Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

George is drinking brandy. He calls to one of the fishermen and raises his glass in greeting. The fisherman stands from darning his net and George offers him a drink. Panayiotis declines but shakes all the men’s hands when George introduces him. I remember that Panayiotis is the dancer. Like Nijinsky in his cups, Charmian once said. The tautness of the body beneath the shirt is at odds with his blackened teeth and the lines on his face. When he smiles the fisherman’s brown face creases into a child’s drawing of the sun. He’s talking enthusiastically in Greek and George nods to show he understands. ‘ Tha Thume , we’ll see,’ he says as Panayiotis wanders back to his nets and Charmian reaches across and covers George’s hand with her own. He looks sulky. ‘The next few nights he reckons their lamps will suck up the fish like magnets,’ he says. ‘Ah bloody hell, pass me a smoke.’

‘Time was George used to go out with the night boats,’ Charmian explains as he taps a cigarette from the packet.

‘The sea at night is very cold on the chest,’ George says, cigarette wagging. ‘Doctor Spoilsport in Athens advises against it.’

‘Do you think he’d take me? It’s kind of what I’m thinking about in my work,’ Jimmy asks, while as if to illustrate old Spoilsport’s point George succumbs to a bout of coughing.

‘You know,’ Jimmy says. ‘What lurks beneath the wine-dark sea…’

Charmian flicks him an indulgent smile. ‘I think they leave the more mythical creatures to the deep, but you’d see plenty of squid and octopus.’

George is putting away his handkerchief. He swallows his brandy with a grimace, draws again on the cigarette and growls at Jimmy.

‘There’s a good moon at the moment, if you fancy it. It might even make a man of you. Though a little squab like you might need to ready your guts for the sight of a man biting out an octopus’s eye.’

I find I can no longer chew the chunk in my mouth.

‘They all do it, you know, but give me that over the Turks who turn the poor thing inside out before bludgeoning it to death.’

Jimmy turns to me as I spit into my hand, his enthusiasm undampened. ‘You want to come fishing if they say yes?’

Charmian shakes her head. ‘Dear Erica and I will never know what it’s like beneath the moon in a little fishing boat.’ She isn’t looking her best. There are dark shadows beneath her eyes which, lacking in shine, are the dull green of bladderwrack. She lights a second cigarette from the one she’s about to stub out, takes a drag.

‘I’m afraid these Greek fishermen are far too superstitious to tolerate a woman’s participation; I think they’d rather sink their boats than allow someone aboard without the correct, um, tackle.’

Jimmy returns from the mole smiling and doing a thumbs-up. ‘If I understand the sign language, they’re planning on dynamiting the fish on Saturday night,’ he says and George scowls.

The ferry from Athens is approaching. I live in hope of a letter from my father, if simply to let me know he’s still alive. I’m not the only one with my fingers crossed under the table. Jimmy is waiting to hear if a couple of poems he’s submitted to Ambit have met with the editor’s approval. Patrick Greer expects a new rejection slip to add to his growing collection.

Göran and Leonard are both owed letters from their publishers. They try not to let the terminally unpublished Patrick overhear as they talk about how they each came to have a poetry collection in print. Leonard holds his komboloi dangling at his side. He flicks the amber beads with the dexterity of one born to it as he confesses that he started writing poetry as part of the courting process. He says he thought it was something all men did for women.

‘I must have looked extremely absurd because I wrote all my poems to ladies, thinking that was the way to approach them,’ he says. ‘Anyway, for some reason or other, I put them all together in a book and I was suddenly taken seriously as a poet, when all I was really was kind of a stud…’ Göran snorts as Leonard pauses for a beat. ‘Not a very successful one either, because successful ones don’t have to write poems to make girls like them.’

Marianne’s wooden sandals clack as she crosses the agora. She wears a pleated skirt of faded indigo cotton and a large wheel of bread protrudes from her basket. She waves at us as she enters the store.

‘Good. I guess this means Axel’s spending some time with his family,’ Charmian says. ‘Really, it’s too bloody cruel the way he carries on, especially now there’s a baby.’

Göran agrees, and departs for the post office with Patrick and George, all three convinced that standing there waiting will encourage Giorgios, the sadistic postmaster, to sort the mailbags less slowly. Charmian keeps her voice hushed though there’s little chance of Marianne overhearing what she’s saying from inside the shop.

Leonard pulls his chair closer as Charmian gossips. ‘A couple of years ago Axel came back from Norway, having been thoroughly lionised over some book or other, and he sent Marianne away from Hydra to make way for an intoxicating brunette he’d met at his publication party.

‘None of us could talk any sense into him, not even George. I tried to make him see that his star was only hanging that high because Marianne had put it there, creating a perfect universe for him to write the damn book without once having to worry about food or water or kerosene, or even carbons or typewriter ribbons. It made no difference to the crazy bastard that Marianne was distraught. He’d sent this new woman the train tickets and all he could do was count the days until her arrival.’

Charmian grins and takes another slug of beer, keeps the good bit to herself for a moment. ‘Actually, it was all rather delicious,’ she says, smiling, and it’s good to see a spark of light return to her eyes. ‘Axel’s new woman cashed in the tickets and was never heard of again. Meanwhile Marianne was getting over it all crewing for nice, handsome Sam Barclay on his pleasure yacht Stormie Seas . How could they not fall in love? Axel was stuck here convinced Sam would steal her forever. So, then it was the big gesture, down on bended knee and she, despite all wise counsel to the contrary, accepted. But all Axel cares about is Axel and, brilliant though he may be, he certainly doesn’t deserve to have that young woman tending to his every need in the way she does…’ Charmian downs the remains of her beer in one indignant gulp. Leonard swivels around to face the entrance to the grocery store as she goes on.

‘You know, she makes their little house so tremendously pretty. She finds these bits of lace and embroidery in the old market at Piraeus. There’s always dry wood neatly stacked for the fire, something yummy in the pot, ice for his drinks. And every morning, before he starts work, on his desk there’s a little sandwich and a fresh gardenia.’

Leonard scrapes back his chair and strides to the open door of the grocery. He sweeps his sixpenny cap from his head as Marianne moves into the light.

‘Would you like to join us?’ he says. ‘We’re sitting outside.’

I scribble a few words in my notebook. There’s still ink in my mother’s fountain pen. ‘I’m in such a good mood. Last night in bed Jimmy told me we should find a way to stay on Hydra forever and we talked about how our children will walk up the hill to the school by the well from a white-painted house all of our own and how Jimmy will learn to sail and have a little boat like Axel’s.’

Jimmy’s very brown and his hair has grown long and curls like a gypsy boy. I look at him and chew the pen more than I write with it. His own notebook is filling up with sea creatures; allegorical tales of love and war, he says. I can’t wait for him to read something to me. In his corner of the terrace Bobby breaks a yolk on a saucer and on a sheet of glass he arranges tiny pyramids of pigments and paints in egg tempera. Beasts with twining tentacles and slippery skin look out at the world with the sorrowful eyes of human saints.