The Art of Becoming Homeless (20 page)

He waits for Michelle to look at him and ask,
‘What?’ She only mouths it; no sound comes out and there are tears in her eyes.

‘
There was something I saw in this girl—I recognised her pain, I related to her hopelessness, like looking into a mirror. I saw me. I stood. They only half noticed. Her eyes were rolling in her head, the man I arrived with was chopping white powder on a magazine with a Stanley knife blade. How long would it be before I tried to alleviate my internal pain with a quick fix? The path so smooth, a smoke of something weak, the sniff of something stronger, the mainline to freedom ….

‘
I ran, Michelle. I ran from the building and headed for lights, anywhere that was bright. I ended up at King’s Cross Station. I walked till dawn. I was exhausted. I sat on the floor and someone who hurried by tossed a coin at me. It was enough to make the phone call to get my life back. And now I am here.’ He stretches and grins at Michelle.

Michelle feels in shock.

Getting his life back with a phone call had been harder than he expected.

The first call was to his flatmate, who refused to even give him back his passport, let alone his belongings.

His second call was to Greece. Adonis had been there for him, as always.

‘Just phone this
malaka
up and say you want your stuff,’ he had grunted down the phone.

‘
I have tried that. He won’t.’

‘
OK, give me his number.’

He had slept behind a fancy new clothes shop that night, in amongst the clean new cardboard boxes, under a bright back door light. The next day he reversed the charges to Adonis, who explained that he could go and pick up his things from his old flat anytime he liked.

‘Did he really think you were Greek Mafia?’ Dino gripped the phone. He couldn’t remember ever having laughed so hard since being in England. His sides were aching.

He went round to the flat and knocked on the door. All his stuff was neatly piled like he had taken his time to arrange it and rearrange it. He had begun to laugh again. His ex-flatmate apologised for the stuff that had been sold and promised that he would try to get it back. Even gave him a twenty-pound note by way of apology.

He called Adonis back to thank him for all he had done. The conversation became uncontrollable, and Dino cried with laughter. The woman waiting to use the phone hurried away to find another box. ‘What did you say exactly to put so much fear into him?’

‘
I need my secrets,’ laughed Adonis’ voice down the phone, ‘but I did ask him if he had seen
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
.’

‘
What?’ Dino had no idea what he was talking about, but at the time, it seemed funnier than anything he had heard in a long time.

Michelle reaches up and takes his head in her hands and kisses him, trying to transfer all the tenderness she is feeling to heal his old wounds, to right the wrongs, to make him feel safe in the moment.

Dino responds, his arms around her waist, turning his hips to face her.

Her head spins, reality recedes; there is nothing but sensation and touch, love and tenderness. She can no longer focus. Her weak legs give way and they both lightly drop to the floor. The stars above swirl, his words soft in her ears, the smell of the warm earth, the occasional dull clonk of a goat bell, the warmth of his nearness, a shiver down her spine until she is one with him. She looks deep into his eyes. The passion there reflects her own, and again the mists shroud her thoughts, senses heightened until they are rising far above the earth, dancing in the stars. The velvet night wraps around them, lifting them until they can reach no higher, and in that sweetest closeness they cling to each other until they drift back to earth.

They lie still, the trillion stars witnessing their elation. Their hands are still entwined. No words need be said.

They watch the moon travel part of its arc across the sky until, with a shiver, Michelle finally speaks.

‘
How can we go back from that?’ She sits up. The deep of the night has cooled the air.

Dino does not answer. She looks over to him. He sits up and moves closer to stroke her hair.

‘Seriously, Dino, what are we going to do?’

Dino still doesn
’t speak.

‘
In London you will cry. In Greece I … well I have no idea what I would do or how I would survive, but in Greece you have to go into the army.’

‘
Thailand. I have always fancied Thailand.’ Dino grins as he speaks.

‘
Ha, ha, very funny,’ She cuddles up to him to share his body warmth. ‘Seriously, what are we going to do?’ Dino pulls her to her feet and turns so they can slowly make their way back to Zoe’s.

‘
I have absolutely no idea.’ He sounds completely content.

‘
Aren’t you worried?’ Michelle feels a wave of panic.

‘
In Greece these things always sort themselves out.’

‘
Well …’ Michelle looks up to the sky; there are hints of dawn, lighter shades in the east. ‘In a few hours I will ring my clients and make sure they have sorted themselves out for this meeting.’

‘
No, you stay here. You will distract me.’ But Dino insists on accompanying her to the phone booth.

As she looks for change in her pockets, his arms slip around her shoulders.

‘Get off. How can I make a serious call with you all over me?’ She is laughing and spending more effort trying to break free of his clutches than looking for change, and she drops some coins.

He is quicker to squat to pick them up then she is. He holds out the coins but insists on a kiss to release them. She is almost annoyed with him but still laughs. He likes it when she shows just shades of being cross; her sternness feels grounded, firm.

‘Look, go away and do something whilst I make this call. I have to be serious now.’ Dino leans against the wall next to her, smiling. Michelle dials the number and turns her back on him, so he reaches out and smoothes her hair. She whips her hand up and swats his away.

‘
Really? Oh, can you tell me why? Yes, I see … no, that’s understandable. I don’t see why it would be. Thank you, yes I will.’ She replaces the receiver.

She doesn
’t move for a second, deep in thought.

‘
Everything OK?’ Dino asks. Her head is down. He puts his hands on her shoulders and bends his knees to try and look her in the eye.

‘
I think so. In one way it is great; in another I am not so sure.’

‘
Tell me.’

‘
They have postponed for another week.’

‘
Fantastic!’

‘
Yes, but they gave a very lame excuse. They said it was their lawyer’s and his daughter’s nameday next week, and that he would be off on some island.’

‘
So?’

‘
Well, what is a nameday, and who drops work to go off to an island for their children? This is serious work! I think they are getting cold feet.’

‘
Ah, my guess is his daughter is called Eleni. Is he called Costas?’ Michelle’s mouth drops open slightly, eyebrows raised as she nods.

‘
In the Greek calendar, every day is a saint’s day and people celebrate when their saint’s name comes round. It’s a big deal here, because instead of one person celebrating, everyone is. Next week is the biggest name day, Costas and Eleni on the same day. Many, many people will celebrate. He will be going to an island with a whole group of people, his colleagues and their wives, anyone with those names. I should know—my full name is Constantinos.’

‘
Oh, so Dino is short for Constantinos … so you will be celebrating too! How does any work get done in this country?’

‘
It gets done, just not at the same speed as England, where everyone rushes about just to keep warm—or dry.’ He laughs and pulls her towards him.

‘
No, stop now, I have to ring the people huddling to keep warm and dry in England who employ me.’ She turns her back again.

Dino watches her spine bend to the side as she leans against the booth. Her elegance is not only in her height, the way she moves, the length of her neck.

She stands straight, Dino can hear a loud voice down the phone.

‘
I’ve done all I can. No, no I don’t think they are stalling. Look, it’s different here. It’s the lawyer and his daughter’s nameday, and they’ll be celebrating. No, a bit like a birthday or Christmas for us.’

‘
There’s been a bit of trouble with the internet. Of course I’ve tried. No, I understand. I take it you expect me to stay on for the meeting? Well, there’s no way of knowing if they are going to cancel again. No, I’ll keep in contact with them every day until then. Yes, no problem, OK.’

‘
Not OK this time, I take it?’

‘
Not OK.’ Michelle wipes her forehead on a piece of tissue she just found in her pocket. ‘I need a coffee.’

The rich waiter Costas Voulgaris serves them, winking at Michelle.

But Michelle feels too frustrated to even care.

‘First they don’t understand how such a thing could be put off—not once but twice. If they were here for even a day, they would see time is different here.’ She sounds cross. Dino chuckles.

‘
It’s not funny. He mentioned again how the economic climate in England means everyone has to account for their job; it was a threat.’

Dino stops laughing and leans back, crossing his ankles and sipping his coffee.

‘Then he lectured me for not dealing with an email he sent me. He doesn’t know I took a jolly the first weekend here, nor that I’ve been stuck here ever since with no internet and my laptop back at the hotel in Athens.’

‘
What’s a “jolly”?’

‘
You know, when you do something for the fun of it, not work related.’

He nods and bites into his biscuit, licking the crumbs off his lips, distracting Michelle.

‘So whatever happens, I have to go back to Athens to get online.’

‘
I thought your original plan was to go to Juliet’s in the village this next week coming?’

‘
I was, but this postponement has scuppered that.’ She huffs and sinks in her chair.

‘
Why?’

‘
I have to get online.’

‘
Do you need your own computer?’

‘
No. Oh, ah, you mean get online at Juliet’s?’ She perks up a little.

He nods.

‘I don’t know. He was asking what I’d been working away at all this last week gone. I sidetracked him, but he’s right; I should have been working at something. It’s just Dolly’s death really shook me. I mean, how do I explain that to him?’ She puts on a silly voice: ‘I took the weekend off to go to an island, boss, and fell down a cliff on a donkey, bit shook up, staying on until the transport strike is over.’ She throws her head back and lets out a dry laugh. ‘It’s all beyond anyone’s imagination, let alone belief, sitting in a London office with not a donkey or an island in sight.’

She steadies herself, takes a sip of coffee.
‘If I don’t buckle down this next week, there may not be a job to return to.’

Dino grins.
‘So just because being stuck in a hotel in Athens with your laptop feels more grim than at Juliet’s, does that mean you will get more work done?’

‘
Well, I might, probably would—although Juliet will be working too, so maybe not. At least I never called Juliet to cancel. I meant to but forgot.’

‘
I told you Greece will sort things out for us.’ Dino has shut his eyes in the glare of the sun.

‘
It’s not Greece, is it? It’s just a big mess.’

Dino shrugs as if to say,
‘have it your own way.’

‘
Is the strike still on?’

He nods again, eyes still closed.

‘Is there any way off this island?’

‘
We could take a water-taxi straight across to the mainland, but then there is no transport the other side.’ He shuffles up in his seat and opens his eyes to look across the water.

‘
Hey, you want transport on the other side?’ Costas fills his tray with their used cups. Michelle’s hair swings with the speed she looks up. She had not seen him approach. ‘I’m going across; my car is parked over there. How far do you want to go?’

‘
A village near Soros.’

‘
Sure, I can drop you near. Come back when you are ready. Excuse me.’ He lightly trots to a group of undecided Germans. He chats easily to them in German until they make the decision to sit down.

‘
You’re not kidding about Greece sorting things out,’ Michelle says to Dino.

‘
I met some Greek Americans once who had come over to try and trace their ancestry. They arrived in Athens with no idea of how to begin and no idea or even where their pre-booked hotel was. So they asked the first passer-by if he knows the hotel. He said he would walk them there, and he asked if they were on holiday. They explained the purpose of their visit; he was their first cousin.’

‘
No!’

‘
Yes’

‘
I don’t believe it.’

Dino lifts his hand, giving her the right to believe whatever she wants to believe.

‘Right, we’d better go, pay Zoe, get your bag.’ Michelle stands. Dino seems in no hurry to move.

‘
You are back on British time, marching to the beat of London again. No hurry. Costas is here. He is not going anywhere without us.’

‘
Yes, but we cannot keep him waiting.’

‘
He isn’t waiting, he’s working.’

‘
Well, I’m going.’

Dino twists himself reluctantly out of his chair, and with a few easy strides, catches up with her.

‘A week’s reprieve.’ His hand hangs comfortably around her shoulders. She leans into him.

‘
It has only deferred the problem.’ She lets her head nestle into his neck; he is only slightly taller than her.

‘
It is not a problem. A problem is something you want to get rid of.’ He swivels his head and kisses her hair.

Their march slows to a walk in the heat, the sea sparkling to their right, people swimming off the rocks. The walk becomes an amble.

‘How am I going to do it?’ Michelle asks. ‘Go back to that life, without you?’

‘
Stay.’

‘
Can’t. Anyway, you have to do the army. The alternative sounds untenable.’ Dino’s arm slips from her shoulders, his hand running down her arm until he finds her hand. ‘You are going to do the army, aren’t you?’

Dino pulls his hand away and puts it in his front pocket and looks up at the sky as he walks.

‘Dino?’

‘
Two years, Michelle. Well, eighteen months. How can I give that much of my life away?’

‘
In order that you can do whatever you like with the rest.’ They turn inland towards Kyria Zoe’s. ‘That’s how the law works. We all agree to something and that makes society work. If we all don’t agree to it, we have war, anarchy. If one person does not agree but the rest do, then they have to accept the consequences set by the others.’

‘
It’s just not right. I don’t want to learn to shoot guns.’

‘
So you can conscientiously object. Serve your term some other way,’ Michelle says.

‘
It is a criminal offence. There is man who has objected. They have given him a substitute service seven and a half times longer than his service would have been. He refused to do it because of its ludicrous length, so they have taken him to court again on the same charges. They try to intimidate you with prison or lengthy alternatives to make you comply.’

‘
But that is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights. I read it, quite recently in fact, on a legal website. The UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 2002/45 says that states should refrain from using the legal system to force conscientious objectors to change their convictions.’

‘
Tell the Greek government that.’

‘
We could challenge them.’ Michelle’s sense of right and wrong bristles, her energies rise, ready for a fight.

‘
Yeah, sure, I cannot even face my Baba and you are suggesting I stand up and fight the Greek government!’ His hand rises to his mouth, and chews on the side of his thumb.

‘
Eighteen months is not long, Dino. Maybe you can apply to do something that does not involve guns?’

They have reached Zoe
’s.

Zoe wishes them well, independently of each other, before waving them away.

Dino slings his big bag over his shoulder. Michelle wishes her own life were so compact.

‘
Do you really object to the guns, or is it just that you don’t want your liberty taken away?’

‘
I don’t want to have anything to do with guns, but it is also the liberty.’

‘
If you really are a conscientious objector, I will fight in your corner. You won’t need to engage anyone.’

‘
It would be a Greek court. You don’t speak Greek.’ Dino chuckles.

‘
I mean it, Dino. I would find a way, but maybe they would give you an equivalent term in jail instead. Would that be preferable?’

They have reached the coastal path and turn towards town. Both of them turn to see the sea view the other way, with the islands scattered to the horizon, the same view
as from ‘their’
taverna
. They reach for each other’s hands and their eyes meet before they walk on.

‘
Greek jails are over-crowded and no money is spent on updating them. They are places only fit for animals. There are many bad stories. Violence rules. No, better to hold the gun than have one pointed at you.’