Graham Swift - Out of This World

Something bad.

Sophie, come here. I want to lick the salt off you. Off every bit of you. Perfect skin on your arse, and all over. Greek skin. Made for sunshine. Sophie, you know what I like about this country? It feels like it’s a holiday all the time …

Zoumboulakis liked to talk business in his car. He’d take me to the Plaka. Or to Tourkolimani or Vougliameni. We’d eat platefuls of seafood, watch the yachts and the half-dressed girls. Then we’d get into his big, cool Lincoln and he’d snap his fingers to the driver to just cruise around.

‘Mr Carmichael, how wise of you — how wise of your company — to give you the opportunity to come and see for yourself. The good merchant always samples his own wares. And you are becoming, I think, just a little bit Greek?’

We would take one of the coast roads or just circle the city. Along Venizelou, Patission and Alexandras, then back along King Constantine, past the Zappeion and the Acropolis.

He would get out his cigarettes. Silver case. Offer me one. Then that incongruous, ethnic-looking cigarette-holder. Carved yellow wood. His face never lost its look of glee.

‘Mr Carmichael, I have a friend. A ship-owner. Yes, I know, every Greek will tell you that. But in this case both things are true — the ship-owner and the friendship. My friend not only owns ships, but, like every good ship-owner, he owns land. Lots of land. Land — as you say — ‘ripe for development’. He wishes to take advantage of this ‘tourist boom’ we have discussed so much. He wishes to build hotels — ‘international’ hotels and villas. But he needs — backers.’

‘He’s a ship-owner and he needs backers?’

‘Even ship-owners do not have everything. Let us say, though, it is a matter of friends in the right places. Not friends, you understand, like me — humble and ineffective. He has friends but they are not yet in a position to help him. He will help them, they will help him. Meanwhile, he has enemies. You understand? It is a matter also of timing. But then again it is a matter of personality. My friend is timid. Powerful but timid. For the same reason that he must wait for his friends to help him, he fears that this tourist boom we are all expecting may be — ‘nipped in the bud’. How can this be, eh Mr Carmichael? My country is poor, but we have our sunshine. Who can take that from us? But my friend is timid — a fact of advantage, I need not tell you, to those who do business with him. He needs backers for his backers. But let me explain to you this mystery …’

When I rode round with Zoumboulakis like that I used to think, Is this really happening? Is this really me, Joe Carmichael? Driving around Athens, under the palm trees, past the white buildings, doing business with the friends of ship-owners? Any moment now I will be flicked back to Davenport Road and discover that it’s all only something on the television. All only a dream.

But I have this formula with dreams, Mario. Never pinch yourself to check. If it’s good, why not take the trip? If it’s bad, why discover that you can no longer tell yourself: But it’s only a dream?

How much did I really know and how much did I pretend to myself that I didn’t? And how much, anyway, did I believe ? That agreement I signed with Zoumboulakis was so wrapped in conditions, so all in the future, that I thought it would never take effect. And yet the bonanza of discounts and concessions it offered to Argosy Tours was too good not to hold on option. And, besides, this wasn’t my country and my business was just tourism. And I was high — just floating — on sunshine and freedom. And love.

‘Joe, you make me laugh, Joe. Joe, you’re good to be with.’

The last time he picked me up in that Lincoln was just a week after the coup. A brilliant day in late April, one of those warm, rich spring days with a southerly breeze, when it already seems like full summer. So that you felt it was all only some strange diversion — nothing essential had changed. The schools and public buildings were open again, and either because of this or because of the curfew at night or simply because of the weather, the streets seemed more crowded than ever. The cafés were full, the kiosks were as stacked as ever with foreign magazines, and, as Zoumboulakis himself pointed out, there was no short-age of coach parties, winding their way up to the Parthenon.

He said Karatsivas (we were naming names now) was having a little midday reception and it was time that we met.

He was different that day. More playful and familiar. As if, before, he had aped a certain English composure, but now he could show his true, loosened-up Greek self. When we drew up outside that huge place in Kifissiá, he buttoned his jacket and visibly stiffened, but with a hint of mischief, as if we were two boys on our first day in a new school. And, strangely enough, for this I actually felt fond of him for the first time.

I don’t remember Karatsivas clearly. I recall a man with a high, domed forehead, grey sideburns and a cosmopolitan, faintly vexed manner. ‘Ah, Mr Carmichael. But you are so young! Our mutual venture has been blessed, so it seems. Your health, Mr Carmichael. To success. You can rely at all times, I assure you, on Mr Zoumboulakis.’ And that was all. He turned to another guest. I was even glad to feel like a minor item on his agenda.

I don’t recall Karatsivas clearly, because though it was his party and his house, it seemed he was not quite at the centre of it, it was not quite what he would have planned. And what I do remember about that party is the soldiers. The soldiers at the front gates, the parked jeeps, the soldiers visible across the lawns, under the pines and eucalyptus beyond the wire fence, standing on guard with white helmets and rifles. And the soldiers, officers, in peaked caps and sharply pressed uniforms, who seemed to make up the majority of the guests — none of them high-ranking or dripping with braid, but all of them wearing an expression of saintly authority.

Zoumboulakis steered me back to the car. He was drunk, but my head seemed stubbornly clear. ‘Now, Mr Joseph, now we have done our duty and paid our respects — to lunch! You are hungry? Vougliameni, I think? On a day like today.’

We avoided the city centre and took the country road. A long drive to the east. I didn’t speak and he seemed prepared for this. He loosened his tie, gave a belch or two and turned his head to the window, tapping his knee and hissing a tune through his teeth. On the road out of Halandri we passed whole rows of stationary armoured cars, dusty from recent manoeuvres. Then as we drove along the green slopes of Hymettos, he started to rapturize about spring in Attica.

‘But your English spring is something too. You know, I was in your country for two years, in the war. In Chatham. I have seen your “Garden of England”. Your “toast-houses”.’

He was waiting for me to pass comment, and like a true Englishman I had buttoned my lip. It was only as we came down into Vougliameni itself and saw the blue sea and the yachts, the awnings of the tavernas and the beach dotted with coloured umbrellas, that he gave up waiting.

‘Ah, Mr Carmichael, in your country you have your system — Winston Churchill, Buckingham Palace, Rule Britannia — but here we do it differently, eh? Bam-bam! Everybody change! Bam-bam! Everybody change again! Ha! Why so solemn, Mr Carmichael, why so quiet? You are ill? You have a pain somewhere? Why not enjoy yourself? No one is stopping you from enjoying yourself. Why look over the hill when the view this way is so beautiful? Kalí orexímas , Mr Carmichael, kalí thias-kedasímas ! The sensible man enjoys himself. What is the desire of every man? What is the duty of every man? To enjoy himself!’