Sara Alexi - The Illegal Gardener

‘I feel almost as if we have willed you here.’ The woman laughs. Marina is not surprised at the meeting. She knows Greece brings you the people you search for, be it for friendship, business, love, or just to pay for a bottle of wine.

Marina opens her mouth to speak, but Bill continues. ‘I was going to send you the money, but all I knew was you kept a shop in a village! So it was never going to get to you. I can’t believe…’ He is interrupted as the people all around them spark into life, and he looks around to see what is the cause. The Flying Dolphin is rounding the harbour wall. Suitcases are heaved. Chatter grows. Money is waved at the waiter, who shows no sign of hurry. His agility and grace through the people and their belongings is only surpassed by the litheness of the stray cats. The woman ( what is her name? ) carries on regardless.

‘I feel so much better now we are straight. How are you? Did your daughter’s wedding go all right?’ she asks.

‘Yes, good.’ Marina’s eyes light up at the memory.

‘Your youngest, wasn’t it? No, don’t tell me, it’s good for me to try to remember things. Eleni!’

Marina laughs and shakes her head, and opens her mouth to speak.

‘No, no! Eleni’s your eldest, just a minute. Artemis! How could I forget such a pretty name! Any children yet?’

Marina shakes her head sadly.

‘Darling, the boat’s going to leave. Come on.’

‘Bill! Will you take a photo of Marina and me? I cannot believe we have met up again. So lovely to see you.’

‘Darling, there really isn’t time.’

‘Oh come on, Bill. They haven’t even tied up yet. The people haven’t even got off, and there’s a huge queue to get on. We have loads of time.’ The lady begins to search through her rucksack.

Marina looks over to the hydrofoil. It is pulling alongside the quay. There is a girl on board throwing a rope to a man on the shore. She wears a black uniform, a peaked hat and high heels. Marina tuts. She finds it hard to imagine her elder daughter, Eleni, doing the same job, taking herself off to Piraeus at such a young age to join up. But then again, this girl might work on the Flying Dolphin, and not for the port police – that might be something else. She is not sure. But either way, when Eleni is stationed here she will work alongside this girl, in her unsuitable high heels.

‘Come here, next to me, Marina. So what are you doing here? Take it with the café in the background, Bill. Oh yes, didn’t you say your eldest daughter was coming to work here? Smile. Thanks, Bill.’

‘Come on, dear, we really must make a move.’ Bill stuffs the camera into a bag around his waist. ‘Marina, it has been a delightful surprise. I wish you all the best.’

‘I loved your shop, Marina. We have such good memories of that holiday. What with all your goat bells and shepherd’s crooks and fresh bread, and those amazing village eggs, so fresh – it was a regular cornucopia. I wish there was such a well-stocked store near where I live. You must come to the States one day.’

‘Darling…’

‘Well goodbye, Marina. Can’t imagine why you would want to be here, when your village is so perfect and unspoilt by tourism. This is all a bit much, isn’t it? All the best.’

The noise of people embarking and disembarking reaches a pitch and the woman has to raise her voice. Marina smiles. The girl in the black uniform takes the Americans’ tickets, tears them in two, and they disappear into the shadows of the boat, leaving Marina alone.

The growl of the engine as the hydrofoil reverses its way out of the port brings the noise to a climax. It swings through the harbour entrance and disappears round the corner. The din subsides and a peace returns. The cafés are all but empty now, and the waiters loosen their gait in the comparative calm, now that the tourists have gone. They chat to each other from their territories about the football last night, the new Mayor, what they will do this evening, after work. Marina picks up her bag and wonders what to do now she is here. She knows why she has come, but how to go about it?

The harbour is roughly three sides of a square, with a jutting-out pier all but closing the fourth, seaward side. The harbour is not very big and the really big boats are obliged to moor on the outside in the deeper water, or so the programme had said. Marina feels quite the expert. There are no boats there now. She walks slowly up to the first corner where the donkeys wait to take bags and tourists, furniture and water bottles, anything that needs transporting with more than a handcart. There are no roads here, nor cars or motor bikes, only foot and donkey on little cobbled lanes; unspoilt, lost in time, a slower pace of life, even for Marina. She sighs with pleasure at the thought of slowing down.

‘Hello, lady – you want a donkey to take you and your bag to your hotel? It’s either donkey or legs – there is no other transport here, you know?’

‘Yes, I know.’ Marina remembers trying to stroke the donkeys the last time she was here, and Aunt Efi hurrying her to keep walking. She doesn’t suppose it could be the same donkey. ‘How old is he?’

‘She’s about fourteen by now. Come on, I will…’

Marina’s attention is caught by another donkey man. A Japanese girl is being helped up onto the last donkey in the line, and once she is uncomfortably aloft the donkey man lashes her bags to the lead mule. He stops his movements every now and again to twist his handlebar moustache. Neither the moustache, nor the action of twisting it, seems to suit his young age. A Japanese man is circling around them taking photographs, tripping over the cats sprawled on the cool marble flags.

‘Who is that?’ Marina asks.

‘Yanni, but his donkeys are no better than mine, we…’

‘How old is he?’

‘How old is he? First the donkey, now the man. Well, let me see. He was at school with my son, not the same year though, the year above I think, so that will make him thirty-five. Although anybody would be forgiven for thinking he is older. No humour, that one. Old for his age. Not like my boy, so full of life…’

‘You say he was at school with your son. So he has been here all his life then?’ Marina tries to sound casual.

‘He lives with his parents up on the ridge there.’ The man points above the houses to the skyline. ‘Hey, Yanni, there’s a lady asking after you here!’

‘Hush up, I was just curious.’ Marina smiles and feels her cheeks colour.

Yanni, with the girl and her bags ready, leads them off, holding the first animal’s bridle. He glances at Marina before looking away again, with no smile, no pleasantry.

‘Good day,’ Marina calls, but Yanni just hurries his animals on with the command ‘Dai’, and the procession ambles away, the Japanese man still photographing the spectacle and laughing as he chatters to the girl, who is hanging on with both hands, looking very nervous.

‘You won’t get much out of Yanni. Now, which hotel am I taking you to?’

‘No, no thank you.’ Marina smiles as if to ask his forgiveness as she walks quietly away until she is under the clock tower. She has no hotel booked, she doesn’t know where she is going. In fact, it seems ridiculous to be here now. She is not normally one to interfere. She looks around at the houses encircling the port like an amphitheatre.

The houses highest up, Marina knows, follow the line of a gully which is hidden from view and extend all the way to a second tiny harbour a couple of kilometres from the main port to the west.

The only destination she knows is the house she stayed in with Aunt Efi on the other side of this hill. The shallow steps up past the bakery could take her directly there, or she could walk right around the harbour and go along the coast and then inland up that gully to some steep steps which lead there, in no hurry. She looks behind her. The donkey man is watching her so she sets off with purpose towards the coastal path…