Tim Winton - The Riders

FROM A DREAMLESS PIT OF sleep, Scully came to himself alone in bed with the shutters shuddering and his head a stone on the end of his neck.

‘Billie?’

He lurched upright. ‘Billie?’

He saw his grazes and bruises as he dragged on his clothes. He lurched out into the corridor and down to the bathroom, but the communal door was ajar and the smelly room empty. Three at a time he went down the stairs into the courtyard where rain speared in and cats congregated in tiny patches of shelter in the corners of walls where withered grapevines and dripping painted gourds rattled in the wind.

‘ Kyria? Kyria?’ he called, his voice breaking.

The heavy oak door to the kitchen opened.

‘ Neh?’

The little woman wiped her hands on her apron and narrowed her eyes at him contemptuously. Scully stood in the rain and saw behind her, sitting by the range with a bowl of soup in her lap, his daughter who looked up curiously at him.

‘Oh, oh, good-oh.’

Right there in the rain, across the kalamata tins of battered geraniums and the wall of bougainvillea, he stood aside and puked until the door closed on him.

• • •

IT WAS AFTERNOON when Scully woke again. He showered gingerly, packed their things and went down to collect Billie. The rain had not let up and the wind bullied across the courtyard where his mess was long gone. He knocked at the door and the woman looked him up and down, stepped aside to let him in.

‘Signomi, Kyria. Etna arostos. Sick. I am very sorry. Um, we’ll go now. Thank you for looking after my child. How much? Um, poso kani?’

Scully put some bills on the table and the woman shrugged.

‘C’mon, Bill.’

Billie stood up, hair freshly brushed, her mouth and cheeks raw with the spreading rash, and came to him. Kyria Dina stooped and kissed her thick curls, and then Billie put her hand in his and they went out into the rain, across the courtyard, and into the alley where water ran ankle deep in a torrent gathering from the mountain, the high town, the Kala Pigadia. They made their way down, hopping from step to dry step without conversation.

• • •

THE WATERFRONT WAS DESERTED and awash with storm water that spilled across the wharf and into the harbour. Boats lunged against their moorings. The sky was black above the sea and the swell ponderous against the moles.

At the flying dolphin office, the clerk informed them that there would be no hydrofoils and no ferries today. The harbour was closed, and no vessel was allowed to venture out. Scully looked out at the heaving sea. Even the Peloponnese was just a smudge. Things could change, he knew, and a boat from Spetsai or Ermione might come by if the swell dropped. But it would be quick turnover at the water’s edge, so the only way to be sure of a passage was to wait the day out close by. He gathered himself giddily and headed for the Lyko. There was no choice — it was the closest to where the boats pulled in, and besides, nothing else was open. And, God help him, he had to make sure.

The taverna was smoky and full, but aside from the rain thrumming against the fogged panes and the crackling of the charcoal grill, it was quiet. The pale ovals of faces turned momentarily, then obscured themselves. Scully hefted his case between chairs and tables and led Billy to where Arthur Lipp folded his newspaper and cleared space for them at his table beside the bar.

‘You might as well sit.’

‘Hello, Arthur.’

‘You look terrible.’

‘I feel terrible.’

‘Not terrible enough, I fear.’ Arthur pulled at his moustache and regarded him carefully.

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘You went up to Episkopi.’

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘You can’t be told, can you?’

‘What, am I in school? I thought my wife was there, Arthur. I went to see.’

‘Your bloody wife!’ Arthur tossed his paper aside. ‘For God’s sake, man, she’s left you, so why don’t you just take it on the chin and go home!’

‘Why don’t you mind your own business, you pompous little shit?’

‘Because it’s your business and our business now!’ yelled Rory from a table across the way.

Scully stood up. ‘Look at you fuckers sitting around day after day like some soap opera! What business of yours could possibly interest me?’

Arthur Lipp sighed. ‘The final business of Alex Moore.’

Scully looked down at Arthur whose tan had gone yellow and his eyes quite pink.

‘I didn’t interrupt any work, if that’s what you mean. He hasn’t done a thing, poor bugger.’

‘Poor bugger indeed.’ Arthur looked away. ‘What on earth did you say to him?’

‘I had dinner with him — hell, I cooked dinner for him. Stayed a while and walked back. What d’you think I’d do to him, beat him up? He’s an old man. I apologised for busting in, cleaned up his kitchen… anyway, he said you could all get stuffed.’

‘Stavros Kolokouris the donkeyman found his body at the bottom of the cliff this morning.’

Scully looked at Billie. She shouldn’t he hearing this, none of this today, or yesterday or the day before. This wasn’t right.

‘The police have set out to recover the body. It’ll take them a good few hours without boats.’

‘He… he gave me…’

‘They’ll want to know if he was pushed.’

‘There wasn’t a note?’

‘Why, write one, did you?’ yelled Rory.

‘I —’

‘Save your story,’ said Arthur, not unkindly.

‘You mean the cops want to see me?’

‘Well, they know you were up there.’

‘Shit, thanks for putting in a good word.’

‘You were seen,’ said Arthur.

He caught Rory’s glance, grabbed his case and Billie’s backpack and hoisted her along with him, through faces and talk and smoke into the wild clean air of the harbour. In blasting rain he dragged child and luggage along the waterfront. Sponge-crowded windows ran with the blur of water. He came to a lane that led to the Three Brothers. Lying miserably on its leash in the rain, was a big dog so saturated as to barely look like a dog anymore. Scully and Billie swept by it and ran to the door and the smell of frying calamari.

Fishermen, muleteers, old men and loungers drank coffee and ouzo and played tavla . Scully saw a table by the wall and claimed it.

‘Eh, Afstralia!’

It was Kufos — the Deaf One — rising from his chair.

‘Yassou,’ said Scully, dripping onto the plastic tablecloth.

Kufos strode over, gold teeth glinting, his keg chest expanding as he came.

‘Leetle Afstralia!’ he said, digging Billie in the back of the neck with his thumbs. ‘ Ti kanis?’

Scully motioned for him to sit down and the old caique captain flicked up the wicker-bottom chair and sat.

‘No happy today, ah?’

Billie shook her head.

‘You come back to Hydra?’ he said to Scully. ‘So fast.’

‘Only for today,’ said Scully with a shrug. ‘For Piraeus, no boats today.’

‘Ah, too much this!’ said the skipper, making waves with his hands.

‘Yeah.’

Scully always liked Kufos. He was a proud and arrogant old bugger who liked to curse the tourists and take their money. He had been a merchant seaman and he told Scully garbled stories of Sydney and Melvorno and the girls he’d left weeping behind. Nowadays he ferried xeni around the island and fished a little for octopus, but he preferred to sit out under the waterfront marquees and watch the tourist women in their bikinis. He was a fine sailor, and given credit on the island for being the last man to call it quits when it came to a big sea. Scully ordered him an ouzo.