into the cool shell of my room. I threw myself on the bed and squeezed my eyes against the anguish of my uselessness.
A cool breeze carrying the strong smell of lavender caused me to open my eyes. At the doorway stood Antheia’s eldest girl, chewing on the end of one of her plaits.
“Oh! Yasou,” I said as I sat up. “I was just lying down for a minute.”
She continued to stare at me and I sat and looked back at her. Her hair, the same brown as her eyes, was in unruly plaits by the side of her face. They were bracketed with red ribbons at the top and bottom. She was about twelve years old, judging by her size, but something in her eyes suggested that she was older than she looked. Her blue and white checked dress reached the top of her dirty and bony knees and she wore white ankle socks with her sandals. We looked at each other for a long time before she nervously slid into the room. I gave her what I hoped was an encouraging nod and smile and she abruptly hopped up onto the bed beside me taking me by surprise. She grinned and starting telling me the most elaborate story in Greek.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t speak Greek.”
She nodded at me. “Endaxi,” and then continued with her story. It seemed that I didn’t need to be able to understand her for her to have an audience. She was an exquisite creature and despite myself, I reached out and stroked her hair as she talked. The touch of her hair hit me like an electric shock and she opened her eyes wide as if she had felt it too. I blinked away any sense of sentimentality and continued to nod encouragement at what I hoped were appropriate moments.
Eventually she stopped and placed her hand on her chest.
“An-na.”
“Hello Anna. My name is Leni.”
She nodded at this and then continued with her story. I was sure this small brown girl and I were going to be great friends.
Chapter six
Cyprus, 1974
When Pru opened her eyes the whole room was buttery with late morning sun. Was the older woman still asleep? She flicked through her recollection of the previous night but couldn’t remember her name although Pru could picture her face perfectly and recall her scent of perfumed talcum powder that made her feel nauseous. Since she’d been pregnant her nose picked up every aroma with a veracity that a sniffer dog would be proud of.
There were other names from yesterday that she had no trouble recollecting. The man was called Reverend Joy. The name didn’t suit him. Pru saw his granite face as soon as she stepped into the sitting room clutching her cup of tea like a shield.
“Mrs Clarke?” he asked unnecessarily. Pru’s eyes were drawn to this man’s cavernous nostrils under his hawkish beak. Wiry hair protruded from dark hollows above his thin top lip. He seemed nervous, she noted, as he swallowed noisily and his jutting Adam’s apple bobbed in his scrawny neck. She recognised him from the Easter service on the base but she wasn’t a regular church goer.
“Would you like to sit down?” He motioned with long bony fingers to the armchair. His fingernails were too long.
“No, thank you, I’ll stand.”
Pru and the vicar continued to stare at each other, neither of them much impressed by what they saw. The roaring silence became unbearable and the Reverend cleared his throat to speak.
“Ehem. Yes. We’ve received a message from your mother. I went to your apartment but your landlady said I’d just missed you. I had quite a job to track you down actually.” He smiled then. It was an insipid smile that showed no teeth and no warmth. Pru felt no compulsion to return the bogus grin.
She waited for him to continue. Pru could tell she was making him feel uncomfortable and she enjoyed the feeling of power she had over this man of the cloth. Seconds, as marked by the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, ticked loudly by. Before today, she had never noticed how slow seconds were when you stopped to count them. Pru raised the hot cup to her dry lips so that she had an excuse to break eye contact with the clerical man. His watery eyes were blinking too often and made her own start to twitch.
“I’m afraid I have some distressing news for you,” Reverend Joy continued with a well-practiced frown of concern etched between his overgrown brows. “Your father has passed away.” The ticking of the clock faded away. “I am very sorry for your loss.”
Pru felt the world tilt on its axis and the force of cold air rushing into her ears. Her cup of tea left her fingers as if they were no longer made of anything substantial. She watched as the rosebud patterned cup twisted towards the floor and bounced off the carpet in front of her. Pru felt oddly removed from the scene as she watched amber beads of tea arcing through the air in impossibly slow motion. As the scalding liquid splattered on her bare toes, Pru abruptly came back to her senses.
“Oh God! I’m so sorry. Let me clean that up. Where can I get a cloth? I don’t know what happened then. One minute I was holding it and then...”
Sturdy arms stopped her mid-bend as she stooped for the cup with arm outstretched.
“Prudence. Leave it, pet. Are you okay?” Soft tones soothed in her ear and Pru turned with puzzlement to the woman she’d forgotten was there.
“It was the shock, that’s all, it doesn’t really burn at all now.” Pru’s voice faded out as the two women locked eyes and Pru saw the dumfounded look on the other woman’s round face.
“It’s nothing but a bit of spilt tea. Pay no mind. I’m talking about your dad, love. Why don’t you sit down?”
“Of course.” Pru knitted her brows together. She was still wondering how she should react to this news.
“I need to pack though. Again. I’ll need to go home for the funeral and what have you.” She looked quizzically at her trembling hands. When she looked up, Reverend Joy was pursing his lips into a thin, grim line.
“Your mother wishes me to inform you that the errr... The, erm, funeral was last week and that there is no need for you to make the trip, especially in your condition.”
“Right,” spat Pru, balling her hands into fists at her side and feeling her strength rush back through her veins. “In my condition? Did she really say that?”
“Well, it was implied in her missive, I think. I’m sure she was only thinking of your safety and that of your child.”
“Then you don’t know my mother, Reverend.” She suddenly felt nothing but hate for the woman who had given birth to her, though the fire soon dissipated and Pru sank to the chair in defeat.
Silence expanded between them until Pru spoke, quieter this time. “Did the letter say how he died?”
“Yes,” Joy said, pleased to be able to impart some important information. “She did. I’m afraid he finally lost his battle with cancer.”
Pru began to laugh mirthlessly and it was only the shocked look on the Reverend’s face that stopped her.
“That doesn’t happen overnight, does it? Cancer? I mean, she knew didn’t she? And she didn’t tell me? Well, that just about says it all.”
“Well...” the reverend began, flustered and blinking rapidly.
“Right. If that’s all then, I think I’ll lie down for an hour or two. It’s been quite a day.”
Pru didn’t actually remember getting to bed. The two large brandies she had swallowed without tasting had helped round the edges of her grief. She sat up in the bed stiffly and looked about her through puffy, half-closed eyes. It reminded her a bit of Eddie’s parents’ house, but even friendlier somehow
. There was a scallop-edged crocheted mat under the figurine on the drawers. The figurine itself was of a woman in a bonnet holding a basket over one arm and in her other hand she held the hem of her dress, revealing her underskirts. On the window ledge there was a pomander in the shape of a pink, heeled boot. There were no signs at all that she was in Cyprus. There had been no attempt to embrace the local style.
A cold cup of tea from the night before lay untouched on the bedside table and she took a sip to wet her lips. The familiar presence of a full bladder suddenly made its mark on Pru’s consciousness and she eased herself from the bed to search for the bathroom. Her attempt to open the door quietly was floored as she opened it directly into her protruding belly and then swore loudly.
“There’s a lav just through the kitchen there, pet. I’ll get the kettle on.”
Pru jumped and took a moment to spot the originator of the soft Geordie accent.
“Thank you Mrs....?”
“Betty.” And then each one of those lines on her face creased in a warm smile as she walked ahead of Pru into the kitchen.
Pru followed as quickly as she could but it always took a while for her hips to wake up in the morning and the aches were something else today. Once, quite early on in her pregnancy, she had vowed never to walk like a pregnant woman. She was sure that the pregnancy duck-waddle wasn’t a necessary part of the process. Now, nearing the end of her pregnancy, she realised that the choice wasn’t hers to make.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Betty was at the cooker melting a huge lump of lard in the frying pan.
“Not for me, thank you. I don’t eat breakfast,” Pru said as she tried to slip away, embarrassed at the state of her un-combed hair.
“Ya do now. Sit down, I’ll make you a brew.” Betty laid three rashers of bacon side by side in the misshapen and grease-coated pan and reached for the white-shelled eggs. Uncharacteristically, Pru didn’t even consider arguing with her and instead sat at the kitchen table to watch Betty at work. She was exhausted and spent.
“How ya feeling, pet?”
Pru thought carefully before answering the question.
“I’m fine, thank you. I think it’s normal to be tired this late on in the pregnancy.”
“I wasn’t talking about that. I was meaning about your–”
“I know” interrupted Pru, effectively closing that line of conversation.
After a few moments of silence in which Betty studied Pru, the older woman shouted over the sizzle and hiss of the bacon, “Eddie looked in on you this morning. He didn’t want to wake you but said he’ll be back for dinner, mind. Poor bairn looks tired. Did you manage much sleep? Get all the rest you can now because as sure as eggs is eggs, that wee bairn will be keeping you on your toes when it’s born. They don’t care if you’ve had a bad day or a late night.”
Relieved that the conversation had moved on to a topic she didn’t mind talking about, Pru asked, “How old are your children?”
“Mine? Oh no hinny, I don’t have any.”
After a momentary pause while Betty poured an amber stream of hot liquid into another rosebud cup, she said, “Turns out that it wasn’t in the plan for us, no matter how much we wanted it.” She looked over her shoulder at Pru’s uncomfortable expression and handed her the tea. “Now if I don’t feel bad about it, pet, you certainly shouldn’t! You’ll never hear me complain about it. I’ve got the best life I could hope for, thank you very much. And it means I get to keep my hourglass figure too.” And she laughed while turning her ample hips from side to side in an exaggerated figure of eight.
“Nah, I was a bit past my best when me and Bern married. He’s a bit younger than me, see? Got meself a toy boy! By the looks of it you can only have a few weeks to go. Not the best time for war, eh? It’ll be over before we hear any shots fired, though, you’ll see.”
“What happened though?” asked Pru. “I don’t understand. The Greeks and Turks are friends, right? They work side by side, they live side by side...”
“Do they?” Betty raised her eyebrows as she flipped the hissing bacon over.
“Well... Yeah,” said Pru, less certain this time.
Pru leant her elbows on the table and held her cup of tea against her lips as she thought about Betty’s question. At the army stables where Pru was a regular visitor, even though her pregnancy stopped her from riding, both the Greeks and Turks worked together, but now she stopped to think about it, the Greeks had the slightly nicer jobs while the Turks shovelled the manure. But she had never seen any animosity between them. She realised now that she didn’t know many Turks. The restaurants that they ate in were mainly Greek-owned; the woman they rented their flat off was Greek; the family she bought fruit off at the side of the road was Greek; all their local acquaintances were Greek rather than Turkish.
“I still don’t get it. It’s plainly stupid,” she said finally, making up her mind that they must all be idiots.
“Well, the Turkish were unhappy, we all knew that, but I’m not sure them Greeks expected this. But then, if you poke a hornet’s nest, you get stung.” The older woman sighed as she placed cutlery and a bottle of HP sauce on the table. “There’s been trouble fer years and it’s finally boiled over. Eat up.”
“But why aren’t the British army doing anything?”
“Oh I dunno, pet, but what can they do?” Betty asked kindly. “If we side with the Greeks now and have war with the Turks, we’ll be in all kinds of hot watter. It isn’t our country, pet. This is a politicians’ war. Let them do the talking and in the meantime, we’ll pray that not too many young’uns lose their lives because of some old men’s hunger for power.”
“That simple?” asked Pru through a mouthful of salty bacon.
“Let’s hope so, pet. I’ve no desire to get back to Newcastle just yet. Now get that inside yer,” she nodded at the plate in front of Pru. “And then get dressed. I want yer help oot in the garden.”
Conversation over, Pru was left alone to finish her breakfast. She resented the fact that Betty expected her to do some gardening but she was softening towards the other woman. And, she had to admit, it was nice to be eating proper, lard-cooked bacon again. Betty had even cut off the rind and fried it separately so that it could coil into crispy spirals.
The news from last night was tapping at her subconscious and she knew she would have to let it in at some point. She was well aware that she should feel something over Dad’s death and the fact that she didn’t get to say goodbye to him. She pushed her bacon around her plate, smearing brown sauce across the circumference and strained to remember that last time she’d seen Dad. It would have been the morning of her eighteenth birthday. She remembered that it had been sunny, despite the chill in the air.
She opened her presents at the breakfast table over bitter marmalade-dressed toast. She clearly remembered the slender oblong box that Dad slid over to her from beneath the red knitted tea cosy. By the twinkling in his eyes she knew that he was pleased with the gift so she was expecting something special.
It was the most delicate and exquisite watch with a real leather strap. The face was white with roman numerals around the outside. She couldn’t stop looking at it and bolted down her breakfast in order to get to college and show it to all of her friends her new timepiece. “It’s a timepiece, not a watch, Little Bean.” Did she even thank him for it? Did she tell him she loved him as she flounced out the door feeling like a woman? She could only hope so.
It was over half an hour later when she joined Betty in the garden in the same clothes that she had arrived in the night before. Whereas the interior of the house may have been like stepping into a semi-detached in middle England, the garden was all Cyprus. There were white and blue tiles on the garden wall and huge cracked terracotta pots around the patio filled full of bright, bowing stems of orange-red geraniums with lush tiered leaves. In the raised bed on one side of the garden there were numerous cacti, some with vicious spikes, while others looked soft enough to stroke. The
other side was abundant with tomatoes, none of which were the smooth spheres that Pru was used to. The colours ranged from yellow to purple, and some were pear-shaped while others were more like ridged, small pumpkins.
“There’s a bowl on the table. Could you fill it with toms? The boys’ll be back soon.”
The whitewashed walls dazzled like they had absorbed the very rays of the sun and were radiating the golden glory themselves. The whiteness was enhanced by the violet-blue of the midday sky and Pru had to shade her eyes to be able to focus on the task in hand. Somewhere at the bottom of the garden Pru could hear the sound of a lone cricket and as the baby squirmed inside her, an extension of her body, she felt something akin to contentment.
When the task was completed, Pru sat at the table in the shade with a glass of weak orange squash. She could still smell the pungent bitterness of the tomatoes on her fingers. She had been surprised to hear from Betty that there were rations and Pru had been delivered to Betty’s house yesterday with a box of dried goods like rice, biscuits and some tins. Betty didn’t seem to be worried about lack of food and was boiling some ham and potatoes for lunch while humming a tune that Pru had never heard before.
“Not too much for me, Hinny,” boomed a man’s jocular voice from the kitchen that made Pru jump. She looked towards the door and found herself hoping that Eddie was home too.
“You’re late. And dirty!” came Betty’s voice with a chuckle. “Get cleaned up! Eddie, pet, you look tired. Prudence is ootside, why don’t you go sit down. I’ll bring you a drink.”
“Thanks, Bet.” Pru was surprised to find that her heart soared at her husband’s voice.
Eddie pushed aside the multi-coloured strips of plastic that served as a back door during the warm summer months and smiled boyishly at Pru. “All right?” His crooked smile and tilt of his head made Pru flush.
