Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

‘You wouldn’t believe the list of things we’re to bring back,’ I tell Trudy. ‘Contraceptives for everyone, and nail varnish and Ponds Cold Cream and Paris Match . And we have to go and start up Bobby’s car, which is a bit of a nuisance. I don’t know why he doesn’t just let the battery run flat.’

I am looking forward to a night at the Lyria, however. It’s worth the extra money, Charmian said, for the big old bath down the hall on the second floor. ‘An ocean of hot water,’ she sighed, her eyes shining their greenest envy. She told me to buy the best cake of soap I could afford, to make the most of it, so that’s top of my list, and I long to find some embroideries like Marianne’s to hang around my marital bed. I take a lick of my dripping ice cream.

‘Will you go to the record store?’ Trudy says. ‘If they’ve got it will you get the Ray Charles LP and I’ll pay you back? And three tubes of Burnt Umber and two of Sienna if you’re going that way.’ She scribbles a list of an astonishing number of items and shoots off saying that the smell of the drying sponges is making her think she might well throw up.

The Nereida ’s horn is deafening. We stand on the sun deck, watching the island recede and trying to spot our house among the tiers of white cubes. The ferry dips and breasts and as we lean over the rail I have to cling on to my hat as I watch the waves dash spume against the hull.

Demetri Gassoumis is on board, his Rolleiflex slung around his neck, and New Zealand Bim has a notebook protruding from the pocket of his safari jacket. He points to Demetri’s camera. ‘We’re going in for a few days to do a magazine story about the meat market at Piraeus,’ he says, but it turns out they don’t actually have a commission. The quay is not yet out of sight; Robyn and Carolyn are still waving as they turn their attention to a pair of Dutch girls, helping to steady them as they stow their backpacks.

Downstairs Demetri buys lottery tickets for the Dutch girls as well as himself when the man comes around with his tray. The four of them settle at a bench, Bim lowering his sunglasses and leaning over his knee to narrow his focus on the prettier of the two.

I am relieved that Jimmy doesn’t want to sit with them; both Bim and Demetri have a way of looking at me as though they can see through my clothes. I am sad for Robyn and Carolyn who always seem to stay at home while their husbands carouse at the port. I wonder if it’s because Demetri is half-Greek that Carolyn is prepared to live like an island woman, but that doesn’t explain Robyn. In my secret heart I hope they are lesbians and wild about each other.

Jimmy ducks down the iron stairs and I follow him into the saloon where Jean-Claude is untying his bags.

‘Look. We’ll be able to ask him about Charmian. Find out what he knows about George’s novel,’ Jimmy says.

‘Don’t you jolly well dare!’

Jean-Claude settles himself in his seat, one leg swinging over its arm. His shirt has remained unbuttoned, his tan testifies to the months he’s spent working on it, his chest hair glints gold and curly as a poodle. He has stowed his luggage with the exception of the canvas. He pulls at its bindings. His faded jeans are so tight he must’ve put them on wet; at some point he’s burst the fly which is held together with two straining safety pins.

‘The paint is still mouillé,’ he tells us, unrolling the canvas and angling it to the porthole light. ‘ Sleeping Aphrodite .’

The paint is dauby but this sleeping goddess is unmistakably Trudy. She lies on rumpled white sheets by a window, her nipples shiny and orange as kumquats.

He smiles at it, and licks his lips as one might at a well-remembered meal. ‘ Si belle , yes? Your American friend. It is one of my best. I will be sad to sell it.’

He lays it flat on a seat and reaches around his feet for his knapsack. ‘ Vous voulez partager? ’ A bag of oranges. He takes the largest for himself, stabs a hole in the peel and releases the juice by poking his thumb around in its flesh. No doubt Jean-Claude believes he’s being sensuous as he lifts it and suckles the juice, all the time gazing up at me through his tawny lashes.

‘Stop it, Jacques!’ Squirming, I blurt out the name Charmian gave him in her book.

Jimmy almost bursts. ‘Jacques! Sleeps on a goatskin rug and lives on raw eggs.’

‘ C’est vrai . These things I do,’ Jean-Claude says, licking his fingers. ‘I eat my eggs from a cup; my goatskin is rolled up over there, if you look. And, yes, I’ave read Charmian’s book.’ He pauses to yawn and twiddle his earring. ‘I don’t know why she wants me to look ridicule but she’s free to choose what she writes about. Pooft . To be free, it is all there is.’ He scrabbles again in his bag and extracts a paperback. He doesn’t open it immediately. Instead he gazes towards the porthole and smiles to himself. ‘It’s years since I ’elp Charmian out, but I don’t forget.’

He flicks through the pages of his book for his place, and raises slow eyelids, his eyes yellow as a goat’s. He has a powerful smell, which I can’t help thinking emanates from his jeans. ‘You know I like to ’elp out where I can. You know what I’m talking about, yes?’

I gulp and nod and gesture towards his heap of luggage. ‘Is this it? Have you had enough of Hydra?’ I want confirmation that this serpent is to be gone, and especially before George’s troublesome novel arrives.

Jean-Claude nods. ‘It’s the ’usband who makes problems. Sets Police Chief Manolis on to me, report to the station for this and that. Pooft , no island is so special that it’s worth putting up with George Johnston…’ He stops for a moment to pick something from between his bright porcelain teeth.

‘Last night, he was so drunk I feared for my life. Came to read me what he’s written about me and his wife. Tant pis , except with George I can never be sure I won’t be physically attacked and that gets expensive at the dentist.’ Jean-Claude leans back, scratches lazily at his chest. ‘I tell you one thing. I won’t be ’elping ’er out again,’ he says.

‘I’ll be ’elping you out tonight at the Lyria, my girl,’ Jimmy snorts in my ear and Jean-Claude rolls his eyes and returns to his book.

Oh, the deep joy of a bath! I take Charmian’s advice and splurge on a cake of ivory soap that smells of almonds, and a new elephant’s-ear sponge that is smooth and slippery as silk when it’s wet. I’m enjoying it so much that I almost don’t want Jimmy to get in with me; at least, that’s true until he starts soaping my back.

The mirror at the basin is misted over, the hot-water tap chugs, the soap gives a creamy lather.

After our day in the city we feel grimier than at any time on the island. It really hit us when we got off the ferry: the smell of the streets, the thundering lorries. For a moment it was like arriving on an alien planet and I was quite dizzied by the fumes and the speed and the noise and the honking. So many buses, dirty yellow and dirty blue, and builders’ dust and cement mixers, and people stopping to sell you things, stalls and baskets. It was lovely to have Jimmy there, holding my elbow, guiding me through the traffic and the gritty streets. He is my gypsy-haired gentleman. He bought me a ring from a stall, just silver but with a pretty Greek key pattern. He says it’s only until he sells his book and can buy me a proper one.

I return to the island with Jimmy’s ring on my finger, yards of fine embroidered linen, some antique brass bowls, my first proper bikini, a red silk kimono that I intend to wear as a dress. Jimmy pretends to stagger under the weight of the parcels he’s saddled with. As well as his newly mended typewriter and our market finds, we have everyone’s books and records and newspapers, paints, canvases, typewriter ribbons, guitar strings, lotions, potions, johnnies, a wheel of Athens bread.