Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

Cats laze on warm rocks; the harbour is flat as a mirror. The Easter bunting has been spirited away, fishing nets are laid out for mending, donkeys carry bales of dried sponges from the factory to the dock, the butcher walks past in his bloody apron. Though it has only been a fortnight since my arrival, this girl with her basket of shiny aubergines feels like she’s part of the island’s welcoming committee as the Canadian poet disembarks.

He arrives in the port unhurried in soft soles, looking around and smiling at everything he sees like someone returning home from a long journey. He looks easy in his clothes, wears a cap and sunglasses, carries a green typewriter and a smart leather suitcase, a guitar strapped to his back. Janey and Edie skip beside him, in tight pedal pushers and striped sailor shirts, clearly ecstatic to have met such an interesting new friend on the boat back from Athens.

I narrow my eyes as they dance attendance on the approaching stranger. I’ve grown possessive of the island, as bad as the oldsters out here on the cobbles, with our judgement as bitter as Nikos Katsikas’s coffee beneath its sugar.

George is pretending to take an interest in my plans, ribbing me. ‘So, what does a little Ricky of blessed Bayswater find to write about? What’s your plot?’

‘I’m thinking of a mystery story about my mother,’ I say, making sure Charmian hears.

She flashes a distracted smile my way. ‘Sounds like a winner,’ she says.

‘I mean, did she ever drive you any place in her open-top car?’

‘Shhh,’ she says, diverting our gaze with a bossy tilt of her head.

Janey and Edie lead the newcomer to our table like sirens overjoyed by a lucky catch.

Leonard is courteous, pulls off his cap. His hair is thick and wavy, his brow dark and serious. His grin is lopsided, there’s something charming in the stoop of his shoulders, a carapace of shyness perhaps, but as he says his hellos, his voice is as deep and confident as that of a village elder. Charmian welcomes him with the full force of her smile, sends Patrick scurrying to find him a chair.

Axel Jensen is standing to leave and the dark-haired girl is folding her sketchbook. Jimmy is staring so hard at her I want to kick him.

It isn’t only the newcomer’s voice that commands attention. Dark stubble and good manners make him seem older than his twenty-five years. He lights a cigarette and hands it to Charmian as you might to a long-acquainted friend, lights another for himself. He leans back and runs his hand back and forth along his chin and jaw, says his last shave had been at his digs in Hampstead. The writers pull their chairs closer when they hear that he’s a published poet. They are devils at a feast, tightening the circle as he talks of a little room where he might finish blackening the pages of a novel. ‘The materials are very beautiful, everywhere you look. Nothing insults you,’ he’s saying as Edie and Janey snake around.

‘Well, we’re not short of young writers here. This one’s little Ricky all the way from Blighty, not long out of the pram,’ George says, taking it upon himself to do the introductions, and guffawing until, judging by the look on her face, Charmian wants to kick him just as badly as I do. Leonard holds my hand as I struggle to get my voice to behave.

Edie is twined around one of the awning poles, dramatically beautiful, her singed eyelashes hidden by Jackie Kennedy-style sunglasses she went all the way to Athens to buy. I wonder why Bobby hasn’t come down from our house to meet her from the boat. It seems he’s getting moodier by the day.

Leonard keeps hold of my hand. When I meet his gaze there’s warm humour beneath those serious brows. He tells me I look like a cool kid. Janey tugs his arm.

‘Erica’s our runaway teenager, the one I was telling you about on the boat. You know, with the mysterious bequest from her mother…’ she says and Leonard nods at me and gives my hand a squeeze before returning to Charmian.

Janey looks quickly from me to Edie and Edie nods at her in vigorous assent to a question I haven’t yet understood.

‘There’s a bed at ours if you need it,’ Janey tells him and I see the swell of his Adam’s apple as he gulps.

Charmian flies to his rescue, batting Janey away. ‘It’s like a lunatic asylum up there, all those English kids shouting and paint everywhere. No one could possibly get anything written.’ Her chair is pulled in so close to Leonard’s that they touch.

‘You’re welcome to a very comfy divan at the top of our house,’ she says. ‘It’s just up from here, beside the Church of Saint Constantinos by the town well. Everyone knows us. Just ask for Australia House and they’ll direct you, and the weather’s warm from now on so you’ll be able to write on the terrace until we find you something of your own.’

Janey looks at him through her lashes and pouts. ‘Or you could, you know, just bunk with us…’

Janey’s little mewl is lost on Leonard. Having thanked Charmian for the lifeline, he’s asking George for directions to the house of the painter Nikos Ghikas, where he has an invitation, his only one on Hydra. Patrick summons a donkey and George walks the first few paces with him along the agora on his way to the hills above Kamini. Leonard strolls beside the donkey, does a few jaunty dance steps for those of us watching him go, a man free of a heavy load.

Charmian sighs. ‘Well, lucky him if he does get Ghikas’s house, which is quite obviously his intention,’ she says. ‘Forty rooms. The most beautiful house on the island, would you agree, George?’

George has returned to the table deep into a hangnail and doesn’t respond.

‘I’ve been as far as the door.’ Jimmy is still watching the girl in the red shorts. ‘I went up there to check out where Henry Miller wrote The Colossus of Maroussi ,’ he says and I feel piqued that he’s been exploring without me.

‘Ah yes, many good writers,’ Charmian says. ‘Larry Durrell, George Seferis, Paddy Leigh Fermor, Cyril Connolly – oh, and so many painters have produced great work there too. Our good mate Sidney Nolan stayed a couple of years ago and there were many memorable gatherings. It’s a climb but so tremendously romantic.’ She gazes towards the hills. ‘The land is more fertile on that side of the island, the barley so very lovely. George and I used to go for sunset before his breathing got bad.’

Patrick pulls miserably at his beard. ‘Well, Mr Ghikas has been a little keener on aristocratic English types recently. Our Canadian friend must be well connected,’ he says.

George takes a break from gnawing at his nails. ‘We’re getting overrun with people writing bloody novels here.’

‘Yes, well, that includes us, darling.’ Charmian mimes cracking a whip at him. ‘Come on, George, back to the workstation.’

‘About the moussaka…’ I say, my hand on her arm.

‘Maybe Jimmy should learn to cook too,’ Charmian says, but Jimmy is watching something and frowning. We follow his gaze along the waterfront to the disappearing form of the girl with the red shorts as she catches up with a slow-striding Axel Jensen on the road to Mandraki.

Axel grabs the girl’s arm; she shrugs him off, turns and pushes him away. This happens again and again. By the time they round the corner he’s worn down her resistance and his hand is stuffed in the back pocket of her shorts. Charmian rolls her eyes at the others. ‘Axel’s obsessed with that girl. He’s making no secret of it.’

Nancy has her hand to her bosom. ‘Poor Marianne, I don’t know what’s going to happen when she gets back here with the baby.’

I’m sure Charmian knows I have a crush on her but she always seems pleased to see me. I make myself useful with her children, set them a good example by clearing my plate or laying the table, encourage little Booli to speak a few words of English. George is occasionally less grumpy now he’s used to my face; in fact he seems to relish a new and willing ear for his stories. I have become almost as drawn to him as I am to Charmian and find myself acting a little more sparkly around him in my desperation to make him like me. His outbursts sometimes frighten me and sometimes make me laugh.