A Saint for the Summer Page 3

  “That’s nice,” I said, not sure of the significance of all this. “So it’s a good omen then, having this crusader fall into my handbag.” I felt amused, trying to imagine who the taxi driver would plug the gap with.

  “Well …” he said, staring at the saint as if searching for inspiration. “It probably means … you’re still going to be here in late October. You’ll be lucky if you are,” he added confidently, as if he were suddenly a minion of the Oracle of Delphi.

  “Wishful thinking, but I have a job to get back to. I don’t think the editor of the Alba News will be impressed with a long sabbatical right now.”

  “From what pals in Scotland have told me about the ailing newspaper industry there now, you’d be best to make an early escape.” He started toying with his ponytail and looking at his watch. I’d hardly seen Angus in 10 years and now he was making pronouncements about my career and the state of journalism. He caught my churlish look.

  “Don’t worry, pet. I was just winding you up.”

  I parried with the letter. “By the way, here’s something from Mum.”

  He didn’t look overjoyed and put it down on the coffee table, unopened.

  “Okay, I’ll be off then. We’ll go out for a meal later in the village. I eat out regularly and people will want to meet you, I’m sure.”

  After he left I made a thin attempt at unpacking and hung up a few clothes in the wardrobe. I propped the saint up on the chest of drawers. I liked the image: the horse rearing up, the saint with his tight brown curls, and a mountain in the background, with a curiously flattened peak. Why hadn’t this picture caught my eye in the taxi amongst all the grave saints in black? However he got into my handbag, little Saint Dimitrios was to play a more pivotal role in my Greek adventure than I could ever have imagined on that first tentative day in Greece − which was just as well.

  I lay down on the bed, sleepy from the day’s journey, the beer and the strangeness of everything. I felt unsure what I was doing here, or what I would achieve, especially after my first spiky chat with Angus. And now there was dinner to worry about. In other circumstances, I’d be keen to eat out on a first night in a foreign country, but I was in no mood to play the visiting, loving daughter of Angus for the Greeks, who placed more importance on family than we obviously did. But I’d be starving by then and I might as well make the most of the trip, I thought. No matter what Angus was predicting, I’d be here for just the three weeks, enough to sort out his health appointments and for him to get on with his Greek life and me to continue with mine.

  Angus had been right about newspapers, however, and it was revealing that while he claimed to have no interest in Scotland any more, he kept up with its political and social changes. The Scottish newspaper industry had been struggling for a few years with a downturn in advertising and a steady decline in readership, like most other papers in the western world. The Alba News was also tanking slightly after a takeover six months earlier and a young English guy from a London daily had been appointed the new editor, which didn’t sit well with senior staff, who were mostly Scottish. The paper was a long-established publication with a Scottish slant, given its name was Gaelic for ‘Scotland’. It went back to the 18th century and had even sent a reporter to the Battle of Culloden. It doesn’t get more Scottish than that. In the past 15 years it had broadened its appeal and gained a new younger readership − until recently.

  Along with dumbing down the paper, the new management had threatened to implement cost-cutting measures and redundancies, and there had been the threat of strikes before I left. I still liked the work, particularly the past five years as a feature writer. I’d been given a long rein to pitch my own stories and to travel around Britain for interviews, occasionally overseas. But that freedom was about to be curtailed in the budget cuts. Asking for three weeks’ leave, instead of the usual two, had niggled the features editor, Crayton, but luckily I talked him into it, explaining my father in Greece had a health problem and needed my support.

  I lay on the bed trying to deep-breathe myself into a siesta, but I couldn’t switch off my thoughts. They danced about in this minimalist, unfamiliar room, and I no longer felt tired. I got up and went to the kitchen to make coffee. It was a dreary space; a clunky cooker with scuffed hotplates, and dated wall tiles. The small fridge was well stocked, mostly with booze. I made an instant coffee and wandered around the house with the mug in my hand, looking at Angus’s possessions, trying to get the measure of the man I was on an unlikely mission to save.

  Every shelf on the bookcases was crammed with mostly English editions, some Greek, one or two Greek language textbooks, and a thick dictionary. I pulled it out. This was a serious book with well-thumbed pages. On the title page was an inscription in English: “To Angus. The ancients believed if you could speak Greek, you were Greek. With love, Polly.” Who was Polly? A studious expat friend, perhaps? I closed the book and put it back. After a decade apart, there was so much I didn’t know about my own father.

  The downstairs area was smaller, fitting into the slope of the land, with two rooms, a bathroom and a small storeroom of sorts. All the doors were open. Angus’s bedroom was also monastic, though slightly untidy: a single bed with a Greek-style cover. The other room seemed to operate as a study, with a heavy square desk in front of a small window. The desk was covered in books, notebooks, papers. It was messy. I remembered that when Angus was a secondary school teacher in Stirlingshire, where I grew up, he had a study at home and it was just like this. He had been a good teacher − ‘inspired’, some people said − but his workspace was chaotic.

  I poked about for a bit, opening a few of his notebooks. I saw his characteristic handwriting, small and cramped. There were dates, names and notes I couldn’t make sense of. It looked like Angus was busy researching or writing something. He always said he wanted to write a book, so maybe this was it: a memoir about his Greek odyssey.

  I had some idea over the years what Angus’s life had been like here, not through his own sparse letters but through his mother Lily’s younger brother, Peter, to whom he had written regularly. Peter had been close to Angus, a surrogate father in a way, after his own father died young, and a mentor. Peter also kept in touch with younger members of the family, like me. He was certainly privy to Angus’s Greek escape and would have understood some of the reasons for it, even if Angus’s upbringing hadn’t indicated a future wanderlust.

  Angus had been born into a modest sheep-farming family in Stirlingshire. It had been his grandparents’ farm, where his father Kieran also lived and worked. Kieran had brought his new bride Lily there, and Angus − their only child − was born two years later.

  Angus had shown early academic promise. A place at a good secondary school led to a degree in English Literature at Edinburgh University. After a few years of dithering over careers, and some overseas travel, he took a teaching diploma and became a secondary school teacher in a top Stirling school. He met my mother Marcella at a New Year’s dance in the city. She was also a teacher and that was their shared passion.

  The first years of their married life were happy ones and we lived in a comfortable house in a village just outside Stirling. In middle age, however, something went awry for Angus. He started to drink a bit, though we didn’t really know why. If he was suddenly less happy with his lot, he never talked about it. Even in 1990s’ Scotland, where the rural character at least was reserved, you tended to keep your misery to yourself.

  When Angus was in his late 50s, voluntary redundancies had been offered in line with general cutbacks in the teaching profession. Angus had taken it, which surprised us all, especially Marcella, because he loved his job, and he was valued and popular. No-one wanted him to go. He spent a few years drifting, doing part-time teaching, and when he turned 60, he surprised us all again by announcing he was going on a Greek odyssey for a year to reconnect with the man he thought he once was. It angered Shona and me because of how much it would hurt Marcella. Yet she was surprisingly philosop
hical. It made us think that perhaps the marriage wasn’t what we thought it was.

  When anyone questioned Angus’s mid-life madness, Marcella would shrug and say, “Oh well, it’s just for a year. He’ll soon be back when the money starts to run out.” And then he stayed for 10 years. My mother slowly got over it, and got on with her own life. She even divorced Angus in the end and remarried, which was another surprise for the family.

  I didn’t hate Angus for leaving Scotland. He had otherwise been a good father. I tried to be sympathetic and if he’d come back after the first year, the escapade would have just seemed like an ageing guy’s folly. But the longer he stayed away, the more selfish and eccentric he seemed, like a novice ascetic who wants to sit in a Himalayan cave indefinitely, counting his chakras.

  As the years passed, I felt more antagonistic. Shona got over it. She was older and she had a family to worry about. But I regretted that during the early years of my career on the Alba, when there were stresses as well as excitement with journalism, it would have been helpful to have had a sympathetic father around, a savvy role model. They were 10 years of my life in which something was clearly missing. Now, at the age of 37, I didn’t expect to get whatever it was back – certainly not in a Greek hillside village.

  Chapter 3

  Greece for beginners

  The Kali Parea taverna was the one I’d seen earlier from the taxi, at the back of the square. It was quiet when we got there, with only a few tables outside, occupied by couples. Angus told me that because of the funeral, probably not many Greeks from the village would be going out. The church of the Anastasis (Resurrection) was still open and occasionally people came and went, to light a candle in memory of the deceased, I imagined.

  The heat of the day had scarcely dropped but a fresh evening breeze was beginning to funnel its way up the hillside from the sea, making outside dining more inviting. However, Angus insisted we sit inside. He chose a table by the front windows, cooled at least by a large ceiling fan doing lazy revolutions. At the back of the taverna, in a corner, was a table of Greek men, drinking squat glasses of wine and eating from half-a-dozen small plates in the centre of the table, talking animatedly and watching a small TV placed high on the nearby wall.

  “They’re not from this village,” Angus pointed out, as if they were committing a sin by being outsiders. It didn’t bother me, however, and I quite enjoyed their liveliness. The taverna owner, Miltiades, was a hearty fellow, with black wavy hair and dark, laughing eyes. He had a big rounded tummy and large meaty arms like two ham joints, and a deep, throaty laugh. He seemed overjoyed to meet the daughter of “Kirios (Mr) Angoose” and brought a complementary jug of white wine to the table, and a basket of volcanic bread.

  “Angoose?” I asked, failing to suppress my amusement as Miltiades walked back to the kitchen with our order.

  “Yes, yes, I know. You’ll get used to it. Some Greeks can’t say Angus. They don’t have the ‘u’ sound. I thought of changing my name, but what the hell. I’m a bit of an old goose anyway,” he said, as if trying to make it clear he accepted his role of disappointing father figure.

  “Many would agree with that,” I said, ignoring him a moment and sipping the wine. It tasted young and fresh, with the flavour of honey and melon. We shared a plate of moussaka, with its creamy topping, a plate of fried meatballs and a salad. The salad looked healthy, with a mound of tomato wedges, cucumber and olives, but the whole lot was floating in an inch of olive oil.

  “Why do they put so much oil on food? It seems a waste,” I said, fishing out the tomato pieces and draining them on the edge of the bowl.

  Angus looked amused. “Bronte, that is the best olive oil in the world. Taste it.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t be able to avoid it,” I said, biting into a tomato and patting my oily chin with a serviette.

  Angus knew I had always been slightly picky about food. And Greek food had definitely been no exception, especially with the oil lakes. I like my salad oil sprinkled gossamer fine, like a smirring Scottish rain.

  “I mean, really taste the oil. Savour it. Here, take this!” he said, pursing his lips with impatience. He tore off a chunk of bread, pressed it firmly into the oil mixture and handed it to me. It dripped across the paper tablecloth. This was going to be a long night, I could tell. But to oblige, I bit off the doused bread, up to the crust. The oil had a fruity, peppery taste, not like the tasteless stuff you get in British restaurants.

  “Okay, that’s not too bad, I think, but it’s still a lot of oil.”

  He rolled his eyes. “It’s local oil from the olive presses round here and it’s bloody good for you!”

  I stared at him for a moment, thinking how the oil hadn’t really helped him. He must have read my mind and gave me a dark look. I thought we might end up scrapping over diets and heart disease and I wasn’t in the mood for that. But we fell into silence instead, eating the rest of the food, the first proper meal I’d had with my father in years. I marvelled at how the small rituals of life bind the past and present seamlessly, so that although being with him felt unnatural, everything else had a familiarity that took the edge off matters.

  With the lull in our conversation, I lugged into the raucous behaviour of the ‘incomers’ in the corner. They ate, talked and watched TV at the same time, with one old guy flicking a set of amber worry beads around his knuckles, while smoking with his free hand. A sign at the front of the taverna proclaimed this to be a non-smoking eatery, but I was beginning to realise that rules were bendy things in Greece.

  An item on the TV news had all their attention now. It seemed to be about the economic crisis, with footage of riots in Athens, Molotov cocktails being hurled on city streets and rows of black-clad kids shouting at lines of police. Occasionally, one of the men watching the TV would become rowdy, hurling angry comments at the anchor people on the news channel.

  Miltiades walked over to our table and refilled our glasses. He seemed to think we were being disturbed by the rowdy guys.

  “You must excuse them. It’s because of the krisi, the crisis.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “All the new taxes, all to keep happy the European Union so we get another big amount of the loan. But ordinary Greeks, they still have no maaaaney,” he said with amusing exaggeration, holding up his thumb and index finger and rubbing them together, like the taxi driver had done. Miltiades finished with a sigh and walked swiftly back to the kitchen, as if he’d just had a brief walk-on part in a one-act drama.

  Angus leaned towards the table. “There is always a table of men in the corner at night, usually from this village. They come to watch the TV and argue over the crisis.”

  “Don’t they have TVs at home?”

  Angus looked at me sadly because I was making another ridiculous observation, in his opinion, and showing my ignorance of Greek life.

  “Yes, they do, Bronte, but they like to come out and sit together for parea, the Greek word for company, like the name of the taverna. Kali, good, parea, company. Now you’re learning Greek. And parea is important here.”

  I ignored the schoolmaster’s tone. “Maybe they just want to escape their nagging wives.”

  “That too. Look, it’s quiet tonight, but you can’t imagine what this place was like a few years ago. Before I moved to this village, I used to come up here some weekends with friends from the coast and it was always packed with villagers, people from Kalamata and expats, dozens of them. Sometimes there was a group playing bouzoukis and there was singing, dancing. It was well … it’s what you come to Greece for … or one of the things. It was a paradise. No-one has the money now for partying, except for the expats − and even they are beginning to return to the UK. Things have changed.”

  As if on cue, we spotted a group of British expats milling around the square outside, trying to choose the best outdoors table at the taverna, laughing and chatting in anticipation of a good night out. Angus winced when he saw them and I wondered if this was why he insisted on eating inside the t
averna. He saw me watching them. “I don’t mix with most of the Brits,” he explained. “They’re okay but it’s not what I came here for and if you’re not careful you get sucked into their world of bitching and heavy drinking. I did it for a while. Didn’t help the ticker, I’m sure.”

  “Are you going to blame the expats for your health issue?” I said with a churlish tone.

  “No, Bronte, of course not, but you get trapped in that lifestyle if you’re not careful. But it won’t happen again.”

  We progressed to the dessert: a plate of sliced apple drizzled with honey, compliments of the taverna. We fell silent again. I concentrated on the food, aware suddenly that I was growing weary and my monastic cell at Villa Anemos was calling me. Just then, a middle-aged man dressed in black came into the taverna and slapped Angus warmly on the back. I was introduced to him as the ‘daughter’ and was given a sturdy handshake. The two men then exchanged pleasantries in Greek. To my surprise, Angus seemed to speak it reasonably well, in a slightly halting accent with a touch of Scottish. While he was chatting, he looked comfortable, happy, almost like a local himself, with his tan and ponytail, his penchant for shrugging and waving his hands about.

  It was nothing like the man we knew as kids who had been, professionally at least, a rather serious-minded individual. Outside of school hours, he had been convivial, with a wide group of friends. The only clue he gave to having a more renegade soul was a passion for rock music and playing his electric guitar at weekends, locked in his study with a few musical pals, oiled along by a good few beers.

  The man in black moved off towards the group by the TV.

  “Your Greek’s good. I’m impressed,” I said.

  “Och, it’s not perfect. I’ve studied it for years and even went to classes in Kalamata, when they used to be free, run by the council. It gets me by.”

  Angus called Miltiades for the bill and was offered another carafe of wine. Angus declined it.