Polly Samson - A Theatre for Dreamers

‘I imagined you’d be on Poros,’ George says.

‘Why would I want to be on Poros, when I could be on Hydra being slandered and picked on by the likes of you?’ Jean-Claude replies. Everyone is listening and watching, glasses raised halfway to lips, spoons stalled in coffee cups.

‘I’m surprised you’d show your flyblown face here after what happened last time,’ George says, but is overcome by another bout of coughing and can’t go on.

He snatches a look inside his handkerchief before stuffing it away and, with an exaggerated shrug and a curl of his lip, Jean-Claude returns his attention to the girls.

Men are sorting nets; a black cat snakes around Jimmy’s legs; boxes of fish are unloaded from boats; the chip-chip-chip of the stonemasons continues above our heads. George shakes his fist to the heavens.

‘They’ve been perfecting that clock tower for bloody years. I wish they’d stop now, most of us don’t need a constant reminder of the bloody earthquake.’

‘I read about that in Charmian’s book. I’d be petrified if the quayside started turning to jelly beneath my feet,’ I say. ‘You don’t think there’ll be another, do you, George?’

George drags deeply on his cigarette and twists me a grin. ‘Ah, don’t you worry your pretty head about that, Ricky; she exaggerated to discourage tourists. Our Charm has never been averse to turning a little tremor into a full-blown bloody earthquake.’ He turns to the others: ‘So you’re all here for painting in the beautiful light?’ and they nod.

‘I’m not,’ I say.

George cocks an eyebrow. ‘Well, what are you here for then, little Ricky of Bayswater?’ I feel the blood rush to my face while he waits with his cigarette stuck to his lip. Mum used to say that I was a pearl and the world my oyster.

‘Oh, Erica’s a striptease artiste.’ The drink seems to have gone straight to Jimmy’s head. George ignores him, continues his discomfiting stare.

When Mum handed me the money she told me she wanted me to follow my dreams. Out of nowhere I blurt it, the thing I’ve never said out loud, ‘I want to write books—’

George snorts. ‘You’d earn more as a stripper. I work fifteen hours a day, seven days a week and still my food’s on tick from the great Saint Nikos. He’s the same…’ He gestures at Patrick’s retreating back. ‘And Paddy is bloody good but the poor bastard can’t get a whiff of publishers’ ink. Go buy yourself an ostrich fan before it’s too late.’

I mock putting my hands over my ears and see that Edie is wearing her sulky face, telling Bobby: ‘Hey Daddy-o, I’m not planning on sleeping on the beach tonight.’ Bobby blames me with a look. Jimmy’s eyes have wandered to a slim woman in red shorts who is clambering aboard a caique, his hand absent-mindedly stroking the black cat.

I try again with George. ‘Did Charmian actually say if there was a house for us? I mean, that’s what she told me in her letter…’

But I’ve lost him. He’s ready for another bout with Jean-Claude, this time swivelling around and addressing himself to Janey and Edie: ‘Has Frenchie here told you yet about his mate Jean-Paul Sartre? Doesn’t usually take more than a minute…’

Janey and Edie look up at him like startled does as he warms to it, cigarette waving in his hand.

‘There was poor old Sartre just wanting a quiet café au lait while he chowed down on important questions of existentialism and phenomenology but, no, along comes Goldilocks here…’ George is now playing to the entire agora. He stands to make himself heard.

‘When will you ever stop this?’ Jean-Claude spins around and hisses to silence him. It’s then I notice his gold earring and have to stifle a giggle. Turns out I know this little Frenchman from the pages of Charmian’s book. He’s a figure of fun in a G-string of knotted paisley handkerchiefs, a scandalous seducer who eats raw eggs and sleeps on a goatskin rug. ‘A little curly dog on heat’ was how she described him. If I’m not mistaken, his flashy white teeth will turn out to be screw-ins. I long for him to smile.

But Jean-Claude’s eyes are levelled on his aggressor and he isn’t smiling. There is a long silence. The audience holds its breath. It seems even the stonemasons have put down their tools.

‘ Ferme ta gueule , George; it’s you who is always boring everyone with your war reporting like you is some ’emingway. Pooft! For the ’undredth time. How many countries was it? How many stamps in your passport? Sixty-three, wasn’t it? But when was the last time you got further than Athens, eh? Alors! ’ And with a contemptuous whistle he turns his back. Edie and Janey lean in as he audibly whispers: ‘So what if I fucked his wife…’

Charmian Clift squints into the darkened room from a sunlit hatch in the ceiling, her face framed in a furious cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘Not now! Go away, go away, whoever you are…’ At the foot of the ladder a large brown and white dog is barking at me and simultaneously wagging its tail. ‘Max, stop that,’ she yells.

I step out from the shadows of the long, shuttered room. She gives a yelp and throws a hand to her mouth as I proffer my ratty old textbooks and a jar of peanut butter like they’re religious offerings.

‘Oh crikey, yes, of course. It’s Erica, isn’t it?’ she says as the dog slumps beside me to the floor, watching her with hungry eyes. ‘I’m ashamed to say I forgot you were coming and only got back myself this morning.’ Her voice is clear and bright but her skin has that over-scrubbed look like it’s been rinsed with tears.

‘I’m sorry, it’s all tremendously stressful here at the moment,’ she says. ‘Please forgive me for not meeting you.’

She swings herself through the hatch and perches on the top step to study me. A faded blue and white cotton skirt bunches around her legs and her feet are bare.

‘The bank manager in Poros was delayed by a funeral and made me miss my boat…’ she casts her eyes theatrically to the room behind her ‘… and now there’s hell to pay.’

She hugs her knees through the skirt. Her feet and ankles are long and slim, her hands as large as a man’s but graceful. Her mouth is as generous as I remember it, ‘Look at you all grown up! Oh my goodness, how fast time flies,’ but a missing or brown tooth spoils the glamour of her smile. She sees me notice and pulls her hair to conceal it.

Her face is free of make-up; sunlight stripes her strong bones, giving her the air of a warrior queen as she comes bounding down the wooden steps, ‘Here, let me get a good squiz at you,’ and grasps me at arm’s length.

‘Connie’s girl. I remember you as a shy little thing with a lisp. Do you still have one? Oh, sweetie, I can’t tell you how sad I am about your darling mum.’ Her eyes are green as bottle-glass and swimming with tears.

She smells of warm things: cinnamon and toast, campfires, polished oak, Nivea, tobacco. She rocks me as she did the first time we met and for a moment I’m back on the staircase in Bayswater, a frightened little girl finding comfort in the arms of a stranger. Then, just as now, I want to stay in the warmth of her embrace, simply breathing, but all too soon she releases me.

‘Crikey, Erica! Look at you! You’re the image of her.’

Her skirt is nipped in by a wide leather belt; it swirls from her waist as she moves. She throws open some shutters. Rafters are festooned with bunches of herbs and plaited strings of alliums; a dresser is stacked with blue and white china. The light comes dappled by the courtyard’s leafy trees and vines, and falls on unwashed pans at the sink and a family table with tales to tell of a clumsy breakfast. A three-legged cat eats from a frying pan. Flies swoon in spilt jam.