Claudia's Big Break (5 page)

Some half an hour later the bus arrived at a block of shabby public toilets in a desolate area and all remaining passengers jumped off. The bus driver turned to me, clicked his tongue and in no uncertain terms motioned for me to disembark. My asking for directions appeared to test his patience. Tired and grumpy, probably at the end of a fourteen-hour shift, he pointed past the toilet block, away from the main drag.

Once off the bus, I checked my map and instructions again. Where the hell was Marcus sending me?

It was late in the day and the further I walked, the more concerned I became. According to the map, I was heading in the right direction, but I quickly got the feeling it was a dodgy area — mostly because men and adolescent boys lurched in broken-down doorways or leered at me from mopeds. Despite the oversized map of Athens, I hoped I looked like any other local gal out for a stroll at the sleazy end of town.

‘
Sighnomi, thelis parea?
' a guy in tight black pants, unbuttoned shirt and thick gold chains around his neck, breathed in my ear.

The good news — I understood what the creep had said. The bad news, apart from saying
ochi
, I could only respond in English. ‘
Ochi
. No, I don't want any company.
Ochi, ochi!
'

I stared straight ahead, focusing on task. Because of the thick grey cloud cover, the air was hot and the breeze nonexistent. I was tired, sweating profusely and in pain, but I still managed to find speed in my step as the whistles and stares intensified.

My relief at making it to the given address quickly turned to annoyance when I found myself facing a decrepit, disused warehouse — at least, what was left of a decrepit, disused warehouse. It was little more than a shell, the remains of an ugly graffiti-covered grey building with boarded-up or smashed windows and concrete bits sticking up out of the ground at odd angles. Broken glass lay everywhere and syringes littered the ground.

Feigning confidence, I stuck my piece of paper under the nose of a middle-aged woman walking by. ‘Excuse me,' I said in Greek.

She merely shrugged, raised her hands in the air and kept walking.

My heart sank. I was in a foreign country trying to communicate with shady-looking characters in limited Greek and feeling decidedly nervy and uncomfortable. I should have tried harder to get Tara to come with me. I was in the middle of nowhere, looking for someone I didn't even have a photo of.

I hobbled to a small convenience store at the end of the street to try my luck there. Several locals — all men — sat outside on old wooden stools, drinking thick Greek coffee and playing backgammon. Without exception, all of them stopped playing and looked up at me as I opened my mouth to speak.

Yippee, the proprietor's name was Con. Unfortunately, he wasn't the Con I was looking for. His ruddy, whiskery face was friendly enough, but his dark eyes twitched when I asked about Con Kafentsis and showed him the address written on the front of the envelope I'd been hugging for what seemed like hours. He lifted his arm and pointed back up the street towards the condemned building.

As I hiked back to the crumbling ruin, I could feel the shopkeeper and his cronies staring after me. I was starting to get a little tired of this, not to mention a teeny-weeny bit furious with bloody Marcus.

Back at the address once more, I ventured around to the side pathway, carefully avoiding jagged pieces of glass and used syringes. There was another building at the back of the property. It, too, was grey and covered in graffiti but the structure appeared to be intact. I guess you could call it an office, just. But the Greek signage dangling from the wall was mostly faded and could have read
Drug deals done here
for all I knew.

I'm not generally a scaredy cat, but this was pushing it. Cutting a path through the overgrown weeds, I knocked on the front door. It swung open so I tentatively called out. ‘
Geia sas
.'

Good sense told me to drop the envelope at the door, turn around and get the hell out of there. But then again, I rarely listened to good sense.

I stuck my nose in the hallway. It was dark and smelt of rotten wood, mould and cigarettes. Stepping inside, I heard a loud thud followed by a muffled scream. At the end of the hallway, some distance from where I stood, two men, silhouetted in a distant light, appeared to be arguing with another man and one of them was holding what looked like a long piece of wood.

This wasn't good. I had to get out without being seen. Carefully, silently, I backed out of the hallway, through the open door and then ran as fast as I could towards the street. Surely no one would come after me in broad daylight? Still running, I tripped on the uneven gravel road and crashed to the ground, landing on my already grazed knee.

Bleeding profusely, my mangled knee was almost impossible to walk on. But I didn't care. I was terrified and just wanted to get the hell away from the place. The street was silent as I made my way back to the café. Again the locals stopped and looked up from their games, watching as I sat down at a table, my face as red as a beetroot, my skin clammy and hot.

Con walked over and handed me a glass of water.

‘
Efharisto
, thank you,' I said, shaking as I accepted the drink from him. Dazed and dehydrated, I downed the liquid in one go, then ordered a short black.

Moments later, he returned with coffee and two wedges of baklava glistening with honey and walnuts. ‘Eat!' he commanded, not unkindly.

By the time I'd downed the coffee and finished off the baklava, my breathing had almost returned to normal and it dawned on me that I still had Marcus's rotten envelope. So I called him.

‘Marcus, you sent me to a wasteland. Con wasn't even there,' I shouted into my mobile phone, only to realise it was after eleven o'clock at night in Brisbane and he was probably in bed.

‘Claudia, calm down. All I've asked in return for a two-week holiday is that you deliver some papers to Con and have him sign them. You'll need to go back —'

‘It was a condemned building, not an office. Men were arguing. Big, angry men. It was really dodgy. I'm not risking my life to give some random guy an envelope, even if he does make the best olive oil in Greece.'

‘Not to mention organic wine.'

‘Marcus!'

‘Risking your life? You wouldn't be exaggerating, would you?'

‘There were syringes —'

‘Okay, I'll ring him and get him to call you. We don't want you risking your life again. I'm sure he'll catch up with you before you head to Santorini.'

‘And if not?'

‘Well, I guess he'll have to find you there. Make sure you keep your mobile charged and turned on.'

After I hung up, I sat on a rickety wooden stool in the corner of the café, pretending to read a Greek
Cosmopolitan
but thinking about what had just happened. Who were the men in the building and what were they doing? My imagination started to run wild then, coming up with increasingly life-threatening scenarios involving my being killed or sold into white slavery. I started shaking.

As the shopkeeper cleared away my plate and cup, I decided to have another go. ‘Excuse me, do you know Con Kafentsis?' I asked in broken Greek.

He shrugged his shoulders and made a fifty-fifty motion with his right hand.

I was hoping for more but this Con wasn't about to shed any light on
that
Con. He did offer to call me a cab though.

In an effort to distract myself while waiting for my ride, I turned my thoughts to Marcus — how he sashayed through the office, bestowing smiles on his appreciative staff and regaling them with anecdotes he'd picked up on breakfast radio on his drive into work. I pictured his hands as they cupped his morning coffee (black, one sugar), his fingers as they hovered over the computer keyboard. I remembered the many times I'd catch his eye and then quickly look away, shy, embarrassed, and more than a little aroused. Then there were those secret times after work — no game playing, no having to be careful because someone could be watching — when it was just the two of us, alone. Alone with our private jokes and intimacies.

I should have forced myself to stop before our flirtation went too far. But I couldn't pull back, even though I knew where it was heading. Still, I tried not to think that I might have been falling in love with Marcus. We were just two work colleagues enjoying each other's company. At least that's what I foolishly told myself.

4

‘N
o wonder you thought the guys were sleazy, Claud,' Tara said, scanning the guidebook as we drank a local white wine blend and picked at feta and black olives in a traditional taverna near the hotel. ‘You were in the red-light district.'

‘That explains a lot.'

‘Didn't you read anything about the area before going?'

‘Too tired. I just wanted to get there. I was going to read on the bus but —' I shrugged. I didn't want to think about it any more. ‘And look at my bloody knee,' I said, peering down at it. ‘It's swollen.' For God's sake, this was supposed to be a holiday. Two weeks in the sun. We hadn't been in Greece a day and I was wrecked.

Severe jet lag was setting in and I was finding it increasingly difficult to think straight. I figured Sophie and Tara didn't need to know the finer details about my adventure and the dubious characters I'd seen.

‘You'll never guess what else happened,' I said, changing the subject. ‘I bumped into a guy I met at Brisbane airport.'

‘Get out,' said Sophie.

‘Unfortunately, I tripped into a sunglasses stand in the process of trying to avoid him.'

‘Why —' Sophie started.

‘I was wearing a baseball cap, my hair was flat . . . he was too good-looking —'

‘So?'

‘So . . . nothing. He helped me up. I was mortified, I thanked him and made my way to the red-light district where I hung out with prostitutes and here we are.'

I turned my attention to the scenery. Here we were, in the Plaka, gazing up at the Acropolis perched high above us on the hillside. The impressive combination of moon and artificial light really showed off the ancient architecture to its majestic best. I had dreamt of seeing the Acropolis all my life and now I was finally here. I had arrived. It was breathtaking.

All around, enthused spruikers did their best to persuade hordes of hungry tourists passing by to sit and sample traditional Greek mezedes and drink retsina. (Rather like the spruikers trawling for punters outside seedy bars in Kings Cross.)

‘Look at that,' said Tara. ‘The locals hang out on their mopeds, drinking short blacks, while tourists like us lounge in overpriced cafés and bars, guzzling beer and eating dinner at the ridiculously early evening hour of,' Tara checked her watch, ‘eight o'clock.'

I nodded, listening to the foreign voices murmuring around us. Nearby, several local lads stood beside a souvlaki stand watching
gyros
twirl on a stake.

‘There are a few locals sitting down,' I said. Close by, men clicked worry beads between nicotine-stained fingers and played backgammon.

We turned to watch as two men at a neighbouring table started shouting at each other and gesturing at their backgammon board. One of them slammed his fist on the table, sending several pieces flying. They both stood up and continued berating each other and gesticulating madly. Arms were swinging widely in all directions. Around them, other men came to join the debate. It was crazy, loud and fierce.

‘Feisty, aren't they?' observed Sophie as we sipped our wine. Even Levi, who was falling asleep in Sophie's arms, raised his head.

Moments later, the men were embracing and slapping each other on the back. They sat down, repositioned their pieces and got on with the game. It was as though the previous five minutes had never happened.

‘Passion,' remarked Tara.

‘Imagine if we screamed like that at each other?' I said. ‘We wouldn't speak again for days.'

Just then the waiter arrived with more food — garlicky yogurt dip, steaming calamari, dolmades swimming in olive oil, and freshly baked chunks of bread. Each mouthful tasted more delicious than the last.

‘I can't believe we're in Athens, staring up at the Acropolis, surrounded by these gorgeous Greek boys,' said Sophie, her eyes settling on a couple of handsome locals.

‘Absolutely,' agreed Tara, raising her glass. ‘A toast to Claudia for insisting we come along.'

‘It's Marcus you should be thanking,' I said as we clinked glasses and sipped our wine.

‘Okay, let's drink to him too,' said Sophie. ‘And to an amazing two weeks in paradise.'

Just then a photographer came by to ‘take picture of beautiful ladies'.

Twenty minutes later, after parting with thirty Euros, we each held a key ring of the four of us smiling (Levi holding a green dinosaur) with the neon-lit Acropolis in the background. Okay, so my hair was messy and Tara was pursing her lips, but really, what more could we have asked for? On our very first evening in Athens we'd scored an unforgettable keepsake of our holiday.

It felt like old times, the three of us eating, drinking and nattering about the minutiae of our lives. The team was back together again. That was the beauty of long friendships — we could pick up the pieces of a conversation thread from five, ten, fifteen years ago and know exactly what the other person was talking about. We might not always agree but we respected each other's opinions and supported one another's choices. Over the years we'd told each other many home truths, concerning dubious boyfriends and less than stellar career choices to the odd bout of halitosis — no matter how painful. Tara and Sophie could tell me things I didn't want to tell myself. They knew everything (most things) and still hung out with me anyway. I stared at my new key ring. It didn't get better than this.

5

‘I
know Marcus is funding this holiday but I would have left the envelope under the door,' Tara said briskly at breakfast the next morning. ‘Then it would be over and done with.'