“Yous ‘ave that gold brooch in the shape of a donkey with diamonds for eyes, I paid a small fortune for it,” that old fool Vasilis suggested.
“Perhaps that picture yous ‘ad painted of me sitting naked on the donkey is worth somethin’ now I am so famous,” Masha mused.
“Yous is not showin’ that off on the telly Masha, yous ‘ave no clothes on. It is stayin’ in the bedroom for my eyes only,” Vasilis insisted, putting his foot down.
“Yous is such a prude. An yous needn’t think yous is wearing those scruffy old trousers, go and put the suit on what yous was buried in,” Masha bossed him. Her reminder of his awful experience of being buried alive when his sozzled body was mistaken for a corpse sent a chill down Vasilis’ spine.
Ignoring her husband’s discomfort Masha implored, “We must ‘ave somethin’ else of great value,” as she tottered out of the house in her impossibly high heels.
“Yous ‘as spent most of my money on yous silicone bits,” Vasilis told her. “Yous body must be worth its weight in gold, perhaps yous can ‘ave it valued.”
“Why are yous wearing those ridiculous sunglasses?” Masha quizzed her husband. “It’s already gone dark.”
“Well I ‘ate to says it but yous suntan is so bright it is hurtin’ my eyes,” Vasilis said, nearly blinded by her neon orange glow clashing hideously with her bright red dress.
Quibbling non-stop the mismatched pair climbed onto the donkey and rode into the village where ‘Price That Junk’ was being filmed outdoors by the harbour. The villagers formed a long disorderly queue, each hoping to hit the jackpot and discover their personal tat was priceless.
Playing it up for the camera Pericles pronounced Prosperous Pedros’ prize bouzouki practically worthless but unexpectedly decreed one of his rusty old fish hooks would fetch more than one hundred Euros. A ripple of excitement went through the crowd when Achilles the borrowed builder presented a small bronze bull for appraisal.
“Now this is a most interesting model of a Brazen Bull, it even boasts a hollow compartment. It is an excellent miniature replica of the ancient Greek torture instrument where the victim would be installed in the hollow chamber before being roasted alive over a fire. Unfortunately it is a mass produced imitation, made in China, and not worth anything,” Pericles pontificated.
Pericles went on to sneer at Fat Christos’ plaster of paris bust of Aristotle. Deirdre was next in line to bear the full brunt of Pericles’ condescension. He contemptuously smirked “I wouldn’t expect an American with no sense of history to know any better,” when she offered up a model of the Parthenon. “Any fool can see this is nothing but plastic junk. If it wasn’t missing its electric plug I expect it would be one of those glow-in-the-dark monstrosities.”
“There’s no need to be so insulting,” Deirdre cried. “I only brought it along so I could be on television. If someone loads this programme on YouTube all my friends at home will see it,” she explained, waving frantically at the camera and shouting “Hello Idaho, it’s me, Deirdre.”
“Never mind ‘im Did-Rees, he’s just an upstart stuffed full of ‘is own importance,” Fat Christos comforted her, still smarting from the abuse Pericles had heaped on his statue.
The pretentious presenter persisted with his protracted insults. He rubbished Fotini’s old spice grinder, completely failing to recognise it was actually a centuries old piece worth a great deal of money. He openly mocked mail order Masha’s expensive donkey shaped gold brooch, opining it was completely tasteless and Vasilis had been conned. His scathing opinion of the brooch resulted in Mr Mandelis from the jewellery shop openly jeering at Pericles, accusing him of being a clueless fraud.
Next up was the Pappas with an illicit box of old exhumed bones he had dragged out of the ossuary. Pericles appeared to win back the favour of the crowd by denouncing the Pappas as a despicable little man for trying to make money from the bones of someone’s old granny. Pericles only managed to rein in his contemptuous condescension towards Bald Yannis’ collection of old door knobs because he was intimidated by the menacing presence of the big bald brute waving a chainsaw.
Pericles proved to be a master at alienating his audience, scoffing at Soula’s worthless soup ladle. Evangelia spat in his face when he ridiculed her heirloom comb, telling him, “I cant’s believe I thoughts yous was dishy, Masha was right, yous is nothing but a pretentious toad.”
Blatantly ignoring Evangelia’s insult Pericles then dared to comment to Tassia, “What a frightfully ugly baby. Have you considered shaving it?” Even though his remark echoed the thoughts of all the villagers they nearly lynched him for insulting one of their own with such open derision.
Only the arrival of Thea saved him from suffering a similar fate to that meted out to the tax inspector in Gavros. She was determined nothing would interfere with this opportunity to have her boxes of tat appraised, convinced their contents held the key to a fortuitous change in her fortunes. Toothless Tasos, dutifully carrying her boxes, was in a foul mood. He had managed to once again mislay his false teeth and knew their disappearance meant Thea would need to liquidise the crab he had caught in the olive net for their dinner.
Unfortunately Pericles dismissed item after item of Thea’s tat as completely valueless. “How much old rubbish have you brought, did it not occur to you to sort through it first?” he asked. “This vase is clearly marked ‘property of the home shopping channel’, this is a complete waste of my important time.”
“What about these?” Thea demanded, thrusting Toothless Tasos’ false teeth she had discovered at the landfill site under Pericles nose. Adjusting his glasses Pericles peered closely at the dentures, proclaiming “finally something worthy of my attention. Kyria, these teeth have palladium hinges, which as I’m sure you know is a precious metal worth far more than gold.”
The villagers gasped; greatly impressed that Toothless Tasos’ ill-fitting false teeth were so valuable. “Never mind that, I want my teeth back,” Tasos shouted.
“Dont’s be so stupid, if these is really worth a lot of money yous can ‘ave a new pair whats ‘aven’t been in someone elses mouth and what fits yous properly, made by the dentist,” Thea told him, refusing to hand his now precious teeth back over.
Just then a pushy little man in a shiny suit and hat elbowed his way through the crowd accompanied by Pancratius the village policeman. “Excuse me, I am from the Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage and would like a second opinion on this old pot,” he requested of Pericles.
“That’s the old pot I discovered,” Thea cried.
“This is definitely a priceless antiquity, were you attempting to loot it Kyria,” Pericles interrupted Thea.
“Of course not, such a thing would never cross my mind,” Thea lied. “I handed it in at the police station as soon as I found it.”
“Only because I made yous,” Toothless Tasos hissed, still desperate to reclaim the teeth and restore a semblance of dignity to his gums.
The man from the Antiquities Department turned to Thea, telling her, “I must insist you immediately show me where you found it in case there are other priceless antiquities in the vicinity.”
“Po po, yous cans whistle if yous think I am going to the rubbish dump at this time of night. I ‘ave better things to do with my time, I ‘ave to go ‘ome and liquidise my fiance’s crab.”
Chapter 34: Bras Full Of Olives
“Oh I say Quentin, do you suppose he stayed there all night?” Deirdre speculated, grabbing her husband’s arm and gesticulating to twinkly Fotis sneaking out of the neighbouring house.
“Deirdre, lift your mind out of the sewer. I expect he has simply made an early morning delivery of fish. After all, he is Nitsa’s first cousin,” Quentin gently reprimanded his wife.
“Well that doesn’t look very cousinly,” Deirdre said, spying Nitsa squeezing the old fisherman’s b
ottom.
“Oh dear, I hope such antics don’t go giving mother any ridiculous ideas about finding a new boyfriend. We really should persuade her to move in with us; her stay next door was only meant to be temporary,” Quentin said.
“Ah, the dulcet tones of Fotini,” he continued, watching the old crone racing down the path to pile into the old Mercedes taxi with Nitsa and Fotis.
“At least the parrot appears to have recovered from the poisonous frapelia,” Deirdre noted with relief.
“That blasted bird must have a stronger constitution than I have,” Quentin said. He hadn’t dared stray too far from the close proximity of the bathroom since imbibing Fotini’s foul ‘leaf and twig’ brew.
The American couple decided to enjoy an al fresco breakfast of newly laid boiled eggs and soldiers. It was a rare opportunity to dine outdoors without the worry of Fotini or the parrot popping up to disturb their peace. Deirdre filled Quentin in on the previous evening’s filming of ‘Price That Junk’ as his need to be close to the lavatory had prevented him from attending. She heaped praise on the way Fat Christos had comforted her when the pretentious presenter had passed judgement on her lack of culture.
“We may not have ancient amphitheatres in Idaho, but we can boast a proud potato history with the first planting dating back more than two-hundred years,” Quentin assured her.
“You were right darling; I should have taken a potato to be appraised. It is a pity I couldn’t have taken along an old sluice box from the gold rush days of Idaho, rather than showing myself up with a plug-less plastic Parthenon,” Deirdre whined. “I have to say it was the first time ever I was happy to see Bald Yannis flaunting his chain saw so menacingly.”
“Let’s get started with smacking the olives,” Quentin suggested, “it will be such a relief to work in peace without Fotini’s bothersome interference.”
Armed with a vibrating olive shaker, comb, rake and pruning saw, the intrepid pair attacked the olives with an obvious thirst for their new adventure. They were soon worn out with their inept attempts to smack and comb the olives, and the constant interruptions of the roosters wandering onto the nets to peck at the olives. Quentin found it difficult to balance the three-legged ladder on the uneven ground. Deirdre dutifully steadied it for him and ended up being showered with the olives he was smacking from the branches.
“At least the olives aren’t sticky,” she said, groping around to extricate the fruit from her ample bra and shaking them out of her hair.
Deirdre was proving to be neither use nor ornament, constantly criticising Quentin’s methods and calling out, “Oh look you’ve missed one,” and “don’t smack them so hard, they are flying wide from the net.”
While experienced olive pickers expect to lose a random number of olives as they gather at speed, Deirdre was distraught over the loss of a single olive. She decided they should pick more thoroughly by tackling each olive on an individual basis.
“This is a foolproof method to ensure we don’t lose a single precious olive,” she declared, insisting they pluck the olives off the branches and deposit them immediately into plastic carrier bags slung over their arms. “We are just making more work for ourselves if we smack them onto the nets and then have to transfer them from the nets into the sacks.”
Quentin wasn’t convinced. “We didn’t see anyone else collecting olives this way when we observed their experienced methods,” he said. However he was soon won over when he realised Deirdre’s idea expended much less energy than whacking the olives with a heavy vibrating shaker.
Their smugness soon evaporated when Fotini returned and started cackling manically from her position atop the garden wall. “In all my eighty-odd years I ‘ave never seen anyone pickin’ olives in such a ridiculous way. Yous ‘ave to smack ‘em ‘ard, yous gormless pair. It’s obvious yous is couple of ‘opeless olive virgins.”
“You must have been a virgin once too,” Quentin countered.
“What I got up to with ‘usband is none of yous business young man,” Fotini fired back.
Heaping yet more humiliation on the hapless couple, the parrot flew over and attacked Quentin’s plastic carrier bag, ripping it to shreds with its beak and spilling the individually picked olives onto the net. “I loves yous Quentin,” it squawked before making a beeline for the rest of the olives still trapped in Deirdre’s bra. Deirdre fled towards the house pursued by the olive scavenging parrot, scattering the contents of the carrier bag in her wake. Tripping over a rooster she landed in an ungainly heap on the doorstep.
Refusing to acknowledge Fotini’s criticism Quentin pointedly ignored her. He climbed back up the ladder and began wildly bashing the olives with the smacker, sending them flying all over the place. “Ere, watch whats you doin.’ I dont’s want a bra full of olives yous malaka,” Fotini screeched.
Chapter 35: Shooting Blanks
Stavroula had no idea why Slick Socrates was acting so shiftily. Something was obviously amiss, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. His claim of a bad back was no surprise; it was a regular complaint every olive picking season.
That old fool of her father Vasilis had let her down by shutting up shop while she was out olive picking. She had returned to discover Achilles the borrowed builder making a mess in her kitchen. He had downed his building tools only to replace them with a spatula and wooden spoon, and was attempting to force a half-plucked chicken, marinated in a layer of sawdust, into the oven. Achilles tried to calm her down, explaining she had hungry customers who wanted feeding and he hated to turn away business.
“Can you even cook?” Stavroula quizzed the obliging builder, recognising the chicken as one that had been laying eggs that very morning.
“’Ow ‘ard can it be?” Achilles retorted, always eager to embrace new challenges.
“Well I suppose now that old fool Vasilis ‘as done a runner there’ll be no ‘arm in yous ‘olding the fort as long as yous dont’s poison the customers,” Stavroula conceded, knowing the alternative meant neglecting the olives. “Now, ‘ave yous seen Socrates?”
“I ‘aven’t,” the borrowed builder lied, despite having spotted the slick lawyer heading into the supermarket not five minutes earlier.
The rumours he had fathered Tassia’s baby had finally reached Slick Socrates’ ears. His immediate reaction was to cover his tracks because life wouldn’t be worth living if Stavroula got wind of this juicy morsel of malicious gossip. Having no interest in babies he hadn’t actually taken a close look at his purported offspring and was thus blissfully ignorant Andromeda was a dead ringer for him. Now he was determined to confront Tassia and squash the slanderous rumours.
Tassia had been expecting this confrontation ever since Masha had told her of Fotini’s outburst. Ushering Socrates into the storeroom she considered it an ironic touch the discussion pertaining to Andy’s paternity would take place in the very spot where the baby was born. Tassia was relieved Socrates had not summoned her to his lawyerly office as she couldn’t bear to step foot in the place where the baby had been so clumsily conceived.
Socrates initiated the awkward conversation, saying, “There are some awful gossips saying the baby is mine. Can I take a look at it?”
Tassia reluctantly held the baby aloft and Socrates stared back at his mirror image. “Stavroula will kill me if she finds out it is mine.”
“It, is a she, and Fat Christos is her father. Andy is nothin’ to do with yous,” Tassia insisted.
“I don’t want anything to do with your baby, but face facts Tassia, we have a problem here. She’s the spitting image of me so how are we going to convince Stavroula otherwise. If you hadn’t come on all weepy over your Uncle’s will I’d never have a laid a finger on you.”
“Well I thought afterwards Andy must ‘ave been immaculately conceived as yous was so adamant when we’d done the deed in tellin’ me you’d ‘ad a vasecto
my.”
“Oopa! That is it. I lied about the vasectomy to Stavroula too when I met her, so if she hears the rumours I can just deny them as stuff and nonsense. It’s not as though you and I were having an affair or anything, it was just one brief squib of a moment of damp passion.”
“Which I regret every day except it gave me my gorgeous Andy. So we both flatly deny it and yous will keep away from the baby.”
“I told you I don’t want anything to do with it,” Socrates reiterated, greatly relieved Tassia was not attempting to extort any money from him for its upkeep.
“So it is to be our secret then. Thanks goodness no one but you and I know the truth, it makes it easier to deny.”
“Well just yous and I, an’ my ‘usband and Masha.”
“Good grief woman, what a blabber mouth you are. I’m not happy about so many people knowing, loose tongues could lead to Stavroula finding out.”
“I’ve got an idea. Yous could go ahead an’ ‘ave a real vasectomy and then ‘ave a test to prove to Stavroula yous is incapable of fathering a baby.”
Socrates admitted her idea had merit, even as he winced at the painful prospect of letting anyone with a knife near his delicate nether regions. He realised there was no time to lose. Once Stavroula heard the gossip and got a bee in her bonnet she would enact a far worse revenge on him than the small matter of a vasectomy. Pulling out his mobile phone he dialled the smitten young struck-off doctor to discuss this most delicate of matters.
“I needs a stiff ouzo,” he told Tassia, having confirmed the struck-off doctor would perform the delicate surgery in the curtained-off back area of the beauty parlour once Evangelia had locked up for the evening. All he needed to do now was avoid Stavroula until he could provide the proof he was firing blanks, thus proving it impossible for him to have fathered Tassia’s baby.
Olive Virgins Page 12
