The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8) (18 page)

‘But he looked at me, a glint in his eye as if he was enjoying himself. I hated him with such a force at that moment, I thought I must be the devil himself.’ She looks up abruptly. ‘I think I need some water.’ Sophia stands.

Juliet’s head moves but her eyes are unfocused.

‘Yes please,’ she says, as if surfacing from a trance.

The water refreshes them both.

‘Did he die?’ Juliet finally finds her tongue.

‘The doctor came and I told them what happened.’ She tosses her head back and sucks her teeth as if it was pointless to have related anything. ‘The doctor nodded wisely and gave Hectoras some injection which seemed to make him go even more floppy, and then he pulled the knife from his throat. I saw the blade end pass through his mouth before coming out under his jaw. The doctor muttered something like, ‘Thank goodness the knife wasn’t serrated.’ Sada fainted, so I dealt with her. When I turned back, Hectoras was lying flat out on the floor with his wound stitched up. Mama was staring at me wildly and the doctor was gathering his things.

‘He’ll live,’ was all the doctor said as he left and then all hell let loose.

Chapter 23

‘What in God’s name did you do?’ Mama screamed at Sophia. In that moment, her world fell away, she felt so alone, so utterly abandoned. Having just experienced the most petrifying event of her life, she now needed her mama to hold her tight, to tell her she was all right. In the kitchen, a puddle on the flagstone floor marked where she had stood as he walked towards her and all she needed now was reassurance that she was safe. But what she got was her mama’s arms flying around as she screeched at her.

‘Here he is, a fine boy,’ she shouted, waving her hands over Hectoras in his drug-induced sleep where he lay, still on the courtyard floor. ‘He comes courting you and what happens? You attack him with the fish knife. Are you mad? Has all that book learning scrambled your brains?’ she yelled, not caring who could hear them over the courtyard wall. The tears welled in Sophia’s eyes. She would have run to Sada, but Sada was lying down, recovering from her faint. Sophia needed someone, right now anyone, who would put their arms around her and tell her she was all right.

‘Mama …’ she began.

‘Don’t you Mama me!’ She backed away from her youngest daughter, her arms extended towards her, palms out, warning her off. ‘You are no child of mine. You are the devil’s spawn.’ The dam burst and Sophia’s thirteen-year-old tears ran down her face. The world was suddenly too big and scary; she wanted to hide like an infant in her mama’s bosom, be lulled by her words, be comforted by her love.

‘And now you cry as if you have emotions? You had no emotions for this boy as you stuck him with your knife, did you?’ Her mama’s eyes were wide, the whites showing around her irises. This too was terrifying.

‘But Mama,’ Sophia began again, her whole being surging up into her throat and coming out in these words.

‘He was here, willing to marry you. You who have filled your head with such nonsense that no one would want you, you that walks as if you are better than all of us, but still, Hectoras was willing to court you. If you didn’t want him, why could you not just run and live amongst the nets like Vetta? No, you have to even upstage her. There will be no keeping this quiet, Sophia. You have gone too far, you are done for. No one will have you now. You will die an unloved old maid.’ And with these words, she left the courtyard, the door left swinging on its hinges behind her.

‘I looked at his body lying there, stitched up, the wounds on display. If I had not decided to fight back, my wound would have been invisible. No stiches to show. No horror to illustrate his actions. No slander would come his way. Instead he would gain a wife, a subservient, scared wife, who would be his servant for the rest of his life.’

Hectoras lay there, a bloody wound under his neck and with his wound and the lies he would tell to accompany it, he held any future Sophia may have had in his bullying grasp. She watched him breathe, part of her wishing each was his last. At least then, there would only be her side of the story told. But each breath was followed by another until her mama returned, bringing with her Hectoras’ father and some other men who carried him away as he slept on. Sophia’s mama held her eyes to the ground and never spoke a word. No one looked at Sophia. When the door in the courtyard wall closed, Sada came out of the house.

‘What happened?’ she asked, her hand on the wall, still not sure on her feet.

‘Your sister here will have to spend the rest of her life on her knees to make amends for the sin she has committed.’ Mama spat, grabbing at a broom to sweep the crushed, deep pink, bougainvillea leaves from the spot where Hectoras had laid.

‘What happened, Sophia?’ Sada’s words came out kindly.

‘He pushed his way in ...’ Sophia began.

‘He pushed his way in ...’ her mama mocked. ‘He would not have had to push his way in if you had had the sense to invite him in. His uncle is the mayor, you know. It was a match most girls would die for. You are done for, Sophia. You must ask God to forgive your wicked ways. No one else will listen to you now. Maybe even He will turn his back on such an evil deed. What on earth possessed you?’

‘Sophia?’ Sada questioned, but it seemed pointless for Sophia to tell her side of the story. Her mama had made her mind up.

‘So you see nothing but evil in me then.’ Sophia ignored Sada’s question and responded to her mama’s jibes. The world was devoid of all joy and in that moment, Sophia wished she was dead. She wished she was up in the hills with goats. She wished that she was anywhere but where she was.

She turned on her mama. It was her turn to shout; she had nothing to lose. ‘If I read, that is evil. If I think, that is evil, and if I don’t want to be married to a bully like Hectoras, I am evil. Nothing I do pleases you. What do you want of me, Mama? You don’t want me to be me, so what do you want? I have cut down the amount I read because it makes you unhappy that I know things. I don’t speak out when I see injustice take place because you don’t want me to bring attention to the family. I hardly ever go out anywhere for fear of shaming you. But still you are not satisfied. Do I have to become a nun before you think any good of me? Is that it? Is that what you want, you want me to be a nun? Then fine. I’ll be a nun.’

And with these flippant words, she ran up to her bedroom, pulled her precious poetry book from under the mattress, and ran from the house up to the pine trees and beyond. Up to Yanni, the boy Hectoras had spat on all those years before. Yanni, who was kind and caring. Yanni, who did have a brain and did not need an uncle as a mayor to make him interesting. Yanni, her friend. More than a friend even, in her heart at least, and she knew where she would find him.

He was there collecting firewood. At first, Sophia could not talk to him, she was so upset. She knew that what had happened was not going to go away easily and something would come of it. More than anything, she wanted to be climbing the trees with Yanni like they did the year before, free of any worries. She also wanted to be in the lecture room with the woman with the perfect hair, talking about poetry. She wanted to combine the two. How could she explain to Yanni how learning made her feel as if she could conquer the world? Was there any way to explain that there was a life beyond de-scaling fish and cooking and being a wife? If she could explain that to anyone on the island, then he was the one person who would understand, but with all the emotions coursing through her, she didn’t know how to find the words.

She held the book of poetry to her chest and looked in his eyes. He asked nothing, he just stayed still with her. Eventually Sophia opened the book. She thought if she read the verse she had learnt about, he would understand everything. But when she looked at the words, they blurred behind the tears. Something terrible was going to happen because of Hectoras and there was no way to avoid it. She suspected it would be a while before she would see Yanni again. At the very least, she would not be allowed out unescorted. At the very least.

Taking a pencil from her apron pocket, she drew a ring around the verse that had given her such pleasure, that had filled her heart and set her free even if for just a brief moment, and then she gave the book to Yanni for safekeeping. Then without a word, she turned and ran. She left what was good and pure safely in the trees and she ran back down into town to face head on whatever was coming her way. All she could hope for was that Yanni would read the poem and realise her love for him. If she was betrothed to him, maybe it would save her. Of course she could not ask him. She had to wait for him to ask her. The intellectual jump necessary to escape that tradition was beyond even Sophia.

By the time she returned home, what had happened had already been gossiped around the town, the story changing on its journey, the crime becoming an increasing form of amusement, the events more comical until by the evening, there was such shame in the event for Hectoras, the story being told—that he was gutted like a fish by a child not even old enough to be called woman—was so demeaning that his uncle, the mayor, sent a rumour out amongst the town that Sophia was to be tried for attempted murder, which certainly stopped the sniggering but only fuelled the gossip.

Sophia’s mama and baba were distraught, and even Vetta came up from amongst the nets for a night. Baba told Mama to go and plead with the mayor not to press charges, to say that she would send Sophia to go to live for a while in repentance in Saros convent. Sophia overheard her baba and protested most strongly, which only made them more determined. The more she protested, the more adamant they became.

The next day, before it was fully light and certainly before the mayor could give his answer to the proposed solution, Sophia was taken by fishing boat all the way up to Saros and from there, she walked with her mama’s priest up to the convent. As they planted one foot in front of the other, climbing the hill to the convent, Sophia was given to understand by the priest that once the whole thing had died down and people had mostly forgotten about her, she could probably return. He rapped hard on the convent door and they were both quickly ushered to the abbess, where the priest requested that Sophia be taken in as a form of mercy.

For a while, Vetta wrote and even suggested in one letter that that the mayor never really intended to prosecute anyway, that he had said what he had said to stop the people laughing at his nephew and really, he thought their mama’s course of action was an overreaction. It gave Sophia hope that she would return home soon. But her mama, on the other hand, wrote, using Vetta’s hand, only the once. Her letter made it clear that she was convinced sending Sophia to the convent was the best thing she could have done and that Baba agreed. There was no mention of Sophia’s return.

As Sophia finishes telling Juliet her history, she does something that surprises even her. She kicks off her shoes and becomes lost in the deliciousness of the evening breeze blowing its cooling wind between her toes.

‘That’s a really, really bad reason to become a nun. How come you stayed?’ Juliet asks.

Sophia snorts.

‘I was thirteen. You have no say in your life at thirteen. The nuns were so warm and friendly when I first arrived. They had lots to tell me, mostly about how they saw life, and for the first few weeks, it felt like a warm place full of things to learn and I kind of liked it, although I missed Sada and Yanni. But when I discovered I was not allowed out of the boundary of the convent walls and it dawned on me that I would not see my sisters or Yanni probably for weeks, months maybe, I became at first very upset and then uncontrollable. I felt my life was being stolen away. I got angry and my temper would explode over the least little thing. The sisters prayed for me and then one day I was called to the abbess’ office. She explained nothing. I just stood there and the phone rang. It was my mama. Just for the briefest moment, I thought I was going home and then the abbess explained to my mama that I had a demon within me and that she had been wise to take the action whilst I was so young because it gave them a chance to put things right and perhaps it was best if I did not return immediately.’ Sophia’s head drops forward as she recalls the event.

‘It’s beyond imagination,’ Juliet says and they sit in silence, each with their own thoughts.

‘Do you know you cannot prove yourself to be sane?’ Sophia says at last. ‘I was watched by all of them. They reported back to the abbess. Some of the nuns were kind, others appeared to be kind, but they threw a skew over things when they reported back. Others were plain mean.’

‘You were told what they said?’ Juliet asks.

‘Oh no, not individually, but I was given a summary every so often and it was easy to work out who had said what. For example, I would only tend the vegetable garden with Sister Evangelia so when the abbess related back that the energy and aggression I used when I dug could only come from deeply held anger, then it was obvious who had done the reporting. But I couldn’t win. If I dug with energy, the demon was showing its face. If I dug with lethargy, the demon was draining my spirit. It was the same with the mending. We had rotas to darn and mend things. I am not a seamstress and I hate sewing, so this was the demon in me. If I put in some energy, that was the demon trying to trick them. I tried so hard to be perfect so I could go home. If I managed it, I would hear the whispers, the demon was dormant, biding its time, waiting, the nuns should be more aware and then they would socialize with me less and less until I could bear it no more and I would cry and ask them why they were being so mean. This was met with even more caution, as if it was a trick until I would finally not be able to hold back my frustration any longer and I would shout at them not to be so unkind, and it was as if the whole convent breathed a mutual sigh of relief, as if to say “Ah, there is the demon. Now we can see it again”. And the nuns would be kind and considerate again and show me affection. It became a terrible cycle.’

‘It sounds unbearable,’ Juliet admits. A frown flits across her brow. ‘I was married for years to a guy called Mick. Irish. We had two boys. Well, starting when they were ever so young, Mick would find things to complain about. Like why there was still washing up in the sink when he got home, that sort of thing. I would try to explain that I had had a heavy day with the boys. He would scoff, tell me that every other mother could manage their children and the washing up, so what was wrong with me, and it slowly became his phrase. “What’s wrong with you?” So if I was even just tired, he would ask, “What’s wrong with you?” like an accusation. If he asked his mother round to baby sit with no warning and then told me to get ready to go out, if I said I didn’t want to go, he asked “What’s wrong with you?”‘ Juliet sighs, as if, even though it was years ago it still exhausts her.