The Reluctant Baker (The Greek Village Collection Book 10) (5 page)

‘And this is Loukas, the baker,’ Stella says. He jumps from behind the counter and steps towards her, takes her hand, shakes it gently, and then stands holding it, staring at her.

‘Loukas.’ He repeats his own name as an introduction in accented English. His grip on her hand is firm and he shows no immediate signs of letting go. His dimple appears and disappears between his smile and his grin. His eyes are liquid brown, his eyebrows drawn straight across, and Ellie finds him hard to look away from. Stella clears her throat. He steps back behind the counter, repeating her name to finish his greeting, ‘Ellie.’ His tongue curls around the letter
L
.

In response to his intense scrutiny, Ellie wraps her arms across her chest, feeling strangely exposed. She wants him to smile, to see the dimple again.

‘You want to come in and sit? Have a coffee? I have farmers to feed but…’ Stella doesn’t finish this sentence. ‘Actually, I will need to go to the hotel shortly, make sure we are ready for the official opening. So I am not sure how much time I have just now. But a coffee is just five minutes, yes?’ Stella’s invitation to spend time with her is very warming, but she is clearly distracted and there is tension in her voice that is not reflected in her movements.

‘Actually, I’m looking for Poppy’s shop,’ Ellie says and waits to see how Stella responds. She does not want to appear rude by declining the invitation.

‘Ah Kyria Poppy. Up by the bakery, round the back, then first lane to the right and you will come across her.’ Stella’s hands explain as much as her words. ‘But you are coming to the opening tonight? I will set you a place on our table so we can talk.’

‘Absolutely. Thank you.’ Ellie takes a step backwards and tries not to look at Loukas. Her emotional response to him alarms her; she isn’t meant to feel anything like this, not now she is married. Making a point of moving away, she confirms ‘Up there’ in response to Stella’s directions and points to the narrow lane by the open doors from which, even from where they stand across the road, the faint aroma of baking bread reaches them.

‘Yes, up there. Say hello from me,’ Stella says. As Ellie takes her leave, she makes brief eye contact with the bakery man again, quite against her will. The stare he returns makes her blink. Reminding herself that she is married does nothing to quench her feelings. All the parts that are missing in her life, the passion, the care, the companionship, she saw them offered in his eyes. Or did she? Is that really likely or is it more like she just deluded herself with a momentary fantasy?

First right behind the bakery is a lane lined with single-storey stone houses, years of whitewash icing all angles and smoothing the corners. The roof tiles are all shades of burnt orange and age has moved them, some slipped, some raised, the ridge on one sagging dangerously low in the middle. This one has no doors or windows, and a donkey eyes her lazily from its cool interior. The areas in front of the houses are brushed smooth and washed clean. A cat sits on top of a wall looking at her through half-closed eyes, audibly purring as Ellie approaches but nimbly disappearing over the wall and behind a house as she reaches out to touch it.

Set against the lane, with no courtyard or patio, is a slightly more modern building, incongruous with its straight lines and hard corners. It is not new, but it is not ancient either. Floor-to-ceiling windows with metal frames allow the display of fishing rods, children’s shoes, a mangle, an armless and headless mannequin wearing a crocheted 1960s tank top and a pair of sailor’s white trousers, creased across the thigh and across the calf, with wide bell-bottom ends. A pair of green waders stands next to four tennis rackets and a pile of half-deflated beach balls, the colours faded along the folds. The door next to the window is open and a smell of incense and damp and old clothes meets her as she draws near. This must be Kyria Poppy’s. The feeling of the sun on her forearms and face was bliss on her walk from the hotel, but her jean-clad legs suffered and as Ellie steps into the shade of the shop, the relief is immediate, and for the first time since she arrived, she is glad of her long sleeved t-shirt, as it has just occurred to her that it will have stopped her shoulders from getting sunburnt.

The shop is silent. No one is there. Next to the counter is a deep sea diver’s suit complete with brass helmet and weighted boots. It is quite eerie standing there with no one inside. On the floor is a box of blankets, badly folded, and next to that, a pair of roller skates. To her left is a rack of jumpers and t-shirts. The majority of these t-shirts are white, and when she touches them, she can tell they are cheesecloth, the kind of fabric that Marcus sometimes uses to wrap up pieces he is working on, to keep the clay damp. She can imagine that the loose weave will be great in the heat. She pulls at one to find it has embroidered flowers on the front. So hippy, Marcus would love it. She pushes it back into the over-full rack.

‘
Ti theleis
?’

Ellie’s hand catches a shirt and it falls, only for its metal coat hanger to hook onto one of the other shirts. Her flustered fingers hasten to unhook it and she panics at the thought of how she is going to communicate.

‘Er hello,’ she stammers.

‘Ah English, yes, it was the jeans. I thought you to be Greek. Not many English would wear trousers in this weather but the Greeks, well, they will cover up until late August. Can I help you?’ The white-haired old woman has no trace of an accent. She enunciates every consonant and elongates her vowels.

‘Are you Poppy?’

‘Yes.’ The old lady was so dissolved into her chair in a dark corner at the back of the shop that Ellie dismissed her as a pile of clothes. She begins to unfold herself, with no speed, and stands up, using the arms of the chair and puffing. ‘Have you been here long? I have a tendency to fall asleep these days. I sit, I think, and then I wake up.’

‘That sounds rather nice,’ Ellie reflects. Some nights, she cannot sleep at all. In the evening, she always feels tired, she yawns a lot, gets ready for bed, chats to Marcus, he usually kisses her on the nose and then he turns over, his back to her, his arm behind him so she cannot curl up to him and then she lies there waiting for sleep. Waiting and waiting. Just as she feels sleep coming upon her, it is as if she needs to witness the transition and that pulls her back to wakefulness. It goes on all night until she is exhausted. About two months ago, she stopped lying there for three, sometimes four hours. Now she goes downstairs and makes herself a herbal drink and takes it back to bed with a book, by torchlight, so as not to wake Marcus. Once she has drunk her tea and read several chapters, fully absorbing the imaginary world, she can settle down with images of another time, another country. Sleep comes to her then, when she is already far away. But in the morning, it leaves her too tired to get up to see Marcus off to work, so it is usually four o’clock before she sees him, or anyone for that matter, unless she goes shopping or to the library.

"Well, it is and it isn’t. I never get anything done these days.’

As Ellie’s eyes adjust, the extent of the clutter in the corners is revealed and it is apparent that Poppy is good to her word. Not a lot has been done in the shop for some while, by the looks of things.

‘So how can I help you?’ Poppy’s tone brightens.

‘These jeans are actually too hot so I am looking for something lighter. I don’t know, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts perhaps?’

‘No shorts. That I do know. Not much call for women’s shorts. The village girls who are young enough to wear them, their mamas won’t let them, and the ones that are old enough to choose wouldn’t expose that much flesh. It’s a cultural thing. I’ve some nice dresses though.’ Ellie frowns. It feels a bit like shopping with Mother. Why shouldn’t she wear shorts? It’s up to her to wear what she wants. Poppy holds onto the counter and then grasps the back of a chair and then Ellie’s arm to propel her way to a rack near the window. She pulls out a dress in beige and Ellie recognises it as the type Sarah was wearing.

‘They’re a bit…’ She was going to say old for her, but she does not want to offend, ‘elegant perhaps? Do you have anything more casual?’

‘Well, I have some long, sleeveless t-shirts, but you would have to wear them with your jeans. I have nothing to go with them. I don’t suppose you would want a black skirt? I have a lot of call for black. The older women of the village shop here and more often than not, they are in mourning for some relative or other, or a husband long passed. Ahh.’ She sighs as if this is the inevitable end for everyone and Ellie shivers.

‘Can I see?’ Poppy breaks from her thoughts as Ellie speaks.

‘What? Oh, the sleeveless t-shirts, yes.’ A hand on Ellie’s arm, another on the chair, and she is off again from one support to another. Then, as if it is no effort at all, she bends from the hips to reach the ground, pulls one box out of the way, and retrieves a bag with holes in it. Straightening takes more effort.

‘Here you go.’

The t-shirts are in great colours, including some pale green ones that are really acidy and a yellow that makes Ellie feel happy.

‘Can I try one on?’

Poppy points behind where she was sitting to a navy blue curtain laid over the arms of two mannequins that are pointing at each other. The space is confined; at least all she has to slip off are her jeans. The navy blue curtain is so long, it trails on the floor and becomes entangled in her feet as she tries to take off her sandals. For a moment the curtain, mannequins and all, threaten to fall.

‘You need any help?’ Kyria Poppy asks.

The combination of the curtain’s colour, the enclosed space, and Poppy’s question transport Ellie back to a day when the final twist of events reduced her world to a senseless charade.

Her mother wore blue like these curtains. No that’s not true, her dress was more of a navy. A dark blue against her long white, netting train, which Mum had held up when she accompanied her into the church hall toilets.

There were no bridesmaids, no flower girls, just the two of them in the powder room. Mum asking if she wanted help with the dress as she squeezed into a cubicle.

‘I thought the service went quite well.’ Mum’s words not quite clear as she spoke without closing her pouted mouth, her nondescript lipstick in her hand.

Ellie lifted layer after layer of the dress as she closed the door. At first, the red stain made no sense. She even tried to brush it off.

Then came the realisation, which tensed every muscle in her body. She rubbed at the stain with toilet paper. The horror of explaining to her father why he would not get all of his rental deposit back brought on her waves of panic. Only after these initial feelings came, like a crushing coil of wet rope, the momentous reality of the bigger truth pinned her to the toilet seat.

‘You alright? You’ve gone very quiet. Do you need any help?’ Mum called in her tiny voice.

It took a moment to regain any function. Her vision smearing as fast as she wiped at her eyes, a cold sweat breaking through her foundation on her forehead.

‘Darling?’ Mum persisted. ‘Shall we go?’

There, staring at her from the lining of her dress and on a bit of tissue down the toilet, the reality. No baby. There never was a baby. It must have been the stress that stopped her body from doing what it had done every month for the last year and a half without fail. Normality returned. Normality, but now with a needless ring on her finger.

‘Er, Mum, do you have any thingies.’ Her voice sounded choked even to her own ears.

‘Oh dear, what bad timing, dear. Hang on, there’s a machine. I’ll just go and get some change from your dad if I can find him. Wait there, dear.’

Thank goodness she had never told her parents about the baby.

Should she go out and put cold water on the dress? Was it too late to explain the situation to her parents? Could she get the marriage annulled barely an hour after the ceremony? Would Dad let her?

‘You still there, dear?’ The outer door banged behind her mother’s return, followed by the sound of coins and a mechanical clank.

‘There you are, dear.’ Mum’s hand appeared under the door, palm downwards, as if to hide the very thing she was passing.

Ellie said nothing, did nothing. Once reassembled, her mother led her back outside, the tell-tale stain hidden behind layers of nylon netting. After a quip from Father about looking miserable on such a wonderful day, Ellie made an effort and pinned a smile on. When she sat at the head table, she leaned toward Marcus to whisper, smile still intact and noticing, for the first time, some grey hairs around his ears. With a couple of words, his world changed, too.

Within the next hour, he became so drunk, he was taken to lay down and he, lucky man, missed most of the speeches about ‘forevers’ and ‘till death do them part.’

‘Are you managing?’ Kyria Poppy asks again.

‘Oh yes, thank you,’ Ellie replies.

The t-shirt feels smooth and cool. She hadn’t realised how thick the material of her own long sleeved t-shirt was. But the new shirt is absurdly long, almost to her knees. She squirms and pulls at her hot, sticking jeans. The relief at getting them off is greater than she expected. She wishes she could discard her memories just as easily. If the t-shirt looks anywhere near alright, this is a done deal.

‘Got a mirror?’ She ducks out under the mannequin’s arm.

‘Oh yes, of course, like a dress. Hmm.’ Poppy’s head relaxes to one side as she looks Ellie up and down.

‘Mirror?’ It is just like shopping with Mum.

‘Here.’ Poppy sweeps the clothes on a rail to one side, behind which is a full length mirror. ‘It’s good. I like it.’

Ellie is pleasantly surprised by her reflection.

‘It’s good, really good. You want a belt?’ Poppy asks, her head to one side again.

‘No, no belt.’ Ellie smiles at her herself in the mirror. ‘How much?’

Poppy picks up one of the t-shirts and turns it around in her hands. There is a small sticker.

‘Five hundred drachmas.’ The old woman starts to gurgle, sounding rather like Marcus stirring one of his slip buckets, thick and irregular. The noise grows and it takes a moment for Ellie to realise she is laughing. ‘Ah, my!’ she manages to says between little bursts. ‘You see, nothing gets done.’ Another gurgle. ‘I have done nothing since 2001. At least since then. That’s when we lost the Drachma.’ This makes her laugh even more and Ellie finds she is smiling, but she is not sure what about. ‘So, let me see, let’s say, two euros. Does that sound alright?’

‘Two?’ Ellie questions.

‘Is it too much?’

‘No, no it’s fine. I’ll take the green one as well.’

Poppy finds a creased brown paper bag and wraps up the green dress along with the jeans and long sleeved t-shirt.

Outside the shop, the heat hits Ellie like a furnace. She will not be able to stand it if it gets any hotter. Didn’t she read in one of Marcus’ old magazines that people can go mad in the heat?