Goat In The Meze: A farcical look at Greek life (The Greek Meze Series Book 1)

by Katerina Nikolas

  There was a nasty moment when the pair first ran into one another, but with dark secrets of her own to conceal Stavroula went about her business of opening a taverna and left Toothless Tasos well alone after discovering he wasn’t actually a ghost.

  Chapter 13

  Coffee with Adonis

  The next morning Quentin and Deirdre had only just showered when they heard the toot toot of Adonis’s pick-up horn below their balcony. They hurried down to meet him but Adonis was in no rush as he needed his morning coffee. Herding them into Stavroula’s taverna he ordered three coffees, explaining his use of the rival shop by saying his cousin Yiota didn’t open till lunchtime.

  Adonis told them his cousin, Adonis the mechanic, had already towed their broken down car to his garage. He couldn’t start the repairs immediately as he had to finish repairing the postman’s car or no one would have their letters delivered at speed. Petros the postman was reduced to delivering the mail by donkey whilst his car was off the road. He’d been forced to borrow the donkey from that old fool Vasilis and he wasn’t sure the donkey was entirely sober as old Vasilis liked to share a drop of ouzo with the beast.

  Adonis told them not to worry as Yiota had reserved the room for Quentin and Deirdre for the rest of the week so the pair could enjoy the village at leisure and he would join them for tasty goat that evening.

  “I think yous killed the goat K-Went-In,” Adonis said. “Adonis he say your car ‘ave dead goat and blood all over the tyres.”

  “It’s Quentin,” Quentin corrected, going a rather white shade of pale, worrying if he could possibly be arrested by the Greek police for killing the goat.

  “Is okay,” Adonis reassured him “We eat the evidence tonight.”

  Toothless Tasos’ bigamous supposed widow Stavroula arrived with their coffees and Adonis introduced Quentin and Deirdre as “my good friends from America K-Went-In and Did-Rees. They ave the car troubles.”

  Turning to Quentin he whispered not to mention the goat, explaining, “Stavroula’s a jealous busy body. If she know my cousin Yiota ‘ave the road kill on her menu she’ll cause trouble.”

  Stavroula flounced off towards her kitchen, kicking the taverna cat Boukali on the way, annoyed that she couldn’t understand the English words being spoken. Stopping by the table of Gorgeous Yiorgos who was having his morning coffee laced with a tot of brandy, she told him to try and eavesdrop on Adonis’ conversation and report back to her. Gorgeous Yiorgos raised a shaggy eyebrow, well used to Stavroula’s bossy ways.

  Petros the postman took that moment to arrive on his borrowed donkey, throwing some letters through the open doorway onto a table. As he attempted to reverse the donkey down the taverna steps it left a steaming deposit on the doorstep. Stavroula rushed out from her kitchen screaming “Malaka,” and “fool,” at Petros, while throwing a large cooking pot at his head.

  Petros fell clumsily from the donkey, telling Adonis to make sure his lazy good for nothing cousin Adonis the mechanic got a move on repairing his car as he couldn’t get on with this donkey much longer and was tempted to turn it into a stew.

  Chapter 14

  Stavroula Stirs Snails

  Stavroula was in a foul mood as she returned to the food she was preparing in the kitchen. She had heard rumours Yiota at the rival taverna was cooking ‘road kill’ goat tonight which meant there would be a tidy profit to be made from free food. Stavroula wondered if she could pass off the cat Boukali as chicken, but then remembered she had a nice pot full of free snails to cook up she had collected at the weekend. She would concoct a big pot of delicious snail and tomato stew for this evenings offering.

  Business could be better and she hoped it would pick up a lot once the tourist season started. She had lost a lot of regular male customers when that old fool Vasilis had married his mail order bride and started taking her to Yiota’s for dinner every evening. Stavroula decided she would make friends with Masha in the hopes of attracting her custom and luring her regulars back from the opposition. She smiled at her own clever scheming, bashing cooking pots together noisily as she considered the tribulations she had endured before finally opening her own taverna.

  Stavroula recollected the joyous relief she felt on hearing of the death of her first husband Toothless Tasos. Tasos was more of a mouse than a man and she was very glad to keep him at arm’s length in Australia while she lived off his money. She used his wages to build a modern house in the village and considered herself a cut above those still living in quaint traditional dwellings.

  When travelling salesman Kostas had arrived in Astakos selling his wares she was quick off the mark to sample them personally in her bedroom. Kostas was building up a good business and she considered him a better bet than Tasos in keeping her in the style in which she wished to become accustomed. The announcement of Tasos’ disappearance at sea left the coast clear for her to run off with Kostas without giving up half of everything in a messy divorce. Renting out the modern house for a tidy profit she followed Kostas up north where she soon persuaded him to make an honest woman of her.

  Stavroula had a smile on her face as she added a generous helping of fresh oregano to the snails in the pot and gave them a vigorous stir.

  Chapter 15

  The Deadly Consequence of Wanting a Divorce

  Like Toothless Tasos before him it didn’t take Kostas long to regret tying the knot with Stavroula. She gained another fifty kilos on their wedding night and her avaricious side soon revealed itself as she constantly nagged him to bring home more money. She had the money from her rental house and other undeclared sources of income she was reluctant to talk about, but it was never enough.

  Kostas soon discovered Stavroula’s almost morbid fear of banks as he caught her squirreling away the money he brought home in cooking pots, under the mattress and in a deep hole under the chicken coop. Like Tasos he rather enjoyed a quiet life but Stavroula’s constant nagging drove him to spend more and more time on the road. Kostas had the gift of the gab so requisite in a travelling salesman and as he spent more time away from home his business grew to become very lucrative.

  Stavroula always welcomed Kostas home with an excellent home cooked meal and a good time in the bedroom. However her idea of romantic post coital chatter focused on how much money he was earning and how they could increase their growing wealth. Her constant demands wore him down and she sent him back out on the road to earn more money before he’d barely had time to take his boots off.

  Inevitably Kostas decided they must divorce though he had trepidations about raising the subject with Stavroula as she could be prone to violence when angered. The first time he brought up the “D word” Stavroula clouted him over the head with a cooking pot, chasing him out of the house before he had time to put his vest on.

  Stavroula soon had enough of Kostas raising the “D word” as though it was a perfectly reasonable topic of conversation. She had no intention of giving up half of his worldly goods. His ever increasing income had allowed them to build a brand spanking new house she had filled with her beloved tacky ornaments, but rather than give in to Kostas’ demands for a divorce Stavroula devised a cunning plot of her own and with never a hint of conscience set about carrying it out.

  One evening Kostas returned home from a weary week on the road, exhausted from selling. He was in no mood for an argument with Stavroula over divorce and just wished for a quiet evening. As Stavroula heard his car pull up she went into full seduction mode, draping her ample figure in a ‘come hither’ sexy lace negligee. Generously dousing herself with cheap perfume she greeted Kostas at the door with a flurry of sloppy kisses and a big pot of her special homemade chicken soup, liberally laced with the strongest, most deadly, weed killer.

  Smiling sweetly she made bedroom eyes and poured Kostas glass after glass of ouzo to disguise the noxious taste of the soup. Stavroula had always been able to make Kostas feel amorous. Standing up to carry her off to the bedroom Kostas swayed woozily and then collapsed in a dead heap
on the floor.

  Throwing her raincoat over her negligee Stavroula dragged the lifeless body of Kostas through the back door. She rolled him into the wide trough beneath the chicken coop she’d spent all afternoon preparing, picked up the shovel and threw heaps of soil on top of his frozen, in lechery, face and body. That would teach him to want a divorce and take half of everything that was now hers through murder.

  She had a long night ahead as she drove his car away. After pushing it over a mountain top into an overgrown deep ravine she began the long walk home. The next day she would say he was off on the road and then act very worried when he never returned.

  Chapter 16

  Let Dead and Fake Dead Husbands Lie

  It didn’t take long for Stavroula to grow bored of all the questions asking where Kostas had gone to. She feigned great sadness as she falsely claimed “the malaka has left me.” As she’d dealt with all the finances since their wedding the brand spanking new house was in her name only and she decided to sell it; making a tidy profit she could use to open a taverna. The last thing she did before she left the up ‘north village’ of Pouthena, named for nowhere, was to give the chicken coop a new cement floor.

  Stavroula had always hankered after opening a taverna in Astakos as it was becoming popular with tourists, so she returned to her village. The taverna was soon up and running. It was frequented by seasonal tourists who appreciated good Greek home cooking and she soon had a regular evening clientele of local men, until that old fool Vasilis went and married mail order Masha.

  Never one to be on her own Stavroula quickly took Slick Socrates, a local lawyer, as her lover. He was the first man she had ever loved with a passion and for some unfathomable reason he loved her too. Socrates put his foot down and refused to let her boss, declaring himself to be the man of the house. Stavroula loved the manly way he stood up to her and the way he shared her ambitions.

  The only fly in the ointment was his roving eye, but she was confident that even if Socrates strayed he would always return to her. Not a day went by with Socrates proposing marriage to Stavroula. Eventually she confided in him that her husband Kostas was cemented beneath the chicken coup and she could not marry him without producing a divorce paper from the now dead Kostas.

  The first time Stavroula encountered her supposedly dead husband Tasos in the village she was dumbstruck. Tasos was riding his bicycle and wobbled precariously as Stavroula lobbed the onions in her shopping bag hard at him. She was tempted to kill him on the spot but her wide girth prevented her from running as fast as his bicycle, so he made a hasty escape.

  Socrates was already waiting at home with some news of his own for Stavroula. As she pleaded with him to sue the lying Tasos for faking his own death Socrates advised her it wasn’t really a good idea to draw undue attention to her now bigamous status. She may have been the injured party over Tasos but questions were being asked about the apparent disappearance of Kostas.

  Kostas’ meddling sister Katerina had returned to the mainland from one of the islands and was nagging the police to investigate his whereabouts. They decided it was best to let dead and fake dead husbands lie rather than draw attention to her murderous ways. Stavroula and Socrates resigned themselves to living in unwedded bliss.

  Chapter 17

  Beauty Parlour Time

  Stavroula decided to try and drum up some more trade for the evening and rushed over to the table of Adonis, Quentin and Deirdre with a fake smile of conviviality on her face. Asking Adonis to translate she told the American pair they were very welcome to come and sample her delicious snails later. Suddenly the lure of dead goat appeared inviting in comparison as Deirdre had a lifelong aversion to eating anything slimy that left a mucus trail.

  Pleading a prior engagement excused them without the need to express their revulsion at the prospect of snails. Feeling rebuffed Stavroula stormed back to her kitchen where she banged a few pots and then telephoned Socrates and told him to find out what he could about the Americans and if the rumours about Yiota’s dead goat were true.

  With much ‘yassouing’ the American pair arranged to meet Adonis later for a goat dinner at the rival taverna. It was a lovely day so they decided to explore the village as they had nothing else to do. Stepping over the donkey deposit on the doorstep they wound their way at a leisurely pace along the harbour-side street, admiring the gentle bobbing of the colourful fishing boats at anchor atop the crystal clear blue water.

  They exchanged a pleasant greeting with Toothless Tasos who was sitting outside the harbour-side kafenion playing tavli with Fat Christos. Both fishermen suddenly came to attention, sitting up straight, sucking in their stomachs and adjusting their hair with greasy fingers as they spotted Masha the mail order Russian bride tottering along on her stilettos. With a flick of her long blonde hair extensions she disappeared into the beauty parlour to have her nails done, oblivious to their ogling.

  As their most frequent customer Masha was greeted very warmly in the beauty parlour. Taking her seat she complained that old fool Vasilis was missing his donkey since he lent it to Petros the postman. Without his regular drinking partner for company Vasilis had taken to constantly sparring with his old neighbour Sotiris. He was once again threatening to take Sotiris to court over a thirty year dispute over an olive tree whose ownership they both claimed. The disputed tree sat slap on the boundaries of both their land and they had, until now, amicably resolved their argument by each collecting olives from one half of the tree.

  Now that Vasilis was feeling belligerent without the company of his donkey, simply named Onos, he had hotly accused Sotiris of taking more than his fair share of olives during the last harvest. He wanted Masha to call into the offices of the lawyer Socrates to start proceedings to sue Sotiris, but she decided to spend the lawyer’s fee on getting her nails done instead.

  The other women in the beauty parlour listened politely to Masha, while secretly judging her as little better than a trollop. They tolerated her while not really welcoming her into their circle, feeling threatened by her flashy looks and vampish ways. Still Vasilis had always been well respected even if they did now consider he had lost his marbles by taking a bride more than sixty years his junior. Everyone was surprised the marriage had lasted so long. It was now three years since Vasilis had brought mail order Masha home to the village.

  Chapter 18

  Disappearing ‘Frillies’

  Beauty parlour talk soon turned to the ongoing scandal concerning the disappearance of women’s underwear from the village washing lines. Either someone was supplementing their own collection with stolen push-up bras and frilly knickers or there was a deviant pervert on the loose with an unnatural interest in their smalls. In truth only the smalls that are quite ample in proportion are disappearing and the thinner women are spared the indignity of their underwear going astray.

  It was no laughing matter as expensive silk lingerie items embellished with the finest lace and perky black and red bows were involved. The women were at first suspicious of the women who only hung large plain serviceable bras and bloomers on their lines, considering perhaps the thief was a jealous type who coveted their more luxuriant underwear.

  Masha was a repeat victim of this crime and her bedroom drawers were rapidly being depleted of their finest silk thongs. It was difficult to think of another woman with breasts big enough to fill her bra cups though. The scandal had been going on for some time and they were no nearer to identifying the culprit. They would have called in the services of the Pancratius the village policeman, but he was signed off sick with a bad case of pancreatitis.

  Having spied Masha entering the beauty shop Stavroula decided to follow her in and try to befriend her. Stavroula was immediately ruled out by the other women present as the underwear thief as she was notorious for always going braless with her ample breasts jiggling way down past her stomach.

  Stavroula was immensely pleased when Masha professed her adoration of delicious snails and promised to try and persu
ade Vasilis to give up on goat and frequent Stavroula’s taverna that evening. Of course she would need to put Socrates in his place and warn him off fixating his roving eyes on this potential new customer with her long blood red finger nails.

  Wiggling her fingers in the air to ensure her newly painted nails were dry, Masha declared she was off to top up her tan with a spot of topless sunbathing.

  Chapter 19

  Hideous Old Lady Dresses

  “I wonder if they sell postcards in here,” Deirdre said, dragging Quentin into the local hardware shop. Amidst the eclectic mix of ladders, plant pots, paint, gas bottles and chainsaws, the local hardware shop had a new item on offer which was the talk of the village. Quaintly hanging behind the counter on full display was a blue and black patterned dress as sported by many elderly Greek ladies, most usually complemented by a pair of black pop socks. It is a most unusual item for a hardware shop, most frequently frequented by the male population, to stock.

  There is method in Bald Yannis, the shop owner’s madness. He was inspired to purchase two hundred of the old lady dresses in memory of his grandmother who sported the unlikely fashion on a daily basis. Indeed, her wardrobe boasted a seemingly endless supply of the identical dresses as evidenced by the great number flapping on the washing line in unison, scaring off the birds.

  Bald Yannis was so flushed with success by the sale of his dresses he was thinking of venturing into bras and pop socks. Yet amazingly not a single woman has purchased a dress from his store. The sales have all been made to the local village men who, transfixed with delight at the sight of the single dress hanging in all its glory, are reminded of their own grandmothers and practically weep in nostalgia.