a cigarette in one hand. He looks different in the clear light. Quite tall and portly, his head shining bald. Dressed in a tatty white polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms. Mid-forties, perhaps more. He throws me a salute.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi.’
‘You feeling any better?’
I try to smile. ‘A little.’
He wiggles the cigarette at me. ‘You want one of these bad boys?’
I shake my head, then pause, wondering if an automatic urge will take over. It doesn’t. I’m not a smoker, then.
‘Thanks for the offer.’
‘You’re welcome.’
A moment passes. ‘You’re not writing?’ I ask.
He takes a long drag before answering. ‘Today’s the day I usually head over to Chania for supplies. I might go take a look at the beaches on the west side, see if our boat turns up.’
‘I’m sorry about your boat,’ I say. ‘If it turns out I’m rich, I’ll buy a replacement.’
George offers a laugh. ‘Hardly your fault. Pretty sure the insurance will cover it.’
This brings a great deal of relief. Maybe I misread his mood before – I felt he was irritated with me, that he blamed me for their boat sinking. He seems less brooding in this light, less intimidating and not as tall. I’m about to ask about getting to Crete, when he says:
‘I contacted Nikodemos half an hour ago.’
‘Nikodemos – the man who owns the island?’
He nods. ‘Well, I spoke to his wife. She says he’s out of town for the next couple of days but she’ll get him to come out here and pick you up on Monday evening.’
I give a gasp. ‘Thank you so much. That’s fantastic news.’
George grins. ‘And he’s bringing food. You ever tried mizithropita?’
I shake my head, only half hearing what he’s saying, but he persists.
‘Gorgeous. Ah! No food like Greek food, I’m telling you. It’s why all the Greeks live so long. I’ve put in a special request for him to bring squid, too. Sounds disgusting, doesn’t it? Squid. Not something I’ve ever tried in England, but here, you don’t want to miss it.’
He’s still talking but I’m thinking about this man, Nikodemos, trying to figure out if his name sounds familiar or not. I decide that it doesn’t, and so I wonder if he will help me contact the embassy and explain to them what happened. From there we can work out how I ended up here, and more importantly how to get back to whoever may be going crazy looking for me.
‘You’re sure you want to leave this place?’ George asks. I notice he’s standing closer, studying my body language. The wind carries a sharp smell of his body odour. I turn my head but he doesn’t notice, pointing at the hills ahead. ‘Paradise, here.’
The island is more of a wilderness than a paradise.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know, a bit shabby,’ he says, as though reading my mind. ‘Well, there are some interesting ruins around. Trust me, you’ve hit the jackpot, coming here.’
‘Have I?’
‘Mmmm. Archaeological treasure trove, this place. Real mythology to it.’
I give him a look that says I have no idea what this means, and he grins, pleased that he gets to fill me in.
‘You see that?’ He leans towards me and points at a cave in the distance. ‘Apparently, that there’s the actual cave that King Minos used to send boys and girls into as food for the Minotaur. Thousands of years old, that is.’
I glance at him. ‘Minotaur?’
‘Ah, forgotten your Greek myths, too, then?’ He chuckles. ‘They say King Minos had a son who was half-human, half-bull. Instead of killing him, he built a network of caves, a labyrinth, and put the kid at the end of it to make sure he never got out. Then Theseus, the hero, said he’d go in with a ball of wool to help him retrace his steps. And he found the Minotaur.’
It crosses my mind that he’s telling me this to unnerve me, and if I’m honest it does. Perhaps I sense that this place has been abandoned for a reason.
‘They found some helmets not so long ago, couple of swords, I think,’ George says when I don’t react to his myth. ‘Bigwigs from the museums came over, took the lot.’
He’s still trying to convince me not to leave. I say, ‘Thank you, and it’s tempting, but no. There must be people who are going frantic without me.’
He sniffs, glances down, like a rejected schoolboy. ‘Well then, you’ve got a little while to enjoy this place. Six miles square. That’s how big the island is. Or small, depending how you look at it. The dock’s about a fifty-minute walk in that direction, by the old hotel.’
A small flicker of hope stirs in me. ‘Hotel?’
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ he says. ‘Went bust a while back, so it’s nothing but a shell. Investors stripped it bare. The recession hit this place very hard. There are derelict apartment buildings to the east side, too. Money ran out. Builders packed up and left before they got finished. Now the carcasses are just sitting there, empty. Shame.’ He nods ahead in the distance. ‘Some interesting things to see round here, though. Loads of interesting flora and fauna, if you’re into that sort of thing. Sariah can tell you all about the plants and flowers. Animals, too. All sorts here. You got your geckos, your tortoises, rabbits, hedgehogs, snakes …’
I shudder. ‘Snakes?’
‘Not fond of snakes?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Pretty harmless round here. It’s the spiders you want to watch out for. Oh, and wild goats. I reckon they keep to the hills over there to the right, near the hotel. Wicked things, they are. Kri-kri goats. More ibex than goat. Big looping horns.’ He makes the shape of the horns with his hands, swooping from the base of his skull to his chest. ‘According to folklore, they’re the offspring of the Minotaur.’
‘I’ll take that with a pinch of salt.’
He winks. ‘Stay well clear if you see them.’
I squint into the distance at the hills veiled with blue mist. ‘I will.’
‘Hey, guys.’
I turn to my left and see Joe coming down the steps from the kitchen door, a laptop under his arm. He is tall, thin as a string, and walks with a loping gait.
‘You off to find a writing spot?’ George asks him. Then, to me: ‘Joe doesn’t like writing in the same place every day. Weirdo.’
Joe stops next to us and looks out. ‘Think I’ll try one of the beaches.’
I
