strawberry fog of the sauna-like vehicle. Theodora fired off a few sentences in Greek before revving the engine and scudding out across the rutted road with the same bolt-rattling haste we arrived in.
In the rear-view mirror, the tall lonely shape of Urian shrank into the distance.
Being in Urian’s house had a profound effect on me. Up until then my crush on him had been no more than an indulgent teenage fantasy to fill the time, but after I’d entered his personal sanctum, something about the way he treasured things, valued memories and people, made me fall in love with him amongst the polished bric-a-brac and tenderly weeded herb pots.
I thought about our sterile flat back home. The plumped-cushions and tasteful uplighters. The ammonite greys and lime whites. When Andrew and I first married, I used to love colour. Orange and amber, turquoise and sage. But now my life had been bleached into neutrals. Under Andrew’s patronage I was slowly fading away. I’d always worried about how I would survive if Andrew left me, but now, for the first time, I starting worrying that maybe in order to survive, I should be leaving him.
Theodora automatically assumed my fascination with Urian’s property would amount to a sale, but on the contrary it became imperative to me that we did not buy Urian’s home. There was something magical about the place, something almost sacred, and I wasn’t going to let Andrew make us the villains who drove him out of it.
We’d barely spoken a word since that bizarre incident in the kitchen when I’d behaved like a porn-star with the rolling pin. The rest of the weekend had been an exercise in strained politeness and I may have seemed a bit over zealous in my keenness to pack his bag the following Monday for his usual weeklong commute to Brussels. I began preparing myself for a stand-off and went through endless discourses in my mind about what I would say. Fortunately I was spared when Andrew rang to say he was having some crisis in the office and couldn’t come back on the weekend. It was a relief not to have to see his smug face or listen to another sermon about the EU or the subprime crash for a whole eight days. And it would give me time to come up with a reason not to take him to Goat’s Neck. The thought of him picking his way through Urian’s stuff with cold objectivity filled me with resentment. He wouldn’t find Urian’s treasures special – just a collection of old tat. The two men were almost diametrically opposite. Andrew, prim, conventional, starchy. Urian, eccentric, original, fluid.
The following week I spent just about every free moment at Kikis in the hope of catching a glimpse of those dark eyes shrouded in shadow. I wondered if Urian suspected my transformation into a barfly was on account of my crush on him or just as a consequence of me being a budding alcoholic. Evangelos and Sofia certainly seemed pleased to have me round. Their cheerful work-worn faces would break into vast smiles whenever I arrived and they’d ply me with treats – a bowl of nuts or a freshly baked bougatsa.
I liked the table at the far end of the veranda where the dappled bougainvillea framed the little harbour below like a Sisley painting. I could sit for hours watching the busy fishing boats and ferries chugging in and out of the tiny bay at random times, their booming horns prompting a flurry of activity as scooters, cars and vans buzzed down to the quay to collect their cargoes of fruit, meat, tourists.
My favourite scene was the arrival of the water boat, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The rusty old behemoth took up the entire bay and looked comically out of place in the tiny harbour. As it turned to dock sideways, it came within inches of taking out the desalination turbine and you could hear the hysterical shouts of the port officials all the way up at Kikis as they frantically waved fishermen out of the way and tried to catch the carbuncled old ropes thrown over the side.
Iraklia’s one natural spring was not enough to sustain the whole island’s needs, which is why the water boat was so crucial. After a thirsty weekend you could almost feel the island licking its dry lips and looking out to sea. The whole operation took a couple of hours and while the water boat rehydrated the parched pipes and rose to full height above the quay, its crew would descend upon Iraklia. To be fair there were only six of them, but they were a lively bunch and you certainly knew when they were in town because laughter would rise in the taverns. The captain was married to Christos’ cousin and usually popped into Kikis for some gossip. He was a jovial Naxian who treated his ragtag crew like family members, although in truth they were probably all related anyway.
It lifted me to see them all hugging and slapping each other on the back even though it had only been two days since they last met. Lots of things lifted me on Iraklia: bread being delivered on the back of a scooter, fresh herbs soaking in buckets, stripped squid drying in the sun.
I started recognising regulars at Kikis. The little fat man who raided the kitchen twice a week was Albercio, Evangelos’ cousin, who did a bad job running the restaurant at Hotel Villa Zouganelli. Stamatis was the island’s postman, a hoary baobab of a man, with a thick stumpy torso and steel wool hair. There was a long-running private joke surrounding Stamatis - whenever he came in Evangelos would lay an empty place next to him with a bowl of olives and a glass of water in front of it. As various punters arrived they’d wander over to greet Stamatis and then respectfully doff their caps and say a few words to the empty chair which would make everyone laugh jovially, including Stamatis himself. I never quite got the gist of the joke but found myself enjoying everyone’s mirth none the less. It made me smile to see Stamatis’ stocky little shoulders bouncing up and down with laughter.
Turban Girl was a regular feature at the corner of the bar too, her jewellery kit spread out in front of her, her face screwed in concentration as she plaited her delicate strips of leather. She usually chatted to Christos as she worked.
‘Ze Germans want to come here and run your country, Christos.’
‘Germanies? Here?’
‘Zat’s true, ja! Zey want to take over. Like World War Two again.’
He’d shake his head and cackle loudly. ‘Germanies here on Iraklia?’
‘Not Iraklia. Athens’.
At that point Christos would usually tsk loudly with his tongue and disappear into the cellar still laughing.
‘You don’t believe me? Read ze papers!’ Turban Girl would shout after him.
I was envious of the imperial way she commandeered the end of the bar as if it were her own private domain. She’d skulk in at random times, set out her jewellery-making kit and work in quiet concentration for hours. If another punter was sitting on her stool she’d squash in to next to him until he finally gave way and moved somewhere else. Evangelos and Sofia didn’t seem to mind her using their restaurant as a workshop and glowering at their customers. She repaid them with jewellery and gifts for the restaurant – a dreamcatcher above the till, leather and silk bunting across the bar. If I were to engage her attention by admiring her jewellery, she’d just brush me off with monosyllabic grunts. There wasn’t much to say by way of conversation:
Pee on the beach today?
Do you use the restaurant toilets, or do you just pee in the car park?
Every so often, a battered pickup pulled up outside and the dogs would go ballistic. That signalled the arrival of Zosimo, the swarthy shepherd who delivered goat and lamb carcasses to the back door and then came round the front for a complementary raki while the dogs circled and growled.
One day I caught Zosimo and Evangelos
