Being Shirley

by Michelle Vernal

  “Or the fact that the wearing of Speedos when you have a hairy stomach and look nine months gone is offensive to some viewers.” Carl held his hand out for the bottle of Le Tan.

  Now as Annie looked up at him, his expression was inscrutable thanks to the hat that shaded his face and set of Ray-Bans that gave nothing away.

  “I did, actually.”

  “And?” She tugged at his arm impatiently.

  “And I am going home.”

  “What?” Her jaw dropped as his words pulled her up short.

  He stopped and placed a hand on either side of her shoulders. “Well, now that my mission is complete and I have delivered you into the bosom of the Bikakis family safe and sound, I am going to go home. It’s been wonderful. I have loved every minute of our little holiday together.” He frowned. “Well, almost every minute but I’ve been away long enough and David wants to give things another go and—” He shrugged. “So do I. I miss him, Annie.”

  “But what about me? I’ll miss you.” Her lip quivered. This great big adventure she was on suddenly seemed daunting without her trusty albeit sometimes annoying travel companion at her side.

  “And I you, Annie, my sweets, but you will be fine. You are where you need to be for a little while longer, I think.”

  “Hmm.” She shook his arms off, not ready to be convinced, and they wandered along in silence for a few moments until she broke it. “Carl?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am really happy for you.”

  “I know you are, sweetheart. I know.” They stopped and had a quick hug, both agreeing as they quickly untangled themselves that it was too hot to engage in that kind of carry-on for long.

  “So when do you think you are going to go?”

  “As soon as I can. I’ll sort out my ferry ticket back to Athens today and go from there.”

  ***

  The village of Elounda was a bustling mix of smartly dressed locals touting for customers outside their tavernas and swarthy seamen in cut-off shorts who offered boat rides to the island of Spinalonga. All the while, their targeted tourists wandered in and out of the shops that abutted the busy port in various states of undress. It was a scene that was watched over by the square’s prominent clock tower. Annie and Carl paused to squint at the burnished copper view of Spinalonga out in the harbour. The former leper colony was a surreal rocky mass floating a short distance out to sea. The buildings it was home to looked as though they had been carved straight from the brown rocks on which they sat. Carl fished around inside his day pack and produced their guide book. He flicked through the pages for a moment until he found what he was after. His eyes skimmed over the text. “According to this, Spinalonga has been used as a Venetian fortress, a castle colony, and as a rebel refuge before it became a leper colony in 1903. Oh, and listen to this, the last leper died there in 1953.”

  “Really? 1953? But that’s so recent.” Annie shook her head in disbelief.

  “I know. It seems unbelievable.” They both stared out to sea at it for a moment before Carl continued to read. “And in the peak summer months, between twelve to fifteen hundred people visit it. Spinalonga is also known as Kalidon and sometimes referred to by the locals as the island of the living dead.”

  Looking out at the busy water scene with boats toing and froing from the island, the statistic wasn’t all that surprising. Annie shivered despite the sizzling midday sun. It was really quite stunning and she could see why it was one of Crete’s main draw cards, standing guard in the harbour the way it was but it had had such a sad history too. Imagine spending your whole life ostracised as a leper out on that arid mound, knowing that a short boat ride away a whole other world was going about its day-to-day business. She shook her head, glad when Carl pulled on her arm to haul her over to one of the many souvenir shops dotted around the township. As he led her into the closest treasure trove of tack, he announced he wanted to take a Greek music CD home with him. “So I’ll think of sunnier, happy climes when I’m huddled by the fire in the long winter months ahead at home with a plateful of moussaka. Do you think Mama will give me her recipe?”

  “She might, if you sign a secrecy agreement. And anyway, you’ll be huddled by the fire eating moussaka with David, so I won’t feel too sorry for you.” Annie picked up a paperweight.

  “Has this one got that song from Zorba the Greek that gets played at Zumba sometimes?” Carl waved a CD at the bored shopkeeper, who held his hands out to demonstrate his lack of understanding. Carl clicked his fingers and lifted his leg in what he obviously thought was a demonstration of Greek dancing. The shopkeeper nodded and looked at Carl as though he was considering putting one hand on his non-existent under-the-counter panic button. While he rang the CD up and popped it in a brown bag, Annie held the paperweight up for inspection. It had a teeny replica Greek monastery inside it; she shook the globe and watched as little gold flecks swirled around inside it, the relevance of which she wasn’t sure other than it was pretty. With a wish that it was a fortune teller’s ball, she placed it back on the shelf and headed over to their next port of call, the travel agent’s.

  It didn’t take long to sort Carl’s return sailing out and with his tickets purchased for a boat leaving in two days’ time, they decided it was time to have a drink and maybe a bite to eat too.

  “It looks nice over there.” Annie pointed over at the edge of the wharf to where the sea wall was lined with seats and tables. “Hey, look—isn’t that Alexandros?” She held her hand up to her brow as though saluting and squinted into the sun towards the tables the man and his female companion had just gotten up from. “My God, she could be arrested for indecent exposure!” she screeched as the woman he was with wiggled her way over to the restaurant kiosk to pay. “It’s definitely him.” Alexandros leaned up against the wall with that unmistakable languor of his to wait while their bill was paid.

  “Gigolo!” Carl exclaimed. “He gets a free lunch and goodness knows what else when he entertains Eleni’s female guests.”

  “How do you know she is from Eleni’s?”

  “I saw her this morning at breakfast—a bleached blonde floozy if ever I saw one, with a chest you could stand a pint of beer on. Hard to miss her.”

  As the woman tucked her purse back into her shoulder bag, they watched the scene like a fascinated pair of voyeurs. Alexandros draped a casual arm around her shoulder and as they turned to stroll off into the horizon, both their eyes widened. “Really, what is she thinking: a G-string? They’re so nineties!” Carl exclaimed.

  Once they had gotten over their shock, they took themselves over to the same café and flopped gratefully down onto the twin two-seater couches. A coffee table separated them and they enjoyed the respite from the sun that the wide umbrella offered while they waited for the young girl, ponytail swinging as she rushed about with menus, to head their way.

  “I wonder if they have a loo over there.” Carl gesticulated to where the actual restaurant area whose seating they were ensconced in was.

  “Bound to—why, do you need to go?”

  “No. I just like to know there’s one handy. That’s all. I find it comforting since Athens.”

  Annie looked across at him fondly. She really was going to miss him.

  Their menus arrived with a flourish and as she glanced over the list of alcoholic beverages, her stomach rolled. She’d just have to toast Carl’s departure with a glass of lemonade, she decided and took him up on his offer to share a plate of club sandwiches. The drinks didn’t take long to arrive and after they raised their glasses to both safe travels and a bright, romantic future for Carl and David, she took a grateful slurp of the cold, sweet fizzy. The water lapped at the sea wall next to them and looked so tempting that she put her glass down and slid off the couch to sit on the damp stone. She dipped her toes in the clear water and noticed the swarms of tiny fish hoping a stray breadcrumb or two would float their way.

  “Watch they don’t nibble them,” Carl admonished as he looked at her feet
.

  “People pay good money for a fish foot massage. They eat all the dead bits of skin and mine are a bit dry from all the walking around in jandals we’ve done lately. Here fishy, fish, fish.” Annie made a kissy noise and Carl shuddered in disgust.

  By the time lunch was produced, Annie decided the fish were probably full and that it was her turn to eat. She hauled herself back up onto her seat and eyed the platter. “Whoa, it’s huge!”

  “Heard that before, sweetheart.”

  “Carl!”

  He winked and tucked in. Despite the amount of food, they still managed to plough their way through most of the triangle-filled pieces of bread and admired the stunning outlook as they ate.

  “It’s a slice of paradise, isn’t it?” Annie mumbled.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full, and yes it is.”

  She finished chewing and swallowed this time before she announced, “That was yum but I’m stuffed.”

  “Me too.” Carl dropped a crust onto the plate and leaned back in his seat. He was a Buddha-like mirror image of Annie, whose own arms were wrapped round her stomach as she moaned that she really shouldn’t have had that last sandwich.

  “Look over there.” He sat up, suddenly animated, and Annie swivelled round in her seat to watch as a little choo-choo train pulled up at the beach opposite where they sat.

  His eyes sparkled like a child who had just been handed a lollypop. “Shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  ***

  “We shouldn’t have bothered. It was a bloody rip-off,” Carl muttered as they disembarked the train. Nevertheless, he gave their hostess, an overtly friendly Greek woman whose monologue they could barely decipher as they’d chugged along the coastline, a smile that said we had lots of fun. The train had only gone a short distance up the road and the highlight had been waving at the odd child and over-enthusiastic holiday-maker on the pebbly beaches as it toot-tooted at them. “No wonder she’s so bloody happy she’s coining it,” he whispered out the side of his mouth as they walked away in an unspoken agreement to follow the path that looped around the waterfront.

  “I did pick up that Sheikh something or other likes to stay in that luxury villa up there when he comes to Elounda.” Annie pointed up at the sprawling hillside complex. “Oh and Leonardo DiCaprio likes to water ski but then Kas already told us that.”

  “Bully for Leo. I don’t know about you but I’m about ready to head back to Eleni’s to put my feet up for a while.”

  “We might get that trip out to Spinalonga with Spiros, seeing as Alexandros is obviously back on dry land.”

  Carl frowned. “Don’t mention we saw him when we get back. I get the feeling that it might stir the pot.”

  “No, I won’t. You’re right; besides, I think Kas has enough on her mind with Mama at the moment. She doesn’t need to be worrying about what the Cretan Stud gets up to when he is supposed to be working as well. Let’s just pop into that gorgeous bakery we saw earlier and pick up something nice to take back for dessert tonight.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sea breeze cooled the hot air and left a tang of salt on Annie’s lips as the Bikakis family’s little runabout boat that Spiros had taken her and Carl over to Spinalonga on made its return trip. She was glad she’d worn her cap or her hair would have been tangled beyond redemption by the time she got back to Eleni’s. As the island retreated into the distance, she gripped the wooden seat and wished for the first time in her life that she had a bit more padding on her bottom as they bounced over the waves. Spiros shouted over the noise of the engine at Carl and pointed out different points of interest along the peninsula as Spinalonga got farther away and the shoreline closer. Annie’s mind was still on the island, though.

  The crowds had dispersed a little by the time they had dragged the boat ashore on the island, thanks to the lateness of the afternoon. Spiros, after arguing over the entry fee with the gatekeeper, who would not budge in his insistence that local or no local, he should pay, opted to sit on a rock in the shade of a tree near the water’s edge. He was content to read his book and leave them to explore the broken cobbled streets on their own. The very emptiness—apart from a straggler tourist or two and the odd lizard skittering past—of the crumbling buildings that had once housed a functioning albeit ostracised community hinted at the isolation the people who had dwelled here had lived with.

  They picked their way under stone archways and through stone walled gardens now filled with nothing but scrub leading them into decrepit creeper clad houses made of pile upon pile of rocks. It was difficult to reconcile the buildings they explored now with the busy community the plaques and photographs inside the rooms they wandered freely depicted them as having been. The human spirit was indeed incredible. Annie noted the smiles on the faces of those captured on film, despite their hardship. There was a strange beauty to it all, she decided, as they followed the main path round the island. They paused when they reached a viewpoint to marvel at the three-sixty-degree vistas it offered up. It really was breathtaking, they agreed, and Carl had mumbled something about being able to think of worse places to see out your days. Annie had thumped him, pointed across to the mainland and told him that some of the people living here had left their families behind and had to live with them forever in their sights but out of their grasp.

  As they stumbled across the open cemetery with its rows of unnamed rectangular graves covered in stones, even he was chastened. They were both quiet by the time they arrived back to where Spiros was engrossed in his book. On their approach, he bent the page to save his place and shut his book. He took note of their sober expressions. “Yes, this place, it sometimes has this effect on people.”

  Now as they reached the shallow waters of the mainland, Annie hopped out of the boat. Her feet sunk into the pebbles below as she trudged up the beach. She watched as Carl and Spiros dragged the boat up on the bank and heard the tinkle of goat bells in the hills beyond. The charming sound, along with the buttery hues of the gentle slopes the goats roamed as they searched out blades of grass amid the rocks and soil, cleared the last of the fug left behind by Spinalonga’s tarnished history.

  The blonde guest they’d spied with Alexandros earlier in the day headed down the path towards their little group as they veered off the pavement to cut across the frontage to Eleni’s. Thankfully, Annie noted, she was dressed. Her hire car keys dangled from her fingers as she waved at Spiros with her other hand. It caused her bosoms to jiggle and drew one’s eyes to an impressive cleavage that was impossible to miss, anyway, encased as it was in a tight, white number. The white showed off the mahogany tan she had acquired by lying prone in the sun over the last week.

  Obviously fond of lying on her back then, and not a natural blonde, even if her boobs were real because there were telltale dark roots that showed along her part line. Stop being so bitchy, Annie told herself; she’s probably a really nice girl. The little voice continued to snipe in her head: a really nice girl who got round in G-strings when she had a bum like Kim Kardashian. Meow—Annie! She mentally slapped herself on the hand while she noticed that Blondie had a somewhat mousey friend with her. They were dressed for a night on the town and she felt sorry for the mousey girl; she would definitely spend her evening in Blondie’s blousy shadow. She wondered idly whether Alexandros had plans to meet up with them later.

  As they walked in through the side door to the kitchen, they were assailed by a full-blown row. Kassia’s hands were on her hips and her normally wide brown eyes were narrowed as she spoke in rapid-fire Greek. The source of her annoyance was clearly her brother-in-law, who had his hands in the air as though trying to ward her words off. Mama muttered over by the stove and stirred something that despite the tense atmosphere in the kitchen smelled mouth-wateringly divine. Annie’s tummy grumbled involuntarily and she wrapped her hands around her middle to silence it. She hoped that Mama would stop stirring whatever was in the pot quite so forcibly because she was losing half the sauce
over the side. Spiros pushed past her. He joined in the mix, his tone placatory as he scooped a wide-eyed Nikolos out of the highchair and sidestepped Mateo, who was busy ramming a truck into the table leg. Annie grabbed Carl’s arm and pulled him back the way they had come. She decided it might be best if they left the family to sort things out on their own.

  “I’m guessing that’s over his no-show at breakfast this morning,” Annie whispered as they walked down the hall. Carl stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. He was too busy skipping the light fandango with Ms G-String. Now, that’s a sight I won’t forget in a hurry.” He yawned, his hand on the rail as he took the first step. “I am knackered. I might go and lie down for half an hour, or at least until the dust settles.”

  “It’s all that sunshine and sea air.” Annie stifled a yawn of her own but knew if she lay down, she’d probably fall asleep and feel like rubbish by the time she got up again to join the others. “I might go and explore the back garden. I didn’t have a look round there yesterday.”

  Carl gave her a wave and headed up the steps. “See you soon.”

  Pleased to escape the tension that seeped out from under the kitchen door, Annie headed around the back of the house to where Spiros and Carl had toiled yesterday. She stood for a moment and admired the unexpected oasis Spiros had created. The air, she noticed as she inhaled deeply, was thick with the mingling scents of oregano and rosemary. A lemon tree stood sentry in the far corner of the square garden and the raised beds overflowed with a summer’s bounty of heavy, ripe tomatoes clinging on to their vines and vying for space alongside the high gloss aubergines. Across the bricked back wall, a grapevine snaked its way upwards, laden with fruit that was only just beginning to ripen. Annie snapped off a piece of rosemary and jumped back in shock as a little lizard skittered out from under the shade of a nearby leafy courgette plant.