Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

‘You were just the most darling baby, the last time I saw you,’ I said while his eyes remained solemn and loaded with suspicion. ‘Axel? Marianne’s son?’ He nodded, left me with the top of his head to look at. I told him who I was, opened my purse. ‘Here, let me treat you.’

Still he didn’t look up or smile. ‘You can buy us ice-lollies if you like, lady, but I don’t know you from a donkey,’ he said and the girl jabbed him with her sword and told him not to be rude and yes please. She was an appealing child with freckles and wise grey eyes. She pointed across the alleyway, at the chattering groups beneath the caramel awnings of Tassos Kafeneo.

‘His mum’s over there. They’ve been arguing all morning about whether to have a church service for their old friend who died.’ She lowered her lashes and stuck out her bottom lip.

‘Oh dear, how sad. Was it someone from Hydra?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘He used to live here but he didn’t believe in God.’ Her lip started to quiver. ‘I’m sad too because he was funny but I was only little when they went away.’

‘Liar,’ Axel said. ‘I’m older than you and I don’t remember him one bit.’

I crushed a drachma into each of their hands, leaving them bickering, and went where the girl pointed, towards Marianne who was huddled with two other women, surrounded by cats. She wore a sundress with a print of pineapples, a matching scarf in her hair.

I called out her name. The other women turned around to see who had shouted; there was wine on the table. Her sunglasses were large; she was smoking a Greek cigarette.

She lowered the sunglasses; there were bags beneath her eyes.

‘Remember? Summer 1960?’ I had to prompt her with my name.

‘Sweet, pretty Erica from London?’ At last she smiled. She scrambled to her feet to hug me and we swayed in each other’s arms. Her perfume was strong – like something from a headshop, I thought. Not a smell I associated with her. We sat facing each other, clasping hands, but didn’t find words, beyond sighing, as we tried to read each other’s story.

‘I didn’t even think to write, what with Leonard becoming so famous. I thought you moved to New York?’ I said.

She shrugged and smiled. ‘ Pfft . I’ve been living here, there and everywhere but it’s summer now, and nowhere feels as much like home as Hydra.’

She introduced Lily and Olivia, the mothers of Axel’s ragamuffin friends. Lily was Russian and wore long earrings. Olivia was younger, in a hippy dress and many bangles.

‘I didn’t expect there would even be a foreign colony, what with all this,’ I said, eyeing a pair of uniformed officers who were patrolling the port with guns in their belts.

‘Oh, it’s not so bad,’ Marianne shrugged. ‘At least the ferries run on time and the rubbish is cleared from the streets. It’s different on an island; everyone has to get on and it hasn’t stopped the tourists from coming.’

‘Yeah, but it’s a drag to have to keep reporting to the police station,’ Olivia said, bangles rattling as she slid her arm around the back of Marianne’s chair. Marianne leant forward and poured me a glass of wine. Lily swallowed the remains of hers, said it was her turn to round up the kids and feed them. Two young men joined us, pulled up chairs. Bill had a beard and twinkling eyes and Jean-Marc an unlit roll-up stuck to his lip that waggled when he talked.

‘Baby, it’s so hot. Let’s go swim,’ Olivia said, as the men ordered beers and set up a backgammon board. She put her feet on the chair that Lily had vacated and sat jingling and fanning herself while Marianne and I talked. When I glanced down I saw that Marianne had a matching string of silver bells around one of her own ankles. I told her about my son. Marianne clapped her hands, delighted for me that I had a child, asked me about his father. Olivia said she’d like to give me a healing. I looked past her to the mole, to the familiar business of the port, the men and the barge bringing goods from Ermioni, the donkeys uncomplaining, couples strolling towards Kamini arm in arm, and back to Marianne’s dear, kind face.

‘My heart lifted as soon as all this came into view, I dreamt about it so often. I’ve been dreaming about coming back here since the day I left. If it wasn’t for my boy in London, I think I’d never leave again.’

Marianne shrugged, gave me a sad sort of a smile. ‘It was better when you were here before. It’s not like that now. We were innocent children. The drugs hadn’t started screwing with everyone’s minds…’ The policemen were passing again; she glanced across at them and grinned. ‘But hey, we still have plenty of fun. The difference these guys make is we’ve hidden all the dope and we tend not to party in public. Oh, and do not even think about swimming nude like you used to, Erica.’

Olivia said she’d seen a young German get punched in the face for it at Spilia. ‘Even in this heat we can only be naked in the privacy of our own homes – right, Marianne?’ she said, coiling her arm around her friend’s neck.

Olivia was either very drunk or very stoned. She hooked down the strap of Marianne’s sundress to work her thumbs into her shoulder while Marianne asked me what had gone wrong with my husband. I gave her the short version. I’d fallen pregnant and married my boss. He was talented. The balance of power was skewed out of my favour from the start. ‘I think it’s taken me ten years to discover that I’m not the gardenia and little sandwich on my man’s desk sort of a person,’ I said, rather clumsily, because I hated talking about myself and wanted to steer the conversation back to her and Leonard.

She wriggled herself free of Olivia, adjusted her strap. ‘Oh, Erica. What times we had. It was such a summer, like a rollercoaster, but you know, Leonard hypnotised me. As you know, I’d have done anything for him…’

‘Yeah, baby, you’ve turned more blind eyes than there are in a peacock’s fan,’ Olivia said but Marianne was still talking.

‘It’s all got a bit messed up since I lost our little baby and we’ve both grown battle-weary. But tell me, do you reckon he was happy with me then? Sometimes I think I only imagined it.’

Olivia groaned, put her hands to her ears. ‘Hush, my little Nordic troll, I don’t think I can stand another long soliloquy about Leonard.’ She grabbed her basket, said she’d meet us at the beach.

‘You were so beautiful together, and everything around you was golden,’ I said, to make Marianne smile, and because it was true. ‘I was so jealous. I used to think of all the candles he lit for you, the way he looked at you, how tender he was with little Axel. When I left Hydra I thought about you often, the way you lived your life. It’s what I dreamt of for myself.’

Olivia turned back to me, making gagging noises. ‘Whatever you do, don’t get her started about the damn song,’ she said and she affectionately booped the end of Marianne’s nose while Marianne flapped her hands at her to be off.

Of course I knew which song she meant. I’d listened to it many times, but Leonard was nothing if not enigmatic. ‘Well, it does seem kind of sour at the end…’ I started to say.

Marianne silenced me, still flapping a hand. ‘I don’t think it’s even about me, really. He’d been playing it for years and it was called “ Come on , Marianne”, which gives the song a different meaning if you listen to the words, but some other act already had a record with that name so he changed it. Pfft ,’ she said. ‘“Bird on the Wire” is the best one he wrote for me because it is more honest.’ I noticed tears in her eyes. ‘ Pfft ,’ she said again, as though they were meaningless. ‘Leonard doesn’t want to have babies with me, so there it is.’