Page 73 of Summer in Greece

The tea came. ‘Looks like rain,’ the woman said as she placed it on the table.

Shelly nodded, smiled weakly, she didn’t want a conversation. She got DJ’s letter out of her bag and studied the writing again. There was nothing sharp or jagged about it, not that she knew anything about analysing a person’s handwriting. Not many people actually wrote letters these days, did they? She couldn’t believe he’d found her after all these years.

Four o’clock, he’d written, then confirmed when she’d phoned him. Shelly glanced at the fly-speckled clock: three fifty-five. Would she recognise him after so long? She was holding her breath. ‘Breathe!’ she told herself. Nice and steady. Calm thoughts.

She stared out at the street. A sudden spatter of rain, then the storm clouds parted and shafts of sunlight speared through the trees and glinted off the wet pavement. Her eyes darted up the empty street, then at the clock. Two minutes to four – yes, she would leave! She jumped to her feet. Her thigh caught the table, her teacup rocked, then toppled. Tea splashed over DJ’s letter. His handwriting blurred. In a desperate effort to rescue it, she pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed the paper.

The waitress rushed over. ‘Aye, don’t worry, love. I’ll see to it.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s from someone important, very important . . . all I have are his letters!’ She heard hysteria in her own voice, and with those final words her tears raced for release and the clarity she’d sought smacked her hard in the heart.

Of course she had to see him!

In a time-stopping moment that would stay with her forever, DJ was at her side.

Recognising those wide blue eyes immediately, a knot in her throat became so painful she couldn’t speak. Her pulse raced and tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She shoved the damp letter into her pocket. DJ cupped her elbow and led her to a clean table. He sat opposite her and reached for her hand.

She stared at the big fist that covered hers and remembered the baby that had gripped her little finger, before they took him away.

From under his mop of sandy hair, DJ peered at her and hesitated. She recognised the tension in his eyes, and perhaps anger. She hoped not. Then, finally, she saw tenderness.

He leaned slightly towards her, squeezing her hand gently, his voice little more than a whisper.

‘Hello, Mum.’

Shelly gasped. ‘Oh, DJ.’ She placed her hand over her mouth for a moment. ‘You’re the absolute double of your father. If only David could be here too.’

CHAPTER 30

GERTIE

Syros, Greece, 1916.

AS WE ENTERED THE PORT of Syros, bobbing about in our little wooden caïque, several dull grey warships loomed over us like ominous ghosts. The water flattened and the engine calmed as we slid towards the quayside, where our ship awaited. Yianni and Manno seemed to be arguing, arms in motion and voices raised. Noticing the alarmed look on my face, Manno explained.

‘Do not look so afraid, little one. We must decide if we should drop an anchor or not. We are afraid the big ship will catch it and drag us away in the night. This will kill us both and destroy our boat . . . Now, we think it is best to not use the anchor.’ He turned off the engine and drifted toward the quayside. People stood by to catch a rope that Manno threw. With no anchor to act as a brake, Yianni fell to his knees in the bow and stuck his arms out to prevent the boat crashing into the concrete quayside. I watched the process with great attention, feeling the correct procedure may come in useful one day. Eventually we moored up.

Amid back-slapping and hand-shaking, Yianni and Manno were treated like long-lost heroes. ‘Ela! Come and eat, my friends!’ and ‘We play backgammon this afternoon!’ and ‘I wait you in the kafenio, sport,’ showing off their English for the sake of those aboard. Women sashayed past, swinging their hips and batting their long dark lashes at both father and son. A bystander could suppose the fishermen were heroes returning after many years – not days.

Two soldiers and a Red Cross nurse transferred Perkins onto a stretcher and hefted him along the wharf towards the warship. I carried his crutches while Josephine and Manno brought the bags.

People lined the quayside selling their wares; live hens, cockerels, and rabbits in bamboo crates. Josephine and I bought oranges, stuffed them in our pillow-bags, then we stood on the harbour edge and ate one between us. We stood there in the late-afternoon sunshine, our eyes narrow with pleasure as we enjoyed that fruit, and even now, when I think about it, my mouth waters. That orange was so sweet, juicy, and fresh, and our fingers were shiny and delicately perfumed from the oil in its thick skin.

The air buzzed with clatter and chatter. Excited locals had an opinion on everything and voiced it loudly. I guessed it was a big thing for the Syros people to have warships in port and so many strangers on the quayside. A stall holder shouted to Josephine and I. ‘Ela! Ela, koukla! ’

We went over to his table of produce, at the edge of the bustle. Odd-looking fruit and vegetables were on display. Among them were giant pumpkins, all kinds of dried beans, herbs of every description, mounds of lemons, buckets of what I thought were damsons but I learned later were olives, and many things that were new to us. He gave us a handful of the biggest brown dates I’d ever seen, something neither of us had tasted before. They were wonderful, sticky and so sweet, like gigantic caramel raisins. Some medical staff had left the ship to buy cigarettes from pedlars that gathered at the end of the gangway.

The crowd parted for a youth wearing a red tarboosh with a long black tassel on his head. He also wore baggy striped trousers that gathered around his ankles. The boy had a tambourine hanging from his back and pulled a brown bear on a chain. He tied the chain onto one of the mooring rings, then started playing the tambourine and singing. The bear immediately stood on its hind legs and started dancing, nimbly hopping from one foot to the other.

I was thrilled to see such a thing and knew I would be telling my father all about it when I got home. ‘Look, Josephine, the bear’s dancing so nicely! I’m going to give the boy a little money.’

‘Don’t you dare!’ she cried vehemently. ‘They burned the bottoms of that poor bear’s feet when she was only a cub, a baby, in order to make her do that. Look at her face, she’s terrified, poor girl!’

‘They burned her?’ I looked into the bear’s eyes and yes, clearly, she was in torment.

‘When she was very young, every time the boy beat the tambourine, they would stand her on hot charcoal, giving her terrible burns under her feet. Now, with every beat of the instrument, she expects that same pain again, so in pure terror she hops onto the other foot. Sometimes, a bear will go mad from the dreadful horror, so they tie her down and rip out her teeth and claws so she can’t hurt anyone. It’s obscene.’

‘That’s made me feel quite sick,’ I said. ‘Shall we go on board?’ She nodded and we moved towards the gangway.