by Sara Alexi
The page has Nikki’s full attention now. All thoughts of where it has come from are swept aside. Trying to smooth the paper, helping it to uncurl, she reads on, stepping backward until her back is against the wall between the two front windows. She slides down the wall until she is seated to take the weight off her now-trembling legs. This is Apostolis’s mama’s writing: a voice from the grave. Nikki shivers.
He has never really been a kind boy, not even when he was a child. Determined, perhaps, but not kind. He did the usual macabre investigations into ants and spiders and how many legs they could live without, but I had to stop him when I caught him being unkind to puppies or kittens. My wish was that he would grow out of such behaviour, but he continued to be just as cold and unloving as a teenager. There were never any hugs for me. But I took hope because when he met Toula, he seemed to change. He smiled more, was attentive to her. They began their lives together and he managed to share with her in a way he had never shared anything before. He shared his space, and his possessions. As a mama I was so happy and I loved Toula so much for bringing out the best in him.
Then when he took the loan from the bank to do up Toula’s old cottage in the village, I thought he was finally being kind. Making their home beautiful, maybe even putting in a nice new kitchen for Toula. Pretty young thing that she was back then … But I should have known better. He used the money to buy some rough land, and the cottage was forgotten as he went in with a shifty-looking builder from Evedaros. He built and sold two houses on that tiny plot of land he bought. It was all decorated entrance halls and bad foundations. There was no pride in the work. Poor Toula. But she stood by him, did his accounts and sweet-talked the buyers. She was marvellous for him, but he could not see it. He bought more land with the money from the sales and began to build again, and then he got in with that man from Athens, thick as thieves they were, him and – George, I think it was.
It is strange how things fade, the things that are less important. I suppose I do not need to make my peace with them so I do not remember them.
Well, when Apostolis started to work with whatshisname-from-Athens, the first thing the stupid boy did was to squeeze Toula out of the business. Stopped her doing the accounts, put the money into a bank account that she has no idea how to access. Then he wanted to get his hands on my home, the cottage in the village where I was born, where my mama was born, where Apostolis himself was born. Oh, the promises he made, the sweet talk he spent hours delivering until I was worn away.
No, really, I felt worn out with him. I just wanted it to stop, so I gave in. Well, he built a whole line of houses on the land attached to my old house and that was when we moved here, to this big old windy house that bakes in the sun in the summer and freezes in the sea breezes in the winter, and no sooner were we here than I could just feel that I was now a nuisance to him.
Sure, he put in a winch for me to haul up the weekly shop but it was like the houses he built – all show. His top lip curled when I spoke to him. He took his meals in his study rather than sit with me and Toula.
You see, unlike Toula, who was so kind, I would draw his attention to anything questionable that he was getting up to. It was my duty. I am his mama. But he did not like it, not one little bit.
I will not go into the various details of all the unkind and dismissive things he did to me, but Toula would squeeze my hand to let me know she was there to support me. Bless her. And now they are saying such unkind things about her. If only they knew.
So one day I faced him. I told him the way he treated me was unacceptable. He sneered and went to wind one of his clocks. I grabbed his sleeve and he pulled his arm away with such a jerk I nearly fell. I was eighty-eight and my strength and balance were poor. He did not put his hand out steady me.
‘You think they would treat you any better in a home for the elderly?’ he asked in a voice that made me think he was quite serious.
‘You wouldn’t?’ I was terrified at the thought. I was finding living away from the village hard enough, but the idea of being shipped off to live with strangers …
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he said, and just for a moment I thought he was softening, maybe even recognising the care I had given him all his life. His back was towards me as he wound and wound his clock and, as he said no more, I contemplated his posture and the words he had just said and I realised that he would not send me to a home for the elderly because they cost money, and he was not about to put his hand in his pocket for me!
The next day was the first time strange things began to happen. The rug in my room, by my bed, had been carefully folded over so I nearly tripped. If I had fallen, my head could have hit the rock I use as a doorstop. I would have been a goner. Rugs get rucked up all the time, you could say, but two days later there were dried chickpeas out on the balcony when I went to haul up the vegetables. My foot skidded, they were like marbles. If it had not been for Toula coming out just at that moment my head would have hit the wrought-iron railing and that would have been that.
But he has always been a determined boy and so naturally he did succeed. It was in the lift a week later. I had been down in the lift the day before and I knew it was working just fine, so the following day I naturally stepped into it to take the rubbish down and out. The lift seemed to be descending a little faster than normal, I thought. The speed increased and I was just about to cry out when the whole think jerked to a sudden stop not far from the ground. The jerk was so sudden that I swear I felt my brain hit the top of my skull and as my neck snapped back I saw, just for the most fleeting of seconds, a clock-winding key jammed in one of the cogs that worked the lift. Even in so brief a moment, I could see that it was done so that the cage would jam just above the ground with a shock that rattled all my bones, bounced my brain and snapped at my neck. But it was my heart that gave way. It beat furiously, thumping through my chest and then, as if someone had tied an elastic band around it, it struggled but could beat no more.
I saw myself slump to the floor, my face ashen, my left hand twitching, alone. But even if anyone had come at the time, there would have been nothing that they could have done.
Half an hour later Apostolis came out of the door at the top of the stairs. He usually took his precious lift but this time he trotted down the stairs, calm as you like, leaned over the roof of the stuck carriage, retrieved his clock-winding key and went back upstairs, leaving Toula to come in from having coffee with friends to discover the lift jammed and me lifeless from a heart attack on the floor.
It shocked Toula deeply. Her face went white, her head began to shake on her neck and from then on she developed this little wobbling movement she does when she is nervous. Well, I would be nervous too if I had to live with Apostolis after that.
The doctor said it was natural causes. I think that is what they always say when someone as old as I was has a heart attack. Toula cried and cried, and then she put the advert in the downstairs window for a cleaner. I don’t think she could stand the thought of being alone with him.
Well, I could have left but there was unfinished business, you see. As far as I was concerned that was murder, what my son did to me. So I bided my time. I watched over Toula to make sure she was safe. I discovered that I could go into animals’ bodies if I wanted to go outside, and there was this beautiful black cat who didn’t seem to mind a bit. It was nice when Toula stroked me, like we were connecting again, and I did my best to give all my love back to her through her hands when she did touch me.
The other thing, apart from enjoying being in a cat’s body, was that I found I could stop things. Mechanical things. Like his clocks. I would stop them just to annoy him and he would spend hours tinkering with them but to no avail. I practised on those clocks, stopping them, grinding those little wheels to a halt by the power of my will. I would stop two of them at a time so he would get exasperated, running from one to the other. But it was all part of a greater plan.
Finally, I saw a chance. Toula was going to England to see their gra
ndchildren, my great-grandchildren. Brave girl, she had broken free of Apostolis a little by then. She made it clear that if he did not want to go then she would go alone, and she arranged it all. Once she was in the taxi to go to the train station, I became impatient. They were meant to be going together in that taxi but Apostolis was finding excuses to make them late. So in the end Toula went on her own. But from the moment she was gone I was not going to waste any time.
Apostolis, my son, my murderer, stepped into that lift, and I did the easiest thing in the world. I stopped the cogs, right between floors, so he was stuck.
At first he began to tinker with the buttons and the concertina cage doors, but whatever he fixed I unfixed. The lift juddered up and then down, but only by a fraction.
When he began to call for help it did pull at my motherly heartstrings, but he had tormented me as boy and man and had shown me no love. He was just as cold to Toula, and their children had also suffered. Their grandchildren, thank goodness, had never met him.
So there he was, stuck in the lift, and there he was for two weeks, in the summer’s heat, with no food or water, and he was not a young man. He did call, and shouted out, at first. But the walls and acoustics of he old building didn’t carry the sound. He remained undisturbed until poor Toula returned from seeing her grandchildren. But she has an instinct, does Toula. Always had an instinct, and she called on the electrician to go with her to fix the lift on the day of her return, so it was he who found my son with no life left in his body.
So I guess that sets the record straight – there should be no more gossip about Toula now! I have made my peace.
There is a sudden and loud bang from one of the upstairs rooms, and Nikki jumps and shivers at the same time. The sun is still streaming in through all the windows but the cold is noticeable. The noise in the room above repeats itself. She stands slowly, leaving the paper on the floor, then ventures to the bottom of the stairs.
‘Hello!’ Nikki calls up. Unlike the main room, the staircase and hallway are still gloomy. The noise came from Toula and Apostolis’s bedroom.
‘Hello.’ It is also dark at the top of the stairs. There is no window on the landing. She switches on the light and it all looks familiar again. But as she nears Toula’s bedroom door she sees it is slightly open. It is not pitch dark, but with both shutters and curtains closed the room is in gloom.
As she pushes the door and flicks on the light, the black cat, its pupils dilated, jumps from the bed, flashes past Nikki’s rooted feet and streaks soundlessly down the stairs and out of sight before she can blink.
On the floor, a bedside lamp rocks on its side. The mundanity of the fallen lamp, which must be what caused the noise, comes as such a relief that Nikki laughs at herself, a dry, humourless sound.
After switching off the light and shutting the door firmly, she returns downstairs. She will take the paper home and see what Karolos, her husband, makes of it. Probably someone’s idea of a joke. It is in very poor taste.
The sun fills the room. She will find furniture that is modern and light and fresh to complement this space.
Nikki scans the floor for the letter, but it has gone. She left it just there on the floor, but it is not there now. There is no breeze, no draught, nowhere it could be hidden. The paper, the account of Apostolis’s death, has disappeared.
She leaves shortly afterwards, almost doubting her senses, and never does see that sheet of paper again.
The next couple of weeks are spent decorating and furnishing the flat. Nikki will rent it out to tourists in the summer, but for now today her work is done.
As she closes the door, it occurs to her that since that day, since the day of the letter, she has not seen Toula’s cat again either.
A Pair of Blue Eyes
Easing herself out of her chair, Poppy makes her way slowly to the front of the shop. Racks of clothes crowd her on either side, threatening to engulf the narrow corridor that is left down the middle of the shop. Poppy has collected far more than she has sold over the years, and the result is that the tiny shop is filled to overflowing with her eclectic collection. The glare on the window highlights the grime, but long ago she became selective over the use of her energy, so the dirt remains and her days pass in subdued tones. But if she does not lower the blinds before midday the shop will become stifling hot, more than she can bear.
She steadies herself as she goes, a hand on an old-fashioned diver’s suit complete with brass helmet, then on a rack of cheesecloth shirts. She stops to use her toe to push to one side a roller skate that has made an escape from its partner, then continues her well-worn path to the open door and out into the sunshine. There is not much trade to be had on this little backstreet in the village, but it supplements her pension.
Poppy’s grip is not what it used to be and each day it seems to take longer to turn the handle that lowers the tarpaulin shade. But she is in no great hurry, and presently the awning is lowered, shading her window, and Poppy returns to the back of the shop to settle herself comfortably in her chair again. Her eyelids droop and she slips into a pleasant place halfway between dreams and memories.
Not far from her Athens home, a younger Poppy slows to a halt over the double yellow lines outside the kiosk, her front inside wheel mounting the kerb, her seat belt caught in the driver’s door, on the kiosk side. It is like any of the thousands of kiosks all over of Greece, originally installed to provide employment for war-wounded soldiers. The wooden sentinel boxes are all the same size and a uniform mustard colour, and have become part of the landscape. Some have been expanded, with drink cabinets added, and extensions to the roofs – for shade, and to claim a little more of the pavement.
In this particular kiosk the magazines and newspapers, which would no doubt once have been pegged on rope around the booth, now stand in a purpose-built magazine rack.
Poppy gathers a handful of the local papers. ‘I ordered a magazine on interior design in the name of P. Metavolis?’
It never seems to be the same kiosk attendant twice these days. Long gone are the wounded soldiers; it is all family businesses now, and families seem to have a never-ending supply of cousins.
It is winter and Athens is grey in the early morning half-light, the unlit shopfronts reflected on the wet pavements, traffic hissing by slowly, lights on. It has just stopped raining. Adjusting her focus, Poppy smooths her hair in her reflection. It’s a practical style but too short to tie back. Behind her, high on a hill, towers the Parthenon, majestic and solid, magnificent even in the damp weather.
Weary to the bone, Poppy manages a smile for the shopkeeper, who looks blank and yawns, flashing gold somewhere in the recess of his nicotine-stained mouth. Poppy deposits the papers on the counter and rummages around in her bag for change. She sighs as she finds she used all her small notes at the wholesale warehouse. The man behind the counter rolls his eyes as he takes her large-denomination drachma note.
Coat flapping, she squeezes back behind the wheel and throws the magazine and papers onto the passenger seat. A lone box of kolokithia, missed earlier, occupies most of the back seat. She will take it in later. The girls have enough fresh produce for now.
She pulls the dangling seat belt across her lap as she switches on the lights and points the car homeward. Argon will still be asleep, sprawled across their double bed, mouth slack, reeking of alcohol. Yesterday she thought that finally the day had come. He presented her with a ring box: old, antique-looking. She waited for him to drop to one knee, to announce his love. To say something like, ‘After fifteen years of being with you I could not be surer that we are destined to grow old together.’ But he didn’t. He waited for her to open it, her stomach in knots, floating, sinking, turning. The anticipation must have shown on her face – her wide-eyed joy. But he did not really even look her in the face.
Instead, he flatly said, ‘Found that. You might want to let the customers know, see if anyone dropped it.’
Poppy’s stomach growls with hunger and she scan
s the street for a parking space by the cafe on the corner. A secret moment to herself reading her magazine, a bougatsa and a sweet coffee that she does not have to make herself will keep her going.
As she approaches, she is disappointed to see that the cafe is closed. She must be earlier than usual. But a place just a little further on is open – or at least the lights are on. The wheel hits the kerb again and, after she slips out of the car, the seat belt resists Poppy’s attempt to close the door. The establishments seem to change hands so quickly these days. She hopes it is a cafe with a corner where she can read her magazine.
The shop’s interior looks bright and cheerful, but it is hard to tell if they are serving yet or just setting up. Inside, a man in a high-waisted long white apron, working behind a counter, helps her overcome her hesitation by beckoning her to enter. He is only just visible between the words So and Sushi, which are written in an arc on the window.
‘Sushi,’ Poppy says to herself. Is that Japanese or Chinese food? Either way, she has never tried it.
The door to the establishment is freshly painted, and a young man is on his knees fiddling with it, fitting a new lock. He has dark hair that contrasts with his bright blue eyes, and Poppy tries not to stare. She has heard such colouring is a throwback to how the Greeks were in ancient times. The man smiles and doffs his peaked cap, releasing his curls, and steps to one side to let her pass. It is an action performed with humour, and Poppy feels a long-forgotten thrill of attraction at the eye contact he makes. The wooden floor springs underfoot, as if she has lost ten pounds in a heartbeat.
After examining the sushi menu and deciding what she wants, Poppy sinks gratefully into a comfortable chair in the corner, with a plate of food, a cup of coffee and her magazine. The back of the magazine is uppermost, displaying an advert for dog food. A picture of a schnauzer dog stares, blue-eyed, back at her. Poppy lovingly strokes the picture for several seconds before turning the periodical over to open the glossy front page, the insides spilling over with ideas for her business and her home. She feels quite light-hearted as she settles down to enjoy the next twenty minutes.
