Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

He’s at his workstation upstairs; he’s on a bit of a roll, Charmian says. She cocks her ear to the rattle and ting of his typewriter, gives a thumbs-up as I unload my basket. I’m still a bit love-struck and woozy in the afterglow of my siesta with Jimmy, my legs shaky from our exertions. I’ve left him sleeping and naked, tangled in the rags of our sheets.

Charmian takes the greasy package containing the unthinkable scrag-end of lamb she chose for me at the butcher’s, unwraps it, briskly chops it to pieces and shows me how to mince it in a machine that is bracketed to the worktop.

I turn the red wooden handle while she pours us each a glass of retsina though it isn’t much past four o’clock.

‘Oh good, I’m glad we’re alone,’ she says, propping herself at the door to the courtyard with her drink. ‘These last few nights I’ve been racked with thoughts of your lovely mum – you know when things went badly between George and me in London, Connie was always so kind… and I’ve been thinking about that friendship and her being gone and you turning up here. I mean, she wanted the world for you. There are things I should say…’ I force myself to keep turning the handle while she pauses and fiddles with her hair, twisting it and retying it with the shoelace. ‘I have to say, from what I’ve observed, that big brother of yours isn’t taking very good care of you. Do tell me not to sticky-beak, if you like…’

Come on, I think. Never mind all this, talk to me about Joel.

She shakes a cigarette from her pack, fumbles with matches. The pink worms of meat squiggle to the bowl.

She takes a deep drag and blows out the match. ‘And what about your Jimmy? Why is it always left to you to cook?’

‘Jimmy does his best work while everyone else sleeps. He’ll need more than bread and cheese—’

She interrupts me with a furious burst. ‘All I’ve seen so far is you doing all the running around while everyone else bludges,’ she says. ‘Don’t you have better things to do with your life? Look how your mother was bound and constrained. Two children, plus your dad, and that flat was more than a full-time job. And you’ve seen what it’s like for me here; I’m lucky if I make a page of my own in a week with all the things that need to be made clean before getting dirty again…’

Max the dog is on his feet, wagging his tail and scratching at the door from the street. Her tone becomes urgent.

‘Now, Erica, listen to me. What I’m trying to tell you is that if you’ve got things to do it’s better to get on with them, it’s not enough to simply enable some bloke to do his thing. Don’t let the buggers clip your wings just as you’re learning to fly.’

But now Max is leaping full pirouettes and Nancy comes charging towards us like a one-woman harvest festival, floral dress and market baskets overflowing.

Charmian grasps my arm. ‘You know, that nice young Canadian poet earlier, when he asked me if I knew of a room, a nice simple room, he said, with maybe a bed and a desk and a chair? I was jealous, so jealous that for a moment I actually hated him. Imagine what I would get done, I thought, at a table in that little white room with nothing but my typewriter for company.’

‘Imagine what you’d get done if you had a nice wife rather than that needy old bugger up there,’ says Nancy, who is wheezing and out of breath.

‘I hope you have safety pins.’ Nancy is so bursting with news her dress has come apart at the seams. ‘Oh dear Charm, I have to talk to you. I’ve just seen them ‒ Axel and that girl. Someone must write to Marianne to stop her coming back to this…’

‘Idiotic Axel.’ Charmian is pointing Nancy in the direction of the mending basket while Max rolls on his back, begging a tickle. She turns to finish making her point. ‘Erica, think. What would Connie want for you?’ She touches my cheek, makes me look at her. ‘You’re so very young to be roaming around…’

I’m overcome with that feeling again, I can smell her scent, the warmth of it, have to fight not to fall for it. I stick out my chin, point to the Rembrandt etching. ‘Is there a Joel?’

Charmian puts her palm to her forehead.

‘I’m not sure what it is you want me to say, Erica; I mean, I have no idea.’ She changes the subject. ‘Though, you know, it would be irresponsible as Connie’s friend not to talk to you about birth control.’ A burn comes to my cheeks as across the room Nancy pulls a lobster from her basket and Charmian grabs a tin bucket and runs to the well.

Nancy follows her, the lobster held before her at arm’s length, clacking like a clockwork toy.

‘Axel says the baby’s over his croup and Marianne will be here in time for her birthday. Oh, that poor lovely girl,’ Nancy is saying as they plunge the lobster into the bucket.

‘Have you been introduced to Axel Jensen yet, Erica? You know which one he is, yes? The young Norwegian writer who lives up beyond the wells?’

I shrug. ‘I know who he is.’ If Charmian and Nancy want to gossip, I might as well hurry up with the moussaka and get back to Jimmy.

‘Axel can be very charming,’ Charmian says. ‘He’s doing well…’

‘Yes, he told me his last novel is being made into a film now,’ Nancy interrupts. Charmian nods at Nancy and continues.

‘He’s dangerous with ideas, which can make him thrilling company. But any time over the years that I’ve found myself warming to him I see these little scars he has on the back of his hand and those scars tell me more about Axel than any of the fine words coming out of his mouth. He’s lucky he didn’t sever the tendons. Mucking about with a knife like that, you know at a bar, stabberscotching it between his fingers the way tough bastards do. He was drunk and raging at poor Marianne and drove the blade clean through to the table.’ Charmian plunges an imaginary knife at her own hand. ‘Appears like he went through more than once,’ she says.

Nancy looks up with a shudder from pinning her dress back together. ‘And this thing of him buying a boat as a present to himself to celebrate the birth of his son, that tells you quite a bit about him too. What a cad.’

‘Not only a boat. I hear a sports car as well. Magda’s here helping to set up the Lagoudera bar and she’s had a letter from Marianne. Apparently she’s nervous about driving all this way from Norway with such a tiny baby. I’ve no idea why Axel didn’t drive his silly car himself.’

‘Drink-driving, through the streets of Oslo on the night the child was born,’ Nancy says. ‘He’s had his licence taken away. Oh, that poor girl.’

Nancy helps herself from the retsina jug, gives Charmian a refill and settles herself more firmly in her chair. ‘I had an arrangement to meet Christos for the lobsters at the boatyard in Mandraki. I get a very good price from him. Anyway, I got there a bit early and wandered around. And there they were, the pair of them…’

‘Who?’ Charmian looks up from the cheese-grater.

‘Axel and the American girl – do pay attention, Charm. They were painting the Plimsoll line and the name of his boat in red paint. It’s called Ikarus , by the way.’

‘Predictable…’ Charmian snorts. ‘Go on.’

‘You might say I caught them red-handed. He was pressed up behind her, while she was trying to paint the lettering. I didn’t know what to do; I couldn’t just turn back because I’d arranged to meet Christos. Axel had his hands right up that girl’s shirt. He turned and nodded at me when I called, but left his hands where they were, even though the girl was clearly embarrassed and attempting to get away.’

Nancy is fanning herself with her hand. ‘I was furious. “Axel, what are you doing?” I actually shouted at him, it was quite involuntary.’