by Nadia Marks
‘You must have needed the sleep, so don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of days to be up with the dawn.’ He smiled and reached over to touch her hand. ‘We are here now.’
The previous evening’s celebrations had carried on well into the night and much food, wine and raki had been consumed. The stream of welcoming visitors continued until Thia Ourania eventually told everyone it was time to leave.
‘It’s good to be back, Papa. Nothing has changed,’ Anna replied, breathing in the heady aroma of the garden and holding it in for as long as she could. This garden was completely different from the conventional English equivalent with its green lawn and regimented herbaceous borders. Here, anarchy reigned: no grass, or plan. Flowers grew haphazardly from pots or beds, scent beckoning a myriad of buzzing bees and butterflies, roses competing with freesias, pinks with arum lilies, bushes of scented geraniums, rosemary, lavender and pots of basil. A jumble of big old tins had been recycled as flowerpots, the writing on them still betraying that at some point they’d contained olive oil, olives, sardines, or any other foodstuff that might have been bought in bulk. No one had thought this garden through. It had evolved over the years, just like the island itself. Decades of history, generations of adults and children had passed through this house, this village, this island. For Anna, many happy memories and experiences were woven from the fabric of this place.
At that moment, sitting there with her father in the courtyard of their old family house, she experienced a kind of peace and tranquillity that she hadn’t felt for months. The dappled light, filtering through the vine leaves, cast moving patterns on the table, the cicadas sang tirelessly, and a woman’s voice drifted over the rooftops calling her child to the midday meal. How many times, she thought, had her own mother called her and her brothers to come to the lunch table in much the same way? For a split second Anna fooled herself and fancied it was her mama calling for her from inside the house.
‘It’s like she is here with us, Papa,’ she whispered, and felt the memory hit her like a fist in the pit of her stomach. Emotion rose to her throat and filled her eyes until the tears fell one by one in great big drops on the brand-new oilcloth Thia Ourania had used to cover the outside table.
In just a few days in the old house, in the garden, with her father and daily visits from her aunt, Anna began to feel like her old self again, ready to explore the places of her youth. On her way down the steep path to the square, she met old Costis trying unsuccessfully to usher a goat away from somebody’s garden. As soon as he saw her he waved excitedly.
‘When did you arrive, Miss Anna?’ he asked, hobbling towards her. ‘Is your father here too? How long are you staying?’ he continued, without waiting for an answer. She had known this man since she was a little girl. He must have been about the same age as her father and like Alexis still looked strong and fit, despite his toothless grin. He used to have a herd of goats that he brought to some fields near their house, and was obviously still doing the same.
‘It’s good to see you, Costis.’ Anna smiled, glad to see that little seemed to have moved on since she was here last. ‘Where do you take the goats, now that all these houses have been built up here?’
‘Oh, no problem, Miss Anna,’ he chuckled. ‘I always find somewhere, and you know goats, they’ll eat anything!’
Costis used to bring buckets of goats’ milk to the house to give to Anna’s mother for the ‘babies’, as he had called the children when they were small. ‘Goats’ milk is as good as mother’s milk,’ he told her, ‘it makes them healthy and strong.’
‘Shall I bring you some milk?’ Costis asked. ‘Remember how you loved it when you were a baby?’
‘I wouldn’t know what to do with it, Costi,’ Anna laughed.
‘Ask your Thia Ourania, she’d know!’ he said, waving goodbye.
She had forgotten how everyone knew everyone here. In some ways, she thought, making her way towards the village, it must be comforting to have the support and help of your community. But, then again, not being able to do much without the whole village knowing, must be suffocating. Anna remembered how oppressive it had been for her as a teenager. Alexis was always worrying and anxious about what people would think if any of the children misbehaved.
The village square too, was unchanged. The pedestrianized centre accommodated chairs, tables and umbrellas laid out by the three cafes doing business. No matter how hot it was elsewhere, a cool breeze always blew from the sea there. No sooner had Anna sat down than a small crowd gathered; the woman from the kiosk where Anna always bought her newspaper, the three waiters from the cafes, and the baker’s wife. All stood around her smiling and firing questions. ‘How long were they staying? Where were her husband and the children? How did they all cope without her dear mother? What about her brothers, and how was her father? Was he well?’ The questions kept coming and she barely had a chance to reply.
‘Why don’t you all calm down, and let the lady speak,’ said a warm, throaty rasp of a voice behind Anna’s back. ‘And, Stavro, where are your manners, get the lady a drink.’
Before she could turn round to see who it was, the owner of the twenty-unfiltered-Carelia-a-day voice was standing in front of her, shaking her hand. He was tall for a Greek, with a strong, rough, earthy body and a big, broad smile. I’ve never seen him before, he must be a fisherman, she thought, shaking his hand. The sun-baked skin, strong hand grip and developed muscles could have been a fisherman’s, or those of a man who worked the earth, but the whiff of his cologne, well-cut Levi’s, expensive black T-shirt and fashionable loafers told a different story.
‘My name is Antonis Zevros.’ He flashed even white teeth and pulled up a chair.
‘May I?’ he asked, already sitting down. ‘I own the taverna over there.’ He gestured to the restaurant across the street with his chin.
He spoke English with a heavy Greek accent tinged with American. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Anna, and very happy to speak English with you. I was living in Chicago for twenty years and I miss it. I came back to the island last year because my old mother got sick and needed me. She thought she was going to die,’ he said, taking his turn, not letting Anna get a word in, which was fine by her. She was glad to be let off the hook. ‘I came rushing back and took her off to Athens to see the doctors. We were all scared she wasn’t going to make it.’
‘Did she get better?’
‘Oh yes, she’s just fine! I think it was a trick to get me back,’ he laughed. ‘Which was probably just as well. It was time to leave.’
‘What happened? Didn’t you like Chicago any more?’
‘You could say that. The American sweet dream turned a little sour. American wife, American house, American business, the full catastrophe, as Zorba would say. It didn’t work out.’
Baffled by so much personal information, Anna sat there listening to this complete stranger talk about his life. The rest of the crowd slowly dispersed, returning to their work. Stavros brought Anna ice-cold lemonade and Antonis Zevros sat with her as she sipped it in the cool shade. He wasn’t young, but not old either; she guessed somewhere between forty and sixty, she couldn’t tell. He had smiling eyes the colour of treacle, a strong, firm, square-jawed face, etched with deep laughter lines; lines that betrayed a life history, which she was now learning about whether it interested her or not. His thick hair, long enough to cover his ears and fall in soft curls over his eyes, was still quite dark, flecked with only a touch of grey. Max’s hair, Anna thought, had already gone almost completely grey.
‘Are you glad to be back home now?’ she asked.
‘For years I was missing this island really badly, but now I’m here, I miss it there.’ He laughed again. ‘Eh, human beings, we don’t know what we want!’
Antonis Zevros was spontaneous, boisterous and full of Antonis Zevros; so Greek, Anna thought, and smiled to herself. But despite that, she liked him; the sparkle of his eyes and easy smile were infectious. She was amused by the way he referred to her as
Miss Anna and by the way he drew her into his conversation.
‘So, Miss Anna, you too are divorced, yes?’ He asked this in that blunt way Greeks have in these parts that guarantees to shock the English.
‘No!’ she heard herself reply sharply, a sting in her heart and irritated by his presumption; her marital status was not something Anna wanted to discuss and at this point divorce was not in her vocabulary. She knew of this particular characteristic, ‘Greek tact’, as Max called it; it’s not meant to offend, but nevertheless, it usually did. No matter how many times Anna tried to explain to her husband that nothing was said with malice, somehow or other someone managed to get his back up.
‘OK,’ Max would often complain, ‘I know I put on a bit of weight, but does your uncle really need to draw attention to it?’
‘Anyway,’ Antonis went on, affably oblivious to Anna’s reaction, ‘how long are you staying? You must come to my taverna for dinner, you’ll be my guest. Tonight!’
‘Thank you, I promise I will,’ she replied and meant it. ‘But tonight I’m with my father.’
And then, to her astonishment, Anna found herself revealing to this over familiar man she’d just met, feelings she would only ever share with her closest friends. She told him about her mother’s death, about not having come back to the island for so long and about how her father wanted to make this journey his last.
But she didn’t tell him everything. She held back from spilling out to this stranger that she had also come to the island to escape the melancholy and confusion which Max had plunged her into and to put space between them in order to work out what they both wanted from each other and their life.
But then again, maybe she didn’t mention any of those things because for the first time in months, during the hour Anna sat in the cafe with Antonis Zevros, those things had actually slipped her mind.
4
‘I must tell you who I met today,’ Anna said with a mouth full of salad, a few hours later over lunch with her father and aunt. They were sitting at the table under the vine tree, feasting on Ourania’s homemade spanakopita, which she brought along with crusty bread, a bottle of red wine and a salad of ripe tomatoes and rocket. Her aunt had been turning up every day since their arrival with a cooked meal and produce from her garden that tasted of the sun. It was wonderful to be looked after and Anna could see her father was beginning to find his old self again in his cousin’s company.
‘I met a man this morning in the square,’ she continued, hungrily stuffing a piece of bread in her mouth. ‘He used to live in America, his name is Antonis Zevros, do either of you know him?’
‘So I hear,’ Alexis replied looking over the rim of his wine glass at Anna, ‘but no, I don’t know him.’
‘What do you mean, so I hear?’ she asked, absolutely astounded that her father could know what she’d been doing or who she’d been talking to that morning while he’d been sitting in his garden at the top of the hill.
‘How big do you think this island is, Anna?’ Alexis replied, glancing over at his cousin.
‘Leave me out of this!’ Ourania protested, turning round to smile at her niece. ‘I don’t mind who Anna talks to; don’t take any notice of your old dad.’
‘I heard it from your Uncle Spiros,’ came Alexis’s reply, interrupting his cousin. ‘He came by for a coffee after you left and told me he saw you when he drove past the square.’ Anna looked at her father in disbelief.
‘And what exactly did he say he saw?’
‘That you were having a drink and talking to a man.’
‘And what exactly is the problem with that?’ she asked, irritated.
‘I didn’t say there was a problem but you have to be careful here, Anna; people talk.’
Suddenly lunch looked less delicious as memories of teenage squabbling with her father started to surface. Being there alone with his daughter must have sparked off something of the old over-protective father again. For more than two decades Anna had been coming to the island as a married woman, usually with a husband and two children in tow, and therefore there’d been no cause for any local gossip or concerns from her father. Once again she was forced to remember this aspect of small-island living. Now, even if still a married woman, she was there on her own and apparently causing a stir, or so Alexis would have her believe.
‘For God’s sake, Dad!’ Anna said sulkily sitting back in her chair and folding her arms. ‘I was only talking to the man, not dancing naked with him.’
‘Anna! Please,’ Alexis replied, wide-eyed. ‘There’s no need to over-react!’
‘Well, really, you are all being ridiculous. I’m a grown woman; I can talk to whoever I like and do whatever I want!’ Anna’s reaction was a surprise to all three. Her father was apparently provoking long-forgotten feelings, making them emerge with unexpected force. How was it possible, she thought, that at her age her dad could make her behave like a hormonal youngster, triggering this utterly childish response? Before coming away Anna had wished to relinquish her matriarchal status and be a child for a while but she had apparently forgotten the inevitable consequences. Once she became aware of what was going on, she regained control, and burst out laughing.
‘Sorry, Dad, and don’t worry,’ she said and reached over to squeeze his hand in an apology, reverting back from fifteen to fifty-three again. ‘I know what I’m doing, I’m grown up now, I won’t embarrass you or the family, I promise.’
Promises, even if full of good intentions, are often made to be broken. But breaking the promise Anna made to her father that day, was never her intention. However, sometimes unforeseen circumstances prevail and meddle with all the best-laid plans.
Dinner at Antonis Zevros’s taverna was not only inevitable, as he wouldn’t take no for an answer, but desirable too. The first time Anna accepted his invitation she took cousin Manos along in an attempt to keep to the island’s protocol and her father happy. She loved her cousin a lot, and he also liked Antonis Zevros. Manos, seven years Anna’s junior, was the family’s baby; as a little boy he was adorable and impish, qualities he never lost, along with a sense of humour. Over the years the two cousins had become good friends, and even closer when he came to live with Anna’s family in London as a university student. He was now engaged to a girl from Crete and about to go and live there, much to his mother’s distress.
‘She’d still have me in my school uniform if she could,’ Manos said when he first told Anna about his plans. ‘She’s beside herself that I’m leaving the island. I keep telling her, “It’s a boat-journey away, Mother,” but she keeps crying. What can I do?’
Thia Asimina, Manos’s mother, whose name translates as the one made of silver, was Thia Ourania’s younger sister and another one of Alexis’s many relatives. On some of the Aegean islands it’s customary to give girls names with elaborate meanings. Anna always found it amusing that the island was full of unsuitably named women, like the beauteous one, when clearly she was not, or the fair-haired one, who had dark hair. However, in this case Anna’s two aunties were both aptly named, and if you didn’t know they were sisters you’d never have guessed. Whereas Ourania was heaven-sent, a gentle soul with a kind disposition, never quick to judge or gossip, her sister was the opposite. Fetching and carrying was her favourite pastime, she had a tongue as sharp as a broken seashell, and a cold hard edge like the silver she was named after. She considered all children an irritation apart from her precious only son, whom she had had at an advanced age, having almost given up hope of ever becoming a mother. The rest of the family she considered unworthy of her, her husband included; Alexis was the only exception because he lived in England. Luckily for him, Manos had inherited his Aunt Ourania’s good nature and his Uncle Alexis’s looks. It wasn’t surprising then that he had found a wife from another island and was eager to move.
Going with Manos to the Black Turtle, Antonis’s taverna, soon became a regular habit for the two cousins, along with a few other things. By day they would go swimming, hire
bikes or go hiking, and by night, stay up very late, usually in the Black Turtle, recapturing something of their lost youth. During her first few weeks on the island, Manos took time off to be with Anna and they had more fun than either of them had had in years, while being all too aware that many things were about to change for both of them. Manos would be leaving for Crete at the end of the summer to embark on a new chapter in his life, and Anna . . . well, she had no idea what she was going to be doing. She hadn’t spoken to Max since she arrived; they had agreed that what they both needed was time to think and reassess. They had also decided that until they knew how things would go they would not bring the children into their mess.
Apart from making sure his dad didn’t overdo the running, Alex was getting on with his life and seemed to be oblivious to any tensions between his parents, but Chloe was acutely aware that things were not as they should be.
‘What’s going on with you and Dad, Mum?’ she had asked, giving her mother one of her looks while they were shopping together for her trip to America.
‘Oh sweetheart, it’s nothing,’ Anna had lied. ‘It’s a bit of a rough patch. Your dad is still trying to adjust to his health issues.’
‘It’s been long enough, Mum,’ Chloe replied, feeling irritated yet fearful. Too many of her friends’ parents had separated and that was one option she had never contemplated for them.
‘It’ll all be fine,’ Anna carried on and changed the subject. ‘Now, let’s go and get a cup of coffee!’
Once on the island Anna made up her mind that what she needed was to stop thinking altogether. For at least a while she needed to forget her life, forget Max and his madness and rebuild her emotional strength. Of course it was easier said than done. There were many days when the island’s energy and the wine which she drank in quantities acted as a nepenthe, chasing away her sorrow and making her forget, but there were also days where it was impossible. Would this life crisis that Max had singlehandedly caused result in her family dismantling? She couldn’t bear to think about it. Her family had been her central fusion, her axis. When awake she often managed to banish those thoughts and focus on herself but she was not so successful in her dreams. She would often wake up crying having dreamt of her children and her mother; Max was absent from those dreams.
