The English Lesson (The Greek Village Collection Book 11)

by Sara Alexi

  'Well, you will be free for two weeks!' Juliet decides that it is best to keep her questioning thoughts to herself.

  'Yes, I will.' Toula finds her smile again and the rest of the hour passes with much humour. Some of Toula's jokes about Apostolis are a little unkind. But who is Juliet to judge with all the unkind things she said and thought about Mick around the time she got divorced? For a while, she was really quite bitter.

  At one point, Toula says again she knows of a man that would suit Juliet so well. Juliet changes the subject.

  When Toula leaves, she kisses Juliet a fond farewell on both cheeks. Juliet wishes her sto kalo—go to the good. With her head wobbling slightly, Toula’s slow, steady pace toward her house seems so familiar now. If Juliet had not split up from Mike when the boys went to University, that might well have been her, a little old lady in a bar-less prison, held by fear of the unknown and lack of self-belief. She is glad that even at this late stage, Toula is thinking about liberating herself.

  'If a woman never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she can walk or how fast she can run?' Juliet whispers the quote towards the receding Toula, to offer her invisible strength, solidarity.

  Her steady steps slow as she reaches the bougainvillea, but then Toula seems to change her mind and continues empty-handed. At her door, she fumbles in her bag, presumably for her key. She seems to take so long, Juliet checks the table, around the coffee cups, to see if any keys have been left behind, but there are none.

  Toula’s grey head leans in toward the door, but from this distance Juliet cannot hear the words clearly. There is only a murmur and the old lady’s lips move.

  One time when Juliet found herself in conversation with one of the port police—a radio operator, if memory serves—he told her that the acoustics up and down the stairwells of these old house are strange. If you put your ear to the door at the bottom, apparently, you can hear every word spoken in the apartments above, in the stairwells and, even, if there is one, in the lift shaft. He said that, with the overly zealous captain they had at the time, he and his colleagues had found many an opportunity to eavesdrop before mounting the stairs to the port police office. It had kept them out of a lot of trouble, being able to concoct alibies and excuses before being met at the top of the stairs with accusations and wrath.

  Toula's conversation continues until the dark red door suddenly changes to black as it is opened inward. She steps into the shadows and a cat rushes out, panicking for its freedom.

  At that moment, a group of teenagers fills the end of the lane and their noise breaks the peace. Their adult bodies are at odds with their juvenile movements and noise. They swarm together, three of them are singing loudly, the boys play-fighting as they walk, and a group of girls, arms linked, walk carefully, aware of their every move on display. Their clothes are brightly coloured, the language loud and flamboyant, their movements full of energy. They walk straight past Juliet's table and the little café as if they did not see it or her. The chairs are bumped into and moved out of the way and they take their life and noise with them further up the street, where they turn a corner and the place falls silent again.

  Toula's door is now shut. The cat is climbing onto the air conditioning unit.

  Juliet thanks the waiter, who is in no hurry to lose her presence, before she heads in the direction of her car. It is time to go and see Michelle, whom she left chewing on the end of her pen, trying to compose a letter to Dino, lounging by the pool that was installed to attract paying guests to the holiday-let cottage.

  The night before, the wine had flowed. Initially, Michelle might as well have had her wig and gown on as she explained why she and Dino could never be together, so carefully and clinically she had outlined her argument. But as the moon rose higher, the bats began their evening swoop over the surface of the swimming pool for insects. Drained glasses were refilled and logic and caution were progressively abandoned until Michelle cried to the stars over her everlasting love for the young Dino. She declared she was only going to live once, so she might as well live to the fullest.

  Juliet did her best to make all her comments ambiguous so as not to lead Michelle in either direction. But in the end, she slurred the cliched phrase, 'better to have loved and lost,' and then promptly fell asleep on her sun lounger. She woke hours later when the early morning chill took hold, only to crawl next door to her bed. Michelle had pulled a deflated lilo on top of her and was snoring.

  Perhaps she will get some fresh bread on the way home and some Greek yoghurt. They can lunch together and if Michelle has not finished her letter, maybe she can help.

  Toula

  The next morning, Toula does not trust the lift so she drags her case down the stairs. It thumps on each step, leaving scratch marks on the two-hundred-year-old polished planks. Leaving the awkward mass just inside the main door, she returns upstairs for her handbag.

  'Yianni will be here soon,' she says. Apostolis is standing by one of the long case clocks, looking at his watch.

  'I thought you asked him to be here at ten.'

  'I did.' Toula looks at the clock, which says five to. Another one says it is one minute to, and yet another says it is eight minutes to the hour. Apostolis grunts and re-pockets his watch. Toula looks around the room again, double checking the cat is not still in the house. She has heard too many stories of cats locked in storage places, the poor things dying of the heat or lack of water. Well, if it rains again like it did last night, there is no need to worry about that, as there will be more puddles in the utility room and in the lift shaft. But the rain at this time of year is spasmodic and two weeks is a long time. With one last look round and satisfied that the cat is not there, she hurries to leave.

  'Oh do come on, Apostolis. I would rather be standing in the street for a moment than miss the train.' Toula scoops up her handbag.

  'I thought you said the train was at ten past.' Apostolis zips up his overnight bag, which is lying on the desk with a sheaf of papers on top of his clothes. He is not taking much: a change of shirt, clean socks, his toothbrush. 'It will only take the taxi two minutes to drive from here to the train station,' he adds.

  Toula can feel her jaw tense and her head shakes slightly, wobbles from side to side. Why does he always need to be so argumentative, pedantic? Everything has to work to his command, his timing. She checks the kitchen one last time. The kettle is unplugged, the shutters are closed, there is no cat.

  'I am going to wait downstairs. I suggest you don't use the lift. The electricians came yesterday evening when you were out buying Katerina a present and they said there is a definite fault, maybe from the rain leaking into the shaft. As if I haven't been telling them that for months.'

  'It works fine for me.' Apostolis lifts a large brass key from a drawer in the desk and starts to wind the clock on the mantelpiece.

  ‘You’re not winding clocks now, are you? We need to go,' Toula shouts up the stairs behind her. She is halfway down now. 'I can hear the taxi beeping.' She continues her descent. 'Come on. And double-check your study.’ She didn't check there for the cat, but then, why would the cat go there? He avoids Apostolis and anything that smells of him as if he is a disease.

  The sound of Apostolis winding the clocks continues. Once on the ground floor, she pulls at her big bag, which causes the shoulder strap of her handbag to slip down her arm. Letting go of the suitcase, she saves her handbag from spilling onto the floor and Yianni comes to the rescue. He lifts her suitcase as if it is full of feathers, waits for her to exit, and slams the door closed behind him.

  'Oh, Apostolis is coming,' she calls back to Yianni, but the door is already shut. No matter; the latch is easy to lift from the inside. Besides, it will stop the cat slipping in when they are not looking. Toula struggles a bit to get into the taxi. Her best skirt seems to have shrunk by hanging in the wardrobe all these years. Yianni puts her bag in the boot and looks at his watch.

  'Do you want me to go and call him?' he as
ks.

  'No, it will only annoy him.' Toula tries to wait patiently.

  Yianni climbs in, tunes in the radio.

  It makes her feel so tense, this last minute dashing. Apostolis never considers the people around him. Yianni might have another fare he must go and collect, the train might be early, something might impede their journey. Why does he not come?

  Slipping and struggling off the backseat, she waddles back down the lane. She fiddles with her keys, picking out the right one.

  Juliet

  Juliet has come into Saros early just to take her own shoes to the cobblers.

  Moving from the poolside to her bed in the small hours of the morning, having put the sun umbrella up over the still-sleeping Michelle when the warm rain started to fall, chased away all chances of sleep. She spent some time tossing and turning and replaying the events of the day before over and over in her mind until eventually she accepted that sleep was unlikely and she got up. Coffee brought no clarity and her fuzzy head refused to do any work, so a trip into Saros now the rain had stopped seemed like the most productive option.

  After leaving her shoes, it is still early and she desperately wants to shake off her fuddled thinking, so partly for this reason and partly out of what has now become habit, she stops at the little café for another coffee. The waiter, all smiles but casual, brings her drink out without her having to make an order.

  As he sets the cup and saucer down with a kalimera, Juliet replies automatically but she is watching a car pull up at the end of the lane and, even from this distance, she recognises Yianni the taxi driver as he climbs out. Toula must have called him. The villagers like to give work to one another, even if the villagers no longer live in the village.

  Yianni, standing by the driver’s side leans through the window and beeps his horn three times. It is a while before the dark red door opens. Yianni, ever vigilant, strides across to help the old woman with her bags, guiding her to the back seat of the car.

  The taxi does not set off at once. The cat, which seems to live permanently on one of the air conditioning units attached to a taverna, is there again. Perhaps it is warm there by night and cool by day. Maybe the waiter or the cook feeds the cat. One floor up on the opposite side of the lane, a woman comes out onto her balcony, jug in hand, to water her plants, the orange jug in sharp contrast to the green leaves. After the woman returns inside, water begins to drip from the bottoms of the pots and down onto the lane.

  Juliet must have missed Toula getting out of the taxi again, as she is by her front door now, hand raised ready to put a key in the lock. But then she freezes, her chin angles up, poised like a bird listening.

  Transfixed, Juliet cannot take her eyes away. There is no reason for her intense interest; the scene is mundane. Toula remains motionless for a good minute, then pockets her keys and turns around and shuffles back to the waiting taxi. Juliet shivers, as she has twice before at the sight of Toula in the lane, and then Toula climbs into the taxi and slams the door behind her.

  Toula

  'He says he will catch the later train,' Toula tells Yianni. 'We must go or we will miss the train.' Yianni turns the radio up a fraction, starts the engine, and smoothly drives off towards the station.

  Two weeks later

  Toula

  It is strange to see Saros again. It looks so small, so provincial. Toula climbs down from the train with only her handbag. She left her suitcases, her clothes in London. She will need them there next time. It will be easier to travel light.

  There are taxis waiting by the open platform, but Toula has her new London shoes on, the sun is shining, as it always does in Greece, and she decides she will walk.

  The sea is sparkling as it always does, but there is now a nip in the air. It is positively warm after two weeks in London.

  She inhales and takes a good long look, as if she is seeing it for the first time.

  It is a pretty town, there is no denying that. The palm trees, equally spaced along the harbour in front of the cafés, add vibrancy to the historic buildings. On the road that cuts between harbour and cafés, walking at a steady pace, there is a horse pulling a carriage. It is for the tourists and it adds charm to the town. It will be lovely to bring Katerina here for holidays when she is a little bigger. She would love to have a carriage ride.

  The horse passes and Toula crosses the road. The cafés are all alive with Athenians down for the weekend, mostly young men with their new girlfriends. She can tell. The men are being attentive, demonstrative. They are playing to the women, who are acting as if they are used to being treated like queens, each enjoying their roles. It will be the man who forgets his part first. The girl’s confidence will suffer and then she will try to gain his attention back. He will make less effort, and the downward spiral has begun.

  As she nears her own building, her head begins to wobble, side to side and up and down. Toula tuts her disdain. Apart from the first day waiting at the airport to see her daughter’s smiling face, her head has not wobbled, not once, nor have her hands shaken. In fact, she has felt years younger in every possible way. She even enjoyed a little flirtation with a lovely man who was apparently her daughter’s boss. He had such a way with words, but then, he was of Cretan descent, and they are all so masculine down there.

  The side balcony with the fig tree is still there. The crack has grown no worse. If there is a frost this winter and water gets in that crack and it freezes, the whole lot will come down. It will split right open.

  Round the corner into the back lane. There is her door. She stands still and blinks. Now she is here, she is not sure she can face her home. Not alone.

  After a frozen minute or two, she moves on slowly, walks straight past her door and continues to the electrician’s office.

  'Ah Kyria Toula, what a nice surprise.' The man behind the desk is insincere. He might well be embarrassed—how long has she been waiting for them to fix the lift?

  'You will come right now,' Toula demands.

  'Well, Kyria.' He shuffles some papers on his desk, procrastinating his reply.

  'Now or never.' Toula feels like one of the London ladies who expect what they ask for. 'I can take the work elsewhere, and if I do, when I rewire the house, it will not be you who gets the job.' There! A bold-faced lie. She has no intention of rewiring the house.

  But her words have the desired effect. The electrician is coming around his big desk, keys in hand, ready to lock up and go with her.

  Even though she has this small piece of success, Toula does not speed her walk back to her house. Instead, she shuffles her feet and stops to pluck a sprig of bougainvillea. The cat is not on the air conditioning unit, or anywhere else that she can see. She hears the electrician clearing his throat impatiently, but she is in no hurry. Quite the opposite.

  Once at her door, there is no more putting off the job. Keys in hand, she opens the heavy door with a shove. Little splinters of paint flick off where her shoulder has applied pressure to the moulding around the door, but she does not care. It will not be her problem soon. All she can focus on is the smell, the intense horrible smell, like rotting potatoes, but many times worse.

  Juliet

  Juliet and Michelle sit at the vacant table. Two Greek women, whose faces Juliet recognises, are taking up their usual seats. They are not from the village. If they were, she would know them by name. They are from the town, which is not so big. She sees the same people over and over again, at the laiki—the farmer’s market, in the post office, in the bank. She will have seen them somewhere. They exchange good mornings.

  The days are getting cooler now, the sun has lost its intensity, and it is pleasant to sit without shade. Three weeks at this time of year is all it takes to change to a new season. It rained again last night, hissing as the soil soaked up the moisture, drumming on the roof. There were only a few drips through the old skylight window in her kitchen, which leaks when it rains hard. She must get that fixed before the winter really sets in.

  Mi
chelle checks her watch again, pulls her cardigan up her arm.

  'You will be a mess if you keep looking at your watch. The train comes at ten and not before!’ Juliet tells her. Michelle takes a mirror from her bag and studies her face. Shaking her head, Juliet lets out a little snort. But she does not kid herself that she is not just a little jealous. She likes having her own home, no one to answer to, and she loves her financial independence. But she is also now aware of how much she has been looking forward to Michelle being next door all winter, of being able to share the long evenings with someone, games of scrabble maybe, share a bottle of wine or a hot chocolate when it gets really cold, building up the wood fire and snuggling in—but with company. It took the edge off the thoughts of long winter nights and short winter days.

  Now, it will not be that way at all. Michelle is waiting to see if her winters, all her winters, will be different, and Juliet has no doubt that they will be.

  Idly, Juliet leans over and picks up a local newspaper that someone has left on the windowsill. On the front page, there are pictures of the harbour, where it extends at right angles out into the sea, to give more area for yachts to dock. It seems that this old jetty, with its modern tarmac top, complete with white lines to indicate car parking spaces, has started to subside. The water is reclaiming its own and the newspaper gives notice that it is no longer advisable or permissible to park there.

  Juliet turns the page. Toula has not been in touch since she sent a postcard of Big Ben. She must have been back a week now. But then, travel can be very unsettling. She will be finding her feet, getting into a rhythm of life again, winching up things in her basket and replenishing her larder and fridge with dishes for Apostolis.

  'Oh look,' Michelle says with animation.

  At the end of the lane, two men with ladders are hoisting a big sign up onto the side of Toula’s building.