A Stranger in the Village

by Sara Alexi

  He pulls the van into the hotel car park and parks round near the kitchens. He will fix the handle and pick up the group from Saros, and then he will take a look at the filter system on the pool. Now that is an interesting project. He had never really thought how much chlorine you need to put in a pool, or how to keep the water clear – never appreciated that the water could cloud over or that he would have to keep an eye on the pH level. Until a couple of days ago he had no idea what a pH level even was, until he had started to read up about it after Stella asked him to hoover the pool. He thought she was joking at first, asking him to hoover the water. But sure enough, there was a brush on a very long handle, with a tube that sucked all the dirt, leaves and unfortunate insects off the bottom.

  There is so much to learn, but at least he knows he is in the right place to do so. He cannot imagine being anywhere else but the village now, and in a few days – he can still hardly believe it – he will be in the church with Marina, who will be wearing her best dress.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ Ellie asks as she comes into the kitchen holding her coffee mug.

  ‘Done.’ He stands and pretends to try the handle but really he is showing Ellie his handiwork.

  ‘Right, I’d better go and get this group.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Twenty Scandinavians! And all studying Swedish massage, no doubt …’

  He grins and Ellie rolls her eyes at him.

  Chapter 42

  ‘So what are you saying, Marina? Is it him or is it not?’ Vasso asks.

  ‘What?’ Marina’s eyes widen, but the corner of her mouth twists into a smile.

  ‘Irini told Frona that there was a stranger talking to you in your courtyard. Tall, broad, good-looking,’ Vasso explains, her eyes narrowing.

  ‘You lot gossiping again?’ Stella steps into the shop and Juliet, Frona and Vasso shuffle back to make room for her. There are crates of beer stacked up where the women normally sit and the corner shop feels overly full.

  ‘Yes, about your handyman,’ Frona explains.

  ‘Miltos? He’s a good worker, such a nice man. He and Mitsos are thick as thieves.’ She nods her head in approval. ‘Do you know he speaks Italian and French and a bit of Russian?’

  ‘And English,’ Juliet adds.

  ‘He can speak any language he likes to me,’ Frona says and she tries to lift her head but her back is curved with her years so she chuckles to herself instead.

  ‘Frona, shame on you!’ Vasso chastises her in an affected voice. ‘Anyway, he is not like that. I cooked him kolokithokeftedes after he took he took me to the market and he was an absolute gentlemen. Carried my bags, bought me coffee. Intelligent too, as if he knows what you are going to say before you say it!’

  Juliet casts her a quick look.

  ‘You know he once lived in Saros? Apparently he had a girlfriend from here, from this village,’ Stella says, looking quickly from Vasso to Marina. ‘That is what he told Mitsos.’

  ‘And that is the impression I got from Irini, Marina. That you were talking to this man like old friends.’ Frona says the last two words in English, or rather in an American drawl, reminding them all that she has seen more of life than most.

  ‘Oh, that Irini.’ Marina looks to the open back door and smiles at her daughter-in-law, who is hanging out the washing, nappy after nappy strung across the courtyard, white, crisp and clean against the greying whitewash of the house.

  ‘So, come on, Marina,’ Vasso urges. ‘Is it him? Your lover?’ She too says her last word in American-English, but, rather than suggesting that she is well travelled, the mixed accent sounds like she watches a lot of films.

  ‘It was a long conversation,’ Marina says. The women find a place to lean or perch, ready for the tale to be told. ‘We started it in the courtyard.’ She points to the back door where Irini now leans against the frame, a bag of clothes pegs in her hand. ‘Then he went and got his hire car and we drove to Saros. He chose a place where we had coffee and we talked some more. Then we walked around the edge of the town, along the harbour.’

  She sighs dramatically and looks at the ceiling. ‘Time seemed to fly and before I knew it we were having dinner together.’

  ‘So were you the girlfriend?’ Stella is almost hopping from foot to foot with this news.

  ‘Well, it’s more complicated than that, isn’t it?’ Marina takes the picture of Petta from behind the counter and wipes it with a bit of tissue before replacing the golden frame on the nail and dropping the tissue in the bin. ‘I swear he was more nervous about us breaking the news to Petta than anything.’

  ‘So it is him!’ Vasso shouts and then puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide as she looks from Marina to Frona, to Stella, to Juliet, and then she locks gazes with Irini.

  ‘It’s him,’ Irini says, and her joy shines from her face.

  ‘Oh Marina, congratulations,’ Stella says.

  ‘I’m not sure what you are congratulating me on. It is lovely to see him again and I am so very pleased for Petta to have both his mama and his baba, but congratulations?’

  ‘Aren’t you and he …?’ Frona sounds disappointed.

  ‘Let me tell you,’ Marina begins, to prepare them for her story, and the women settle for a second time. The hotel minibus drives past but she does not look quickly enough to catch a glimpse of Miltos driving. She returns her attention to her waiting audience.

  ‘It was when we were walking along the harbour and the sun was setting. The colours on the water were lovely – you know, when the sea is as still as oil. I had noticed the colours, I really had, but I see the sunset every day, and just at that moment I was feeling a little hungry so I was thinking what I might have to eat when we had finished our walk, when he said, “If only Turner” – I think that was the name – “had come to Greece, he would have lost the coldness from his canvases. Gauguin, he could capture the heat.” He had spoken almost as if he was talking to himself and, well, I was at a loss as to what to say, so I said, “Stella’s got a lovely picture of a donkey in a hat on her eatery wall, but I don’t know who painted it.” Of course, I knew what I had said was stupid the moment I said it, and it made us laugh so hard we both had tears running from our eyes and he looked at me with such love and I looked at him with all the love I felt for him. I remembered all the times when things were bad with my husband, God rest his soul, and I would think of my Meli and just the thought of his existence somewhere on this planet gave me hope. The fact that people like him existed at all made my lot more bearable for years and years and I wanted to thank him so much for that and for my most wonderful son.’

  There are tears in her eyes now and she looks over to Irini who, putting down her bag of pegs, pushes past Frona and Juliet to go behind the counter and put her arm around her mother-in-law.

  ‘I am okay,’ Marina sobs, and Irini takes a packet of tissues from the shelf behind her and opens them to hand her one. The shop is silent apart from Marina’s snuffling.

  ‘And’ – she dries her eyes and sniffs – ‘we kissed.’

  ‘Aha!’ Frona says with energy.

  ‘Ahhh,’ Vasso says with compassion.

  ‘Ah,’ Stella says, enlightened.

  Juliet remains silent.

  ‘It was the most tender, loving, compassionate kiss I have ever had from a friend.’ Marina puts her tissue in the bin.

  ‘Friend? What?’ Frona responds.

  ‘Some things you just know, I guess.’ Marina leans to Frona and pats her age-spotted hand. ‘The years have been too many, our lifestyles too different. The comment on the painting threw this into high relief and allowed us to give each other a kiss that expressed our years of gratitude for that moment in time that we once shared, but we both knew that it was a time that is gone.’

  ‘Umm.’ Vasso makes a noise to indicate she understands.

  ‘So after that we had no illusions, just happiness. We had dinner together and I cannot remember laughing as much for years. He has seen so much life, he has so many tales to tel
l – and how he can tell them. I could not wish for a better baba for Petta, nor a better petheros for my Irini here.’

  Marina puts her arm around Irini. Then with a sudden grin and a renewal of energy she says, ‘And when I told Petta! The joy that boy had! That both men had! You should have seen that reunion. My Petta was the taller, but both big men. It was the Clash of the Titans.’

  Her whole body shudders and judders as she laughs, and Vasso joins in, wiping a tear from her eye. Frona looks slightly disappointed but even she cannot help tittering at the image Marina has evoked.

  As the laughter naturally declines, Frona says, ‘So that’s that, then.’ The women begin to shuffle, making small movements towards the door without actually having made the decision to leave.

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ Marina says. ‘He was happy enough to have found his son but I swear the big man just dissolved into tears when I told him he had a grandchild. Sobbed like a baby, he did.’ She looks at her daughter-in-law.

  Irini nods her confirmation of this event.

  Now no one is going anywhere.

  ‘Wasn’t he pleased?’ Stella asks with a frown and a teasing tone, her intention clearly to fish for more detail, prolong the story.

  ‘Pleased? Pleased? I thought he would just run and suffocate the little man with hugs when Irini brought him from the house all crinkle-faced from his sleep. But he didn’t. At first he looked like he was going to burst but then his whole presence softened. He moved slowly towards little Angelos, and as he moved he crouched lower and lower so when they met they were face to face.’

  ‘And all he did was smile,’ Irini adds. ‘A big grin on his face, and my baby grinned right back.’

  ‘It was like looking at two peas in a pod, only one big and one small. Miltos was so gentle, he picked him up as if he was glass and told him that he loved him right there in front of me and Irini, is that not so?’

  Marina turns to her daughter-in-law, who cannot answer for the tears in her eyes, and takes a tissue for herself.

  ‘Does he know the church is booked for the baptism the day after tomorrow?’ Stella asks.

  ‘He does. He says he will find a suit to match my dress. I have never seen a man look so proud.’

  Chapter 43

  Miltos jolts awake, blinking in the half-light, and wonders why it still dark outside.

  Slowly he remembers all that life has given him. It is his excitement that has woken him; his eyes open wider and he jumps from his bed in the darkness. The dawn has not yet broken but sleep has gone. As it did yesterday morning too. He may never have a full night’s sleep again but he does not care. He is wide awake and he is a father and a grandfather! He wants to shout, to sing, to let the world feel his happiness. Tomorrow he will be in the church when his grandson is baptized: Angelos. And he is an Angelos, an angel sent from heaven to make him, Miltos, feel a part of the world, to allow him to belong.

  His trousers are on and, pulling his T-shirt over his head, he rushes out of his room and out of the building by the side door, and he strides down towards the beach. The hotel grounds are quiet and still; there is nothing but the rush, the hushed back-and-forth movement of the waves against the tiny pebbles and the sand. The sunbeds are empty, the bar clean and clear of bottles; the bare bulbs hang lifeless. The only light is the grey edge on the horizon out where the sea meets the sky.

  The dawn must come. It must come quickly to fill up the huge space that is constantly growing inside of him, the cavern that is being created to contain all his joy. The internal expansion injects energy into his limbs; he wants to jump and shout and tell the world, but the world is asleep. How can it sleep when life is so absolutely amazing?

  The land on the far side of the bay is now a flat, pale blue-white, and the sky above it has a cold yellow tinge, which turns slowly to pink as he watches; a sliver of the orange globe peers over the horizon to the east, and as the sky lightens the waves glow orange as if they are on fire. The day is bursting into existence, the land taking shape, the shadows forming, and the sea comes alive with a million reflections of the sun.

  ‘Petta!’ He would like to shout the name to the winds but he holds himself back, just hissing it through his teeth, letting just the final ‘a’ elongate until it becomes an extended outward breath and he runs out of air. He sucks in a lung full of dawn.

  ‘Angelos!’ He does the same with his grandson’s name, telling the universe that he is staking his claim and that the world had better watch out if anyone or anything tries to come between him and his blood. This action releases some of his excitement. The rest he expends by grabbing a broom and marching to the tennis court, where he sweeps as if he is dancing with the dawn.

  He is the first to take breakfast and his cheerful kalimeras are returned half-heartedly by the sleepy kitchen staff. After his second coffee he can sit no longer, and even though his day does not officially start till ten he makes his way to the swimming pool to check the pH levels and clear the leaves out of the filter. Tomorrow he will wear a suit. He cannot remember the last time he did that. He will wear a suit and stand next to the woman he once loved and if he doubts that he belongs there she will remind him with a squeeze of his hand. She has promised.

  He feels the same peace he experiences when he is underwater. He feels the awe that fills him when he sees a beautiful sunset, or that he once experienced when he observed a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, its wings, folded and crumpled at first, slowly drying in the sun. He feels the contentment that soaks into his bones when he walks far, far away from civilisation. But he is not far from civilisation now: he is in the hotel, he is in the village, in his village, and these people are his home.

  The pool is running well, but there is plenty to attend to indoors. There is a dripping tap to fix in number six, a blocked toilet in number fourteen, and Stella has asked him if he can find a lighting system online to rig up over the stage. Oh, and wasn’t one of the automatic front doors slow, or sticking, or something? He will do that first, before any guests are around.

  ‘Kalimera.’ Ellie is already behind reception.

  ‘Kalimera, Ellie!’ He greets her energetically in return. At least Ellie’s youth reflects the energy and excitement he feels about life today. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I did not sleep too well,’ she says meekly.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Yes, she was kicking.’

  This takes Miltos by surprise and he looks at her again. She is pregnant? He has just presumed she enjoys her food, and not once has he thought that she might be pregnant. And besides, she is not married yet. He asked her last week if the wedding had gone well and she related a catalogue of disasters. First the church had been double-booked; then, she said, the priest had become ill, and then, as if that were not enough, her family’s flights were first delayed and then cancelled. She said that all of this had given her time to think about what it was that she really wanted and she had decided – how had she put it? Oh yes, “The world and its antiquated expectations can come second for a change.” But he had not really understood what she had meant at the time. Now he does. He watches as she smooths her hand over her tiny bump.

  ‘Ah,’ is all he can think to say. Having something growing inside him would be unimaginable. But then she is going to have the luxury of a small life in her arms. That he can imagine, because now there is Angelos. ‘You will make an amazing mama,’ he adds.

  She smiles, but a cloud passes over her eyes as if she has some doubt.

  ‘No, really,’ he urges. ‘You are kind and patient and loving. What more do you need?’

  This time her smile has no hesitation.

  ‘So, you are going to have your child first and then get married?’ He can hear his own indoctrinated beliefs telling him that this is wrong, that marriage must come first, then children, and then he laughs out loud at his hypocrisy as he thinks of Petta. As he chortles at himself, he wonders, for the first time, how hard the time of the birth mu
st have been for Marina – so young, so alone. He must ask her about it and tell her that if he could turn back time and be there for her he would.

  ‘You think having the child first and then getting married is funny, or is it that you don’t approve?’ Ellie asks, little worry lines puckering the smooth skin of her forehead.

  ‘No, it is not that!’ But inside he questions himself to find what he really thinks, and his answer rings inside him like a clear bell.

  ‘The only way to live is with personal integrity,’ he says with confidence – and then he thinks about how being true to his feelings has affected his own life. But he still believes he did what was right for him.

  ‘And sometimes this can mean we make choices that are against the stream of social expectation but …’ He pauses and moves just a little closer and speaks in a deeper but quieter tone. ‘No one can truly know what it is you need in your life to keep you physically and mentally strong except yourself.’

  Ellie’s lines of worry are erased. He steps back and lifts his head as if challenging her.

  ‘If we are not strong in ourselves, what earthly good are we to anyone else?’ He points at her small bump.

  Now she smiles.

  ‘True, so true.’ She seems to be all fun and light again and she picks up her pen and opens the hotel registration book to begin her day’s work. ‘Oh, and before I forget, Loukas said one of the lights has gone over one of the tables down on the beach. He said to tell you he thinks it has blown the whole circuit.’

  Her smile tells him that they are friends and a wave of paternal instinct washes over him. At least that is what he thinks it is, because he suddenly feels all protective towards her but without finding her attractive in the least. This makes him chuckle.