Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

Across the agora there are drinkers outside Katsikas. Panayiotis and the rest of his crew are there and I shrink when I see Charmian at her table with George and Chuck, Gordon, Patrick and Nancy. This lot wear their winters on the island like some sort of merit badge; they have more signals and in-jokes than the Freemasons, can close in and have someone judged to be a pissant or a bludger and blackballed in the wink of an eye.

Charmian is talking, waving her arms around, and the others are laughing away at whatever their Queen is telling them. I watch her stand to leave, which seems to involve Patrick crawling at her feet and fumbling in her skirts. Before I can stop him, Jimmy is waving and she comes hopping towards us with one sandal on her foot, the other in her hand.

She might be attempting a deck in choppy water. ‘Come on, Jimmy,’ I hiss. ‘She’s drunk. Take me home.’

‘Erica, stop!’ Charmian drops the sandal, holds out her arms. ‘I’m so sorry. A nightcap? Let me explain?’

I go marketing with Charmian as though nothing has happened. It’s a fresh morning and I’m light as the skittish breeze that sets the port bunting and flags dancing. Charmian fills her basket with globe artichokes, a vegetable I’ve only ever seen in paintings, and I offer to run ahead to the butcher to secure some reasonably lean shanks of lamb for us to mince for dolmades. She promised last night to teach me how to make them. She’s designated today ‘a family day’ and she told me that I should come and join in, that of course I’m welcome any time they’re not working, though I must never again enter the room when they are. Her hat is wide-brimmed, straw, with a faded green ribbon the exact same shade as her eyes. Only the dark shadows beneath them betray something of yesterday’s binge.

‘Shane and Martin sleep the sleep of hibernating bears when they don’t have school, so it would be marvellous, if you’re sure you haven’t got something better to do with your time.’

When she smiles at me I realise I no longer notice the missing tooth.

‘I’ve completely lost track of who’s coming for dinner tonight so I’ll just have to make enough tucker for the masses,’ she says, showing me the list she’s scribbled on a cigarette carton. She pulls her shirt collar up against the sun and, though her shirt is patched and faded, her glamour persists. Even the knotty old shoelace she uses to tie back her hair seems chic.

She could use an extra pair of hands and mine are available. Jimmy has been out all night dynamiting fish with Panayiotis so I won’t be seeing much of him anyway. I take one of her baskets.

‘Jimmy says I’m a distraction so I’ve got all the time in the world.’

From beneath the brim of her hat Charmian shakes her head at me and tuts but is sidetracked by a woman who calls out to her in a surprisingly plummy British voice. ‘Crikey,’ Charmian says, pointing to her belly. ‘Again, so soon?’

Charmian’s friend Angela is a goddess of fertility with long, flowing hair and turquoise jewellery that matches her eyes. She wedges a baby with white-blond curls across her bump while a second curly-haired scamp emerges from her skirts sucking a thumb.

The house the family are in is falling down around their ears but Angela seems remarkably calm. Charmian calls out to Mikhailis, who might know of somewhere else they can stay. I leave them and head for the butcher, thinking only that it would be preferable if my babies inherited Jimmy’s strong curls and not my lanky locks. I dream on: Jimmy’s project reaching fruition, his paintings on a gallery wall, his name in the newspapers, a fabulous book. I even allow myself an impassioned dedication.

Apostolis the butcher is clearly an artist too. In his window this morning a new tableau: six tiny flayed lambs propped in a line, their limbs arranged like high-kicking dancers on a stage strewn with rosemary and hibiscus flowers. I feel a pang for Apostolis in his bloodstained apron.

‘But goodness, he’ll turn everyone vegetarian if he keeps this up,’ Charmian says, returning to my side.

I have long lost my squeamishness. We both agree that Apostolis’s artistic expression is more interesting than the harbour views and colourful little boats that have started popping up on polite easels in the streets.

This island has no use for the prissy. I’ve watched children feeding flowers to pet lambs and a few days later licking their lips and holding out their bread as fat bubbled and dripped from the paschal pet turning on the spit in the street. Twice a week we hear the slaughterhouse screams. We see blood and entrails sluicing into the sea. The mutton and goats arrive with the market boats; sometimes they break free and run among the café tables on their way through the port: ‘Oh look! This one has the eyes of Sophia Loren!’ We no longer take meat for granted.

We walk back to Charmian’s weighed down by baskets. Straight away there’s a commotion. Booli’s crying, Shane’s shrieking, clattering feet on the stairs. We struggle in with enough food and wine to feed the entire foreign colony for a week as Shane flies at us, Booli behind her screaming in Greek.

Booli grips Shane’s skirt. He stamps a foot, insists, ‘ Tha ertho kai ego, tha ertho kai ego ,’ as Shane tries to unfasten his fingers.

‘Booli wants to come and ruin my day,’ she cries, attempting to make a break for it, whipping a towel from a heap of laundry on her way. ‘Rita’s uncle from Athens is taking us all on his boat around to St Nicholas’s Bay.’

‘Is that so?’ Charmian says, grabbing her arm before she makes her getaway.

Shane glares from beneath her fringe. ‘I already told you, Mana. You never listen. I might as well talk to myself.’

‘ Mazí sas! Mazí sas! ’ Booli launches himself at his sister but she steps sideways and he crashes head-first against the well. Charmian is calm as a practised nurse. She hacks ice from the icebox and wraps it in a cloth. Booli kicks his legs at her while she holds it to his head. Shane stands over them with her hands on her hips and he looks up at her, his eyes trembling with tears until she sighs and holds out her hand and Charmian runs to find his sandals and hats for them both.

‘Well, so much for my family day,’ she says after they’ve gone. ‘Still, if it’s the Katsikas uncle I’m thinking of, they’ll be roasting a goat on the beach so they’ll get their tummies full as googs.’

She makes me promise to go to St Nicholas’s Bay as soon as anyone with a boat offers me a ride. ‘The beach is all smooth pebbles, and so marvellous for swimming,’ she says and sighs as though such things can only be memories for her now.

I follow her outside to pick vine leaves. Beyond the high courtyard walls the island bells ring: mountain bells from churches and goat bells and the jingling of passing donkeys. The light falls tender green through the leaves of vines that are already beaded by clusters of grapes. An ancient lemon tree is splinted but defiantly bountiful with both blossom and fruit. The scent of ripe plums from a pair of trees is attracting wasps. There are tiny tomatoes on straggly vines and aubergines hanging white and surprising as goose eggs, mint and basil running wild, a rosemary bush so vigorous it has split its wine-barrel container, and stone urns and blue-painted concrete which tumble with bright nasturtiums and herbs and geraniums that smell of attar of roses.

Charmian stands on an upturned bucket and motions for me to hold up my skirt to collect the plums. ‘Time to grab these before the local urchins come scrambling down the walls. We lost them all the first year we had the house. George sulked for a week,’ she says, taking a bite from one.