Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

Charmian sighs, continues. ‘Later, they’ll wash using the same water and make a wreath from the flowers which they’ll keep on the door until Midsummer’s Day. It’s one of the few remaining festivals that isn’t associated with the orthodoxy,’ she says.

‘Gosh, that’s lovely…’ I picture myself as a silent somnambulist, a flowing white gown, my arms laden with virginal blooms. ‘Maybe I should climb to the wells before dawn,’ I say, ‘I like that idea,’ and Charmian gives me a fond smile that seems to say, ‘That’s my girl,’ and George calls for more wine.

Charmian is talking about Kalymnos again, with the wistful air of one recalling another lifetime, though it’s only been five years since they were there. She speaks softly, dreamily, of villagers climbing through the mist to the peak of the island. Like silent pilgrims they ascend and with their vessels of water they wait for the sun. ‘Can you imagine, Erica? Shepherds, sponge-divers, fishermen all ranged together at the top of the mountain with their fistfuls of asphodel held aloft, all worshipping Apollo…’

The lights flicker on and off three times along the port. Fifteen minutes until the generators are cut. Women call for their children from side streets, a flurry of men trundle heaped wooden carts along the waterfront, fish-boxes are hurriedly stacked at the mole for the night boats. There’s only the faintest sliver of a moon in the west and the art students take off for the Tombazi Mansion before the island is plunged into darkness.

George gazes at her, ‘Oh darling, yes. It was lovely. If only my lungs weren’t bloody buggered I’d climb Eros with you tonight,’ and again Charmian looks like she might cry.

We move inside for the light and crowd around six tables facing the players in the back room.

Charmian is still in her dream. ‘And once Apollo has risen from the sea, it’s the silent descent and your house blessed for a year by the flowers you bring back from the mountain for a wreath… oh, how alive our ancestors were, and even the first few years here we all kept it up.’ She looks downcast once more, pulls a few strands of hair across her face. ‘We used to climb Mount Eros, a great gang of us. Now, even my children have given up joining in.’

The lamps are lit with small blue flames and one of the bouzouki players starts to strum. I grab my opportunity. ‘I’ll come with you,’ I say, though the idea of such a long climb is horrific. ‘Please say yes, I’d really love to.’

‘Goodness, Erica, what a little pagan you are,’ Charmian says.

‘What a top idea,’ says George, rubbing his hands.

‘I suppose I do have much to thank the gods for, and it’s always nice to have company…’ Charmian looks at George with laughing eyes. ‘Oh, why not?’ she says, making butterflies whirl in my stomach.

I drink more wine. The air is thick with smoke and the smell of aniseed and garlic and cooking fish. Some of us join in as village men rap their knuckles in time to the bouzoukis, the night waiter runs back and forth and Andonis is up and down the ladder refilling jugs from the barrels. Jimmy dances the tsambikas with the fishermen; at each end of the line a white handkerchief flutters. As the music grows faster he attempts to keep pace with their nimble feet and the look of concentration on his face makes me scream with laughter.

Edie and Janey haul Bobby to the floor and Charmian calls out, ‘Hey, any of you lazy toads fancy a hike up Mount Eros tonight?’

‘You’ve got to be kidding. It’s miles,’ Bobby says.

Janey pulls a face at the others. ‘I’ve got a splinter in my heel that won’t come out.’

‘Oh, that’s a pity,’ Charmian says with a sudden wicked flare. ‘Our Canadian friend will be so disappointed.’

It’s four in the morning; the night has turned moonless. We meet at the wells with our duffels and flasks. Leonard brings bread, some wine in straw caskets. There’s music from goat bells above the dark houses. Charmian has a tartan rug thrown over one shoulder. She and Leonard both wear proper walking boots.

Janey appears to have forgotten all about her splinter as she and Edie dance between the mulberry trees. They wear matching white turtlenecks with black scarves wound around faces as innocent as nuns. Jimmy sits on a low wall peeling an orange he’s taken from a tree in the square.

‘Well done, you lot. I’m glad you’ve got blankets. It can get chilly in the early hours at the summit,’ Charmian says.

Leonard pulls up the collar of his jacket and shivers. Smiling, she shows him the spare rug in her knapsack. Leonard winds the well handle and she bends to fill two battered tin canteens with water from the bucket, takes my flask and fills it too, still talking to him over her shoulder.

‘I don’t suppose your digs has much of anything. I’m sorry it’s rather more basic than Kyria Pepika led me to believe,’ she says, and when she stands I see her face tilt towards him, as it might for a kiss.

His grin strikes me as lupine. His charisma relentless. ‘You know, I find the simple life voluptuous,’ he says. ‘I like a good table and a good chair—’

‘And a good bed, obviously,’ Janey butts in.

Charmian shoots her a look and carries on. ‘I’m sure I can sort you out a few bits and pieces and you should be able to work on that little balcony when it gets really hot later on,’ she says and there’s a great collective sigh at the thought of days and months that would grow even longer and sunnier and Jimmy pops a sweet segment of orange into my mouth.

The conversation turns to work. Charmian and Leonard agree that the morning is best, though Charmian complains that George’s book remains a painful extraction at any time of day or night. ‘Really, if we didn’t need the cash, I’m not sure I’d be making him go on with it,’ she says. ‘It feels sadistic to force him to revisit the horrors of famine.’ Leonard sympathises, says he’s disappointed that George hasn’t joined us.

Charmian fiddles with the fringe of the tartan blanket. ‘That’s good of you, considering the last time you saw him we were having that awful brawl.’ She lowers her eyes and pulls the blanket in front of her mouth, speaks through it. ‘I’m afraid our marital spats have got quite out of hand. I do especially apologise for the bloody rotten things he said to you.’

Leonard chuckles, touches her hair. ‘It is bewildering to me, quite seriously, the relationship between a man and a woman. It’s such a bitch. I mean, nobody can figure it out right. We all have trouble on that one.’ He pushes the blanket aside and she smiles at him in a way that could be grateful or it could be coquettish, it’s hard to tell. The island is silent but for the braying of a distant donkey and those few goat bells; the black sky is spattered with stars.

‘This is the water we shall offer to our great god Apollo as he rises from the sea,’ Charmian says, tearing herself from his gaze and lifting her flask in veneration to the impossibly distant jagged black lines of Mount Eros. ‘And if we’re climbing all that way we must take our rites seriously,’ she adds. ‘So, try not to spill it. We don’t want the gods to think us stingy.’

Leonard stoops to fill his tin pot, stands and makes some sort of incantation – in Hebrew, I think – before inserting the cork stopper. We are solemn, Leonard a bit baggy and stooping beside Charmian who stands tall, her wide leather belt and the tartan rug giving her the air of a Scottish queen.

There’s a shout. Her face lights up. But when she turns, around the corner comes a wheezing Patrick Greer. ‘Oh, bloody hell. Dreary,’ she says, beneath her breath. ‘Last thing we need is a Greer-shaped black cloud to obscure the sun.’