In the Shade of the Monkey Puzzle Tree (12 page)

Age 40 Years, 5 Months, 18 Days

The Diamond Rock Cafe is not only open when he arrives, but Dimitri the owner is there, talking to a new girl who, although young, is dressed as if she is ready for a ball. The black dress plunges to an indecent level at the front, and when she turns, Theo is treated to a view of her back, which is entirely exposed down to her waist. A bead of sweat snakes its way down her spine. Theo looks away and coughs as he approaches. He has a vague feeling of guilt and recalls an image of Tasia in her tight bodice and flowing skirt.

Dimitri is grinning like a village boy who has caught a big fish.

‘Theo, this is Leonora. We are opening up the front bar for her to work tonight.’ There is no reason for Dimitri to give him this information. He is just showing off his prize and displaying his authority over the staff. There is a strong smell of hairspray. Leonora.

She seems a little uncomfortable and giggles nervously. It transpires that she has ambitions to be a model, and that Dimitri felt she could do with some exposure. Her voice emphasises how young she is, childlike.

Theo represses his thoughts and tries to stop his eyes darting to her cleavage. Past the outline of her candyfloss hair, strung across the street, are electrical wires, silhouetted by the dark, rich evening sky. Theo thinks he sees an owl balanced at the apex, its head twisting. He tries to concentrate on this instead.

‘
Dimitri thought I would attract more customers.’ She giggles as if this idea is utter nonsense. Theo wonders how old she is.

‘
She will not be serving cocktails; she will send those people to you or Jimmy. You will support her the best you can.’ Dimitri leers at the dip of the dress, then goes inside, where Jimmy is cutting lemons on the unprotected bar top.

‘
Would you like to see some pictures of my boyfriend?’ Leonora asks Theo, who is about to walk away. She takes a large photograph album out of her bag. ‘This is his work album.’ She strokes the cover before opening it. ‘He has already done some big work—magazines and that sort of thing—and now he is in talks with Olympic Airways to do a poster for them.’ She strokes each picture as she turns the pages of the handsome model’s portfolio. Theo looks at her again, tries to imagine her without the makeup. Surely she is too young to be working in a bar, too young to have a boyfriend, certainly of the type she is fawning over.

‘
How long have you been courting?’ Theo asks, lifting his shirt off his shoulders, trying to stay cool.

‘
Dimitri introduced us. We went for coffee last week,’ she replies, her tone serious.

‘
How long have you been a model?’ Theo watches the creases that are almost dimples on either side of her mouth as she smiles.

‘
Oh, Dimitri is just starting me out,’ she replies. Theo looks away from her, grits his teeth, and swallows.

‘
Excuse me, I need to set up.’ He makes a break into the dark, stale-smelling bar. When he glances back at her, the girl is sitting at a table, lovingly kissing her fingers and placing them on the pictures in the portfolio of the man she met last week.

‘
Focus, Theo. Focus,’ he tells himself. ‘A week or two here and then down to the new beach bar.’ But there is the money under the cushions of his sofa. The beach bar will not be able to beat that kind of income, unless he is the manager. ‘Right, so manager it is, then.’ He takes glasses that have accumulated on the bar top and puts them in the sink.

Dimitri takes a drink to the girl outside. Theo checks his bottles. The special vodka is low and so is the Black Label. He lifts them from the shelves and crosses the open wooden floor that will all too soon be layered with cigarette ends being kicked about by a hive of closely sandwiched people. Halfway across, he throws the emptier of the two in the air with a flick of its neck. It spins once, and Theo catches it.

‘All right!’ Jimmy cries.

‘
Got new ones? These are nearly empty.’ Theo says. Jimmy looks at him blankly for a moment.

‘
In the back, man.’ He points to a curtain behind the bar at the far end. The space behind is small and unlit, the size of a cupboard, and on the floor is a row of extra-large, unmarked bottles. Theo backs out.

‘
I don’t see any of this vodka or any Black Label.’

‘
Ha, ha very funny. There should be a funnel in there somewhere,’ Jimmy replies and Theo’s eyebrows raise and his view of the place sinks even lower. Shaking his head to himself, he returns behind the curtain. It’s not right. They charge nearly half again for that particular vodka and everyone knows the Black Label is an expensive whiskey. Theo sighs. Crouching on the floor in a dark corner of this dirty little bar to decant cheap spirits is another step away from the pride he used to take in making the coffee just right.

He finds the funnel, which sits upside down atop a bottle containing a rose-coloured liquid. He shifts his feet as they stick to the tacky floor, removes the stoppers from the unmarked demi-johns, sniffing each to determine its contents. He locates whiskey and vodka and refills the bottles. His hands are covered with sticky dust, and he goes out to the bar to wash them before picking up his refills.

Back at his little bar, he investigates the stale smell further, lighting a match to see into the backs of cupboards.

‘
Your beer keg alright?’ Jimmy comes over to ask.

‘
Oh, where is it?’ Theo asks. He has seen no barrel and has not thought where the draft beer comes from.

Jimmy strides behind the bar, waving Theo out, and stands with his feet wide to lift up the floor planks, revealing a shallow dug out under the floor where the beer keg sits. Theo takes a step back when he sees, and smells, the foul, dark liquid that the barrel is slopping about in, but it appears to have no effect on Jimmy.

‘What in God’s name is that?’ Theo asks. ‘No wonder this place stinks.’

‘
Stuff gets spilt, runs between the floor boards.’ Jimmy dismisses Theo’s concern.

‘
You have to be kidding. How far under the floor does it go?’ Theo asks, putting his hand over his mouth, the stench getting worse. The fumes smell flammable. Jimmy shrugs.

‘
You’re fine for beer. Just don’t light a match down here.’ He laughs, replacing the floorboards.

Theo thinks of his clean area behind the
kafeneio
counter in the village, in which the paintwork may be old but it shines, and the floor is swept. Fresh air blows through the open doors all day, and there are no dark corners. Here it is all dark corners hiding secrets, Jimmy on the take, a young girl being used like bait, cheap drinks siphoned into expensive bottles, Gypsies living in a place not fit for goats.

‘
Here.’ Jimmy gives him an empty beer bottle. ‘Do that bottle flicking again.’ Theo steps from behind the bar and tries the trick again, catching the bottle with a sure hand. Trying a double spin, he only just catches it, and when he tries again, the bottle smashes on the floor. Dimitri looks up from his close conversation outside with the new girl.

‘
Only a beer bottle,’ Jimmy calls, and Dimitri looks away again. Theo makes a mental note to take a couple of beer bottles home so he can practice over the sofa, or on his bed. Jimmy does not even try, his hands shake just pouring from the bottles.

The regulars, some of whom Theo recognises from the day before, trickle into the bar for first orders. A man on his way home from work who passes in to fortify himself against the onslaught of his six daughters and nagging wife is the first. Tonight, Theo feels bad charging him for Black Label when it is not. The man poured out his heart yesterday, explaining how he works all hours but the money he makes is not enough for his family
’s needs. Theo almost hasn’t the heart to charge him at all.

The boy who helped with the screwdriver comes in for his beers. He has a pleasant face, but Theo cannot help but wonder what he will look like ten years from now if he continues drinking.

A man who drank
ouzo
solidly last night and said little goes to be served by Jimmy. Theo does not see Jimmy open the till, and he wonders if the drinks are for free or if Jimmy is pocketing all the money. Tricky at this time of day, if Dimitri suddenly decides to take out some cash, as he did last night.

The smell from under the floorboards seems to be getting worse, or maybe that is because he knows what it is now.

If he pours water around the keg, it might dilute the smell. Tomorrow, he will bring some disinfectant, or bleach or something, pour it under the boards, see what that does.

The bar fills. Dimitri sits near the front bar, watching the girl, encouraging her to smile at passers-by. It works and they order drinks from her, but she takes her orders to the main bar, and it brings Theo less work. As the place gets busier, Dimitri closes Theo
’s bar and sends him over to the long bar where Jimmy is alone, struggling to keep up with the orders. The floor behind the long bar is uneven and sticky. Theo wonders what may lurk under the floorboards on this side.

Makis the bouncer turns up and heads straight for Dimitri. Dimitri tries to walk over to the long bar, but Makis stops him. They are just close enough for Theo to hear the conversation.

‘So you have seen how I keep trouble out of here,’ Makis grunts.

‘
I didn’t ask you to,’ Dimitri replies.

‘
Yes, but you want to see how much trouble you would get if I wasn’t here?’ Makis is shorter than Dimitri, but he is broad and his blank, sinister eyes don’t seem to quite focus. He looks Dimitri in the face and moves his head closer. Theo would not like to be Dimitri at this moment. ‘But you know what? Just because I am here and people know I am here, you will have no bother. So, to make me want to stay you can offer me the job of the DJ instead of having this endless music loop going round.’

Dimitri steps backwards.
‘I don’t think I really need a DJ,’ he says, trying to stand tall and sound sure.

‘
I don’t think you want to walk home by yourself one dark night and end up with broken legs,’ Makis smirks.

Theo looks up from wiping the counter and stares at the pair.

‘Are you serving? One beer please.’

‘
Sorry.’ He snaps out of his trance and pulls a beer, watching as Dimitri hands over some notes to the smiling Makis who pockets the cash and takes his place in the DJ booth.

‘
Unbelievable,’ Theo mutters.

Each time a client pays, Theo takes the money to Jimmy. Jimmy rings the amount up on the till and puts in the cash. When he is busy, he takes the money, holds it in his hand, finishes serving, and then put his client
’s and Theo’s client’s money in the till at the same time, and passes Theo his change. Theo watches carefully the next time, calculating in his head the cost of the drinks he and Jimmy are serving, and comparing this with the amount Jimmy rings. Jimmy seems to be pocketing a clean half. Theo no longer feels surprised by anything. This is just par for the course, a normality of life in this bar, how things seem to be in all the corners of Athens he has so far touched. He understands.

The next time he takes an order, Theo sidles up to Jimmy as he hands him the money and whispers in his ear,
‘Cool it,’ and nods up to Makis, who is grinning away in the DJ’s box and who, at that moment, from his height advantage, is looking over at them. Jimmy’s face grows pale. He rings up an amount that is almost correct. But this time, Theo has only given him enough for one of the drinks he has served. The price of the other is in his pocket. This way, the till’s take won’t vary too much from the norm but today it will line both their pockets, with the advantage being Theo’s. Jimmy suspects that Theo knows he is on the take, but he has no idea Theo is on the take as well. By tomorrow, Theo will have enough to pay back his baba.

A small, neat old man with glasses takes one of the high seats by the bar when it comes free. His overcoat, although thin, seems excessive for the time of year.

‘You are not the normal type Dimitri employs in here,’ he states.

Theo takes a look at the owner of the voice. He is balding, with a half-halo of hair around the back of his head from ear to ear. It is trimmed and combed neatly. The bar gets all sort of people but at this late time of night, denim jackets are a bit of a theme, the occasional leather. This man looks just a little out of place.

‘Just started. Third day,’ Theo says.

‘
Hm, will you stay?’

‘
Why wouldn’t I?’ Theo replies.

‘
Ah! Theo, don’t charge this man, will you?’ Theo did not see Dimitri coming up to the bar. ‘Phaedon, don’t let him charge you.’ Dimitri smiles and moves away.

‘
But business is business, Dimitri. I don’t ask for favours from you and you don’t from me,’ Phaedon calls after him.

Theo puts a dish of peanuts in front of the man, who has already paid for his beer.

‘Diplomatic. I like it.’ Phaedon picks out a nut.