A Song Amongst the Orange Trees (The Greek Village Collection Book 13) (7 page)

Renovating
the Cottage.

With some money in the bank and the promise of more on the way, Sakis and Jules decide to start work immediately on the cottage. With all the shutters open, the sun streams into the cottage, highlighting charm—and age. At the very least, everywhere needs a coat of paint but if they are seriously going to spend any time here, it needs more.

It is not a hard decision to go in to Saros to look at plans for kitchens. The kitchen salesman’s brother is an architect, so they drift from one establishment to another to enquire about an extension. Jules has ideas of how the cooking area will work best and they both agree with the architect that a utility room for a washing machine should also be added.

The creativity of what they are doing is fun but Sakis feels out of his depth and consequently very reliant on Jules. When he finally got his own flat in Athens, it was fully finished. Before that, in his struggle to make enough for his own place, he always lived in other peoples’ houses as a lodger, a sofa surfer. Nowhere was ever permanent. It was always a struggle.

Playing sweaty smoke-filled nightclubs—and often conned out of his earnings—but with each club a little better than the last until after ten hard years, Andreas spotted him. Even Andreas was amazed that it did not happen earlier, as his talent was always recognisable.

Well, it was recognised: the nightclub owners saw it, the wheelers and dealers saw it. The truth was everyone wanted a piece, and that left very little for him. But Andreas really seemed to want to represent him and with that representation and the connections Andreas had, he was suddenly in demand at the larger bouzouki clubs in Athens. His face filled billboards around where he worked until Andreas made his cheeky, and, perhaps a little premature, move of putting him up against big names to represent Greece in the competition.

Sakis watches Jules taking the pencil from the architect to draw lines on the rough sketch they are working on together, which it seems he cannot describe without a common language. The architect is smiling, approving of the suggestion. Jules seems so comfortable in any situation, completely at ease with whoever he talks to. Sakis is very lucky to have found him as a friend. Just in his company, Sakis can feel himself unwind, not hold so tight to life, generally panic less.

In all those years of communal living and hand-to-mouth existence, he never made a real friend. Not really, unless you count Andreas. There were people who pretended to be his friend but really, it always turned out that their motives were selfish and ulterior. That singer, for example, who was trying for a quick leg up the nightclub rankings using his musical talent—and stealing some of his songs in the process. Or the time when he was pushed into being a frontman for a group because of his face, not his talent, and then dropped in favour of a girl’s face when the moment suited.

So to now be surrounded by a village of people who genuinely seem to wish him well and to have Jules by his side is unnerving and alien. Part of him would like to thank Jules for being his friend, but how can he put that into words? Besides, it would feel awkward to tell Jules how much he appreciates his support, his care when he was ill, his companionship whilst he waits to go to New York. Sure, Jules has asked for a bit of help once they are there, but he would want to do everything he can for Jules after the friendship he has shown.

And now this! This planning to renovate the cottage so they have somewhere to return to when New York becomes overbearing. The organising of the rooms so they can both live there comfortably.

It is remarkable how quickly the ideas become decisions. An extension is to be built to house both utility room, kitchen, new bathroom, and second bedroom. The traditional oven is to be left as a feature in the main room. Oil fired central heating is to be installed. The chimney to the fireplace needs raising apparently, to stop the backdraft of smoke that Sakis can remember used to give him a sore throat in the winters. The window in the bedroom is to be replaced with double doors into the garden and the garden—well, that can wait a while, but there is talk of digging out an area that will later be paved and covered with a vine-adorned pergola. That work might as well be done when they dig the foundations for the extension. Maybe they will even put a water feature somewhere, or a swimming pool beyond the walnut tree, in amongst the orange trees.

Sakis cannot remember feeling this happy—except when singing.

Then he always is this happy.

The architect makes a call and workers are scheduled in. ‘Strictly speaking, we should wait for the planning permission to be issued,’ he says with a smile, ‘but there in the village, no one will object, and it is really just a formality…’ They can start the work whilst he and Jules are away.

'Next summer, we can come for a holiday and it will all be done!' Sakis enthuses later that evening. Taking his bouzouki by its neck, he strolls to the far end of the garden, through the weeds that will be dug up, to sit on the low wall that will be repaired, and there he plays out his new melody. It is a full and haunting tune now, complete.

'That's beautiful,' Jules says when he returns to the house.

'But the words don't come,' Sakis mourns. 'I don’t even know what it should be about.' It annoys him that he seems to have such a block.

'They'll come,' Jules says and pours them both an ouzo. The night settles in. An orange glow bleeds from behind the shutters at the back of Thanasis and Dora's house, lending high contrast to the scattering of geraniums in brightly painted olive oil tins around the back door. Across the road, Katerina pulls her shutters closed. Next door to her, Anna's house is already closed for the night, and a hum of television sounds leaches into the stillness. The smell of jasmine is on the breeze and the village dogs are barking their evening chorus. Now and again as the wind direction changes, the jasmine is replaced with the smell of orange blossom. They are the smells of his childhood.

Somewhere up the street, someone is laughing. It is probably coming from the eatery near the square, with tables and chairs arranged on the pavement, around a tree that someone has wrapped up with fairy lights—a crude village attempt at enticement.

If only the owners knew that it is not the magical glow of the fairy lights that draws people, or him at least, but rather the familiarity that these villagers offer to both family and stranger. An unspoken acknowledgement that everyone is human and therefore equal. His competition win does not matter here; his transient fame bears no consequence on the present. Here, all that seems to matter is the moment. The conversation at hand, the immediate surroundings, the person in front of you.

It was his home once, so it should not surprise to him that here he has the feeling of coming home. But it does surprise him. What really rattles him is that, only by being here and feeling part of the village, he realises he has yearned for this for years. In his striving ever forward to some future situation where he would be surrounded by 'better' musicians, 'better' nightclubs, 'better' wages, 'better' friends, it was all just a thin veneer that, if he had picked at its surface, would have revealed that the real hunger was to belong somewhere.

In this village, he belongs. With Jules, he belongs. Maybe Jules is the brother he never had? The father, mother, and friend he never had.

'What if we decide not to go to New York? What if we decide to stay here?' Sakis says, pouring a second ouzo and then lighting a citronella candle. The mosquitoes are out in force tonight.

'What if?' Jules returns the question.

'Well, would you be so sorry? Does this place not make you happy?'

'It is a very happy place. The cottage is very peaceful; you seem content here.' Jules stretches out in one of the new directors chairs they brought home earlier. He always melts into wherever he sits, but this chair seems to really suit his posture.

'Could you live here? Permanently? I could get a job in a local club, or maybe even teach music to the local children.' Sakis plays with the idea.

'Could be very good.' Jules does not seem to be really entering the conversation. He is looking up at the stars. With so few street lights anywhere in the village and no lights at all in the surrounding countryside, the sky is black and the stars wink one behind the other, layer after layer, further and further away in the warm night sky. Somewhere in the village, someone plays a traditional tune on the clarinet. A cat slinks out of the dried weeds, walks with such confidence right up to them, and then jumps on Jules’ lap. Jules doesn't stop gazing up at the night sky, but he strokes the stray absentmindedly.

'The day after tomorrow is the village saint’s day,' he says.

'The
panigyri
? Oh. What made you think of that?'

'Can you not hear someone practising? Are you going to sing for them?'

The next day, they are raised from sleep by a persistent knocking on the front door. Two quality mattresses are delivered along with the new bed linen, towels, and net curtains they ordered. As they surface from sleep and take the items, something seems unusual. The delivery man waves a cheerful goodbye and it is only when he has driven off that they become properly aware of the activity in the street. People are armed with thick, floppy brushes, and everything is getting a coat of whitewash. The clarinettist is now in competition with several guitars and at least two sources of recorded music. Up towards the square, the activity increases. Chairs are being unloaded from a lorry, a stage has been erected, the kiosk is strung with Greek flags around the edges of its roof. Sakis hovers, enjoying the feeling of excitement. Some children run from a house further down up towards the square, screaming to each other, pushing, smiling, hair flowing behind the girls, little jumps as their
kefi
overflows.

'Kalimera
,' Thanasis calls as he straightens up stiffly from the other side of his front door, whitewash brush dripping. ‘Done yours.' He flicks the brush toward Sakis' wall. 'But your whole place could do with a lick, eh? Are you looking forward to the
panigyri
? It has been a while since you have been here for one. Should be a good one this year. We have booked Grigoris Taxydaktylos from Thessaloniki to come down to sing. His ancestors are from these parts, you know.'

'I can't say I‘ve heard of him.'

'No, well, he is an old guy. Mainly does village
panigyria
. But they say he is a great talent.'

'Well, to be honest I might not see. I might …'

But his sentence is cut off.

'What! Oh you must. It is once a year! Don't tell me you do not remember how much fun you used to have at the
panigyria?

Sakis does remember. He remembers the games of chase with the other children in and around the tables and chairs that filled the village square and all the people that came from Saros, different from the villagers somehow: crisper, shinier. To one side of the square on the road, they built a huge fire and roasted pig after pig, tray after tray pulled from the embers and carved on the spot. Barrels of ice were everywhere, filled with bottles of beer, ouzo at every table, everyone in their finest. The streets down in front of the house filled with trestle tables, piled with treasures for sale—trinkets for the children and work tools for the farmers.
Yiayia
would haggle for a new pruning saw every year. The last year he can remember, there was someone selling air rifles for the boys and guns for those who like to hunt rabbits. How he had wanted one of those!

'Well, it is just …'

'Sakis, I think the mattress is the wrong size. Can you get the man with the van back?'

With a shrug as if to say 'what can I do?' Sakis abandons his conversation with Thanasis and goes inside.

'Ah, no, it probably just needs a good shove.' Sakis pulls off blankets and pillow and with a shove and a push, the mattress fits perfectly.

'I should hear from Andreas today about the tickets to America. He is also going to set up a couple of interviews in Greece before we go.'

Jules, who is taking sheets out of their paper wrappings, looks up.

'Should I wait before I make the bed up, then? Is it definite that you are going?'

'Yes. Well, sort of. Andreas sounded sure, but nothing is sure until it is done, right?' He picks up his bouzouki. A new melody has come to mind, a few notes that will fit in the middle of the tune. He works the riff for a moment before playing the new song he wrote. Maybe the words will come today?

'That is my favourite,' Jules says.

A knock at the open front door is accompanied by a cheerful voice.

'Yeia sas
.' Sakis covers his surprise at seeing the owner of the hotel at his door. Jules shows no sign of being shocked.

'Stella,' she reminds him. 'And this,' she steps inside and behind her is a younger woman, not much more than a girl, 'is Abby, an English friend of mine, here for the
panigyri
.' Between the two of them, they carry a long, rolled-up rug. But Sakis cannot take his gaze from Abby. She has such strength in her features, yet she is as delicate as a poppy.

'Hello.' Sakis reverts to English to wish Abby welcome.

'I heard you were doing up the place and I wondered if you needed a rug? I know it is summer now, but when winter comes, these stone floors can get very cold.' Stella speaks in her native Greek.