“I dread Christmas dinner. Quentin is completely clueless in the kitchen. His skills only stretch as far as cooking a Walmart frozen turkey with packet stuffing, opening a can of cranberry jelly and adding hot water to a packet of instant mashed potatoes. We don’t like to hurt his feelings, but the name he is famous for is ‘the Christmas ghost of salmonella.’ One year his half-thawed turkey nearly finished Hattie off.”
“I cant’s go putting my audience in ‘ospital,” Stavroula sighed, snatching away the complimentary sykomaitha in disgust. “I need recipes for foreign Christmas dinners using only the freshest of ingredients, not ghastly stuff out of freezers and packets.”
“Back in my navy days we once had a traditional Greenlandic Christmas dinner of whale blubber,” Gorgeous Yiorgos declared.
“Well unless yous plans to catch me a whale when yous go fishin’ it’s not much use to me,” Stavroula complained.
“Po po, I wouldn’t recommend whale blubber, it was so tough I broke a tooth.”
“Did yous eat any other foreign Christmas dinners on yous travels Yiorgo? I ‘ave to come up with somethin’ original and tasty,” Stavroula explained.
“We ad’ some very tasty roast goat an’ peppered gizzards in Nigeria.”
“Goat and gizzards sounds goodly for sure,” Stavroula smiled; confident she could give these familiar foreign ingredients a cheeky Greek twist if she omitted all the unfamiliar spices and replaced them with oregano.
“I could cook yous up some curried goat at ‘ome for yous to sample,” Gorgeous Yiorgos generously offered, adding, “Worst Christmas dinner I ever ‘eard of is the Japanese craze for eatin’ bucketfuls of take-out Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
Everyone except the Americans grimaced at the thought of this processed offering, even as Deirdre said “I’ve been trying to persuade Quentin to eat the Colonel’s Christmas bucket for years. It would have been much tastier than the self-heating ‘Christmas Tinner’ Quentin dished up the year the cooker exploded during the festivities. Parsnips, pudding and potatoes were all compressed into a can topped squashed minced pies and turkey.”
Stavroula shuddered with horror at this culinary abomination and then pointedly ignored Deirdre’s suggestion, “Perhaps Hattie could help you out with her recipe for Idaho potato ice-cream. She usually keeps a big stash of it in the freezer and serves it up after Quentin’s botulised turkey.”
“Did yous ‘ear about the body they found in a deep freeze in Osta?” Achilles piped up, reminded of the grisly find by the chatter about frozen food. “Frozen stiff it was. I ‘eard some nutter kept it on iced horta for over twenty years.”
“Most likely nothin’ but exaggerated gossip,” the usually quick to spread rumours Stavroula huffed, rushing back to the kitchen. The subject hit a sensitive nerve. It reminded her of murdering her second husband Kostas with weed killer laced homemade chicken soup and disposing of his remains under the chicken coop in Pouthena.
Katerina’s constant carping about the whereabouts of her brother Kostas unnerved Stavroula. She would feel more secure if the plan to scare her sister-in-law away with the old lady curse worked, leaving her free to devote all her energies to concentrating on the cooking competition.
Katerina had been taken aback to receive a call from Stavroula inviting her to partake of afternoon coffee in the taverna. She decided to amuse herself at her sister-in-law’s expense by grassing her up to the taxman for failing to issue VAT receipts. The tax inspector assured her he would arrive shortly and Katerina planned to be ensconced in the taverna, thus affording her a front row seat for any fireworks.
She had only just settled in with her coffee when Fotini, Nitsa and Hattie arrived, suitably plucked and sporting garish make-up from the beauty parlour. Their arrival prompted Quentin to declare “if it would get rid of that blasted bird I’d be happy to sample roast parrot for Christmas dinner.”
Hattie promptly told her son off, saying “you can’t go round threatening to eat Fotini’s beloved pet. It’s not natural.”
“Yous want to gets that seen too Kyria,” Achilles the borrowed builder told Fotini, mistaking her exaggerated winking at Stavroula for a nasty facial twitch.
“I thoughts yous wanted to chat about Kostas,” Katerina said to Stavroula.
“I do, but yous can see ‘ow busy I am nows so ‘old yous ‘orses,” Stavroula replied, serving the three old crones coffee with a sly wink. The glacial stares the three old women sent in Katerina’s direction ruffled her composure, but she had no intention of leaving when the tax inspector was due to arrive and put on a free show.
Katerina was mesmerized as Fotini transferred the black nightshade, beetles and crumb infested moustache wax from the old vinegar bottle into a pestle. She watched Fotini mortaring the mixture with a grinding motion, turning it into a rancid pulp while muttering nonsensical words. The icy looks discomfited Katerina so much she shattered the bat’s bones gripped tightly between her tense fingers.
“Yous looks likes yous is up to no good. Stop staring at me with yous evil eye,” she cried.
“What makes yous think yous is interesting enough for our attention?” Fotini sneered without lifting her deliberately malevolent gaze. Marching past Katerina with another coffee Stavroula intentionally knocked into her, spilling the hot beverage all over her amulet laden bosom.
“Yous is so clumsy Stavroula,” Katerina screamed, rushing off to the toilet to clean herself up.
Right on cue Fotini dashed across the taverna and poured some of the noxious mortared brew into Katerina’s coffee. Returning from the toilet Katerina took a greedy gulp of the doctored drink. The three old crones burst into manic cackles just as Katerina simultaneously swallowed the foul tasting liquid and noticed the rancid scum suspended suspiciously on its surface.
“Yous ‘ave cursed me yous evil old women,” Katerina screeched in horror. Her accusations were met with yet more wild cackles, reducing her to gibbering hysterics just as the tax inspector walked in. His intention was to sit discreetly and observe if Stavroula handed out receipts to her customers.
Ignoring Katerina’s hysterics Stavroula answered the ringing telephone, saying “Socrate this ‘ad better be important as Katerina is about to self-combust from that curse.”
Stavroula visibly paled as Socrates informed her he had just received advance warning from one of his contacts that a tax inspector was loose in the village and the gossip vine had it he was there due to Katerina’s malicious handiwork. Hanging up the phone Stavroula rushed over to Quentin and Deirdre, presenting them with an enormous bill for the free sykomaitha. She followed up by climbing the first few rungs of Achilles’ ladder to hand him a bill for the coffee she had given him earlier. The third bill she presented to Katerina who doubled up on her hysterics when she saw she had been charged for two coffees. “Yous money grabbing hussy, yous knows full well I only ‘ad one coffee,” she complained “an’ Fotini will be paying for that as she put ‘er scum in it.”
“Yous is forgettin’ yous ‘ad another coffee all over yous bosom,” Stavroula stated, fixing her with a glassy stare of contempt.
“Yous ‘ave set me up,” Katerina bellowed “yous ad no intention of discussing my missing brother, yous just wanted me ‘ere so yous evil sidekicks coulds curse me.”
“What superstitious twaddle yous comes up with,” Stavroula retorted.
The tax inspector was enjoying all the commotion immensely. It was quite obvious to him that Stavroula ran an honest business and was exceptionally diligent in proffering receipts to all her customers. It was a great relief to him as he hated confrontation which often evolved into violence. Only last week the villagers in Gavros had turned on him when he attempted to issue a fine to a taverna owner whose idea of legal receipts was to scrawl a random figure on the paper tablecloths. That particular episode had resulted in the villagers tossing him into the sea.
He had been forced to spend a miserable wet night barricaded into the police station for his own protection.
“Dont’s drink ‘er coffee, it is nothing but a poisoned chalice,” Katerina rushed to warn Mrs Kolokotronis who had popped in for a break from the supermarket.
Mrs Kolokotronis was in no mood for Katerina’s over the top hysterics as she had spent the last hour babysitting the bawling baby Andromeda and needed a bit of peace and quiet to recuperate. “Watch yous slander,” she told Katerina, “no one makes a more goodly cup of coffee than Stavroula.”
“Well them old crones ‘ave cursed it,” Katerina insisted, showing her the cup with its scummy covering of moustache hair, ground up beetles and black nightshade. “Please I implores yous. Yous is a Granny, yous could lift the curse in the traditional way.”
“I never ‘eard such nonsense,” Mrs Kolokotronis declared, “but if it will shut yous up I will ‘ave a go at lifting the curse. Stavroula, bring me a glass of water and a bottle of olive oil.”
Mrs Kolokotronis was only attempting to humour the hysterical mad woman, having no idea Stavroula had indeed cooked up the curse idea. Everyone knew the way to have a curse lifted was to have an old granny put a drop of olive oil into a glass of water and if the oil floats the curse is lifted. Everyone watched in fascination as the drop of oil sunk to the bottom of the glass, causing Katerina to fall to the floor in a dead faint.
Fotini jumped up and threw the contents of the glass of oily water over Katerina’s face to revive her, crowing, “the curse will be lifted as soon as yous is fifty kilometres from the village. Now pack yous bags and be gone you interfering old biddy.”
As Katerina fled the taverna the tax inspector volunteered “you could have her arrested for failing to pay her legal receipt.”
Chapter 28: Moustakos
News of a tax inspector loose in the village spread like wild fire on the gossip vine, sending all the local business owners into a panic, rustling round digging out dusty till rolls and making frantic phone calls to warn all their friends. “Dont’s forget your tax receipt,” became the siren call of Astakos, vying with Katerina’s name being cursed by all and sundry. Her unpopularity as the snitch who had invited this unwanted interloper into the village was cemented.
Suspicious any stranger could be the tax inspector Takis greeted the Gavronian fisherman Fotis in a cold and unwelcoming manner when he walked into ‘Mono Ellinika Trofima’ that evening, clutching a bottle of olive oil and requesting romantic candles on his table in preparation for his date with Nitsa.
“I ‘ave to say I’m glad to see the back of Katerina,” Yiota announced to her husband, wiping her hands on her apron. “I ‘ad to scrub ‘er room out with bleach an’ it still stinks of garlic what she hung over the door. I’ve been sweeping up bits of old bat bone for ‘ours and the stupid woman ‘ad scattered salt everywhere in one of ‘er superstitious rituals.”
“She wont’s be back,” Takis reassured his wife. “I ‘eard on the gossip vine Fotini’s curse sent ‘er hysterical. She was so overwrought she begged the Pappas to exorcise ‘er, but he told ‘er she should be ashamed of ‘aving such ungodly thoughts.”
“Well he would think exercise is ungodly, ‘ave you seen the way he’s running to fat since Petula left ‘im?” Yiota concurred.
“Not exercise woman, exorcise, like in that ‘orror film where the girl’s ‘ead swivelled,” Takis corrected his wife. “The Pappas was so desperate to get ‘er off the church doorstep he even carried ‘er bags to the bus stop. Good riddance I says, did yous ‘ear it was ‘er who invited the bloomin’ taxman to the village?”
Takis’ last words were whispered to his wife while he sent a scathing look in the direction of the bewildered fisherman. “That could be ‘im, none of our customers except Slick Socrates wears a suit. Best make sure all is above board tonight.”
“He doesn’t look like a tax inspector. His suit looks like a relic left over from the war,” Yiota sighed, giving the unknown customer the once over. She thought his weatherworn skin and leathered hands indicated he worked outdoors, though his suit and tie were uncharacteristic of their usual peasant clientele. She had no idea Fotis had suited up to make a good impression on Nitsa and didn’t detect the distinctive stench of mothballs until she went over to take his order.
“I’ll wait until my lady friend arrives,” Fotis announced nervously, wiping his sweaty hands on his suit and eyeing the door for any sign of Nitsa’s arrival.
“He says he’s meetin’ a woman,” Yiota hissed to her husband who suspiciously replied, “That could just be ‘is cover. Perhaps there’s two of ‘em.”
Their speculations were interrupted by the arrival of Prosperous Pedros, Tall Thomas and Toothless Tasos, who instantly recognised the fisherman as one of their brawling partners from Gavros.
“What brings you up this way?” Tall Thomas asked him, hoping there would be no more violence.
“The wonderful lady from the taxi accepted my invitation to court ‘er,” Fotis said with a blush.
“Yous best watch yous step, that’s my Aunty Nitsa,” Tall Thomas warned.
“She’s a fine lookin’ woman, I ain’t seen such an ‘andsome specimen for many a year,” Fotis gushed.
“So yous not the taxman then?” Takis sighed with relief.
“Is yous insane? Does I look like one of ‘em deplorable creatures? We knows ‘ow to deal with that sort down in Gavros,” Fotis responded, launching into the tale of how they had tossed the last tax inspector to come snooping around his village into the sea.
Taverna chatter was interrupted by the sound of squealing brakes and the crunch of metal as Nitsa brought the old Mercedes taxi to a halt by driving into Tall Thomas’ mobile refrigerated fish van. Fortunately the parking spot was not visible from the taverna windows and Nitsa had no intention of spoiling her evening by owning up to the minor collision.
“What on earth is she wearing?” Yiota muttered under her breath as Nitsa swept ungraciously into the room in a gold velvet evening dress far too long for her short body. The shiny sophistication of the strapless dress was completely ruined by Nitsa’s insistence on wearing a thermal vest beneath it, covering her meant to be exposed shoulders with grubby grey fabric. Her moustache had been replaced with a painful patch of raw red skin, resulting from a belated allergic reaction to the waxing she had endured in the beauty parlour. Tripping over her trailing hem Nitsa landed in an ungainly heap on Fotis’ lap, nearly asphyxiating him with her cheap perfume.
“Ooh yous looks grand,” Fotis complimented Nitsa. “What a woman.”
“I dont’s knows them, they is nothin’ to do with me,” Nitsa declared as Fotini and Hattie followed her into the taverna, pointedly plonking themselves down at the next table.
“What are yous doing out at this time of night mother?” Prosperous Pedros questioned. “Shouldn’t yous be at ‘ome with the parrot.”
“I managed to give it the slip,” Fotini cackled manically.
“Yous cant’s bring that parrot in ‘ere, it’s unhygienic,” Takis protested as Quentin and Deirdre walked in with the bird clamped on Quentin’s head.
“Dont’s yous worry about it K-Went-In,” Yiota overruled her husband, throwing a tea towel over the parrot and announcing the evenings specials. It had seemed a shame to waste all the garlic pinned up around Katerina’s door so Yiota had knocked up a batch of tasty skordalia she heartily recommended to her hungry customers. “I also cooked some lovely lemon chicken with oven potatoes as I knows ‘ow keen yous is to eat vegetarian dishes Pedro,” she added.
“Chickens are not vegetables,” Deirdre started to argue until Quentin kicked her under the table, advising “you may as well let it drop dear, you’ll never convince them.”
“I’ll ‘ave the skordalia if yous ‘ave it too,” Nitsa winked at Fotis, “wouldn’t do for only one of us to �
��ave garlic breath.”
Fotis’ twinkly eyes twinkled even more at this blatant invitation and remembering his manners he proffered his bottle of olive oil, prompting Deirdre to whisper to Quentin, “I expect Nitsa will be wanting to cook him one of our roosters in traditional reciprocation of his courtship gesture.”
“’Ows the olives doin’ down in Gavros?” Prosperous Pedros asked Fotis. “Is yous likely to get a goodly ‘arvest?”
“Appen it will be a bumper crop this year,” Fotis confirmed while winking saucily at Nitsa.
“We’ll ‘ave to get crackin with the pickin’ soon,” Pedros declared, starting a familiar argument amongst the others. Everyone thought Prosperous Pedros started his olive harvest much too early but he insisted it was prudent in case bad weather came along and damaged the crop. The others considered he was far too free with his pruning; leaving his trees practically nothing more than naked trunks by the time he had finished. Still he swore by his methods and his olive oil had such an enviable reputation that Takis exclusively served it in the taverna. Prosperous Pedros refused to eat anywhere else as his standards were so high he refused to imbibe inferior oil.
“Dont’s bother with the pruning mother, I’ll do that for yous after yous ‘ave picked the olives,” Pedros offered.
Quentin and Deirdre exchanged alarmed glances that their neighbour’s son expected his octogenarian mother to collect her own olives. Quentin piped up, “surely you are joking Pedro, your mother is no spring chicken.”
“Minds yous own business,” Fotini blurted, “there’s nowt to pickin’ olives as yous will soon find out if yous is man enough for manual labour.”
The argument was interrupted by the pungent smell of singed eyelashes as one of Nitsa’s falsies dropped into the lighted candle. Fotis gallantly risked burning his fingers by rescuing the flaming false eyelash and plunging it into his glass of wine. Nitsa hastily grabbed it, sticking it back in place, completely oblivious to the dregs of red wine dribbling down her face and smearing her outlandish make-up.
Olive Virgins Page 9
