Being Shirley

by Michelle Vernal

  The raised bed Carl had been helping Spiros fill yesterday had a fresh planting of lettuce seedlings that drooped in the heat. She spied a tap with a watering can next to it by the side of the house, so she walked over and filled it. She started at the sight of Alexandros as he leaned against the wall by the back door and watched her curiously.

  Her face flamed and she knew it was probably the same colour as her hair. For the second time that day, she was glad it was tucked under a cap; otherwise, she would resemble one of the giant tomatoes she had just admired. Knowing that he must be well used to having this kind of effect on women, Annie turned the tap off and wished he would go away.

  “I am sorry you had to hear all that earlier.” His English, while good, was not as precise as Kassia’s and his accent had a melodic twang to it that would most certainly woo the ladies.

  Annie shrugged, not meeting his gaze on purpose, as she tilted the can and sprinkled water over the thirsty lettuces. “It’s not as though we could understand any of it, anyway, and all families fight from time to time. It’s part of the dynamic of being in a family.” It wasn’t her place to add that of course his family might not fight quite so often if he weren’t such a lazy swine. If he helped out more instead of swanning off with a busty blonde who, if she insisted on the wearing of skimpy swimwear, really should spend a bit more time doing her glute exercises, then family life might be more congenial.

  “Yes, there are too many—how you would say? Chiefs in our house.”

  Annie assumed he referred to his mother and sister-in-law, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him kick at the soil his brother had worked so hard to turn into a garden, before he sighed heavily. Then he was gone. Feeling unsettled and thoroughly annoyed with herself for letting him have any kind of effect on her whatsoever, Annie emptied the can. She watched the water soak its way into the soil for a moment before she decided to head back inside. As she caught sight of herself in the window, she realised she would need to smarten her act up before dinner but first she would brave sticking her head back into the kitchen to see whether she could help Mama with the prep work.

  ***

  Kassia tapped on Annie’s door before she pushed it open to find her friend trying to work a comb through her hair.

  “I offered to help Mama with dinner but she wouldn’t hear of it. So now I am trying to tidy myself up a bit before we eat but with my mop it’s a bit of a lost cause. Ow!”

  Kassia smiled. “Your hair is beautiful—leave it.” She flopped down on the edge of the bed and apologised for the fight they had borne witness to earlier.

  It was the second apology regarding the Bikakis family set-to in under half an hour, Annie realised as she waved it away. “It’s no big deal. Families fight, so what?”

  “But mine is fighting all of the time lately. I was telling Alexandros he is lazy and that he needs to do his fair share about the place.”

  “I thought you might be and quite right, too. Ouch! Bloody knots.”

  “Your nose is very pink too, like that cute little reindeer—you know.”

  “Rudolph. Cheers for that.” Annie peered into the mirror to find she indeed glowed; it was probably a touch of windburn from the boat ride earlier. Still, she’d have to be more careful with reapplying the sunscreen from now on. “Do you think he listened?”

  “Pah! I doubt it. Mama, well, she never backs me up, even though she knows I am right, because she is terrified he will pack his bags and leave again.” Kassia shrugged. “What she doesn’t see is that he’ll do that anyway just as soon as he gets a better offer. So she continues to tiptoe around him. She is blind when it comes to her son.”

  “A mother’s prerogative perhaps?” Annie smiled at her as she put the comb down. It was a lost cause and twisting it into a topknot, she decided that would have to do.

  “No! When Mateo does something horrendous like the time he is peeing in the geranium pot, I tell him so and he gets a smack on the bottom.” She clapped her hands to emphasise her point but her grin gave away the fact that she knew Alexandros was a tad too big for smacks on his bottom from his mama.

  “Did Spiros back you up?”

  “Yes, in his usual way. He told his brother he shouldn’t leave it all up to me and Mama but Alexandros, he never listens because he doesn’t really care. It is all about him and his attention at the moment is on a certain blonde guest we have staying.”

  “Yes, the girl with enormous bosoms. Carl said you could rest a pint of beer on them.”

  Kassia snorted. “And have you seen that piece of elastic she calls a bikini?”

  Annie nodded. They looked at each other and giggled. Carl tapped on the door, pushed it open, walked into the room and looked at the girls with amusement.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Kassia managed to gasp out between her giggles what they were laughing about and Carl joined in. He swore that next time he saw Blondie mincing past in her G-string, he’d give her a wedgie. “That will make her think twice about inappropriate swimwear!”

  As she laughed, Annie was once again struck by a pang. She was so going to miss him when he’d be gone. Lately it seemed that her life had been filled with goodbyes.

  “Come on, you two.” He held his hands out to them in order to haul them both off the bed. “Mama sent me to tell you that dinner is nearly ready.”

  ***

  A colourful salad straight from the garden she had been admiring a short while ago took centre stage at the old wooden table, which had been smartly dressed for dinner. Annie gestured towards it. “That looks wonderful.”

  “So do you. I like your hair up like that—it suits you.” Alexandros poured Retsina into her wine glass.

  Annie’s hand involuntarily flew up to pat her loose up-do. “Oh, um, thanks.”

  “Mateo picked the tomatoes, didn’t you?” His mother spoke to him in English as she pulled a chair out next to her son and sat down too. He nodded shyly over at Annie as Kassia grabbed hold of one of his hands. “Have you washed them?” She suspiciously inspected his fingernails. He nodded with such an emphatic yes that she decided he hadn’t and promptly took him off to do the job properly this time round.

  A few minutes later, with the smell of soap wafting across the table, Mama, with her hands stuffed into oven gloves and satisfied her audience was in full attendance, picked up a steaming casserole dish and waddled over to the table. Annie inhaled the rich aroma of the stew inside the dish as she placed it in pride of place on a waiting pot stand before she whipped the lid off with a magician-like flourish.

  “Opa! A traditional Greek dinner for our guests! Lamb Kleftico,” she declared in her well-practised English. She seemed to stand a little taller as around the table they clapped and oohed and aahed over the meal she had produced for them. The tense atmosphere of earlier had dispersed as the heated words Kassia and Alexandros had exchanged were seemingly forgotten. Good food had the power to do that, Annie surmised. She wondered idly whether warring factions around the world were to simply sit down over a hearty meal like this whether they could work their problems out with so much more ease than by shedding blood on a battlefield. With that thought in mind, she eyed up the loaf of thickly sliced crusty bread already buttered and just waiting for them to mop up the juices left behind by the stew. Nikolos banged his spoon on his highchair in anticipation of being fed and Mateo kneeled up on his chair, about to lean over the table to see for himself what was in the pot. It was a futile attempt as his mother grabbed the back of his T-shirt and hauled him back down to a sitting position.

  “So Alexandros, how is your new friend? Perhaps instead of taking her out on the boat tomorrow, you could take her into town to buy some new swimwear. Her bikini bottoms seem to have disintegrated!” Spiros tossed over the table at his brother with a smirk on his face.

  “Sharon is fine, as is her bikini but thank you for your concern, Spiros,” Alexandros shot back. Mama ladled the stew into her oldest son’s bowl, placed the spoon back
in the casserole dish and swiped him across the back of his head.

  She fired something off in Greek, which Annie decided was probably along the lines of “Don’t wind your brother up.”

  “And just what were you doing looking at Sharon’s non-existent bikini bottoms, Spiros?” Kassia bantered to her husband.

  “I was concerned she might catch a cold or worse, suffer from sunburn of the bottom. You know, it is a terrible thing not being able to sit down.” There were snorts of stifled laughter around the table and Spiros, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth, carried on. “It was nothing more than that, Kassia, my love, I can assure you. You know I only have eyes for you, my wife.” The tender look in his eyes despite the playfulness of his words spoke volumes. Annie suddenly found herself hoping that one day someone would feel that way about her. Tony had never looked at her the way in which Spiros just had at his wife. It was a realisation that filled her with sadness but she steeled herself against it and told herself once more that she had indeed made the right decision in breaking things off with him. They both deserved better than what they had been able to give each other.

  Mama sat down and urged them all to start. Calls of pass the salad and pass the bread went up. Annie’s gaze swept round the table and her heart swelled. It was true that she had been saying an awful lot of goodbyes over the last few months but she’d also said hello too, and now here she was in the midst of this crazy, lovely Greek family. She watched Carl break off a piece of bread and place it down on Nikolos’s highchair tray. She knew that she’d miss him like crazy but she also knew she would be okay without him. He was right in what he had said to her earlier in the day. She was exactly where she needed to be at the moment.

  Carl announced his plans to leave in two days to begin his return trip to New Zealand after the last scraping from the pot of tender lamb, feta cheese, and onions had been consumed and the last drop of the delicious gravy mopped from each of their plates. The children had gotten down from the table and the first thing Mateo had done was race over to the kitchen bench to swipe a piece of baklava. Annie and Carl had bought the box of sticky honeyed pastry back from Elounda with them. He’d shovelled it into his mouth before his mother could stop him and the sight of him trying to chew with chipmunk cheeks sent them all into fits of laughter.

  The knowledge that Carl’s visit was to be fleeting was all the excuse needed. And so as they sat back in their chairs satiated and well fed, hands sticky from the baklava they’d just polished off for dessert, the Raki had been produced again. Despite her protestations that the aniseed liqueur was responsible for her hangover that morning, Annie still found herself raising her shot glass to toast her friend.

  She shuddered as the potent liquid went down and a rush of heat went to her cheeks.

  “What about you, Annie? What are your plans?” Kassia asked.

  “Yes, Annie, what are your plans?” Alexandros looked at her with open interest on his handsome features and received a kick under the table from Kassia. “Ouch!”

  “Don’t you have some place to be?”

  “Sharon and Tracey have gone to Malia to have dinner with some friends staying at a resort there and I’m not meeting them in town until ten o’clock.”

  “Well, just make sure you don’t go drinking and dancing the night away. Not when you have the breakfast orders to help me with in the morning. And don’t forget that it’s your turn to make the rooms up tomorrow. Annie?”

  Annie’s eyes stopped swivelling from one to the other; she was only just getting used to these three-way table conversations.

  “Oh, I’m definitely staying for a while yet. If that is okay with you all?”

  Kassia’s grin as Spiros got up to fill the glasses for another toast said it all.

  “Opa!” Mama raised her glass.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Annie’s phone bleeped. The sound intruded on the peaceful murmurings of distant conversations and slushing waves of the incoming tide. It was a reminder of the real world and one she couldn’t ignore, just in case. That was the thing with text messages, she thought as she sighed; it might be something really important or it might not. Unless she checked her phone, though, it would niggle at her because of that all-important “just in case.” She held her book in her right hand and reached over the side of the sun lounger with her left to pat the warm sand in a lazy attempt to locate her bag. At last her hand settled on the scratchy cane of her tote. She found her phone inside it, held it aloft to read the message and squinted into the mid-morning glare, despite her sunglasses. It was no good; she’d have to move if she wanted to see who it was from. Reluctantly, she pulled herself up into a sitting position and shaded the screen of the phone by holding up a corner of her towel. Annie smiled as she saw the message was from Carl. He’d made it from Athens to Heathrow and was at present devouring a Mars bar while he waited to board his flight to LA. Okay, so this earth-shattering news could have waited but it made her smile anyway.

  She pitied the poor sod who wound up seated next to him for the next leg of his trip home. Despite his best efforts to secure a business class seat, the plane had been full and there had been no last-minute cancellations, so once more he was forced to join the heaving masses in economy. She tapped out a reply to ask him whether he had invested in compression socks this time round and pushed Send. A couple playing catch in the shallows caught her eye. They must have been in their late thirties but the holiday spirit had them cavorting in the water like a couple of kids.

  It was nice to see. Sea, sand, and sunshine were definitely good for the soul, Annie mused as she waited for Carl’s reply. She didn’t have to wait long and she laughed out loud as she skimmed over the shorthand that said she had better not be mocking him because swollen ankles were a serious business. Never one to cut a long story short, he went on to say that he was at risk of becoming a forty-year-old sufferer of the dreaded cankle but he’d decided it was a risk he was going to have to take. No way was he forking out a small fortune to wear what equated to knee-high pantyhose. Look at Mama—the knee-high tights she insisted on wearing hadn’t done anything for her, he finished. With a grin at the mental image of him holding up a packet of the ugly socks in the airport’s pharmacy, Annie quickly replied and signed off by wishing him safe travels.

  She put the phone away in anticipation of settling herself back down on the lounger. It was costing her good money, five euro, for the privilege of reclining on it. As she reluctantly handed the note over to the girl who manned the beds, she’d reminded herself that everybody had a living to make. The locals had to make hay while the sun was shining—fair enough—so she was going to bloody well make sure she enjoyed it. Besides, an hour or two’s R&R after the morning she’d had was just what the doctor ordered.

  She tried to submerge herself into the pages of her book once more, but Annie found her mind wandering. Carl had been gone for three whole days now. They’d filled the last of his time in Crete from sunset to sundown, exploring their surrounds and spending time with Kassia and the family. Borrowing the courtesy wagon, a morning had whizzed by in Heraklion as they mooched around a market together before a visit to the ruins of Knossos. They’d both been in awe of the fact that the rubble remains they walked amid had been home to the Minoans, the earliest known civilisation in Europe. Carl had announced with loud passion that it had inspired him, and he was seriously thinking about redecorating in the style of Modern Greek Revival when he got home. Annie had told him not to be such a tosser.

  The next day, Kassia had taken them with her to pick up supplies in Agios Nikolaos and used the trip as an excuse to while away the hours over lunch. She’d taken them to a tucked away tavern that overlooked an inlet bustling with boats and afterwards they’d worked the meal off with a walk along the waterfront to watch the never-ending stream of promenading bad drivers. When they’d arrived back in Elounda later that afternoon, Annie had asked as to whether they might be able to take Mateo down to the beach for an h
our. It was a request that saw the little boy plonked in front of them swim togs on, towel in hand before either of them had a chance to change their minds!

  The first wee while on the beach, he had sporadically pulled Annie’s hair as though he still wasn’t convinced it was real. This was a game he seemed never to tire of, not even when there was a bucket and spade he could make use of. Annie’s scalp, however, had tired of the game and so to distract him, she had suggested they have a game of jump the waves. With Carl holding one of Mateo’s little hands and Annie the other, the threesome had paddled into the water and they hauled him up into the air whenever a wave rolled in. His giggles were infectious and as people paused to smile at the happy scene, they’d smiled proudly at each other over the top of his head. It had been fun. Mind you, Carl had commented sagely as the tired trio walked the few metres back from the beach to the house, parenting always was fun so long as you could give the child back at the end of the day.

  On Carl’s last night, revved up by too many glasses of Raki, they had decided to check out the local nightlife. Kassia and Spiros had joined them at a club, whose music pumped out onto the street and promised a lively time to all who ventured in. They had stayed for an hour before declaring themselves to be past it. Kassia had whispered in Annie’s ear that although it had been nice to put a dress and some make-up on, the thought of being woken at the crack of dawn by the boys was enough to make anyone want to crawl into bed! Sadly for them, they’d missed the highlight of the evening when a short while after they’d headed off, Carl had spotted Alexandros and Blondie. The dynamic duo cut a few moves on the crowded dance floor.