The Gypsy's Dream (11 page)

Juliet sits down on the sofa and a cat jumps onto her knee.

Stella strokes the cat and sits next to Juliet, perched on the edge of the sofa as if she might slip off. Juliet lays one arm over the back of the seat, relaxed, assured. Stella’s toes have turned in. Her shoulders rounded, she looks like a child beside Juliet. The cat jumps from Juliet’s knee to hers.

‘
Do you want some tea, or some iced water?’ The pergola over the porch is dense with a passion-flower vine. The sunlight pinpricks between its foliage but the shadow does not diminish the heat.

‘
Yes please, either, either.’ Stella pronounces the word in both of its possible forms. In one of her lessons with Juliet they watched a black-and-white video of a song by a couple who could not get on because they pronounced things differently. She had enjoyed the song but it did make learning English difficult if there were different ways to pronounce everything.

Juliet, goes in for the drinks, giving Stella a moment to think. She strokes the cat, who settles on her knee. Juliet knows so much; she has lived in England all her li
fe. How long has she been here? Only a couple of years. She is worldly, she is divorced and probably, and most importantly, she does not gossip.

The tray is laden with iced tea, biscuits and napkins. Stella dreams of being this civilised. But with Stavros
, what is the point?

‘
Stavros,’ she says out loud. Juliet is with her in an instant.

‘
What has he done?’ She looks at Stella and settles back into the sofa as if she has all the time in the world.

Stella takes off the cardigan. Juliet sits upright, and h
er eyes widen as her hand goes out to touch the bruises, but stops before it reaches them.

‘
Oh my God, are you ok? What happened?’

Stella can hear Juliet
’s breath has quickened as she asks.

Stella relates the incidents. She hears her voice tell the tale a
nd in the telling it seems unreal, something out of the newspaper. It feels so unfitting that she begins to doubt that it really happened, at least not to her. She strokes the cat quite rapidly. Over the wall, across the hills, there is a movement, and in the turning of her head to see the goats scramble up the hill she is given proof that it was all real. The pain shoots down her neck into her shoulder.

She winces and turns back to Juliet to finish her tale.

Juliet has tears in her eyes, her face drawn down with sadness. Stella is shocked. She had expected her to immediately jump into the: ‘I am so sorry this has happened to you’ spiel. This is not what she thought would happen. She feels guilty for bringing Juliet into her sordid life. The horror of the event becomes more real; her own tears well and silently fall.

Juliet sits quite still, looking straight at her, until she finally says,
‘What do you want to do?’ This completely takes Stella off her guard. She wasn’t aware that she could ‘do’ anything about what has happened.

‘
How do you mean?’ she almost stutters.

‘
If he has done it once it is unlikely that he will not do it again, which leaves the question, “What do you want to do?”‘ Juliet is firm but kind.

Stella has no idea if she wants to do anything
. She wants life to be as it always was, running the
ouzeri
, maybe even improving it, living next to Vasso, waving goodnight to Theo, cutting up Mitsos’ food. She suddenly misses Mitsos quite violently and sucks air in, a reflex to the surprise of her attachment to him. No, she does not want to change a thing. Except Stavros: she wishes he just didn’t exist.

‘
I want Stavros to not exist.’ Stella laughs before tears blur her vision and she shivers into sobs. Juliet is by her side with an arm around her shoulder. Stella turns her face against Juliet’s T-shirt. Juliet rocks her gently.

‘
I have done “bad marriage”, Stella,’ Juliet says. ‘It dragged me down and kept me under. I did the classic, I worked harder at it. He didn’t. But you know, you know deep down in your gut, whether something is worth working for or not.’

Stella emerges from Juliet
’s T-shirt and Juliet uses the shift to nip inside and bring tissues. Stella blows her nose noisily. The tears on her cheeks have dried in the sun to salty war paint, white against her dark skin.

‘
Sometimes the event, like catching someone kissing another woman, can mean nothing, the woman he is kissing just a tool, an invention to bring a crisis to a point, so that deeper issues, that are too scary to broach, can be talked about. It is possible, in talking, that you can come together again, even better than before. The event, the woman, is just meaningless. Then, if you love him, it is not about moving apart, it is about moving closer together. Both of you work through the pain, not of him kissing another woman, but the problems you have together, that were the catalyst for that kiss.’ Juliet takes a breath.

‘
Other times the event is for and because of itself. He wants that event to happen. Then you know there is no point in working, trying. It’s time to part. Sometimes, I know, you can confuse the one for the other and stay working and trying hard with something that is dead and buried.’ Juliet looks at Stella. Stella looks puzzled. She has not understood all that Juliet has said. The ideas are too complex for her comprehension of English, the speech too fast.

‘
You know, Stella, deep inside, if it is worth working for,’ Juliet concludes. Stella understands this but it brings her no joy.

‘
The feelings say “no”, there is nothing to work for, but then I remember how he saved me.’

‘
Saved you?’

‘
Yes, from the bullies and the bad words about me being a dirty gypsy. He gave me, er, I do not know the English word for it, er,
axiopistia
, how you say?’

‘
Credibility,’ Juliet mutters before going on. ‘But Stella, he did not marry you to give you credibility. That was not his reason for marrying you?’

‘
Well, no.’ Stella wipes her eyes. Another cat appears and sits at her feet, staring up at her.

‘
So his reason for marrying you was some other reason, love, whatever. It is you who sees that he gave you credibility, it is not he who gave you it. It was a fortuitous consequence.’

‘
Fort tu tus co …’ Stella begins to spell out.

‘
Luck,’ Juliet condenses.

‘
Yes, but being married to him did give me this, without that I could never have opened the
ouzeri
, I would not have dared, and no one would have come to the “dirty gypsy”.’

Juliet shakes her head at Stella
’s last two words.

‘
Yes, but like I said, these were consequences, results,’ Juliet states. ‘He did not marry you to give you all that, without benefits for him. He loved you and wanted you and all the other things that were his reasons. The bottom line is you do not owe him.’

‘
But without him …’

‘
Without him who knows what you might have done? Maybe you would have set up the shop, maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you would have found a business partner in the town and set up a taverna there and been even more successful. Maybe you wouldn’t.’

‘
But …’

Juliet takes Stella
’s hand. The cat decides he has had enough of all the commotion and jumps onto the floor to be with his friend.

‘
I’ll tell you an old Chinese tale.’ Juliet settles herself, inviting Stella to do the same.

‘
There was an old farmer who worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbour came to visit. “Such bad luck” he said. “Maybe”, the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful”, the neighbour exclaimed. “Maybe,” replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbour again came to visit saying, “what bad luck”. "Maybe," answered the farmer. The day after, the army came to the village to enlist the young men. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, he was no use to them and they left him. The neighbour congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. “Maybe”, said the farmer.’ Stella smiles at the tale. Juliet continues.

‘
For years I stuck by Mick. First I worked at it thinking that it was me, then I worked at it for the boys, then because I felt I was being harsh, then because I felt I owed him. I thought of all the good things that had happened since we had been together and then I got real.

‘
The day-to-day reality was sucking out all my joy of life, reducing me to believing I could do no better, that I deserved nothing more than I got.

‘
It’s a trap. I got stuck in it, but I eventually figured it out and left. But do you know what?’ Juliet waits for a reply.

‘
What?’ Stella’s voice is small.

‘
I didn’t even have one bruise to tell me who he was.’

Stella sits wide-eyed, waiting for more. But Juliet closes her mouth and Stella is left to think over Juliet
’s last sentence.

‘
What shall I do?’ Stella asks. She strokes the cat curled in her lap.

‘
I have learnt that everything we do in life, even the little things, depends on what we want. Our actions decide how we live,’ Juliet says. ‘The difference between me now and me when I was married to Mick is that when we were together I would do whatever felt good or was easiest in the moment to make my life nice and then kept wondering why the result was always the same.’ She sniffs, a brief controlled sound. ‘But I think I wanted that same result, it fitted what I thought I deserved.’ She squirms and settles herself with one leg tucked under her. ‘During the divorce and after the divorce and, most importantly, coming here, I have experienced so much in Greece.’ She looks out past the wall of her garden to the hills, ‘I have watched myself and changed my view of myself. Now - and this is the big difference - I think what I want the outcome to be first and take the action second to make sure it happens. Even if the action needed is hard. The result is I get what I think I deserve.’ Juliet encourages the second cat onto her knee. It jumps up and immediately curls in a ball to sleep.

‘
Then I must to become magician. I want him to disappear. Then I go on, only he is not there,’ Stella retorts.

‘
If you want to carry on as if nothing has happened, see if you can.’

‘
What do you mean?’ Stella asks.

‘
Well, is the shop in his name or both your names, or your name?’

‘
The shop is rented, so is the house.’

‘
I thought you had a family house here?’

‘
Yes, but when Mama she died we sold the house and the land to pay off Stavros’ debts.’

‘
Ouch! So whose name is the shop rented in?’

‘
No one, we just rent it from Mavros. The same with the house, but this is rented from someone else.’

‘
So if he left then you could just carry on?’

‘
Why would he leave?’

‘
Oh, I don’t know. I am just seeing how the land lies.’

‘
What is “the land lies”?’

‘
It means seeing how things are.’

‘
So if someone else had told you how things are and you forgot who it was you could say “A little bird told me how the land lies”?’ Stella is smiling.

‘
Yes.’ Juliet laughs, lifts off the cat from her knee and gets up to go indoors, returning with a bottle of water. ‘Do you want to go inside and I’ll put the air-conditioning on? It’s so hot.’

Stella gets up and the
two settle in Juliet’s white front room. Stella sits on the slightly shabby white sofa and Juliet pulls up a very comfortable-looking chair. She has a remote in her hand, and with a single press of a button the room begins to fill with new air. At first it is not noticeable, just the noise, then the moving air only accentuates the heat, but after a few minutes it begins to cool them both. It’s delicious.

The room looks very western to Stella, but she likes it, everything white, except a huge deep red easte
rn-looking rug over the tiled floor. There is a small wooden table on which is Juliet’s laptop, its colourful screen in contrast with its surroundings.

‘
Why does your computer have your name in big letters?’ Juliet has often used her computer as a tool for teaching. Stella now knows about Google and YouTube.

‘
Oh, I have not shown you that. That’s my web page for my translation business.’ She gets up and takes the laptop from the table and gives it to Stella. ‘Good, isn’t it? A friend of mine wrote it. He is in Pakistan now but he might go to England. He’s got a job offer there. Actually, did you meet him? Aaman, he helped me with my garden.’ Juliet touches the screen; she seems far away.

Stella says nothing.

Juliet comes back to the moment.

‘
But we are not getting much English done. Do you want to do a lesson today?’ she asks.

‘
I have learnt about birds and land.’ Stella smiles, but it does not reach her eyes.

‘
Yes, but it is not a proper lesson. I will not be charging you a chicken dinner,’ Juliet says with a smile, but her voice has a caress in its tone as if she is aware of how raw Stella must feel. They sit companionably for a few minutes.

‘
You know I did not go to school much, but I learnt to read and write and I have the business. But do you know of what I always dream?’ Stella does not wait for a reply. ‘I dream of doing an international business.’ She sits back at the grandeur of the words she has just spoken. But then suddenly sits upright. ‘Do you get your work from England?’

‘
England and here. I am registered as a translator with the British Council here, and now with my website I get translation jobs from all over the place. Last year I translated a whole book.’ Juliet sounds so confident.

Stella
’s eyes are shining. ‘So you have international business!’

Juliet laughs,
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’ The cat is scratching at the door and Juliet slides off her chair to let it in.

‘
I want international business.’ Stella twists her tongue around each word to try to say it without an accent.

‘
I think your chips would get very cold if you posted them abroad.’ Juliet laughs. Her laughter trails into silence. The cat is purring.

‘
I think he could make trouble with the girl.’ Stella’s voice is flat.

‘
How do you mean “trouble”? You mean like hit on her?’

‘
Like he hit me!’ Stella’s jaw drops open and she stands as if to leave, looking through the glass in the door as if she would have a view all the way to the
ouzeri
.

‘
No, no,’ Juliet puts her hand on Stella’s wrist and gently pulls her back to sitting.

‘
To “hit on” someone means to flirt with them.’

Stella exhales and visibly relaxes.

‘Yes, I think this will be next.’

Stella walks back slowly, soaking in the illusion of freedom the conversation with Juliet has created. She wants to live Juliet’s life, be brave enough to be a single woman, with her own house, no fear.

Next door to Juliet
’s is an abandoned barn and next door to that a low small dwelling with a large yard. Georgia, who lives here, loves her flowers, each tended in a pot of its own, thriving as only she knows how to make flowers thrive. The space is an oasis of colour and textures, quivering petals and spiky succulents, the display of a nature lover. Stella would like to stop for a chat but in the jungle of Georgia’s passion there is no sign of her. Stella walks on.

She kicks a stone in the lane. It skims before her and gently rolls to a stop. The dusty lane is a mix of compacted soil, embedded shiny-topped stones and determined weeds. Whitewashed backs of single-storey houses provide a wall on her left, the
handmade ceramic tiles of their roofs flaking with age and algae.

The concept, the possibility of being alone, is both thrilling and scary. She has never been truly alone in her life. She shivers in the heat and twists her wedding ring, slipping it along
her finger and pushing it back on as she walks, until she dares to pull the ring right to the end of her finger. She stops it coming right off with the tip of her opposite index finger, wiggling both to make the ring spin awkwardly.

It almost feels as if s
he has a choice. For now, she pushes her ring back on. Her spine straightens; the top of her head skims the blue sky as she continues down to the end of Juliet’s track and onto the lane.

A man with a rounded stomach drives by on a slow motorbike, looking
left and right, with nothing to do. He spots Stella and slows his motorbike down almost to a stall. He looks the length of her and smiles. Stella has no interest in looking back and he throttles forward.

What if Stavros uses his charm on Abby? A momentary
jealousy squeezes her heart until the Stavros of yesteryear fades and reality is resumed. She does not wish this on Abby, but more than that she does not want to lose Abby’s friendship. She is fun; the hours spin by running the
ouzeri
with two girls. This is only the second day Abby has been with them, and yet if she left now the space she would leave would gape painfully.

It seems strange to Stella that even though she wishes Stavros gone she admits to herself it would hurt, to some degree, if he were t
o want Abby and not her – ‘twisting the knife’, another of Juliet’s sayings. But she is not sure if the hurt would come from losing him or losing Abby.

She turns the corner towards the square.

‘A little bird told me the lay of the land and I am thinking you are twisting the knife.’ Stella chuckles. English is full of nonsense. But then so is Greek. She often says ‘listen so you can see’ when she wants someone to listen to her to see her point of view. She also says ‘slow the oil’ when someone is exaggerating.

No, the twist of the knife, the wound, would be from the loss of Abby
’s friendship, not Stavros.

The square is bathed in the heat. It is reflecting off all the hard surfaces. With the sun directly overhead, the area of shade the central palm is casting
is very small.

The lifting of the charcoal sacks and the potato bags when they are full. That is when she would notice Stavros gone. Sometime
s when she is really tired and leaves him to close up, but that is not often. Stella runs through the daily chores but there is nothing she can think of that she does not or could not do herself. The clients would probably not even notice he wasn’t there any more. But nevertheless it would feel scary, it would feel lonely, but mostly it would feel as if there was little point in it all.

As she passes the kiosk Vasso looks up from some knitting and says
‘Hello’ in English, acknowledging where Stella has just been. Stella smiles and replies, ‘I’ll be back.’ She knows this phrase makes Vasso giggle. As she reaches the
ouzeri
she can hear Vasso saying to herself over again ‘L’ beeback’ and giggling.

Stavros has been her pivotal point for so many years. She wakes first and leaves the house without disturbing him, taking delight in her ability to give him the extra sleep. He
turns up at the
ouzeri
later and she can see all the work she has achieved freshly through his eyes. The place fills with hungry farmers, she knows he can hear her taking the orders, suggesting an extra portion, another ouzo, making them happy, filling the till. She often cleans the place whilst he sleeps in the afternoon and takes pride in her achievement on his return.

He is her witness and without him her days will make less sense, in fact there is a strange void over both home and work when she imagine
s him absent.

The evening shift passes unremarkably. She chats to Abby, who is asking her about who lives in the village and what most of them do. She is entertaining company as she seems to know something about everything and she gets very excited if Stel
la can add to her knowledge of the world. The only indication of her youth is her relentless energy until she is quite spent, and then she is suddenly exhausted. Stavros keeps a low profile, he does not mention what has happened, he keeps all conversation to practical matters. Stella wants to say everything to him and nothing, the time has passed for talk. That time was probably years ago but neither of them noticed. The day seems false, suspended.

Stella lets Abby go a couple of hours before her and an hou
r before Stavros, who leaves saying he is tired and is going home to bed. Abby has earned a reasonable wage in tips and Stella has added enough to it that she will not lose any of her tips in paying for her bed. Vasso has been very modest with her price.

S
tella potters around, serves the final
giros
when the bus from town drops off the last few returning villagers. She piles the remaining plates in the sink, checks the chip fryer is off, rakes the coals over and decides she has had enough. She too will go early.

She will persuade Vasso to do the same so they can have a nightcap together. That will cheer her up. Vasso loves a drink but gets tipsy after just a glass, and then, unintentionally, becomes a comedian either in everything she says or everything she
does, sometimes both. Stella smiles at the thought as she approaches the kiosk.

‘
Long day for you today, Vasso?’ Stella comments.

‘
Ach, I have this book that is meant to help me with my accounts and I have been trying to work it out. When we didn’t have to give receipts nothing had to add up, you just told the tax man how much you earned, he doubled it because he thought everyone was lying and then he taxed us accordingly. It was a lot simpler.’

‘
Yes, but everyone did lie about how much they made. Come on, let’s go and have a night cap,’ Stella says.