Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) (4 page)

The steps up to the deck have rounded handrails made of teak. The treads are of thick plywood, the ends of which have been steamed to curl up at an angle. Irini has wiped over the non-slip rubber treads on their tops many times but, staring at them now, she realises why they are shaped so. If the boat heels over in the waves, in either direction, the sections at the end would be horizontal enough for someone to mount them easily. She notes the detail of the design as she puts her foot on the bottom step.

She has not wiped them over today. The day she had planned will not be and her bottom lip quivers. Petta will be awake and clearing up the mess she made in the shop by now. She wishes she had taken the time to make him coffee, tell him that she loves him, and cleared the mess herself. If she had, it would be Captain Yorgos at sea with this … this … this pirate! A little whimper escapes her.

The sun seems blindingly bright after being below for so long.

The pirate is standing, legs wide at the helm, a small Karrimor rucksack on the floor beside him, eyes focused on the horizon. Both his hands are on the wheel; the skin hanging where his little finger should be is even more gruesome close up. There is no sign of his weapon, and this gives her some relief.

As she stands on deck, Irini quickly checks the land on either side and realises they have made little progress. They are heading out to sea but only now are they passing the village on the coastline. Angelos will be sitting on Marina’s knee in the courtyard, being fed his breakfast by now. The sun is overhead, everything dappled in the shade of the lemon tree, his little chortles pushing half-chewed food down his chin between mouthfuls. The cats will be rubbing around Marina’s ankles, anticipating spillage. Looking back, she can still see Saros port, but there is no sign of the port police.

The man shows no interest in her. Her breathing becomes more steady. She is not going to die, at least not right now.

Hopefully this man, this pirate, just wants to go down the coast a little. If not, where is he heading? In time, they will come to the end of the deeply inset bay and the land will fall away on either side. If they turn left, they will go to Orino Island or past it to the Cyclades, Turkey, Israel? If they continue on their course, they will head for Crete or beyond to Libya; turn right and they will eventually hit Sicily or bypass it and head out into the Mediterranean, toward the straits of Gibraltar and through to the Atlantic. All these places are ridiculous distances. How far are they going? How long does he plan to be at sea?

Her stomach turns and a slight reflux burns acid in her throat. She must stay calm. She moves slowly and quietly to avoid his attention and sits on one of the cockpit seats. With her head down, she picks at a black mark on her jeans. It is probably oil. If she can pretend to be casual and friendly, maybe he will relax with her. There’s oil on her hands, too. It will be from the engine, which nestles under a cover behind the steps to the saloon. Captain Yorgos is always tinkering with it, leaving oil stains all over the boat for her to mop up.

Try to be friendly, that is the best idea, calm and casual.

‘Where are we going?’ It seems harmless enough to ask, and just asking the question makes her feel like she is doing something. Sitting passively is not her nature.

He does not answer immediately, but frowns slightly as if deciding whether to reply. The question has obviously unsettled him and he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. Irini wonders if she should have not said anything, forced herself to be silent.

When she and Petta moved in with Marina, Petta took over tending the olive groves and fruit trees. When Angelos was born, Marina spent more time in the house and less in the shop, to take care of the cooking and looking after Angelos. Because of her youthful energy, Marina said, Irini would be better than her at running the shop. So Irini sat, day after day, serving the odd customer, with little to do, certainly during the afternoon’s
mesimeri
, when most people were asleep, and so she began to keep accounts. It didn’t take long to work out that what was brought in by the shop, and what little was earned by the orchards with the price of oranges so low, was not enough to keep a whole family going. It wasn’t that the shop was doing badly - it was ticking over well and would have provided for Marina and would even have slowly paid off the loan she took out to rebuild it after the storm.

But on being reunited with Petta, Marina’s heart had been, perhaps, more generous than her circumstances allowed, which Irini could understand now she had a son of her own. However, with more mouths to feed and Angelos growing out of his clothes every month, there was just not enough coming in.

Accounts were not something Petta would have ever thought of doing. The chances are that none of them would have noticed the shortfall until it was too late. But Irini had learnt the hard way to survive and trusted herself and only herself, so even when she found out about the shortfall, she did not tell Petta or Marina immediately but instead considered the problem for some time.

‘Marina?’ Irini had slipped out of the shop, through the courtyard, and into the house. Marina was in the kitchen making bread with Angelos. He was standing on a chair and had an apron on that hung all the way to the floor. Marina stood behind him, guiding his hands in the dough.

‘Hi Irini,’ Marina grinned, the skin around her eyes creasing into a thousand soft wrinkles. ‘Angelos is a master baker today.’

Irini leaned over and kissed one of his floury cheeks. His eyes were shining with the fun he was having.

‘Clever boy,’ Irini addressed him, and his floury hands left the dough and came up around her neck for a hug. ‘You’ll put flour all over me!’ She feigned horror, which made him laugh and wiggle his fingers at her.

‘Well, it needs to be left to rise now so it’s time to wash our hands, Angelos,’ Marina encouraged. Washing hands proved to be an equal adventure, and bubbles took over from the flour, the flagstone floor slippery with flour and water. Irini briefly popped back to the shop when she heard the doorbell jangle and, after selling a packet of cigarettes, she asked Marina to take over for an hour. Angelos knew the shop as the source of sweeties and he was running across the courtyard before his hands had been dried, and before Marina had a chance to reply.

‘Just an errand I have to run,’ Irini explained.

Finding a job in Saros was not the easiest task. The cafés and tavernas needed no one, and nor did any of the tourist shops. Wandering the streets, the sun was relentless and despite the relative lack of greenery, the cicadas were noisy. Every request for work that was met with a rejection pushed at her patience, but most irritatingly of all, the tourists in front of her all walked very slowly. She was almost at snapping point when she stopped at the kiosk on the front to buy a bottle of water.

‘Hot again,’ the woman serving said, looking up at the cloudless blue sky as if this were unusual for Greece in September. They do say that after August it’s winter,
apo Augousto xeimonas
, but the rain in September is always warm and this year, the summer seemed to be continuing forever.

‘Yes,’ Irini agreed, unscrewing the top of the cold bottle and wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘I don’t suppose you know of any jobs going, do you?’

‘Funny you should say that. Captain Yorgos,’ she pointed across to a rather grubby-looking yacht moored by the harbour wall with a sign on a pole saying
Come Sailing, Day Trips
, ‘was looking for someone for regular work, but only part-time, I think. But watch him, as he will try anything to keep his money in his pocket.’

At dinner that evening, Petta came in and kissed her on the cheek and sat next to his son and gave him a green orange no bigger than his thumbnail to roll around the tray of his high seat.

‘Petta, how much time do you really need in the orchards?’ Irini opened.

‘Not much, really. I am still learning, but they grow themselves.’ He chuckled at his joke and leaned over to pick up the tiny fruit Angelos had thrown on the floor.

‘So if you had to do a few hours in the shop, that would be alright?’

‘Yes of course. Why? Is it too much?’ Suddenly he was alert, protective.

‘I just thought a little change might suit us all. You could take over the shop in the morning, which would give me time to do the little job I have got myself in Saros.’

Marina’s silence was audible. She came from a generation of women who did not talk back to their husbands nor do anything without their permission. Certainly she would never have gone out and got a job without her husband’s consent when he was alive.

‘You got a job?’ Petta asked. ‘Why?’ and so she told them, presenting both the problem and then the solution. The money she would earn would slowly pay off the loan, leaving the income from the shop and the orchard for food and clothes. They would be fine now. Petta listened intently, with a slight frown, but then he looked at her with loving eyes and told Marina what a marvel he had married.

A seagull calls high overhead.

Irini rubs her hands together to try to get rid of the oil.

‘Casablanca.’ The pirate finally answers her question in a monotone voice.

Irini thinks he is joking and smiles to prove she is friendly, to collude with him.

‘Why are you laughing?’ His knuckles holding the wheel go white, all except his little finger, where the skins flops loosely as the wheel moves with the waves.

‘Oh no, sorry. I didn’t realise you were serious.’ She scans his face, reading for signs of how much she has offended him. He has a generous mouth with curved creases in the corners. Lines from grimacing? Or maybe, at some time, he has smiled a lot.

‘Why would I not be serious?’ There is no smile there now.

‘Well yachts are slow and Casablanca is on the coast of Morocco, right?’

‘How long will it take?’ He is very serious but perhaps he is offering her a chance to show she can be useful to him. It would give her some value in his eyes, which can only be a good thing.

‘Here to Orino Island, which is the first island we will pass, will take eight hours just with the motor.’ She looks him over as he concentrates on the sea, which is flat calm this early in the morning, with no wind for sailing. His jeans have seen better days but his dark grey t-shirt is new. Printed on it in black is a jumble of English words. She can make out a capital letter S and the acronym a.m. over which a pattern has been stitched in red cotton. It tells her nothing about him, but the colour choice seems to endorse his aggressive stance. His boots look like army boots, and they are scuffed and unpolished.

‘When they bring the new boats from France, it takes about a week. But Morocco is further, so two weeks maybe?’ she offers, recalling Yorgos telling stories of his younger days when he would deliver yachts to far-flung destinations.

‘Two weeks!’ He looks left and right at the land and then back to the way they are going.

It never occurred to Irini as she sat learning English at school all those years ago, or more recently improving it by watching American films on television, that she would need her second language for this. There is irony in there somewhere but she cannot put her finger on it. She shakes herself out of the safety of her musing. Right now, she must think, be even more alert than the pirate is, use this English to keep herself safe.

‘Well, with good wind, maybe less. Although…’ She is not sure whether to say any more. She wants to stay helpful, useful, but not negative.

‘What? Say it.’ Presumably realising that standing stiff-legged at the helm is not necessary, he sits, one hand still on the wheel and his back still straight. He has wide shoulders, narrow hips. The physique of someone who has done a lot of swimming, perhaps. A gull flies above them, its feathers ruffling gently. It is a young gull whose chest is still mottled. The boat moves off course slightly and the gull is silhouetted black against the sun.

‘Well, I don’t suppose we have any water in the tank.’ Irini watches his face to see his reaction. ‘Captain Yorgos usually rings the water man on a Tuesday and he comes about the time I am finishing to fill up, and I doubt there will be any bottled water.’

‘What day is it?’ he asks. Her eyebrows raise. Is this a joke or is he serious?

‘Tuesday.’ She is about to add that the fuel man does not come until she is halfway through her cleaning each day either but decides that he does not need to know this. Maybe running out of fuel and the port police catching them up would be the best outcome. ‘Also, there will be no food, as Captain Yorgos buys it every day depending on how many clients he has.’

The colour changes in his cheeks and the muscle there twitches. His eyes are green.

‘But we can stop at Orino Island and stock up.’ She tries to sound cheerful. Orino Island is where Petta was born and where they lived together for a year before they moved in with Marina. Orino Island, so safe and close. She grabs at her heart through her t-shirt, as she mouths the word
Petta
to herself. Tears prick her eyes and her hand slides from her chest to twist the ring on her finger. She catches the pirate watching her.

‘Are you married?’ she blurts out, almost accusingly. Hasn’t she read somewhere that it is best to become a real person to your captors? Read where? In a magazine in their corner shop? She would give anything to be back there right now.