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

by Katerina Nikolas

  That old fool Vasilis was insistent his young unprotected bride move in with her new stepmother while he was in the hospital, or at least until the ‘on the loose’ pervert was caught. Mail order Masha ‘po po-ed’ her husband, telling him she would rather take her chances with the pervert than put up with Stavroula’s bossy ways. Vasilis was none too pleased when the young doctor offered to stop by his house that evening and check up on Masha’s safety, an offer he noticed his wife was very quick to accept.

  Fotini and Nitsa had been keen to get away from the scene of last night’s crime and they left that young upstart Bald Yannis soldering bars on the living room window. They thought taking the taxi out and extorting exorbitant fares from unwilling passengers would be a good way to distract themselves from the near death experience they had suffered the previous night. They had insisted Quentin and Deirdre get in the back of the old Mercedes taxi and the hapless pair reluctantly conceded, considering it was a handy form of transportation to the hospital as Quentin wanted to visit his jogging partner Fat Christos. They carried an unwrapped fish which Tall Thomas had asked them to take along to gift to the two invalids, and some grapes they had purchased.

  The Pappas presumed it would make him look good in the eyes of the villagers if he went hospital calling on his two sick parishioners. Deirdre was not happy when Nitsa stopped to let the Pappas share their taxi as she considered him a revoltingly odious little weasel.

  Nitsa held her three passengers hostage in the back of the cab until they paid her overpriced fare. Quentin reluctantly paid the Pappas’ share as he insisted he should not be charged for performing his Holy duties for members of his congregation. “He can walk home,” Deirdre told Quentin “he was doing that nasty thing with his straying foot again, which is such an inappropriate way for a married priest to act towards a happily married woman.

  The two sick men were delighted to receive the grapes Quentin and Deirdre presented. “Is very goodly of yous to come K-Went-In and Did-Rees, you bigly friends,” Fat Christos said, warmed to the core by their thoughtful consideration. “Would be bigly ‘elp if yous can give Tassia a lift ‘ome.”

  He could sense his wife wanted to escape the presence of the Pappas who had upset her greatly on the day of their wedding by accusing her of being a thief.

  “What we supposed to do with a dead fish in our ‘ospital beds?” that old fool Vasilis questioned.

  “Give it to the nurse,” Fat Christos told him “she looked fit to spit daggers when she saw the way the smitten young doctor looked at yours wife silicone chest.”

  It dawned on the Pappas it would have looked better if he had not arrived empty handed. He rummaged through his pockets and presented Fat Christos with a condom he had found on the church collection plate, acknowledging to himself it was really an inappropriate hospital visiting gift.

  “A bit late for that,” Fat Christos scoffed in derision “Tassia is already pregnant.”

  Snatching the condom back the Pappas presented it to Vasilis who announced “get rid of the filthy thing, Masha wants to get pregnant,” remembering he must ask the young smitten doctor to write him a new prescription for Viagra. The Pappas would have liked to respond with a well chosen Biblical quote on the evils of procreation but his lack of preparedness with a suitable quote meant he could not turn on his God bothering act like a tap.

  Mrs Koloktronis shooed the Pappas out of the hospital room, telling him her son needed his rest and that old fool Vasilis was in pain. Nitsa refused to let the Pappas back in the waiting taxi as she now knew he was too mean to pay her fare and told him firmly “we ain’t a charity taxi.”

  When Quentin, Deirdre and Tassia climbed into the waiting taxi they were quite amused to see Nitsa deliberately drive through a large muddy puddle, completely soaking the Pappas who was sulkily standing at the bus stop.

  Chapter 108

  Old Lady Makeovers

  The young smitten doctor had not only treated mail order Masha to lunch but had also neglected his patients in order to drive her back to the village so she wouldn’t be late for her beauty parlour appointment. She envisaged a peaceful afternoon having her eyelashes professionally curled. She was most put out when Fotini and Nitsa noisily arrived, demanding Evangelia give them makeovers with the money they had extorted with their exorbitant taxi fares.

  Tempted as Evangelia was to throw the two old crones out she was mindful they had been through a traumatic experience the night before and her beauty treatments would be most therapeutic under the circumstances. “I’ve not been in a beauty parlour for years,” Fotini announced to no one’s surprise. She usually cut her own hair by shearing round a pudding bowl on her head.

  Evangelia suggested several treatments she considered would improve the two old ladies’ appearance and take years off them. She proposed bleaching their prominent black moustaches and plucking the long hairs that grew from their chins. “’Ow about hair extensions too,” mail order Masha suggested, but the two crones po po-ed her idea by nodding vigorously and declaring a simple cut would suffice.

  “I quite fancy a chest wax,” Nitsa whispered to Evangelia “as I thinks that young fellows at the ‘ardware shop ‘as ‘is eye on me.”

  “Plenty of life in yous yet,” Fotini agreed, adding “but yous an attractive woman what can do better than ‘im.”

  “Buts I likes my men to ‘ave full ‘eads of air and the ‘ardware man ‘as a lovely rug I could run my fingers through,” Nitsa confided.

  “He bald as a coot and ‘is ‘air is a terrible toupee,” Fotini told her, to which Evangelia countered “but it is super glued on well and won’t come off easy.”

  “I tells you he ‘as ‘is eye on me. I won’t be slapping ‘is face if he wants to lure me into an overgrown olive grove,” Nitsa said emphatically, having no idea she was completely deluded and Bald Yannis considered she was a horrendous old bag.

  Stavroula had spotted her new step-mother going into the beauty parlour and followed her in, demanding she come over to the taverna for a cookery lesson on how to prepare an octopus. Mail order Masha defied her new step-daughter, telling her she had no time to be giving cookery lessons as her rightful place was in the hospital by the bedside of her new father.

  “Why yous not there then?” Stavroula questioned.

  “I ‘ad to come ‘ome to look after the donkey and cooks more borscht. Doctor at ‘ospital say my borscht so goodly it bring miraculous cure to patients, even though you sneers at my cooking,” Masha boasted.

  Stavroula conceded she supposed she ought to visit that old fool Vasilis in hospital and went off to demand Slick Socrates drive her there. She was jealous of the hospital doctor’s praise for mail order Masha’s infamous borscht and decided to take a pan of her far superior snail and tomato stew along to impress him.

  Evangelia worked miracles on the two old ladies, transforming their appearance no end. Evangelia praised Nitsa for making far less fuss over her chest wax than Bald Yannis had done over his back wax. His wimpish screams had nearly deterred her from offering anymore waxing treatments. His anguished screams had led to Mr Mandelis at the next door jewellery shop to accuse Evangelia of operating a torture chamber out of her beauty parlour.

  Fotini and Nitsa’s moustaches were bleached away and their newly plucked chins were left as soft as Bald Yannis’ sub-par sandpaper. Fotini declined Evangelia’s suggestion of false eyelashes, but Nitsa was all for them as she planned to flutter them at Bald Yannis in a ‘come hither’ fashion. Both women’s makeovers were completed with a heavy application of blue eye shadow, blusher and bright red lipstick, and they had finally allowed Evangelia to give them each a blue hair rinse.

  “Oh my, ‘ave they any idea ‘ow ridiculous they looks?” mail order Masha asked as the two elderly women took their leave, with Nitsa excitedly proclaiming she needed to go and try on some more old lady dresses at the hardware store.

  Chapter 109

  Fond Feelings

  By the time Gorgeous Yi
orgos got round to asking Thea out on another date he was too late and he discovered she had been snapped by up Toothless Tasos. He laughed as she attempted to flash off her new engagement ring. It was too miniscule to notice and confirmed the village opinion of Toothless Tasos as a skinflint tightwad.

  Gorgeous Yiorgos realised he had let the lovely Thea slip through his fingers, but admitted his mind was most preoccupied with Petula. He had tried to ignore the growing romantic feelings he could feel blossoming towards her as Petula was the wife of another man, if the Pappas could be described as such.

  He cheered himself up by remembering the tourist season was due to start soon. Each new season brought a fresh crop of loose foreign hussies he could try his luck with, even if most of his efforts were unsuccessful. In recent years he seemed to have lost his touch in the art of ‘kamaki’ and he wondered again if he wouldn’t be better settling down rather than trying to play the field at his age. He thought fondly of Petula and decided to stop by to ask if she would like to go out for a driving lesson. Perhaps they could drive to the hospital and visit his good friend Fat Christos before he was discharged.

  At that very moment Stavroula was seated beside the hospital bed of that old fool Vasilis, feeling somewhat guilty she had not visited him earlier. She had been prepared to rush instantly to the hospital when she heard he had been involved in a major traffic accident, feeling distraught at the thought he may die before she got the chance to know him properly and develop a real father-daughter bond.

  However when mail order Masha relayed Vasilis had suffered no more than a broken arm after falling off the donkey during a five kilometre an hour collision with Nitsa’s taxi, Stavroula had not bothered to rush to the hospital. A broken arm was nothing she pondered, when she had lived her own life under the mistaken belief the old butcher Gregoris was her father. She was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that old fool Vasilis was her true father and felt cheated by her mother keeping the truth from her.

  On top of the shock of discovering the identity of her real father Stavroula had been forced to contend with the horror of realising mail order Masha was her step-mother. The situation was quite ridiculous and she did not want it becoming common knowledge in case she became a laughing stock. Now as she sat by her father’s bedside it touched her to hear him speak so fondly of her mother as he obviously held special memories of their long ago romantic interlude.

  In turn that old fool Vasilis was really trying to warm to Stavroula, but his initial impression of her as a cold and calculating woman was hard to dismiss. However her obvious love for Slick Socrates convinced Vasilis she must have a heart hidden somewhere within her ample bosom, and he was mightily pleased when Slick Socrates offered his lawyerly services to slap a restraining order on that ghastly old woman Nitsa.

  Stavroula raised an eyebrow when Gorgeous Yiorgos arrived at the hospital with Petula. Before the Pappas’ black mailing scam she would have been the first to run to him with the gossip his wife was out with another man, but after his sly scheme was revealed she rather hoped he would be cuckolded. She had banned him from her taverna and refused to set foot in the church while he remained as the village Pappas.

  The smitten young doctor arrived and pronounced Fat Christos fit to return home, cautioning him once again to avoid any liquidised food prepared by his mother. Stavroula was very jealous when the doctor recommended plenty of mail order Masha’s infamous borscht in his liquidised diet.

  In a fit of pique she told Vasilis she had specially cooked him the snail and tomato stew she had brought along to impress the doctor, who she now considered undeserving of her efforts. The doctor was not worth impressing as he had been far too free with his praise for Masha’s disgusting red brew, and was thus obviously lacking in good taste.

  Fat Christos and his mother were happy to accept a lift back to the village with Gorgeous Yiorgos if he promised to take the wheel. Mrs Kolokotronis was far too nervous a passenger to suffer a learner driver behind the wheel.

  Chapter 110

  Eyeing Up

  “’Ave you got something up with yours eyes?” Bald Yannis asked Nitsa as she stood at his counter fluttering her new false eyelashes at him in a ludicrously provocative manner.

  “Her eyes is fine,” Fotini said in her friend’s defence, adding “’ave you got something up with that bit of nasty old carpet stuck on your ‘ead?”

  Bald Yannis told the two women he had secured the metal bars on their living room window and asked if they had heard anything further from the police enquiry. “We ‘ave been busy making beautiful,” Nitsa told him while surreptitiously trying to unbutton the top button on her old lady dress, hoping to give Bald Yannis an enticing flash of her now hair free chest.

  Bald Yannis was frustrated to be kept out of the loop of the police enquiry as he was keen to hear the elusive underwear thief had been replaced by an actual burglar thief as the prime suspect. He didn’t see why the elusive underwear thief should get a bad name for something he had not done, but he knew he was in no position to sue for defamation of character.

  “See, he keeps giving me the eye,” Nitsa whispered to Fotini. Fotini had to agree it certainly seemed Bald Yannis was staring intently at her friend. He was actually transfixed by the revolting sight of Nitsa over-done up in copious amounts of blue eye shadow she had managed to smudge all over her cheeks, with one displaced false eyelash giving her a lopsided moustache. Her blue hair rinse had an eerie glow as it reflected the light from his flickering fluorescent strip.

  “’Ave you ‘eard from any more women wanting to meet me?” Moronic Mitsos asked, walking into the hardware shop. “Malaka what is that horror?” he exclaimed as he caught sight of Nitsa. “I thought the local council voted down the idea of importing that there foreign Halloween custom.”

  “Ave some respect for your elders,” Nitsa advised him, clipping him round the head with her handbag. Turing her attention back to Bald Yannis she said “young Yanni, go in the stock room and make sure there are no perverts lurking, as we want try on more of your lovely dresses.”

  Nitsa desperately fluttered her single remaining false eyelash in what she thought was a seductive fashion, telling Bald Yannis “no peeking,” as she went in the stockroom.

  “She’s off her trolley, utterly bonkers!” Bald Yannis exclaimed, feeling there had to be more to life than putting up with deranged old women and moronic ex-police chiefs.

  His hardware shop was a magnet for nutters who were too thick to realise when he insulted them. He wondered if it was too late for a change of career. It wasn’t the shop he really minded, he mused, it was the place. Or perhaps it wasn’t the place, but the people in it. He considered he had no friends apart from Moronic Mitsos, he had no woman, and he was banned from the taverna. Looking on the bright side he considered himself quite popular in comparison to the Pappas.

  As he ruminated on his lot in life Bald Yannis decided to invest in a goat as a pet as he had heard the Pappas enthusiastically extolling the virtues of his new and loyal friend. He decided he would see if he could come to an arrangement with Fat Christos to take one of his newly inherited herd; after all Fat Christos owed him big time for vomiting all over his shoes.

  It was getting late and Bald Yannis agreed to lock up the shop and meet Moronic Mitsos at the kafenion. Turning off the lights and locking the door he completely he forgot he had left Nitsa and Fotini trying hideous old lady dresses on in his filthy back stockroom.

  Chapter 111

  Hells Gates and Goat Ramblings

  Proving true to his word the smitten young hospital doctor had called round at mail order Masha’s house to check she was safe from the ‘on the loose pervert’. He insisted on taking her out to dinner at ‘Mono Ellinka Trofima’ as the only food she had in the house was her disgusting borscht and some donkey treats. He considered it was all right for his patients to eat the borscht because if it made them sick they were already in the right place to have their stomachs pumped, but he
had no intention of consuming the noxious brew.

  Eyebrows were raised in the taverna at the entrance of mail order Masha with her newly curled eyelashes. There was a mutter of disapproval at the presumption she was out cavorting with another man while her husband was stuck in his hospital bed with a painfully broken arm. Everyone soon realised mail order Masha appeared as completely indifferent to the avid attention of the smitten young doctor as she did to anything not related to her own vain appearance.

  “’Ave you all seen ‘ow ridiculous those two old women with the taxi look after beauty parlour treatments?” mail order Masha asked the taverna goers. She was surprised no one had seen them in their garish make-up as they had planned to go out on the town showing off their new makeovers.

  “I called by the ‘ouse and no one was at ‘ome and the taxi was gone,” Prosperous Pedros said. “But I couldn’t climb in through the window to check as the new iron bars work goodly.”

  “Old taxi parked up by harbour,” Tall Thomas volunteered as the taverna customers began to worry about the whereabouts of the two elderly ladies. The police appeared no closer to arresting the person who had broken into Fotini’s house with possible rape and murder in mind, meaning last night’s pervert intruder was still on the loose.

  Quentin and Deirdre shared the news their stay in Astakos would sadly very soon come to an end. They had to rush back to Idaho sooner than expected to attend Quentin’s widowed mother’s engagement party. They reassured their new village friends they planned to return to Astakos very soon. Achilles the borrowed builder had promised to get on with all the necessary renovations to make their new falling down house in Rapanaki habitable for their return.

  “Well I ‘ave the goodly news K-Went-In and Did-Rees. Adonis my cousin the mechanic ‘ave fixed your car an’ you can leave in it,” Adonis promised. Once his commission had reached his pocket he had told his cousin to get on with repairing their car as his charm offensive had been most successful. “He bring car tomorrow.”