Chloe Rayban - Footprints in the Sand

He was already unlocking a door with a big metal key. The floor was plain concrete. It didn’t have a carpet or lino. All there was by the way of furniture were two narrow beds, a three-legged table on the point of collapse and a fly paper hanging from the bare lightbulb. It even had dead flies on it – that was so gross.

‘We can’t stay here,’ I whispered to Mum.

She frowned at me. ‘We can’t keep searching all night. It’ll be dark soon,’ she hissed back.

‘You no like?’ asked the taverna owner, looking sulky.

‘How much is the room?’ asked Mum.

He came out with a figure that was way below anything we’d seen that day. I could see Mum working out the sum in her head and for once – would you believe it? – she must’ve actually come up with the right answer. She raised an eyebrow at me.

‘No, it’s fine, we’ll take it,’ she said.

I shot her another furious glare.

The taverna owner walked out with a satisfied look on his face, leaving us alone together.

‘I can’t believe you said that.’

‘Oh honestly Lucy, what do you want to stay in? One of those ghastly air-conditioned tower blocks full of people on package tours?’

‘Well maybe I would. At least we’d get MTV – this place hasn’t even got a room phone.’

‘Dear, dear, how on earth are we going to order room service?’ said Mum breezily, plonking her suitcase down on a bed.

I sat down on the other bed. It was hard as a board.

‘Come on Lucy, don’t look like that. It’s incredible value. It’ll look lovely with the sun on it in the morning – you’ll see.’

‘Huh!’

‘Well, I’m going to pay the taxi driver and order us some nice cold drinks. We can have them on the terrace and watch the last of the sunset.’

Big deal! I thought as Mum went off with a determined look and her purse in her hand.

The taverna owner served the drinks. He seemed to do everything around the place – show the rooms, check the passports. He even swabbed down the table, brushing the crumbs right into my lap.

When we’d finished our drinks. Mum asked him about dinner.

‘No eat here tonight. No food. Restaurant down in the village.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the cliff-side.

We were both dead tired after the journey. We’d been up at five that morning in order to catch the plane. Mum took one glance at the unlit and perilous-looking steps that led down to the harbour below and said:

‘We don’t want much. Just an omelette will do.’

So he served us reluctantly. We sat at a table with a greasy oilcloth on it. The oilcloth was grudgingly covered by a paper tablecloth which was held in place by a long stretch of what looked like knicker elastic. He wasn’t up to much as a waiter – he just slammed the plates down on the table and refused to cook me chips although they were on offer, chalked up on the board which served as a menu. I wondered if he was always in such a bad mood.

When we’d finished our meal I was still hungry.

‘Ask him if he’s got a yogurt or something,’ suggested Mum.

So I went to the kitchen to ask. When he opened the fridge, I saw it was jam-packed. He had plenty of food. He just couldn’t be bothered to cook it. That’s when Mum called him ‘the Old Rogue’. And the name kind of stuck.

There wasn’t a lot to choose from by way of entertainment after dinner. Not even enough light to read by. We had the choice of either sitting and looking at the view on the left of the terrace or the view on the right. Both were equally dark. So we went to bed. Outside, I could hear the thumps and clatter of the tables being cleared. And then the lights went out on the terrace and silence descended on the place – total silence. God this place was bo-ring!

Was it an earthquake? Was it a landslide? God knows what it was! The shock had woken me and I was sitting bolt upright.

‘What on earth was that?’

Mum was awake and dressed, perched on the bed opposite looking equally stunned.

‘No idea.’

The last of the landslide was followed by a deep, guttural chug-chug-chug which echoed through the room. Mum went out to investigate.

A minute or so later she returned. ‘It’s OK. It’s only a dredger.’

‘A what?’

They must be doing some work on the harbour. Making it deeper or something. It’s a rusty old thing – amazing they’ve kept it going.’

‘Sounds healthy enough to me. How long d’you think it’ll keep that racket up?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you get up? It’s a lovely morning.’

‘In a minute.’

I turned over and tried to get back to sleep on the rock-hard mattress. My pillow felt as if it was made of concrete. My right ear was flattened and sore. I doubted whether it would ever regain its normal shape.

I was just dropping off when it happened again. Another deafening landslip of gravel cancelled out any further attempt at sleep, so I climbed out of bed and stomped over to the bathroom. You could hardly call it a bathroom, it was about the size of an airplane lavatory. I paused in the doorway… Hang on. Where was the shower?

‘Mu-um?’

‘What?’ She was rubbing sunscreen into her legs.

‘I thought the Old Rogue said we had a shower.’

‘We have. The tap’s under the towel thingy.’

I went back into the bathroom. On closer inspection, I discovered that the ‘shower’ was just a rusty sort of sprinkler sticking out of the ceiling. When I turned the tap on, water gushed out all over the loo, all over the basin and then drained away through an evil-looking hole in the floor. And what’s more – the water was stone cold.

‘Yuuukkk!’ I said as I climbed out of the icy flood and found a dry bit of floor to towel myself down on. ‘That was just about the most gruesome experience I’ve had in my entire life.’

‘You’ll soon get used to it,’ said Mum. ‘You find showers like that all over the islands. Labour-saving – it washes down the bathroom too.’

‘I think it’s disgusting.’

‘Oh Lucy, don’t be such a killjoy. It’s lovely outside. He’s laid breakfast on the terrace. What do you want? Tea or coffee?’

‘Tea, I suppose. And orange juice.’ I’d had a Greek coffee at the airport. The cup was half-full of muddy-tasting dregs.

‘See you out there, then.’

When I emerged into the sunlight, Mum was already seated at a table in the shade making the best of the ‘breakfast’. We each had a plate with couple of slices of dry white bread, a sliver of margarine and some red jam. When Mum asked for orange juice, we were each presented with a Fanta.

‘Well I suppose we can’t expect much at the price we’re paying,’ said Mum when the Old Rogue was out of earshot.

‘Now you can see why we’re the only ones staying here,’ I remarked grimly.

Anyway, after the guy had made it clear that breakfast was over by swabbing down the table all around us, we decided to spend the morning exploring. Armed with swimming things and suntan lotion, a book for Mum and my Walkman, we set off in search of a decent beach.

The nearest beach was in the long bay lying to the right of the headland. But the sand was an unwelcoming black colour and you could see by looking down from the terrace that there was a wide band of weed along the shore which you’d have to swim through to get to open water.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ I said to Mum.

‘But it’s nice and close.’

‘Nice! Imagine what could be lurking in that weed. Crabs or jellyfish or sea urchins. ’

At the mention of sea urchins, Mum agreed. I’d trodden on one once and had all these little prickles stuck in my foot which had to be taken out one by one with Mum’s tweezers. It was agony.