Plain Sailing Read online

  ‘I want to put air conditioning into my mama’s room at the house,’ he says, ‘and she needs a proper new oven with gas burners on the top.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure, Spiro,’ Aleko replies with a broad grin. ‘You’ve sold George’s yacht, then?’

  ‘Er, no, but I have cash.’

  Eager to assure Aleko that he can pay, he takes out the notes and pushes them towards him.

  ‘Whoa, Spiro! This is over two thousand euros. Don’t be so eager to give it away! This is far too much. Here, take that back and let’s find out prices first.’

  Spiros feels his cheeks heat up, but not for long; Aleko has never been anything but kind to him.

  ‘She only has a small room, or were you wanting to air-condition your house too?’ Aleko asks.

  ‘Oh no, not for me, I am fine. But she always says the heat is too much. Can you fit it before August?’

  Spiros rolls up the notes Aleko gave him back and puts them in his pocket.

  ‘It is only a small room so I suggest one of these portable units.’

  Aleko goes to a workbench under the branches of a tree planted on the other side of the wall. Spiros draws closer as Aleko thumbs through an oil-smudged catalogue.

  ‘There, I have one like that in my storage unit. I could do you that for five hundred euros. I’m afraid they’re not cheap,’ he says, pointing at a picture in the catalogue. ‘And’ – he picks up a second catalogue – ‘I suggest an oven with a stove all in one, like this.’

  Spiros peers at the shiny white appliance. His family have never owned anything like that. His mama has cooked on a camping gas stove, always! She would be thrilled with a proper oven.

  ‘Yes, I’ll have that!’ He wriggles about in his excitement.

  ‘Well, the air-conditioning unit I can have in your mama’s room by this afternoon, and the stove will be two hundred and I will have that in a day or two. I’ll have to order it from Athens. So, the two together will be seven hundred euros. How does that sound?’ Spiros takes the bundle of cash back out of his pocket and hands it to Aleko, who counts out seven notes and hands back the rest.

  ‘Here, that’s seven, okay?’ he says, ‘so we are straight.’

  ‘Oh.’ Spiros is beginning to think he will not manage having money very well. Aleko has returned more than half the money. Imagine if he were dealing with someone less honest!

  ‘I suggest you don’t take any more than a single note out with you at a time, my friend,’ Aleko says, as if reading his thoughts. ‘People are quick to tell you what is owed them, and if you buy anything you can always settle up later.’ Aleko smiles cheerfully. ‘Your mama is going to be so thrilled. Come on, I need a break. Let me take you to Theo’s, I’ll buy you a milkshake.’

  Aleko wipes his hand on a rag and then throws a friendly arm over Spiros’s shoulder, where it remains until they are nearly at the kafenio.

  ‘It’s full!’ Aleko observes as they climb the three steps into the masculine safe-house.

  ‘Hey, Aleko!’ Takis’s voice booms out over the hum of talk that echoes around the room.

  Aleko winds his way between tables towards Takis’s beckoning hand, and Spiros follows. The people and conversations around him are familiar. There are Grigoris and Vasilis, both farmers who have given him employment from time to time. And Cosmo the postman, with Mitsos, who runs the eatery and the hotel with his wife, Stella. The talk is about politics, football and women. As they get closer, Takis takes a chair from each of the adjacent tables and arranges them on either side of him, then sits back ready to hold court.

  ‘So, what have you been up to?’ he asks Spiros. His manner is direct, a blatant request for him to account for where he has been and what he has been doing.

  ‘Ah, I caught him wandering in the lanes around the orchards up near my place and we just sort of fell into step,’ Aleko says.

  This is a lie, and it is almost as shocking to Spiros’s ears as Takis’s demand was. It is a lie that is designed to deflect Takis’s question. Why would Aleko do that? Unless … but no, even the thought is ridiculous. Surely the whole world cannot see Takis as a bully – that was just George. Wasn’t it?

  ‘Fell into step, eh?’ Takis does not sound like he believes Aleko.

  ‘Fell into step, or however else we might have met. Maybe we had a little private business to discuss.’ Aleko puts the emphasis on the word ‘private’, and Takis’s upper lip curls in response. Spiros smiles.

  ‘Well, you and I have some private business to attend to as well, Spiro. We need to get that yacht hauled over to the harbour before we incur any more charges. So when you are done socialising and drinking milkshakes you just let me know and we’ll go and see about business.’

  Spiros’s smiles fades.

  On their way home, Takis says they will need a thousand euros each to pay the port police, and another hundred and fifty for the crane man. Spiros goes into his house and closes the door behind him before taking out his money and counting out the amount Takis said he will need. He adds a few more notes in case he has miscounted, rolls it all up, puts an elastic band around the bundle and stuffs it deep in his pocket next to the tube of mints.

  They take the main road to the boatyard this time, in broad daylight, and stand looking at the large metal gates, which are securely locked.

  ‘I phoned the port police, and the lieutenant said he would meet us here. He will let us in when we pay him. The crane man said to give him a ring once we have access.’

  Takis sits heavily on a handy flat-topped stone to one side of the gates. Spiros is tempted to round the perimeter to find the hole in the fence so he can visit his dog friend again. He feels in his pocket and his fingers find the paper-wrapped mints on which George scrawled his name. He could share them with the dog. Maybe it would be better to wait awhile, until Takis is relaxed, maybe even sleepy with the heat, and then he will casually wander along the fence. He sits on another rock, which has no flat top and is far from comfortable.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long,’ Takis remarks; his eyes are already half closed.

  Spiros picks up tiny pebbles and flicks them across the road, into the dried grass. He can see all the way down the road, the way they came. In the distance is a black dot that grows slowly bigger and finally becomes a car. Most likely it is the port police. The car keeps coming and soon Spiros recognises the port police insignia on the bonnet.

  ‘Taki, they’re here.’ He stands and taps his friend’s foot with his own.

  Takis looks at his watch and then squints down the road at the approaching car. The tyres crunch on the loose road surface as it comes to a halt.

  A languid man in uniform steps out of the car. He must be new; at least, Spiros has not seen him before. He adjusts his shirt and reaches a hand back inside his vehicle to retrieve a stack of papers.

  ‘Right,’ he says, examining the top sheet. ‘I need a cash payment of two thousand euros and the boat is yours.’ He holds the paper towards them so they can check the amount.

  Spiros takes his money out of his pocket and begins to count, very slowly, so as not to get it wrong.

  He hands it to the port police man, who also counts it and announces that it is half the amount, and looks first at Spiros and then at Takis, expectantly. Spiros also looks at Takis.

  ‘I will pay you when I have my boat,’ Takis says.

  ‘Then you will not get your boat.’ The port police man offers Spiros his money back. ‘All or nothing.’

  Spiros looks at Takis, whose lips are pursed as if he is thinking.

  ‘I want a receipt, though,’ he says, and he takes out a bundle of cash that is much larger than the one Spiros had with him. He counts notes out quickly, extracts them from the roll and hands them over. The port police man counts the money, pockets it and retrieves a block of receipts from the car. Takis jangles the change in his pocket, and finally the receipt is handed over and the gates to the boatyard are flung open.

  Takis takes from his other
pocket a black mobile phone that still has a price tag stuck on the back. Spiros can only stare – he has never seen Takis use a mobile phone, or any kind of technology, really. A call is made to the crane man and Takis announces that he is on his way. Spiros wonders if this is what every day is like for most adults: making phone calls, having people do their bidding, paying out large sums of money for the pleasure of it? It is quite exciting and it all feels rather empowering, all these people running around for his benefit. It all seems to be going very smoothly. Spiros smiles but he also fidgets.

  ‘You can go if you like,’ Takis tells the port police man.

  ‘I’ll stay and lock up after you,’ the man replies, and he goes to sit in his car.

  The crane man takes half an hour to arrive, despite his earlier assurance that he was already on the way. Takis snoozes on his stone seat. Spiros listens to the cicadas and the distant chime and clonk of goat bells. The occasional seagull reminds him that the sea is just out of sight behind the yard, and then he remembers the dog. With sudden energy, he stands to go and find her, but as he does so another black spot approaches along the road, a big one.

  It turns out there are two dots: the crane, and a large truck.

  Thick webbing straps are passed under the hull of the yacht and then, ever so slowly, and with much shouting from Takis, the crane driver and the truck driver, George’s boat is lifted into the air and gently lowered onto the back of the truck. The crane driver spends a long time adjusting the supports on the back of the truck so that the vessel sits squarely, without leaning one way or the other. When he is satisfied, he nods at the truck driver, who climbs up into the cab.

  ‘Now you have her, where are you taking her?’ The port police man has joined them to watch the procedure.

  ‘Back to the harbour.’

  The truck makes slow progress out of the yard and then pauses, engine running.

  ‘Where are you off to, mate – the harbour in Saros, is it?’ the driver asks Spiros.

  The port police man gathers his keys, locks up and steps towards his own transport.

  ‘Not to Saros harbour, you’re not,’ he says casually.

  ‘Why not?’ Spiros asks.

  ‘After being underwater for so long the engine will have seized – the radio will not work at the very least. That makes her a hazard.’ He says it so easily, as if it is of no consequence.

  ‘Taki!’ Spiros calls him over from where he is talking to the crane operator. ‘The man says we cannot put it in Saros harbour with no engine.’

  ‘What?’ Takis bellows.

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  Spiros takes a step back. Takis turns on the port police man and splutters with rage, insisting that Saros harbour is exactly where the boat will go. The port police man stays calm and will not be drawn into an argument. He is adamant that the boat cannot go in the harbour.

  ‘Then where am I supposed to put it?’ Takis growls.

  ‘Not my problem.’ The port police man climbs back in his car and drives away.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Spiros asks Takis.

  ‘I have no idea,’ his friend replies.

  ‘Do we have a problem?’ the truck driver asks as he and the crane driver start up their engines.

  ‘Just a minute,’ Takis says, and then he turns to Spiros and lowers his tone. ‘Okay, so we best try and sell her as she is. Even if we don’t get much for her, at least she won’t be costing us anything.’

  ‘But I like her. I want to keep her,’ Spiros says.

  ‘You may like her, but where will we put her, and how much do you think it will cost to fix her up? We could easily lose money on this. I say we ask the truck driver to keep her on the truck for a day or two, just as she is. He can’t charge more than the port police, surely? We’ll put her up for sale and she’ll be gone before you know it!’

  Chapter 3

  As the evening light fades, Spiros and Takis sit on the low boundary wall that separates their two houses. The wall has started to fall apart, and neither of them has thought to rebuild it. Takis has a place he likes to sit, where two level stones give him comfort, and Spiros has his place, where if he turns to look at Takis when he is talking – and he is always talking – he can lean back against a part of the wall that has not yet disintegrated.

  Takis has convinced the truck driver that because it is so late in the day, it makes sense to keep the yacht on the back of his truck overnight. By the time they reached Saros, he said, it would be too dark to put her in the water, and the truck driver, even though he is only from the next village, seemed to know no better. He said he would park the truck on a bit of disused land on the edge of his own village, but he was insistent that they must unload it tomorrow and that Takis must pay for two days’ hire of the truck.

  The dogs begin their evening chorus, their barks echoing around the village, and Spiros can hear children laughing and playing in the comparative cool. But even now his mama’s air-conditioning unit is purring away softly in the background. How thrilled she had been when Aleko brought it round, and it had taken the two of them to convince her that her one and only son had been the one to buy it for her. He has not told her about the cooker yet. The anticipation of her surprise and delight bubbles in his chest. She has always been so full of kisses and kind words when he brings her anything, whether it is a wild flower he has picked, or a permanent solution to the draining heat of summer.

  ‘These costs are never-ending!’ Takis interrupts Spiros’s train of thought. He adds Crane driver – 300 euros to the list of figures in a little notebook he keeps with him. ‘And two days means we will need to pay two hundred euros each to the truck driver.’

  ‘Do we really have to sell her?’

  Takis sighs heavily.

  ‘Two thousand for the port police, five hundred for Theo, four hundred for the truck, three hundred for the crane … That means we are down three thousand two hundred already.’

  ‘Well, we aren’t really down, are we, since the boat and the money were a gift.’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to blow my money on a damned boat that may or may not be worth something. Aleko says the engine is beyond repair, and it will cost the best part of five thousand to install a new one, and then we will need to sort out the electrics and get the radio going. He said that that would be a job in the thousands of euros, maybe two thousand, if we are lucky. That means our total will be’ – he looks up to the darkening sky as if to find the last part of his sentence there, then looks back at his fingers, starts ticking them off and curling them back – ‘over ten thousand euros just to get her sitting in the harbour, not even done up, just not a hazard.’

  He sneers this last word and Spiros knows that he is thinking of the port police man.

  ‘But we cannot leave her on the truck!’ Spiros says. He likes the thought of his little tin of euros tucked away behind the hot water tank, but it also worries him. He would be happy to spend it all on the boat. At least with a boat he can have some fun. And it would remind him of George.

  ‘I’ll find a broker tomorrow and we’ll sell her quickly. I reckon if we offer her cheaply enough, enough to cover the costs so far, we’ll have her sold in a day or two.’

  Takis seems to relax at this thought, but Spiros feels sad. It wouldn’t be what George wanted, that’s for sure, and he is not sure that it is what he wants.

  They sit awhile longer, listening to the dogs quieten, and it is Spiros who stands first and declares he is ready for bed.

  He doesn’t sleep well. He dreams of opening his tin of money to find it is full of octopuses that reach out, and he thinks that they are going to strangle him, but just as they have him covered in tentacles he realises that it is nice being cuddled by them, until two twist around his legs and he wakes up fighting the thin summer sheet that is wrapped around his ankles.

  ‘Spiro – open up, lazyhead, I have news!’

  Takis’s unmistakable voice is at his window. The shutters are closed a
nd Spiros’s immediate reaction is to lie still and pretend he is not there.

  ‘Come on, I know you are there, open the door.’

  Spiros listens to the footsteps as they make their way to the front of the house. Rubbing the sleep from his face with the flats of both hands, he pulls on yesterday’s trousers and pats the tube of mints, which comfort him just because they are there. It is like having George around, somehow.

  ‘Come on, I have something to talk to you about.’

  The light is so bright when Spiros opens the door it makes him blink and then screw up his face. Takis barges in.

  ‘Any chance of a coffee, a good one?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Late enough to be out of bed. I’ve found a broker, and he is on his way down from Athens as we speak. By midday he will have valued the boat and we can have it on the market. I reckon it will be sold by the end of today and our worries will be over. The new owner can pay the truck driver, so we just need to avoid him until then.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Don’t you mean “thank you”? Now how about that coffee?’ He slaps his hands together and rubs them palm to palm.

  ‘I don’t want to sell her. It’s not what George would want’

  ‘We have no choice. Er, coffee?’

  Spiros runs the tap and fills the briki. Every movement is slow, partly because he is still half asleep but mostly because he is sad.

  ‘What if it doesn’t sell today?’

  ‘Then it will sell tomorrow!’

  ‘What if it doesn’t sell tomorrow?’

  ‘Then the next day! Now stop with the questions, it will sell. Who wouldn’t want a boat that is so cheap?’

  Spiros stirs the sugar long after it has dissolved, his mind distracted by visions of the boat sailing off into the distance without him.

  Just after midday the broker calls to say he has arrived and Takis invites him up to his house.