Good Greek Girls Don't (15 page)

‘What is wrong, Despina?'

Even while she is engrossed in rolling out pastry, she doesn't miss a trick. Shouldn't she be slowing down a bit at her age?

‘Nothing, Yiayia.' I can't explain this to her. How do I explain this morning without letting on about last night? I'm not ashamed of what happened with Chris. It was the right choice for me, but pre-marital sex is not something that exists in my grandmother's reality. We are totally different generations.

‘I'm just tired.'

‘You no good liar, Despina
mou
. Something wrong.

You no tell me? Maybe I help?'

In an ideal world she would be able to clear the haze that exists in my head. In an ideal world, I wouldn't be having this confusion.

‘Is Christo make you upset?' Funny how when things go wrong in my life, people just assume that a guy is the cause. I must admit though, they're usually right.

‘He hasn't made me upset, Yiayia. I think he has just, you know, confused me.' That's putting it mildly.

‘Why,
agapi mou
?' My grandmother has stopped her cooking and is giving me her full attention.

‘Yiayia, how do you know when it's for real?' God, I hope she knows what I am talking about because I really don't know if I can say the words.

‘How you know when your heart truly love?' She gets it. Ever since I was a little girl, my grandmother just got me. She just understood me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was named after her. I don't know, but all I know is that she gets me, even when I don't get me.

‘Yeah. How do you know it's not just your mind playing tricks on you?'

‘Despina
mou
, you just know. You know when you look at him, when he hug you, when you no see him for awhile. Your heart do a little flip flop when you think of him.'

A little flip flop? My whole body feels like it's somersaulting down a steep hill.

‘But how do you know it's the real deal and that no one is going to come and yank it out from under you? How did you know Pappou was the one for you?'

What a stupid question. My grandparents probably got set up as an arranged marriage and never met until they got to the church.

‘Your Pappou was very special. When I was fifteen years old, my father say I have to marry when I turn sixteen. He find a man in the village who nearly thirty years old, but he have olives and oranges and he have money. I no like him. I cry. I argue with my father, but my father say no, he is good man and he look after a wife.'

This does not sound like my grandparents. This sounds like a horror story.

‘My father say he come to the house to meet me and see what he say about us marrying. I cry all day and all night. I think if I make myself look ugly he no want to marry me.'

I can't imagine my grandmother ever looking ugly, intentionally or not. It's just not in her genetic make up.

‘Then one day he come. But he no come alone. He come with his young brother who just come back from Athens and is ready to start working with family. His brother only few years older than me and when they come, he see me cry. He tell me he would cry too if he had to marry his brother. Then I laugh for the first time in long time. Your Pappou always make me laugh, from very first time I meet him. He say I too beautiful for his brother. He say I too young for his brother and he talk to him and tell him to marry another girl from our village.'

Now that sounds like my grandfather. He could sell sex to the Pope. He had the gift of the gab but it was something more. I used to love listening to his stories of days gone by – he could be describing a war-torn village but surround it in magic and wonder.

‘And you know, his brother marry another girl from the village who was twenty-two and afraid no one would want to marry her because she too old.'

This still does not explain how my grandmother knew that it was for real.

‘After that day, I know your Pappou is the one for me. I know because something in my heart opens. Something new, something I never know before. From then, when I go to the lake to wash the clothes and get water, your Pappou is there. One day he make me drop all the clothes in the lake and he swim to get them. He very silly man sometimes. But he say the truth and then he go to my father and ask that we marry. We have many problems. The war, we lose everything, lose many people we love and grow up with. The war come, your Pappou go to fight and I pregnant and alone. But I always know that the boy who make me laugh when I want to drown in the river is for me, and for him I fight. For him I come to Australia when I am old woman because he no want to be far away from the children, I want my children close too. For him I learn to like soccer because he love it and I think is boring. For me he learn to be quiet when I read my books because all the time I love the books and the reading. For me he learn to help roll the wool when I knit. He never have to say anything because I know.'

I can just imagine my grandmother, sitting by a riverbank in the village trying to wash the clothes up against a rock and my grandfather would probably be swinging from a tree to try and get her attention. Maybe love is doing the sort of things you never imagined doing, all for the person you love. Maybe love is just knowing when to stop questioning.

‘Despina, I just know. And you know too.'

‘You miss him, don't you Yiayia?' I never really thought about that until now. She must miss him like there is no tomorrow. To love so deeply and passionately and to wake up one morning with it just gone, is so unfair.

‘I miss him, darling. I become a wife when I am sixteen a mother when I am eighteen. I know how to be wife; I know how to be mother. I know how to make family happy even when there is no money and little food. I know how to wake up every morning to make Pappou's café and I know how he like to have a little ouzo before he go to bed. But I not know how to be widow. No like it.'

Who would like it?

‘But I know when I see him again, he be that boy who make me laugh and I be the girl by the lake trying to do laundry.'

‘Yiayia. You're not going anywhere for a long time.' I hope she's not just sitting around waiting to die, because I am not going to let that happen. She's too young, too full of vitality. And call me selfish, but I need her. I can't do this whole ‘life' thing without my Yiayia.

‘No worry, baby. I have my children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. I want to see your children too. When God say is time, is time. Only then.'

Well, I'm just going to have to do some bartering with God.

‘So you just knew? You didn't have any questions? You weren't scared?'

‘I sometimes scared, but I trust my heart. You need to trust your heart, Despina
mou
. You trust your heart and you no go wrong. You trust what Christo say to you.'

‘He says he's falling in love with me, Yiayia.'

‘You too.' She's not asking me. ‘If you no love, then you no keep that purple rose and put in glass to keep forever.' How did she know about that?

‘I'm scared that I'm going to do something stupid and lose him, Yiayia. I'm scared I'm going to screw this up.' Why should this be any different from everything else in my life?

‘You only lose him if you no trust your heart. No ask heart questions. No ask heart to think.'

God I wish my grandmother could teach me how to do that. When I was young, she could answer all my questions, solve all my dilemmas, and make all my problems go away. I want what she and my grandfather had (minus the war-torn village of course) but I just don't know if I can let go like she is telling me to.

‘Now, you toast more sesame seeds. We have cake to make.' Cakes can make everything seem better, if only for a little while.

‘Come off it, it hasn't been that long.' What the hell is Voula talking about? It hasn't been that long since I've been out with them. Chris and I met Voula and the gang at a bar last week. We stayed, had a few drinks and then headed back to Chris's place. Oh, shit, I get it now. 
We
had a few drinks, and then
we
took off – the whole concept of it was ‘we', or ‘us', not just ‘me'.

Voula has turned up at my house today, unannounced and hungover. Yiayia answered the door and let her in, and I saw the look on her face as Voula flounced up the stairs towards my bedroom. Yiayia doesn't like her … and I'm now starting to understand why.

The thing is, I was bound to become a ‘we' again one day. Voula never had any issue with me being part of a couple when I was with Denny. In fact, she was the one who encouraged me to go out with Denny in the first place. And she was the only one who gave me a hard time when we broke up, telling me that I shouldn't abandon him like his ex-wife did, telling me that I owed it to him to keep working at our relationship.

‘Oh, sure, you showed up with your darling, sipped one drink for an hour then took off again.'

‘Well, I was driving.' What did she expect me to do, get hammered then jump in my car and take off?

‘You've changed, Desi. You used to be out there. You used to party with us all night. You never bailed on us when you were with Denny.'

I was never happy when I was with Denny. That makes all the difference. I needed to be drunk when I was with Denny. It was the only way to forget and not let anyone know what was going on.

‘I haven't bailed on you, Voula. I'm still the same person. You bailed on me when I met Chris.'

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'

‘How many times have I called you to get together?

How many times have I left a message and you've never returned my call? And when I do get you on the phone you can't hang up fast enough.' I'm starting to get fired up now. ‘You're the one that's changed cause you can't stand seeing me happy. You'd rather I was miserable just like I was with Denny because then you don't have to focus on how miserable your life is.' Wow, where did that come from?

‘Bullshit, Des. The only thing that's changed is you.'

What the hell is going on here? Just because I'm not drunk for ninety-five percent of my life, does that make me a bad friend? Does hanging around at the bars all night make me a good friend? Is that all that I am worth to Voula and the rest of the gang?

‘You think that you're better than the rest of us, now that you have your yuppie Port Melbourne on the fucking beach boyfriend.'

I do not think that I am better, at this moment in time, I damn well know it.

‘Denny was much better for you than this presump-tuous prick. At least Denny knew how to keep you in line.'

Oh, God, I hope she doesn't mean what I think she means.

‘What the hell are you talking about, Voula?' Why is she laughing at me? Jesus, she's stoned off her head. Just what I need. ‘You knew?' How could she know Denny used me as personal punching bag? I thought I'd hidden it so well. How could she know and not want to help? ‘You knew and you did nothing?' How many times have I held her hair while she threw up, coming down from her latest high? How many times have I literally picked her up from the gutter when she couldn't stand? Gotten her straight before she got home? I've held her hand through two abortions and a stomach pumping and this is the thanks I get. Nice to know I actually meant something to her.

‘Oh, please, Des, don't start that whole battered woman bullshit. You deserve a good slapping every now and then. Keeps you real. And if you were still with Denny instead of yuppie boy, you'd still be one of us. When was the last time Connie or Tom, or even Johnny, wanted to hang with you? Not since you sold out?'

Did they all know? Did they all just want me around drunk as a skunk because they knew Desi was good for a few extra rounds when everyone else had run out of money after scoring their hit for the night? Or did they think if we kept at it long enough I would just change my mind and say yes to whatever the hell they were using on any given night? God, I wish someone would stop my room from spinning. I think I'm about to hurl.

‘Get out, Voula.' It's not the room spinning that is making me want to throw up, it's the sight of Voula standing there, laughing, believing that I deserved what happened, believing that it made me a better person.

‘What?'

Why the hell is she surprised? Did she think I would thank her for this treatment? Did she think I would see the error of my ways and ask her to welcome me back into the fold?

‘I don't care anymore, Voula. Find someone else to hold your hand when you overdose, to go to the abortion clinics with you. Find someone else who will call your parents at five in the morning because you're busy having your stomach pumped. Find someone else who will convince them that their angel daughter had her drink spiked and would never do drugs cause she's a good girl.'

‘You can't bail on me, Des.' Is that desperation in her voice?

‘According to you I already have, so what do you care?' She's got to be on something pretty strong for her emotions to swing from one extreme to the next like this.

I think she's had a lot more than her daily start up joint.

‘You need us, Des.'

‘No – I don't. I don't need you when you're like this, Voula. You need to clean up your act. Then maybe one day when you're clean you can look me up again.'

‘Jesus, Des, look in the mirror. You've become everything we hated. You've become everything our mothers want us to be. You've become a good little Greek girl!'

I can't believe how angry she is at me. I mean, she's the one telling me quite clearly that she doesn't want to have anything to do with me unless I'm drunk and single.

She keeps going, on a complete tirade now: ‘We didn't give in to what everyone else wanted for us, what everyone else thought was right for us – the whole bullshit concept of marriage and kids and the domestic scene. You didn't want to have a bar of the wog scene, and now you've bought it hook, line and sinker and sold out on us. You fucking sold out.'