PS Olive You

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‘You must really like pottering?’ she asked, suspiciously peering at the sweat beading on my top lip.

I quickly withdrew my hand from the wheel where I’d been caressing its silky surface.

‘Erm, yes, yes, I absolutely adore pottery, in all its forms, and all the…creative arts.’

My voice trailed off as I examined the rows of finished work lining the walls. Bowls, cups, vases. His style was extraordinary. Everything was glazed white, except the edges, which were serrated and ragged. The result was that all the vessels lining the shelves looked like the delicate shards of prehistoric hatched eggs. It was exquisitely worked, paper-thin to the touch.

The studio walls were lined with a collage of photos. Family members and friends smiled out at Urian as he worked.

One girl appeared more frequently than the others. A mischievous brown-eyed imp whose life story from flat-chested tomboy to arcane temptress was played out in a pictorial narrative across the walls, more telling than any verbal account could be. Disturbingly, the girl also featured in a strange little shrine on the windowsill – a statue of the Virgin Mary surrounded by red candles. The statue’s open hands fell to her sides in supplication and seemed to point to photos of the girl, aged about eighteen, framed by rosary beads.

It all seemed so intensely personal that I suddenly became aware of how I must look in Theodora’s eyes, snooping through all Urian’s things with voyeuristic fascination, indulging myself in that peculiar freedom to intrude that the act of house-hunting affords potential buyers. I’d looked in his fridge, poked through his bathroom cupboard, smelled his aftershave and even lain on his bed.

The earlier transgressions I committed while Theodora was on the phone, but now that she was in the room watching me I felt like a right grubby old stalker. The only saving grace was that Urian wasn’t home to witness my shameful intrusion into his privacy.

No sooner had I thought this when I heard the distinctive buzz of his motorbike coming over the hill in the distance.

‘Right, thank you Theodora, I think I’ve seen enough,’ I said, hastily pushing past her to the sunshine outside.

‘But you haf see the bitch,’ she said authoritatively.

‘Bitch?’

‘Beeeeeeeeech.’

‘No, that’s quite all right, thanks, although I’m sure it’s lovely.’

I hurried through the glass doors leading into the sitting room where I’d left my bag. The distant buzz had already turned into a throaty roar and soon I could hear the bike idling to a standstill outside.

‘Fuck,’ I muttered as the contents of my bag clattered across the floor.

Seconds later Urian stooped through the front door and stood over me. Without looking up I hurriedly crawled about the floor picking up eyeliner, hair clips and a stray tampon.

‘Yaso’ came his gravelly voice.

‘Yasus,’ I mumbled in return.

Where the hell was Theodora? Alone in his house, I looked like some kind of deranged stalker. Not that crawling around through the dust balls on all fours was helping. It couldn’t get any worse!

A pair of large feet in dusty mules appeared in my peripheral vision. Long and sinewy like the rest of him. Toes not too hairy. How could feet be so sexy? I wrenched my eyes away and made a hopeless pretence of peering under a dresser for a lost lipstick. The feet came closer until I was virtually bowing to them in supplication. This was getting embarrassing. Slowly I rose to full height until we were eye to eye. Well, eye to collarbone really – he was so bloody tall. A breathless sigh escaped my lips.

We were standing about a foot apart. I could smell him. Musky sweat and pheromones with a hint of fabric conditioner. Up close he was even more gorgeous than I realised. His burning charcoal eyes were softer than I thought, more chocolate than volcanic rock. My friend Kate back home would have said they were too close (never trust a man with close eyes), but his full black eyebrows drew them upwards and outwards and gave him a permanently quizzical look, which I found charming.

Straight cheekbones and nose.

Strong jaw.

Rounded velvet lips.

Despite my blushing shame, my eyes caressed his olive skin, unable to pull away. He stared back at me with equal intensity although his emotions were unreadable. Was he angry to find me in his home? Did he know we were even coming?

For once I felt relieved to hear Theodora’s enormous high heels clattering in from the patio door.

‘Urian!’ she shouted in her high-pitched voice, shattering the tension between us.

She prattled away at him in Greek and he replied in monosyllabic grunts, eyeing me derisively every so often. In an effort to broker the deal, she soon reverted to her pidgin English.

‘Urian, this eeez Missus Fay. I tell you on phone. She like buy your house maybe’.

He’s dark eyes fused onto my face, their expression broody and filled with emotion. A kind of hostile longing.

After a while he sighed and said flatly: ‘Lemonade?’

‘Pardon,’ I blushed.

‘It is hot. Do you like drink lemonade?’

‘Yes, yes. Very good,’ replied Theodora, slapping her huge hands together. For good measure she turned to me and added: ‘Made in the home with Greek lemons and honey. Also Greek.’

Urian went to the kitchen and returned with two tall cool glasses of smoky liquid.

‘Sit down,’ he said, indicating towards the sitting room.

We obediently took our drinks and sat down amongst the treasure trove of possessions I’d just nosed my way through. Urian sat in front of us looking strained and uncomfortable, his big brown eyes meeting mine from time to time with an imploring look. Bizarrely he didn’t pour himself a drink. Just sat there watching us drink ours.

Theodora drained her glass first and said: ‘Bravo, bravo. Verrrry verrry good.’

I downed mine, shuddering at the brain freeze that followed, and then hastily added my own stuttered string of compliments lest I seemed rude.

‘Oh yes. Delightful. Citrusy. Um, fresh.’

After that strange little ceremony was over, we were permitted to leave. Urian escorted us to the car and I shook hands clumsily before descending into the strawberry fog of the sauna-like vehicle. Theodora fired off a few sentences in Greek before revving the engine and scudding out across the rutted road with the same bolt-rattling haste we arrived in.

In the rear-view mirror, the tall lonely shape of Urian shrank into the distance.

-Chapter Five- (#uaf1feacd-89e4-54e6-b1e2-c11801fd14f7)

Being in Urian’s house had a profound effect on me. Up until then my crush on him had been no more than an indulgent teenage fantasy to fill the time, but after I’d entered his personal sanctum, something about the way he treasured things, valued memories and people, made me fall in love with him amongst the polished bric-a-brac and tenderly weeded herb pots.

I thought about our sterile flat back home. The plumped-cushions and tasteful uplighters. The ammonite greys and lime whites. When Andrew and I first married, I used to love colour. Orange and amber, turquoise and sage. But now my life had been bleached into neutrals. Under Andrew’s patronage I was slowly fading away. I’d always worried about how I would survive if Andrew left me, but now, for the first time, I starting worrying that maybe in order to survive, I should be leaving him.

Theodora automatically assumed my fascination with Urian’s property would amount to a sale, but on the contrary it became imperative to me that we did not buy Urian’s home. There was something magical about the place, something almost sacred, and I wasn’t going to let Andrew make us the villains who drove him out of it.

We’d barely spoken a word since that bizarre incident in the kitchen when I’d behaved like a porn-star with the rolling pin. The rest of the weekend had been an exercise in strained politeness and I may have seemed a bit over zealous in my keenness to pack his bag the following Monday for his usual weeklong commute to Brussels. I began preparing myself for a stand-off and went through endless discourses in my mind about what I would say. Fortunately I was spared when Andrew rang to say he was having some crisis in the office and couldn’t come back on the weekend. It was a relief not to have to see his smug face or listen to another sermon about the EU or the subprime crash for a whole eight days. And it would give me time to come up with a reason not to take him to Goat’s Neck. The thought of him picking his way through Urian’s stuff with cold objectivity filled me with resentment. He wouldn’t find Urian’s treasures special – just a collection of old tat. The two men were almost diametrically opposite. Andrew, prim, conventional, starchy. Urian, eccentric, original, fluid.

The following week I spent just about every free moment at Kikis in the hope of catching a glimpse of those dark eyes shrouded in shadow. I wondered if Urian suspected my transformation into a barfly was on account of my crush on him or just as a consequence of me being a budding alcoholic. Evangelos and Sofia certainly seemed pleased to have me round. Their cheerful work-worn faces would break into vast smiles whenever I arrived and they’d ply me with treats – a bowl of nuts or a freshly baked bougatsa.

I liked the table at the far end of the veranda where the dappled bougainvillea framed the little harbour below like a Sisley painting. I could sit for hours watching the busy fishing boats and ferries chugging in and out of the tiny bay at random times, their booming horns prompting a flurry of activity as scooters, cars and vans buzzed down to the quay to collect their cargoes of fruit, meat, tourists.

My favourite scene was the arrival of the water boat, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The rusty old behemoth took up the entire bay and looked comically out of place in the tiny harbour. As it turned to dock sideways, it came within inches of taking out the desalination turbine and you could hear the hysterical shouts of the port officials all the way up at Kikis as they frantically waved fishermen out of the way and tried to catch the carbuncled old ropes thrown over the side.

Iraklia’s one natural spring was not enough to sustain the whole island’s needs, which is why the water boat was so crucial. After a thirsty weekend you could almost feel the island licking its dry lips and looking out to sea. The whole operation took a couple of hours and while the water boat rehydrated the parched pipes and rose to full height above the quay, its crew would descend upon Iraklia. To be fair there were only six of them, but they were a lively bunch and you certainly knew when they were in town because laughter would rise in the taverns. The captain was married to Christos’ cousin and usually popped into Kikis for some gossip. He was a jovial Naxian who treated his ragtag crew like family members, although in truth they were probably all related anyway.

It lifted me to see them all hugging and slapping each other on the back even though it had only been two days since they last met. Lots of things lifted me on Iraklia: bread being delivered on the back of a scooter, fresh herbs soaking in buckets, stripped squid drying in the sun.

I started recognising regulars at Kikis. The little fat man who raided the kitchen twice a week was Albercio, Evangelos’ cousin, who did a bad job running the restaurant at Hotel Villa Zouganelli. Stamatis was the island’s postman, a hoary baobab of a man, with a thick stumpy torso and steel wool hair. There was a long-running private joke surrounding Stamatis - whenever he came in Evangelos would lay an empty place next to him with a bowl of olives and a glass of water in front of it. As various punters arrived they’d wander over to greet Stamatis and then respectfully doff their caps and say a few words to the empty chair which would make everyone laugh jovially, including Stamatis himself. I never quite got the gist of the joke but found myself enjoying everyone’s mirth none the less. It made me smile to see Stamatis’ stocky little shoulders bouncing up and down with laughter.

Turban Girl was a regular feature at the corner of the bar too, her jewellery kit spread out in front of her, her face screwed in concentration as she plaited her delicate strips of leather. She usually chatted to Christos as she worked.

‘Ze Germans want to come here and run your country, Christos.’

‘Germanies? Here?’

‘Zat’s true, ja! Zey want to take over. Like World War Two again.’

He’d shake his head and cackle loudly. ‘Germanies here on Iraklia?’

‘Not Iraklia. Athens’.

At that point Christos would usually tsk loudly with his tongue and disappear into the cellar still laughing.

‘You don’t believe me? Read ze papers!’ Turban Girl would shout after him.

I was envious of the imperial way she commandeered the end of the bar as if it were her own private domain. She’d skulk in at random times, set out her jewellery-making kit and work in quiet concentration for hours. If another punter was sitting on her stool she’d squash in to next to him until he finally gave way and moved somewhere else. Evangelos and Sofia didn’t seem to mind her using their restaurant as a workshop and glowering at their customers. She repaid them with jewellery and gifts for the restaurant – a dreamcatcher above the till, leather and silk bunting across the bar. If I were to engage her attention by admiring her jewellery, she’d just brush me off with monosyllabic grunts. There wasn’t much to say by way of conversation:

Pee on the beach today?

Do you use the restaurant toilets, or do you just pee in the car park?

Every so often, a battered pickup pulled up outside and the dogs would go ballistic. That signalled the arrival of Zosimo, the swarthy shepherd who delivered goat and lamb carcasses to the back door and then came round the front for a complementary raki while the dogs circled and growled.

One day I caught Zosimo and Evangelos looking at me and nodding my way. When he’d gone, Sofia approached me saying he had a property in the Chora that he was trying to sell. I went down there with her that afternoon and was pleased with what I saw. It was a pleasant if run-down little terrace that backed onto the church square. I was immediately taken with its sense of antiquity and the delightful little tiled courtyard to the side, so I began rehearsing my sales pitch for Andrew’s return that Friday.

When I collected him off the ferry he looked even more dishevelled than usual, his pulsating jaw accompanied by nervously overactive fingers that thrummed on the dashboard and picked at his cuffs. I looked at him closely. Dark rings circled his eyes and his skin looked pallid and stretched.

‘Bad week?’

‘Stinker.’

We drove back to the house in silence and I made a show of doing the ironing while he changed into his running kit. He was gone longer than usual this time, at least an hour, and stalked straight passed me and into the shower upon his return. I followed him into the bedroom, picking up his sweaty togs on the way.

‘I wondered if we could eat out tonight?’ I asked through the din of the shower.

‘What?’ he said through the noise.

I went into the kitchen and poured us both a large gin and tonic. When I got back he was still in the bathroom, flossing his teeth with manic intensity.

I handed him the drink and braved my request a second time.

‘I wondered if we could go out to eat tonight?’

The floss snapped out from between two teeth and sent bits of plaque splattering against the mirror. Lovely.

‘I’ve had nothing but restaurant food for a fortnight,’ he said, smearing the plaque across the glass. ‘Could do with some home-cooked food really.’

I swallowed a quarter of my gin and picked out the lemon with my fingers.

‘The truth is I’ve not really had time to shop.’

He stopped and stared at me through the mirror incredulously.

‘At the risk of sounding repetitive, what have you been doing all week?’

‘House-hunting, like you said.’

‘Right,’ he said sarcastically. He turned back to his flossing and spoke between sawing motions. ‘Find anything?’

‘Well yes actually. There’s a lovely little two-bed terrace come up in the Chora.’

‘But we agreed the Chora was too noisy. We were going to find something slightly out of town.’

My hackles were starting to rise. There had been no ‘we’ in our decision to buy out of town, just Andrew’s incessant me, me, me. I bit my tongue and stared out the window while I counted to ten. The man was so bloody intractable, he could be a pig-headed nightmare if his position became entrenched. It was easier to bring him round gently whilst massaging his ego into believing the change of plan was his decision all along.

Back home in Chelsea I had a whole host of techniques I could deploy at any given moment to achieve this end. The most successful was frying him kipper with onions and capers. Eeuw. I couldn’t stand the smell, the texture, the colour. But it was his favourite dish and I was not above using it to curry favour. I’d paint my lips with Estee Lauder Neon Azalea pink, (his ‘preferred ‘colour), flatter him with empty compliments (easily done) and then fry up his blasted kipper whilst mentally wording and rewording the request I hoped he’d cooperate with.

Darling, would you mind awfully if I did such-and-such.

Sweetheart, the neighbours have bought a such-and-such and we could so do with one.

My love, would you mind awfully if we didn’t do such-and-such.

In Greece I’d sooner batter him over the head with a piece of kipper than serve it to him on a bed of capers and onions. I breathed deeply to calm myself down before speaking.

‘This place is so charming, Andrew, it would be a shame not to consider it.’

‘Did you see the place up on the neck?’

I chewed the lemon and took another swig of my gin.

‘Yes, it’s OK. Bit isolated.’

He gave me a long look and went into the bedroom to change.