Aftershock (11 page)

‘What's the matter, Makis?' his mother wanted to know.

‘Nothing.'

‘Did the school lose their football match?'

She was sharp. Makis had to tell her that he hadn't got there in time on Saturday.

‘You look different, Makis.'

‘Well I'm not, I'm the same.'

It was a relief when Mr Laliotis came down to invite him upstairs for a rehearsal. And somehow that evening, against the odds, he was back to being a mandolin player. It was as if St Gerasimos had decided that not every part of his life was going to go wrong. Besides, he had to be good at the Acropolis on Saturday. It was why he had let himself seem a coward to Denny Clarke.

‘If you want me to tell you that was good, Makis, I will tell you so – that was
very
good. Old men will cry.' The musician patted the back of Makis's hand. ‘But please, use just a little less plectrum and a little more dripping of Assos honey across the bridging chords…'

Makis played a chord, to show how he could do honey.

‘My boy! I applaud you.' And Mr Laliotis span his balalaika around to pat its back. ‘Oh, Saturday is going to be so good…'

Mr Laliotis should have brought some calm to Makis. But that night in bed, he couldn't get the bitter taste of unfairness out of his mouth. And when he went to sleep, his dreams led him into a distressing place.

He went to the hall at Imeson Street school, with all the classes sitting in their assembly lines, staring at him as he stood out at the front. Again, he was in tears, his head bowed, his hot hands clenching and unclenching – because of what was being said.

‘This boy has shamed us. He has shamed me, and he has shamed you. What was asked of him? What honourable action was he asked to do for the school? And what did he take upon himself to do instead?'

Makis could see the cold faces staring at him – even the infants at the front looked at him like enemies.

‘He was asked,' the voice went on, ‘to ooze honey from his strings, and not to cut across them as if his plectrum was a broken roof tile.'

Again, Makis could sense the teachers nodding as if they knew the difference.

‘But did he? Could he?' – the rising voice came to a climax. ‘No! He played with crude force, like Dennis Clarke hitting someone in the face!'

There was a pause, as the man at the front raised his hand like a conductor for the whole school to boo and boo. But it wasn't Mr Hersee standing there – it was Mr Laliotis, a man Makis thought of as a friend, who was treating him now with derision. It shocked him, and it hurt.

And that night, for the first time since he had been a very small boy back in Alekata, Makis woke from his nightmare in a wet bed. So, to his anger and his frustration, now he had to add his shame.

Next morning, Makis made his bed quickly, in the hope that his mother wouldn't find out how far away he was from taking his father's place in the home. He ate hardly any breakfast and got out of the house as soon as he could. In case anyone was watching, he turned the first corner as if he was going to school. But did he want to go to a place where he'd be treated like a traitor all day? That school was a place filled with people who didn't understand how plans can suddenly get upset. When those hateful people were pupils, that was one thing. But when they were teachers, too – who were supposed to know about helping you to learn things, and to grow up a good person – then everything was rotten.

So why not go and lose himself in Regent's Park – and stay there until his mother told the police, and they told the school, and everyone felt sorry for him instead of hating him? Or – a really stupid thought – why not go to the zoo and get eaten by a lion? Or how about finding the port where the ships came in from Greece, and stowing away on one that was flying the blue-and-white flag? Then he could go back to Kefalonia and Alekata, and build a small house from fallen stones, and patch up a boat and become a fisherman like his father. There were still people in Kefalonia who ate fish, weren't there?

But while he was having these thoughts – the possible, the stupid, and the wild – his feet were taking him the familiar way to school. His pride wouldn't let him run away. Makis Magriotis was not going to act as if he was ashamed of himself, nor as if he was afraid of Denny Clarke. Hold his head up high – that's what he was going to do.

He came to the school gate, and taking a deep breath, he went through it.

‘Ere ‘e ‘is! The Greek coward! Couldn't stand an' fight like an Englishman!' This was Clarke.

‘Don't go near to him – he stinks of goats!' This was Costas Karoulides, back to his old insult.

‘Traitor!' This was an infant, who wouldn't even know what the word meant.

But worse than the insults was what most other people did – they didn't speak to him, but bumped and bored into him as if he wasn't even there.

Makis's pride quickly drowned. But it wasn't too late to run off and do one of those other things he'd been thinking about, was it? The whistle hadn't blown yet. All he had to do was walk over to the gate and go through it.

Well, he would do that. He quickly turned to go, before the teachers came out to get everyone in.

But what was this?
Who
was this, striding into the playground with a mean and angry look on her face, and carrying the blackened copy of
The Man Who Ran to Sparta
?

‘Where is he? The Principal?' his mother asked in Greek. She grabbed his hand and yanked him towards the school building. ‘Makis – the Principal. Show me where he is!'

Makis knew the others in the playground were watching her, all saying things behind their hands and pulling faces. She wasn't waiting for his answer; she could see the door into the school and she started marching him towards it.

‘Mama! Stop! What are you doing?'

But she pulled him in through the door, just as the teachers were coming out. The stares they gave one another were just like those Alekata warning looks of earthquake tremors to come. Trouble.

‘Where?'

Makis could do nothing but take his mother along the corridor to the door she wanted.
‘Mr A.W. Hersee. Headmaster.'
It was half-open. She knocked on it and stood waiting, her face frozen in determination.

‘Yes?' Mr Hersee opened the door wider, saw Makis, and realised who this woman was. ‘Ah.'

Makis could see him making an instant decision about the way he'd treat this mother. He could go into a rant about her son, the Cup Final traitor, or he could calmly explain to her his headteacher's duty to point out Makis's faults. He chose the second. ‘Ah,' he said again, ‘I think we must talk…' as if he'd sent for her to come.

‘In!' Makis's mother said, in English. She pushed Makis into the head's room. She shut the door behind them, firmly.

‘And how can I…?' In the face of Makis's mother's determination, Mr Hersee was shifting like a wind-change on water.

‘See!' All the way from Georgiana Street Sofia Magriotis must have had her finger keeping a place in the page showing the terrible picture of the suffering runner. She cracked the book open and held it in the headteacher's face. ‘See, Makis Dad, see!'

‘Ah. Philippides…'

She pointed at Makis, and at the face in the picture. ‘Dad. Makis's Dad.'

‘A runner? Your father's an Olympic runner?' Mr Hersee asked Makis.

‘Dead!' Makis's mother gave the universal sign for death, fingers drawn across her throat. ‘Dead,' she went on, still in English. ‘The earthquake,' she said in Greek – and looked at Makis for him to translate, which he did in such a soft voice that she had to prod him to say it again, louder.

‘Sofia Magriotis see face look,' she said. ‘Makis Dad. Dead Dad. Sofia very bad.' She mimed a fainting, a crying, a sort of collapse. ‘I see. I see dead, in this.' She thumped herself in the chest. ‘Sofia Magriotis very bad.'

‘Ah.' Mr Hersee had an
ah
for every situation. This ‘ah' said he was beginning to understand. ‘Are we talking about Saturday?'

‘Makis.' She patted Makis on the head. ‘Makis‘ – she searched for the words – ‘Good boy! Makis good boy for Mama!' she said triumphantly.

Mr Hersee turned to Makis, the look on his face distantly related to a smile. ‘Your mother was bad, and you helped her…'

‘Makis help. See Makis help.'

‘Ah.' A full grasp now.

Makis took the book from his mother. ‘I teach my mother reading. The face, she thinks – like my father. He dies under earthquake houses, look like this. She is bad. She is very bad…'

‘And you felt you had to help her? You stayed till she recovered. This was what made you late…?'

‘Yes.'

‘You've been teaching her English? English,' he repeated to Makis's mother, smiling seriously, and nodding. ‘You learn… English?'

‘Ten green bottles,' she told him, to prove it.

‘Ah.' Mr Hersee's face softened as he looked at Makis. ‘And you missed the bus…?'

‘I get lost,' Makis said. ‘I run fast. I get lost.'

‘Of course. But you turned up, didn't you? You got there too late – but, credit due…'

‘Yes.'

But Sofia Magriotis wasn't finished. ‘Makis bad – in this.' She knocked on Makis's forehead with a knuckle. ‘Not good. Not Makis.' She mimed Makis's unhappiness with a face from a tragedy. ‘He even wet the bed,' she said in Greek – her hands urging Makis to translate.

‘We're not telling him that!' Makis said.

‘Why didn't you say anything, lad?' The headteacher was waving his head this way and that as if in time to music. ‘I'm not an unreasonable man. I wouldn't have said what I did to the school had I known the circumstances.' He turned to Makis's mother. ‘In my ignorance of the true situation I made the situation worse, bad for Makis. I apologise. I'm sorry. Me' – he pointed both long-fingered hands towards his chest – ‘very sorry.' And he nodded his sorrow like a priest at a graveside.

‘Yes,' said Sofia Magriotis. ‘Are you all right?' she asked Makis in Greek.

In truth, he wasn't sure whether he was or wasn't. He was proud of the way she'd stood up for him against Mr Hersee,
and
in a foreign language. But this sort of thing had never happened before, and it was embarrassing.

‘Yes, I'm all right,' he told her.

‘Truly?'

He nodded.

‘I go. See me go.' And, leaving the dirtied reader on Mr Hersee's desk, she kissed Makis on the forehead and went out of the room, leaving headteacher and pupil standing there not looking at one another.

‘Erm… You'd better get to your class, Magritis,' the man said. ‘And I think we'll say nothing about the damaged book.' And between finger and thumb he dropped it into the waste basket.

Makis went out, his head in a daze. But one thing was clear – his mother was over her aftershock!

No more was said about it at home. That night Makis's bed was dry with fresh sheets, and the
Robin Hood
book was on the table – for going through again when they both felt ready. Makis wondered if this was something they might have to read over and over, because getting the next books home would be harder now that his secret teaching was known.

But whenever he wasn't busy doing something, the image that kept coming into Makis's head was of Denny Clarke – who was starting to look less like a fish and more like a bull. Mr Hersee had based his Tuesday morning assembly on Makis's Saturday – The Misunderstood Boy, and How First Appearances Can Bear False Witness. This meant that the finger of judgement was now pointed at Dennis Clarke, who had no excuse for letting down the school.

Even worse, Clarke was still left out of playground football, while Makis had been let back in.

‘Coward Greek! Smarmy little beggar – getting yer mum up the school. Wait till I punch your ‘ead off!'

‘I fight,' Makis told him. ‘Sunday.'

‘Oh, Sunday! Goin' to church first to book your grave?'

‘Sunday,' Makis repeated. ‘Prince's Field. Eleven.'

‘Yeah – an' you won' see twelve!'

All of which stayed in Makis's head – ringing like an ominous bell.

He could forget it for a bit when he was with Mr Laliotis – who was critical of his playing, but kind. Every evening now – except when Mr Laliotis was performing with a BBC orchestra – Makis spent an hour with him working on ‘To Taste the Assos Honey'. The musician was professional and courteous, not at all the spiteful figure of Makis's nightmare; and they brought their duet to such a standard that they heard, ‘Well done! Well done!' coming from Mrs Laliotis in the kitchen. Makis began to look forward to the coming Saturday.