LITMIR.BIZ

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name Christos’ he said offering a plump hairy hand.

      ‘Hello Christos’ I said responding to his hearty shake by nearly falling off my stool. ‘I’m Faith’.

      ‘Fat?’

      ‘Erm…no. Faith’.

      ‘You no fat!’

      ‘Oh…no…erm. Thank you. I know I’m not fat. At least, ha ha, I hope I’m not. You can call me by my nickname, Fay.’

      ‘Nick name?’

      ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Your name Nick?’

      ‘No no. Fay! Oh never mind.

      We both knew we’d exhausted that line of conversation and I looked round nervously while he continued to grin at me like a maniac.

      ‘First time in Iraklia?’ he asked, carefully measuring a double shot of raki into a glass and adding iced water. I smiled and nodded as the clear liquid clouded milky-white.

      ‘You like?’

      ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘But too hot.’

      He nodded cheerfully and concurred. ‘Eeez wery wery hot!’

      ‘And windy,’ I added.

      ‘No so wendy,’ he replied. ‘Sometimes.’

      He loaded up a pile of empty boxes and disappeared down some stone steps into a cellar. I looked around self-consciously and sipped at the raki. It slid down my throat and left a pleasant liquorish taste on my tongue.

      Halfway through my second one I started to relax and enjoy my surroundings a bit more. Kikis was at the top of a cobbled road overlooking the steep cliffs of the harbour and the rest of the Chora. In truth it was no more than a wooden terrace with a tiny kitchen attached to one end, but the vined walls gave it a feeling of permanence, as if the ancient bougainvillea was enough of a structure without the annoying complication of bricks and mortar. At the far end stood the family’s living quarters, cordoned off by a row of pot plants.

      Tables were occupied by a variety of clientele. Families spanning four generations, romantic couples, old men playing backgammon. In the distance, the twinkling lights of Schoinoussa blinked halting Morse code across the purple sea.

      I wasn’t the only loner at the bar. At the other end, a woman in her late twenties was industriously threading beads onto a leather thong by the light of a candle. Her forehead was creased into a frown of concentration and wisps of blonde hair hung from a turban coiled around her head. She stopped to stretch out her neck and examine her handiwork before carefully laying it alongside several others in a wooden display case. As she took a slug from her beer, her wide eyes caught mine, green and moody. I blushed and smiled but she just continued staring over the rim of her beer with a kind of hostile indifference. I popped an olive into my mouth and pretended I didn’t care but it turned out to be a discarded pip and I nearly cracked a tooth before gagging silently into my raki.

      A motorbike pulled up outside and there was a commotion as several people shouted in delight and waved to the new arrivals over the railings. Two men appeared in the doorway and Mr Potatohead hurried over to greet them with warm hugs and hearty backslaps. Even the dogs got up to say hello.

      The new arrivals shook various hands as they crossed the restaurant towards the bar, looking for all the world like a couple of local celebrities. Identical gaits and easy smiles meant they were presumably related, like everyone else on the island. My heart caught in my throat as the taller one approached. He was beautiful. Sinewy and high-browed, like one of the javelin throwers on ancient Greek earthenware. He looked at me briefly with deep-set brown eyes before slapping his hand on the bar and ordering a round of drinks from Christos who was practically gurning with happiness. The second man made his way over to Turban Girl and kissed her on the forehead.

      ‘Yaso,’ he said.

      ‘Ja,’ she replied, smiling for the first time. ‘Griss dich.’

      So she was German.

      The din in the restaurant had risen by about ten decibels and, as Javelin Man topped up people’s glasses with raki, it got even louder. Christos was drying glasses next to me. He smiled and nodded towards the two men.

      ‘Urian and Gregorie. Good boys’.

      ‘Brothers?’

      ‘Cousins.’

      I tried not to sound too interested. ‘Are they from the island?’

      ‘Grow up Iraklia,’ he said. ‘But work Athens now’.

      To my embarrassment Christos hailed the shorter one over. ‘Gregorie! Come, come!’

      Gregorie picked up the bottle of Raki and came to sit next to me.

      He was shorter and squarer than Javelin Man. They both looked about my age.

      ‘Kalimera,’ he said with a friendly smile. ‘Germany?’

      ‘No,’ I replied, smiling back. ‘English.’

      ‘Ah. Europe’s Special Member,’ he said, using his fingers as quotation marks to emphasise ‘special’.

      I blushed, unsure of what to say.

      ‘So,’ he said, pouring a raki and pushing it my way. ‘Mrs Thatcher, she was right, no? The single currency was stupido.’

      Internally I sighed. Not the frigging credit crunch again. In Andrew’s absence I’d been enjoying some respite from its endless white noise. I looked at the smiling man in front of me. His earnest gaze swept my face looking for signs of where I stood on the issue. Did he want a personal apology for us opting out of the Eurozone?

      ‘Things bad in Athens at the moment?’ was all I could muster. He shook his head and took a swig of his Raki.

      ‘People have gone mad. Rioting. Fighting. Burning things.’

      ‘Why are they rioting?’ I asked.

      ‘Because Greeks are stupid,’ said a voice behind me.

      A warm body reached between us and grasped the bottle with strong brown hands. I made space to my left but Javelin Man slumped into a barstool on the other side of Gregorie.

      ‘The Greek people, we choosed a bunch of monkeys for a government and now we are angry they no do magic tricks.’

      ‘My cousin Urian he thinks the world is now come to the end,’ said Gregorie laughing.

      Urian muttered something in Greek and downed his drink. ‘Maybe not the world but Greece, of course yes.’

      This conversation was not going the way I’d planned.

      ‘And now we are in the shit up to here,’ he said, raising an elegant hand to his forehead to demonstrate just how deep in the shit he thought they were. ‘Our country is on sale. Foreigners, they come to buy us. The Dutch, the Germans.’

      He turned the full beam of his brown eyes directly on to me.

      ‘The English, they will all come here to buy us,’ he said bitterly. He picked up his helmet and got up to go.

      Gregorie sighed theatrically. ‘Another day screwed by politics. On the ferry people throw themselves overboard when Urian start talking.’

      He finished his drink and turned to follow his cousin, waving his goodbyes on his way out.

      Mr Potatohead came to clear away their glasses.

      ‘Don’t worry about Urian,’ he said kindly. ‘He’s just pissed they must be to sell his farm. His family there for two hundred years.’

      ‘Two hundred years,’ I repeated to myself.

      ‘He will get over it.’

      As I heard the angry roar of his bike flaring into the distance I doubted

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