Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

Charlie holds on to Francine like she might fly overboard, and despite the noisy putt-putt of the engine I catch enough of what he’s telling her to know it’s the usual routine: ‘Nearly blew my own brains out in Korea, matter of fact…’ and on through his wanderings. ‘But this island is right for me. You know, Hydra is the only place I’ve rented a house where I haven’t been given bother about my race.’ Francine shrieks as the boat hits the bow wave of the incoming ferry.

I’m thrown closer to Bobby who puts an arm out to steady me. He’s talking to Jimmy about Edie. ‘You know, I feel so much better since I worked out that I can’t keep her for myself,’ he’s saying as again the boat thumps down and we are showered with spray. ‘It’s as Dinos said, something of a relief not to be constantly watching her.’

I wait until Manos steers a less bumpy path. ‘Dinos? The sponge-factory guy I met at George and Charmian’s?’

Bobby has pulled off his T-shirt and is rubbing the water from his hair. His eyes are as blue as airmail paper. ‘Yes, that’s my man. He’s pretty cool, actually; lets me use his kiln up at Episkopi. Tell you the truth, doll, I’ve been unburdening myself to him like he’s some sort of head doctor.’

I’m astonished to think that Bobby has talked to anyone, let alone that now he’s discussing it with me. I’ve become so accustomed to his gruff pronouncements and brooding silences. He continues talking as we drift in the lee of the sleeping man of Dokos island.

‘Thing is, I met Edie right after Mum died and I’ve been clinging to her ever since. It’s not fair on the chick,’ he’s saying and I look across at Jimmy and catch him enjoying the sight of Francine as she stands to grip the rail, very pert in pink checked shorts and a tiny fluttering handkerchief of a top, and wish that he’d go blind.

Manos steers the boat closer to the island. The smells of wild thyme and diesel and the rhythmic thumping become so soporific we all fall into a lull.

Now we are beyond Palamidas, the shoulders of the island grow sparse. We pass the sheer cliff where the old people used to go to die – sometimes, Manos says, in a basket which was rolled off the edge, sometimes by leaping. ‘They’d say to their family, why waste a good basket?’

Soon a landscape that includes the occasional olive tree or pine gives way to nothing but bold muscular rocks. It’s hypnotic watching the striations and marblings pass us by, dusty bronze and dusty grey and ironstone where sudden great rivers of malachite green and butcher’s red flow. We pass pirates’ caves, one with an old hermit who guards its entrance, and Manos tells us the story of the pink chapel in a bay where red wine is used to mix the whitewash in remembrance of an ancient wrecking of a wine boat, when all the souls along with the barrels of wine were miraculously washed ashore.

You can’t help but gasp when you see Bisti Bay for the first time. It’s a perfect horseshoe with steep pine forests rising up around a jewel box of pebbles. The water flashes blue as a million kingfishers. When you look down into it from the boat it’s rippling with gold. The clearest water in the whole of Greece. Closer to the beach, the reflections of pine trees stipple it with scarab-green iridescence.

We are met by Lena who comes splashing and cheering, wearing little more than plaited seaweed that hangs in tendrils from her waist. ‘Hey, hey, ahoy there!’ A white shell flies on a cord between her brown breasts as she throws up her arms to catch the rope.

The others come scootling from the trees when they hear her shout. It’s like being greeted by a particularly golden gang of savages as they wade towards us to help carry the supplies ashore. The boys have all grown beards, Ivar wears nothing but a crown of feathers in his yellow hair, one of the Dutch girls has painted petals around her nipples. Bim’s foot barely touches the shore before he’s shedding his shorts.

Albin and Ivar have been out spear-fishing and their catch of three lugubrious-faced grouper fish are being prepared by Göran, who has paused beneath the pine trees with his knife in the block to scribble in his notebook. He is crouched over, transfixed by the fallen fish scales that glitter up at him from among the cross-hatching of pine needles.

A couple of hammocks hang between the trees and the sailmaker has done a good job with the tents which have kept out the overnight rain and are now steaming in shafts of sunlight beneath the pines. Albin shows us around. There’s a neat stack of logs for their fire and a pole roped between trees for gymnasium. At the shore the water barrel and the wine casks are kept cool beneath a wet mound of towels. Albin reckons they’ll stay all summer if they don’t get thrown off.

Some of us swim out with a mask. A seal lives in one of the caves but he’s making himself scarce today. Beneath the trees it isn’t too long before Jimmy and Bobby start competing with the other men, doing every sort of pull-up, Göran keeping count in Swedish. No one can match Jimmy, not even Ivar. Demetri and Charlie go haring back to the water to swim with Francine who has discarded what tiny clothing she arrived in. Angelika stands in the shade of a salt tree, with the babies. She’s talking earnestly to Manos. I see her make the sign of the cross across her buttoned-up blouse as her boss splashes naked into the shallows.

Beneath the pines Angela wears the scowl of an unwilling captive. She sits on a log, cajoling her smallest girl who is refusing to join Daddy and her siblings at the beach. It’s been like this since the boat, little Mari-mou wanting only her mother.

Ivar scoots past with Lena in pursuit, shouting, trying to dodge her through the low branches. She catches him and snatches the crown from his head and comes laughing and running back with it. Mariora is pulling her mother’s hand; she wants to collect pine cones. Lena is reaching up to crown Jimmy. I’m glad to see that he’s still wearing his shorts. I wish she wouldn’t press herself against him like that.

This is the first chance I’ve had to ask Angela about Marianne. She’s been stuck at the front of the boat and buried in sleeping children the whole way over. ‘So, Marianne’s with Axel in Athens…?’

Angela nods. ‘Patricia’s had an accident,’ she says as Jimmy bounds over with a watermelon in one hand and a cleaver in the other like they’re a sceptre and chalice, the feather crown askew. He squats and places the melon at his feet.

‘I’ve no idea why Marianne has to go running to Axel, but there it is. She got a telegram from him begging her to come because Patricia is in hospital,’ Angela is saying as Jimmy brings down the blade and splits the melon.

He drops the cleaver. ‘What? Has something happened to Pat?’

‘She had a crash in Axel’s car. It’s very serious,’ Angela says, though the child is rearing and making it difficult. ‘They say all her bones are broken and her lungs are bleeding.’

The colour is leeching from Jimmy’s face. ‘Oh God, no. Poor Pat. Is she going to be OK?’

Angela shrugs. ‘Police Chief Manolis has heard talk of a prosecution. Everyone wants to know if the poor lamb will pull through, but all the news is bound up in yards of red tape to do with Marianne’s name being on the car’s papers because Axel was banned from driving, and the Norwegian consulate is involved – a big mess, so of course Axel can’t cope at all and Marianne has flown in like the angel she is. No one seems to know if Patricia will live or die,’ she manages before the little girl pulls her away.

‘Oh, good God. Poor Pat,’ Jimmy says again, and it’s unnerving to witness his shoulders heaving as he grips his feather-crowned head in his hands.