The Gypsy's Dream (20 page)

After momen
ts that stretch into hours and back into moments again, Stella gently releases Abby.

She looks behind her and outside.

‘He may come back. It is best if you don’t see him again.’

Abby sniffs and wipes her nose, running her hand up it from fingertips to pa
lm. Stella, without thought, pulls some kitchen roll from under the counter and tears off a strip and hands it to her.

‘
Come on, get your things.’ With nimble fingers Stella turns off the chip fryer and moves all the food from the top of the grill into a dish. Abby has her bag and stands waiting.

‘
What are you doing?’ Her gaze follows Stella’s rapid movements.

‘
Making sure it’s safe to leave.’ Stella checks out of the window before she opens the till and takes what money is there.

‘
You are leaving too?’ Abby asks. ‘But this is your shop.’

‘
Your safety, my safety, he has done this twice now, there is nothing to stop him …’ She doesn’t bother to finish her sentence as she hurries her habitual closing-up jobs.

The street glare is blinding. The sun bounces off e
verything white. Stella closes the double doors to the takeaway, locks them and pockets the key. The two of them march through the square and turn as if to go home.

‘
Is your home a good idea?’ Abby asks as she looks behind them, trotting to keep up with Stella’s pace.

‘
We are not going home.’ Stella’s direction turns towards the church, but on seeing the doors closed she changes direction again and heads out of the village.

‘
Where are we going?’ Abby is panting, her thin muslin trousers sticking to her with the sweat the brisk pace is producing.

‘
This morning someone reminded me of a place I thought was a dream.’ She turns up the track. ‘We will be safe there while I think and figure out what we must do.’

‘
Could we go to the police?’ Abby’s eyes are wide, her breath is fast.

‘
Stavros’ best friend is a policeman.’ Stella hesitates before her next sentence, which comes out more quietly. ‘They would not believe what a gypsy says over what he says.’

‘
What about my word?’ Abby stops walking.

Stella stops too and t
urns to her.

‘
I am afraid with those short white shorts you had on they would say you had encouraged him.’

‘
But they are designer, everyone is wearing them.’

‘
But not in the village, and not when they are trying to convince the police that someone else has done wrong.’ Stella begins to walk again, but not as fast. ‘I met a girl some years ago in town. She was just sitting having a coffee. She looked sad so I was nice to her. She was half Greek, half English. I did not speak English then.’ Stella lets out a brief laugh but there is little joy in it. ‘She said she was chased by a man who tried to grab at her, on a beach that was far away from people. When she went to the police they asked her if she had been sunbathing without a top on. She said no but she had been under the water without a top, which was why she had gone to a beach so far away. “Ah,” said the policeman. “So you lead him on, what do you expect?” and that was that.’

Abby gasps.
‘That is so sexist!’

‘
But this is Greece.’

The track steepens and
Stella puffs as she tries to maintain her pace. As always, the exertion gives her the illusion of power. She stops to let Abby catch up.

‘
Do you not do any sport at school?’ Stella notices her labouring. Abby smiles and pushes on her knees as she climbs. Her breathing eases as the way levels slightly. The two of them turn with the path, from the gully, up the spine of the hill, onwards until they are at the top.

The panorama lifts Stella
’s spirits.

‘
Wow. Awesome. Wouldn’t you love to live up here?’ Abby rubs one of the bruises on her arm.

The whole of the plain is laid out in one big expanse. The village is a small cluster of red and burnt-umber roofs at their feet, the orange trees neatly lined up in field enclosures. Field, after field, after field, to the
towns dotted around the coast, to the blue mountains, the fruit dominates.

Abby brushes off an upturned wooden crate by the track
’s edge.

‘
Handy,’ she remarks, and sits on it.

‘
The goat herders have brought it up for exactly that purpose,’ Stella replies. She is no longer looking at the view. She has found a stick and is beating at some bushes.

‘
What are you doing?’ Abby stands.

‘
Looking for a track to take us to those bushes over there behind that rocky bit.’ She points to a small summit further on.

‘
Well, there’s one there that leads down.’ Abby stands to investigate. ‘Look, it goes back up further on, behind those bushes, but then it disappears.’

In Stella
’s mind the forgotten pictures are like yesterday, her legs moving fast down the hill, running with excitement, ahead of her father; her shoelace undone, her father calling to her, him bending down and, with the greatest of care, tying up her laces, slowly, so she can watch and learn, until one day she does it by herself without being shown. Her mother had thought it was a miracle.

‘
I remember! I have always looked to go straight across to the rocks from here, but now I remember.’

Abby is transfixed looking at Stella: her eyes are shining, her tense facial muscles relaxing, her brow lifting. She looks li
ke a different person. Like herself but ten years younger.

‘
Where are we going?’ Abby asks as Stella follows the track.

‘
My Baba would bring me up here.’ Her tone hardens just a little, but she continues. ‘I was reminded of it this morning. It is an old goat shed, but my Baba had no goats. He would come up here and make candles and soap.’ Stella is ahead of Abby and stops while she catches up. ‘The candles were just for use in the home. He had a metal table with holes in so he could make a few at a time. The soap smelt so lovely, lemon mostly.’

‘
Why up here?’

‘
I don’t know. Most men go to the kafenio, but he used to come here. Not often, once, twice a year, for a few days in a row, and he come home smelling of wax, honey and lemons.’

The track peters out. T
hey have reached the rocky outcrop and there is nothing but bushes. The track has released old memories in Stella.

‘
We go around the back,’ she says.

Abby takes the lead and circumnavigates the bushes that grow up against the rocks.

‘Oh, look here.’ Abby ducks into an opening just the height of a goat. Stella remembers the entrance being higher, an arch of green, her Baba had not crouched. But that had been years ago, there are many more bushes grown since then.

She hears
a squeal and pushes through the last bit of growth to where Abby stands upright in front of a lean-to shed. Stella remembers the slope of the roof, hanging onto the rocks at its top, pushing back the bushes near the ground.

The door has a rock in front of it to secure it.

Stella pushes it away with her foot and enters her dream. It smells of goats.

Abby waits at the door until the goat smell is not so strong to her. Stella moves, but slowly, memories giving everything significance and importance.

The sloping window in the roof creates a lozenge of light on the floor. Goat droppings form a carpet. They hadn’t been there back then. The candle table has been moved, but it is still there, up against the opposite wall now, the soap frames still hanging from the beams above.

‘
It is all more, how you say in English, not made by factory …’ She looks to Abby.

‘
Hand-made? Rustic?’ Abby is looking at the candle-making table.

‘
”Hand-made” I think sounds right, this “rustic” I do not know.’ Stella picks up the melting pot. She remembers it being much bigger. ‘More “hand-made” than I remembered.’ She outlines with her finger a patch that is welded to the base of the pot.

‘
It’s like walking back in time.’ Abby examines everything in the room. There is a second table, a fireplace in the back wall. She looks up the chimney and sees the blue sky. There are heavy iron cauldrons stacked in a corner. ‘This would be trashed in England,’ she states.

‘
What is this “trashed”?’ Stella has found a stool and sits leaning against the wall by the door, looking around this drab, dusty version of her dream. It does not hold the answers she thought it would. Her face muscles sag a little.

‘
You know, people would come in and break everything and spray-paint their names on the walls. There would be beer cans on the floor and it would smell of pee.’

‘
P? The letter “P”?’

‘
No, pee, piss, urine, wee.’

‘
Ah, ah, better it smells of goat,’ Stella chuckles before frowning. ‘Why would people do that, what for?’

‘
Not sure. What’s this?’ Abby holds up a heavy pair of scissors with half-moon blades. With a hand on each half she tries to open them but they are rusted closed.

‘
Oh, I remember those. My Baba would hold the candle and let me cut the candle string.’

‘
Wicks,’ Abby helps, but Stella falls silent for several moments, time playing games, lost to the present before coming to and continuing.

‘
But they weren’t for candle string, they were for cutting the candles themselves, make the bottoms flat. I didn’t have the strength for that when I was a child.’

‘
When did your dad stop coming, then?’

‘
I am not sure. I don’t really remember coming here as a teenager, only as a small child. But I did have gifts of soap still, on my name day, right until I left home, when I was twenty-two, when I married Stavros.’

Abby
’s right hand comes up to hold the bruise on her left arm. Stella moves a wooden box next to the wall, inviting her to sit.

‘
He has my passport, did you know?’ Abby studies the floor, sitting very still.

Stella shrugs.
‘Maybe it is best to tell the authorities you lost it.’

Abby begins t
o cry.

‘
Ti? Ti einai
. What, what is it, do they hurt a lot?’ Stella puts a gentle hand on her bruises.

‘
My passport, they won’t let me go home without my passport.’ Abby gives in to her tears.

‘
Explain to them,’ Stella replies, but moves her stool closer to Abby’s and puts and arm around her.

‘
Do you have a passport?’ Abby asks, looking up, surprise on her face.

‘
No. I never have a passport.’ Stella strokes Abby’s hair back to see her face.

‘
They cost a lot of money and take ages to get, and someone who has known you for seven years or something has to sign your photograph to show it is you, and I haven’t know anyone in Greece for longer than four days which means I can’t go home.’ Abby takes in a big breath, and as she exhales she cries again in earnest.

‘
Shh, my little one, shh, not to cry. We will fix this. He is not so clever. Your passport will be in the car cupboard …’

‘
Car cupboard? Oh! Glove compartment,’ Abby chuckles through her tears.

‘
Car glove cupboard, in the drawer under the sink in the kitchen or in his back pocket. He puts things nowhere else. We will get it back.’ She pauses. ‘Glove cupboard like gloves for the hands?’

‘
Yes.’ Abby’s tears are subsiding, Stella fishes a napkin from her ample pocket and hands it to her. ‘Bastard.’ Abby expletes before taking the tissue.

‘
What is this “bars-tard?”’ Stella asks as she takes from her same pocket a mini bottle of ouzo. She takes a nip before offering it to Abby, who shakes her head as she blows her nose.

‘
It means he is a twat but worse, meaner, nastier.’ Abby looks at Stella, no longer crying but her eyes liquid with tears.

‘
Ah ha,’ Stella says slowly, but she has no idea what “twat” means either, although she can guess the general idea.

‘
What are we going to do?’ Abby says, looking around.

Stel
la looks at the candle-making table. ‘My Baba brought me up here. This was his private dream. I think he liked the quiet and the steady work. But before we got here we would look at the view and he would say that I could do whatever I wanted to do.’ Stella sighs. ‘So I thought here I would find an answer. But all I find is memories. Which hurt.’ She takes another breath. ‘He was not my father.’