Aftershock (12 page)

Except that Saturday was to be followed by Sunday…

The Acropolis was a small Greek restaurant in Camden High Street, It put Makis in mind of the Mandolino. At one end of the roomful of old wooden tables and rush-seat chairs there had been a similar platform on which the musicians performed. On special nights, Makis's father and other Mandolino men had sat in a circle on the platform, facing in towards each other, playing and singing Kefalonian songs – voices in harmony, with guitar, mandolin, balalaika, and accordian. Here in the Acropolis, though, the chairs were set in a line for the performers to face the audience.

Sofia and Makis arrived with Mr and Mrs Laliotis, Makis carrying his Gibson the way his father would have done to walk to the village feast day, its case on a strap and slung over his shoulder. He saw his mother look into the room – at men in dark jackets with white open-necked shirts, women with immaculate hair, silky dresses and lace shawls, plates and cutlery set out, the Greek flag on the wall at the back of the platform – and she stopped in the doorway, putting her hand to her mouth. For a few seconds she was back in another country.

‘We are sitting here.' Mrs Laliotis led them to a table at the front, below the platform. Makis's nervousness suddenly hit him in the stomach. Forget Denny Clarke. Nothing could get the heart thumping as hard as this: he, Makis Magriotis, was going to perform a duet with a musician from a BBC orchestra. And what frosted Makis's skin was his mother being there. From sitting crying in her bedroom a few weeks ago, here she was at the Acropolis looking as fine and elegant as any woman in the place. Mr Laliotis pulled a chair out for her to sit, and now she truly looked like someone who belonged.

People were still arriving, and recorded
rebetiko
music was playing, songs sung by the famous bazouki and singing pair Vassilis Tsitsanis and Marika Nimou. And Makis saw something he'd almost forgotten; men swinging and catching their
komboli
worry-beads, the way his father had done when he was relaxing with other men in the village. Where were those beads? Makis wondered. Probably buried with his father's body in the cemetery. Well, he could do with a string right now to help steady his nerves!

The Acropolis food was good, served buffet-style in stainless steel dishes:
stifádho, pastítsio
, meatballs,
moussakás, tzatzíki,
cucumber, courgettes, salads and
féta
cheese; but Makis just picked at a piece of bread. Mr and Mrs Laliotis didn't eat much either. Perhaps, Makis thought, that's how musicians always are before a performance. But at last the music began, provided by a quartet of guitar, mandolin, bazouki and accordion-playing – on their own as well as backing the singers – although this was no men's choir as there had always been in the Mandolino. This was men and women, and some of the songs were from Cyprus. Throughout the first half of the concert Makis's body felt lighter and lighter, his head like a helium balloon. When the time came, would he have the strength to even hold his plectrum?

Finally, Mr and Mrs Laliotis were introduced. To great applause they went up on to the platform. The audience was relaxed but attentive – except Makis. He thought he was going to explode. His hands were hot and wet and shaking, and he had to keep testing his legs to see if they would hold him up when he was announced.

He knew the Laliotis part of the programme which was before his part – and as the audience called for encores, he felt worse and worse. Why couldn't he start, and get it over with? Wild thoughts of freedom in Regent's Park and a ship at the docks came into his head again. How far away was that door?

And then he saw his mother. She was nodding her head slightly, looking across the table at him with that confident smile she'd always had when it was Spiros Magriotis holding the Gibson, ready to play. But tonight it would be—

‘Makis Magriotis!'

Mr Laliotis was introducing him. Makis pushed back his chair with a squeal from the floor, his hand holding tight to the mandolin's fret.

‘A young friend from our tragic island of Kefalonia, welcomed into our community here in London.' Mr Laliotis looked around the room. ‘Would you like me to ask him to play a song from his island, to finish our concert?'

The audience – especially Sofia Magriotis – made sure the applause went on until Makis had found his place on the platform; where he gave a hurried bow and sat down next to Mr Laliotis. As he settled, the musician took his mandolin from him and quickly tuned it to the atmosphere of the room. Makis quietly wiped the plectrum dry on his handkerchief. And with the mandolin back in his hands, the final piece began.

The balalaika introduction, a nod to Makis, and with a catch of his heart, Makis began to play the beautiful melody, ‘To Taste the Assos Honey'. Like drizzled honey itself, together they played a verse, then the chorus, and in the hushed room – not a sound from cutlery or plate or glass – they played; and baritone and alto, they sang the words of Makis' sang Sofia's island song.

I cross the blue Ionian Sea,

the blue stripes flying at our stern,

but when my sands are running out

to Kefalonia I'll return

to taste the Assos honey.

There was silence as they finished. Looking out over the hall, Makis could see heads nodding and eyes being wiped. And then the whole hall stood to clap them. Makis stood, too, and bowed in time with Mr Laliotis.

‘One more bow,' the musician muttered, which they gave. ‘Stand straight and still.' They did. ‘No encore. Walk off.' And to claps, whistles, and shouts of ‘Bravo!' they carried their instruments from the platform. ‘It's always best that they want more than want less,' Mr Laliotis whispered under his breath.

At their table, Makis's mother was still clapping, straight-backed and modest and proud. Her eyes were wet, but tonight more with joy than sorrow. She kissed Makis on the forehead, and breathed in deeply.

‘Tonight you made the Gibson truly yours, Makis. I bless it, and I bless you.' She took the mandolin from him, stroked it where it was chipped, and gave it back.

And had it not been for a stabbing thought of Denny Clarke, Makis would have considered himself the happiest boy in the world.

Makis woke up feeling frightened. He heard his mother humming the Assos honey song in the kitchen, but he wanted to push past her and out into the yard to breathe some fresh air. His nerves the night before in the Acropolis had shown themselves in a lack of breath and freezing skin. But the fear of being hurt is different from any other fear. Imagining a pounding from Denny Clarke had all Makis's insides churning, and he felt that at any moment he might be sick.

Denny Clarke! This morning after Cathedral he was going to have to fight the boy – who was bigger all round than he was, and had fists like the rocks on Alekata beach. Makis looked at his own hands; his plectrum hand, and his fret hand. To some, he might have seemed a coward, but he had deliberately put off the fight long enough to keep those hands in condition for the concert with Mr Laliotis. But now they were going to be used for fighting.

He couldn't eat breakfast, hid his toast, and got ready for going to the Cathedral, keeping his eye on the mantelpiece clock. Two hours to pain – to his body hurting and his face looking like that picture of Phidippides at Sparta. Looking like his father had.

But at this sudden thought, out of nowhere a shaft of hope hit Makis, a glimmer of an idea. He'd learned more from his father than fishing and playing mandolin, hadn't he?

The time came, at last. Cathedral was over and their Sunday morning walk, with him silent and his mother with music on her tongue, was finished. He told her part of the truth – that he'd got to meet a boy and he'd be back later – and he ran off.

Prince's Fields didn't look the same place. This morning there was a dog being walked, and a father with his children and a brown-paper kite that wouldn't fly. The place was different, felt wrong.

And there, standing watching him from under a tree, was Denny Clarke!

Makis's heart raced as he walked over to him. He'd done nothing wrong to this boy. What Hersee had said about Clarke was to do with what Clarke himself had done. Makis's part of things had been a separate matter; but in his stupid, goat-headed way, Clarke wanted to feel better by fighting him.

‘You come, then, Greekie?'

‘I come.' Makis stood off from the boy, his fists clenched, ready.

‘You gonna say sorry?'

Makis stared him in the sweaty face. No, Dennis Clarke wasn't a fish any more – he was a goat, a stupid goat.

‘No!'

‘I'm gonna kill you!'

‘Kill,' Makis said. ‘Try!' he added, bravely.

Out shot Clarke's right fist – the boy had a long reach and Makis hadn't backed off far enough. The punch caught him on the cheekbone and twisted his neck. And his feet wouldn't work, they were caught in the grass and he couldn't back-pedal.

Crack! Another punch hit him on the forehead and sent him flying backwards. And on came Clarke for another free punch because Makis couldn't reach him with his own flailing fists: his face was twisted, his head down – real boxer-style.

But what had Makis's father taught him, when a head-down goat like this came at him?

As Clarke's right fist came in, Makis caught his wrist, took the force of the punch in his arm muscles – the muscles that had wrestled some of the biggest goats in Alekata – and wouldn't let go. Clarke swung a left at him – and Makis dodged, couldn't quite grab that wrist and took another punch to the face. But with his left hand he held on desperately to Clarke's right wrist; and however the boy twisted, he couldn't get it free. And the next time, as Clarke's left came in again, Makis caught it. Now he had both wrists.

Head to head, face to face, they wrestled with their arms. Clarke's face said he didn't know how to deal with this. Would he kick next, or butt with his head? But Makis kept his head back and used the net-heaving strength in his arms to stay uppermost. Clarke swore and spat, but Makis held on and took the strain as the boy exhausted himself trying to get free or to aim a kick. But none of that worked for him, and with a sudden downward jerk, Makis pulled him off-balance, and used his old Alekata goat-wrestling memory to swing Clarke over, down, down, down on his right hand side – and thumped the boy to the ground. Makis jumped on top of him, like a Greek hero riding a Mount Enos stallion. Sitting high on Clarke's chest where his kicking legs couldn't help him, he pinned down both the boy's wrists to the grass.

Clarke could heave his backside, he could wriggle his torso, he could lift his head and try to free his arms – but he was pinned to the ground. There was no way he could get up unless Makis let him. Spiros Magriotis had taught his son well.

‘Hey! Hey!' Makis shouted over to the man with his children. ‘Come! Come!'

‘Let me up, Greekie! Let me up, you little squirt!'

‘Come!'

While Denny Clarke wriggled and squirmed, Makis held him there until the father with his children came over.

‘Hello? What's going on here?'

‘See!' Makis said. He had recognised the little girl when he'd come into the park. She was an infant from Imeson Street school who had sat in the front row during Mr Hersee's assemblies.

‘Let go!' Clarke was shouting.

‘Let him up, son,' the father said. ‘He looks like he's had enough.'

But Makis only twisted his head up to the girl. ‘See?' he asked. ‘You see him? You see him on ground, Makis on top?'

‘What's all this?' the father asked.

But the girl said, ‘I see.'

Makis nodded into Clarke's face. ‘She see!' he said. ‘You talk me bad again. You want fight again – and she tell to boys at school.'

Clarke put his head on one side and tried to spit, but could only dribble.