A Song Amongst the Orange Trees (The Greek Village Collection Book 13) (5 page)

He sleeps solidly and only wakes when Harris begins to cry piteously the following morning. She either needs to go to the toilet or she needs feeding. Slipping into his jeans, he definitely feels a little better today. Which is just as well, as he has to find somewhere to stay. There is a note under the door.

'Maybe this is useful.'

Out in the corridor is a cat litter tray and a tin of cat food and another note in Greek.

'Ask at reception if you need anything else. Stella.'

Well, that's a kind start to the day at least.

He takes everything inside and after shutting the door and checking the patio window, he lets the cats out. Jules is in his narrow bed by the small bathroom and is snoring gently. Harris is very happy to be free and she sniffs around the cat litter tray before making very aromatic use of it. Eleftheria goes straight to the cup of water he has put down.

'God almighty, what is that smell?' Jules murmurs as he turns over. He opens his eyes long enough to make out the cats and the tray and then closes them again and pulls the thin cover over his head and turns to face the wall.

'Man, that’s bad!' he groans.

After the cats have both eaten and drunk and used the tray, Sakis, sadly, puts them back in the tiny carrier. He has to open a window, the smell is so bad.

'Put it down the toilet, Sakis.' Jules turns back to face him again, throwing his covers off and stretching noisily.

Sakis lifts the tray. He cannot pour all the litter down the toilet; it will block. Perhaps if he fishes bits out with a wad of tissue.

'Oh man, that smells disgusting.'

'You know what, Jules? I don't need to hear this.'

Jules stops stretching and seems genuinely shocked. Then his high eyebrows relax and his face takes on a look of compassion.

'Ah, you spoke to Andreas last night.'

'How much did he say to you yesterday when I was sleeping?'

'Well, it was not what he said, really. More his tone of voice.'

'We need to find somewhere else to stay.' Sakis flushes the toilet and puts the tray by the window.

'You’re joking?'

'I wish. He suggested that we go and stay in my
yiayia's
house.'

'Okay.' Jules pulls on his t-shirt. His jeans are scrunched from being slept in.

'How much money do you have? We will still need to eat.'

'Nothing, my friend. You?'

Sakis checks a compartment in his bouzouki case. 'Eighty euros.' He stuffs his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. 'And some change. So we can either stay here another night, or we can eat for maybe three or four days.'

'What about America?' Jules sits on his bed and pushes a finger through the cat carrier’s mesh to stroke Harris' nose.

'He says he will know in a day or two. I’m sorry, Jules. I know you were counting on Andrea and me to open doors for you. Right now, I would not be surprised if Andreas doesn't blow all our rides, as the Americans say.' His choice of cliché is meant to make them both smile, but neither of them does.

'Okay.' Jules wraps his finger around the cat’s ear and pulls gently, and she turns her head to one side in bliss. 'Right.' He stands with energy. 'Let’s go. We do not have to check out till eleven is it, or twelve, so leave the cats here and we can see if your grandmother’s house is still standing, right?'

The net curtains at the windows cannot hold back the sun and the day’s heat is already building in the room.

'Best put the cats in the bathroom. It will be coolest in there.' Jules picks up the basket.

The
Village

The fluorescent pink shock of bougainvillea almost completely obscures the windows. In contrast, the tightly closed shutters sing out in blue peeling paint. In the surrounding walls of greying whitewash, brave plants struggle for footholds in the cracked surface, dried out in the full glare of the sun’s heat. Pushing aside vine leaves, Sakis curls his fingers around the heat-warped edge of one of the shutters, but it is soon clear that no amount of pulling is going to open them. The front door has boards nailed across, so he tries round the back. The old wood looks as if it had moulded into the frame. Grass grows out of the decomposing wooden doorstep, still green in the shade it has found.

Sakis wipes his handkerchief across his sweating brow. His embroidered initials pucker the silk and break up the smoothing feel, and somewhere deep within him, an edge of annoyance stirs. The affluent display of his monogram dilutes the practically of the article. For the price of this hanky, which Andreas bought him as a gift just before the competition, he could have stayed another night in the hotel. How quickly things change.

'Someone must have a key.' Jules has not moved from the gate.

'Hang on. There is a shutter that is only held closed by the stone on the windowsill here.' He does not want to ask around to see who has the key. How soon would that result in him being recognised as The Son of Costas the Crocodile Killer? Too soon, that’s for sure. No, if he can get in on his own terms, that would be best.

'The window will be shut, though.' Jules takes a cigarette from behind his ear and strikes a match on the gatepost.

Sakis lifts the stone off the sill and is not entirely surprised to find a key.

'There's a key,' he calls out but wishes he hadn't. It feels as if he has swallowed razor blades. His throat seems to have got worse again since talking to Andreas.

Jules folds his long arms across his stomach. Sakis thought he would have been enthusiastic about this sort of work. When he lived on the streets, he must have found his way into many a building for a good night’s sleep. If he helped, they would probably get inside within minutes. But he does not seem interested. He is looking down the street at something. Sakis follows his gaze and watches a black cat slowly crossing the deserted road to another single-storey whitewashed cottage. The houses vary: some are squat cottages that give the appearance that they have been settling into the soil forever, and others are two-storey concrete buildings with wide balconies festooned with colourful plants and arched with bougainvillaea. Then there are the occasional old stone houses, bereft of their plaster and whitewash finish, windows and doors hanging at odd angles or gone completely. Hollow, lifeless eyes and gaping mouths sing of past, simpler times. They sit in untended grounds where chickens scratch in the dust. In the shade of a dark doorway, a donkey shuffles gently, its neck bowed and eyes closed in the heat.

Jules leans against the gatepost, the elbow of one arm resting on the wrist of the other, and feeds himself nicotine. Sakis wonders why he doesn’t quit. He seems so practical and down to earth in so many ways, it is at odds with his character that he is conned by something so destructive

The key fits in the back door and turns easily. The door is stiff and resists Sakis’ shoving it. He will have to really put his shoulder to it. It moves only slightly, with a sound of splintering wood, and now his shoulder throbs.

'Yes? Can I help you?'

The voice comes from behind him. At first, he sees no one but then from around the back of the neighbouring house, hitching his trousers over narrow hips with one hand, saunters a man holding a watering can.

'I just wanted to go in and look.' Sakis brushes dust from his shoulder.

'Ah, the curiosity of youth,' the man replies. 'But it's not for sale.' Sakis can feel the old man’s pale watery eyes take him in at a glance and then, with a quick sideways glance, he absorbs the portrait Jules cuts by the gate. Even through his own eyes, they look like city people rather than villagers. A smile teases at the crinkled corners of the old man’s mouth. 'Now if you want to buy something…' The old man steps to one side and raises his watering can to indicate the house he stands beside. There is no for sale sign and the place looks rather uncared for.

'Are you selling?' Sakis asks. It is more polite conversation than a real question.

The old man names an unreasonable figure and then chuckles. 'Everything is for sale at the right price, eh my friend?'

Turning back to the immovable back door, Sakis braces himself to give it one more really hard shove.

'I am going to have to stop you there, my friend.' The watering can is put down, the sleeves are pushed up. Jules grinds out his cigarette and exhales the last of the smoke, straightens himself, and looks ready to deal with any trouble.

'Perhaps it is no business of yours.' Sakis does not say it with any venom. It is just a flat statement.

'Now, now, friend. We do not come to Athens and try to break into your houses. You would consider that unreasonable.'

'To be honest, I would consider my neighbour’s business none of my own.' Again, no venom, pleasantly said, no antagonism. His eyes feel like they want to close; his throat is feeling sore again. He should stop talking.

'And that is the difference between city life and village life, perhaps. Here I keep an eye on it for the owner. Now lock the door and put the key back.'

It is not a request, it is a statement.

'He is the owner,' Jules says, stepping towards them.

Why did Jules have to say that? Sakis sees the rest of how he planned his days instantly evaporate, the chance of returning to the hotel and taking a nap gone. At least for the next few hours, the need to rest his voice will be given very little consideration. He blinks slowly as he seeks some inner strength for what is to come.

The old man looks him over again and his shoulders drop in recognition. A smile splits his face and sets his eyes dancing. Sakis knows he will not be able to maintain his distance, he will be pulled in by the old man’s animation, by his happiness, and Sakis will respond by doing whatever it takes to keep the smiles from fading. He is always driven to please others, it seems. He tries to be selfish, think of his own needs, but once he has pleased someone else, it is like an internal urge to keep them pleased. It is his nature, and what he is good at. He is so good at it that it has, bizarrely, become his career. After all, was he not chosen over others to perform in the competition because he ingratiated himself to the committee? He flirted slightly with the ladies who responded quickly to his looks, and he took on the role of the alpha male, as they call it, with the men. His desire to please and be accepted is at the very core of his music. He sings of days gone by when the world was smaller and people took care of each other. He writes the jolly melodies that people love to sing along to. But once in a while, like now for instance, it would be really good to know how to be selfish. He needs to put the recovery of his voice first so he can fulfil his New York obligations at the end of the summer.

'Sakis? I thought you seemed familiar!' The old man steps up to the low wall that separates the two gardens and offers his hand. 'Ah, look at you all grown! I still think of you as this high, singing to the tortoises. Do you remember?' The pitch of his voice has risen. A white-haired lady in a housecoat appears behind him, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

'Who's this? Sakis?' the woman asks.

He nods. The smell of smoke tells him that Jules has lit up another cigarette and that he is now standing closer behind him.

'Ah my boy.' The old woman grabs Sakis over the wall and clinches him in a bear hug that has more strength than he expects.

'Lovely to meet you, but I’m afraid we really need to go,' Sakis says, but not very loudly, over the woman’s shoulder. The hug has not finished and now the old man is patting him on the back at the same time. A second, younger man, about his own age, comes out of the house.

'No! Sakis!' this newcomer shouts, and as his mama, or is it his
yiayia
, releases her grip, he pulls Sakis in for his own hug.

‘Anna!' the old woman calls across the street. 'Anna!' she calls again and in the house opposite, a front shutter opens, a flash of the sun’s rays reflecting off the window, orange and startling. 'It’s Sakis, Costas’ son.' The window is closed again and, in less than a minute, the neighbour is padding across the road in lime green fluffy slippers.

He has been here less than a minute and already he is named as his baba's son.

‘Katerina!' The woman in fluffy slippers squawks as she rolls towards them. The shutters in the house next to hers open, eyes flash, a nose catches a ray of sun, and then the window bangs closed again and a thin lady in a shabby housecoat hurries with quick birdlike movements towards them.

Everyone is talking at once, all trying to hug him, shake his hand, pat his back. Their warmth takes him by surprise but then again, it doesn't. His memories of living with his yiayia when he was a boy are full of feelings of being loved, cherished, and accepted. But most importantly of all, those first few years before his baba killed the crocodile, he was his own person, little Sakis, with nothing to prove and no pressure to impress. Blissful days.

The neighbour’s wife must have gone in the house, as she comes out again with glasses of water on a tray.

'Hold this, Thanasi,' she orders the man so she can wipe over the garden table before she arranges glasses and water jug on its sun-blistered surface. She invites everyone to sit down, pushing a cat off one of the padded seats, then scuttles inside to bring more chairs.

'He used to line the tortoises up and sing to them, do you remember, sister?' Thanasis is telling the group and addresses the woman as she returns with a folding chair. In the back of his mind, Sakis makes a mental note that they are siblings, not man and wife. In his mind’s eye, he recalls the memory of the tortoises that he had all but forgotten. Now it comes back as if it was yesterday. He had his favourite faded, red shorts on, no shoes, no shirt. It was the day after his
yiayia
had cut his hair and he was still finding snippets and strands in his ears.
Yiayia
was sitting on her wooden chair, shelling peas under the wisteria that smelt so sweet and hummed with bees as he tried to teach the tortoises to sing in harmony, turn them into a choir. He sang each part to them in turn in the thin strains of his four-year-old voice and encouraged them to copy, acting as choirmaster.

'Who would have thought, the son of Costas the crocodile killer, back here,' the old woman says. What was her name? Thanasis and… Thanasis, her brother who never married, didn't he breed donkeys? Yes, that’s right, and his sister, who also never married. Dora! Yes, sweet Dora. Who, if his memory serves him correctly, made those red shorts for him on her pedal-powered sewing machine. How that treadle fascinated him as a boy.

'Ah Costas, he was some man! You dive like your baba, Sakis?' the woman with green fluffy slippers asks. He has no idea what her name is and does not remember her at all.

'No, Anna, he sings. Have you not seen him?' the bird-like lady says. Sakis smiles. The bird woman, what had the lady in fluffy slippers called her? Katerina, was it? Well whatever her name is, she recognises him and he immediately likes her. He opens his mouth to tell Katerina of his career, his unexpected win, when a deep voice speaks out.

'Sakis, you are a man now, eh! Not as tall as your baba, but all man now, eh?' The face is vaguely familiar. Thanasis takes a glass of water and pours the content into a pot brimming over with flowering geraniums. He refills it from a bottle of ouzo that has appeared from nowhere.

'It’s good to see you.' Yorgos has broken away from chatting with Jules and he places a firm grip on Sakis’ shoulder. They used to play together as children. Yorgos was Dora's nephew or godson, or something like that.
Yiayia
would have them sit side by side at her kitchen table, a glass of milk each, her home-baked biscuits piled on a plate in front of them as she sewed. The fire would cough smoke back into the room in the winter. In the summer, the house would smell of the incense she burnt for her dead husband, another smell for her dead parents, one for the saints.

The number of people around him grows, the name
Costas
on everyone's lips. Once or twice, someone mentions that he sings, but mostly tales are told again of his baba's boat trip in crocodile country. The slashing of the crocodile’s neck becomes a split from throat to tail. The crocodile grows in size, the boat shrinks, the number of people saved increases, and hearty slaps on Sakis’ back reduce him into being Costa's son once more.

There are so many people and so much fuss is being made that Sakis does not see the barbecue being lit. Nor does he notice women running back and forth to their houses, bringing meat to grill and wine to drink. Yorgos is over by a hydrangea bush offering a cigarette to Jules, who takes two and puts one in his mouth and one behind his ear. Something Jules has said has amused him and he is laughing heartily as he offers a light. The women fuss over Sakis, bring their daughters who are too old to be at school and too young to be married to stand shyly around the congregation’s edge. More tales of his baba are told, some of which are new to him.