The Art of Becoming Homeless (24 page)

Michelle sits back and swallows hard. She wishes she hadn
’t opted for the Athens meeting. It is not as if she is exactly being productive sitting here. She opens the email about the re-pointing again; she cannot believe the price, she must have remembered it incorrectly. No, she is right.

Her eyes glaze over and she falls into a stare.

She can hear dogs barking somewhere in the village, a tractor on the hill, and a distant donkey cries plaintively.

She snaps out of her meditation with such a jump her elbow slips off the desk. Looking again at the email from the builders, she opens a new window and types away with fury. She
fires off two more emails before Juliet’s head appears over her shoulder.

‘
Are you really going to commit to that?’ She says, leaning over her shoulder. Michelle stabs at the button marked ‘send’. ‘Will you be relating this restructuring of your life to Dino?’

‘
No, absolutely not, and I don’t want to talk about it. OK?’

Dino doesn’t wake up from his siesta on the hammock. Juliet says she has seen the same thing in her boys when they were emotionally stressed; their need for sleep was several-fold. The best thing is just to leave him.

Michelle feels lonely, even though he is just yards away, because he is asleep and he is going to start his military service as soon as he can, to get it over with, he said. Michelle admires his attitude but was shocked when he announced he would leave on the first possible train. The bottom fell out of her world then.

Juliet tries to take Michelle
’s mind off it by suggesting they go out to eat, which is tempting, but these are the last few hours before Dino will go away to some unpronounceable place, and they seem too precious to leave him, even though he is asleep. She doesn’t want him to wake up and her not be there. She doesn’t want to miss a minute of time with him if she can help it.

Juliet is easy going. Eating at a
taverna
is commonplace for her anyway, so they lounge on the grass for a while, sit with their feet in the pond for a bit, slowly put a meal together, at which point Michelle is wishing hard that Dino will wake, but he doesn’t.

They have drunk most of a bottle of wine before the food is cooked, and they start to get silly. At one point they climb up a ladder onto the flat roof of Juliet
’s tiny extension, which houses the washing machine and most of her books. The view is breathtaking. The village before them huddles at the bottom of a hill topped with pine trees. The orange groves around the houses march off to the foothills that circle the flat plane of the valley, the sea creeping as far as it can inland.

It all feels too perfect to be sp
oilt by Dino’s imminent departure.

The clean sheets on the guest room bed smell fresh when she wakes. She pads into the sitting room, and through the windows of the double door she can see Dino’s shape unmoving in the hammock. The coffee smells good. Juliet is humming to herself in the kitchen, the cats meowing an accompaniment as they wind around her legs.

The morning progresses and Dino finally wakes in disbelief that he slept through till the morning, and chastises them both for letting him do so. He is smiling, but Michelle can feel a heaviness about him. Today he must take the train.

‘You should tell him.’ Juliet hisses in the kitchen, looking through the open door to Dino, who is prodding a stick into the pond.

Michelle chooses not to answer.

‘It’s only fair.’

‘
Fair for who? Me or him?’

Juliet picks up a tea towel to dry the pots. Michelle goes to him.

The hours spin past and Juliet calls them.

‘
I have just called the taxi. It will be here in ten minutes.’

‘
OK.’ It is Michelle who turns to answer her. Juliet takes the opportunity to mouth, ‘tell him,’ whilst jabbing her finger in Dino’s direction. Michelle glowers at her.

‘
Shall I come with you to the barracks?’ Michelle asks.

‘
No! I don’t want you to come any further than the taxi door.’ He smiles and takes her hand.

‘
What? You mean not even come with you to the station?’

‘
I want to remember you here with Juliet.’ His smile fades. ‘Michelle please write to me, give me hope that you will see me on my weekends off. If you don’t, I shall go AWOL and come find you.’ He grabs her hair, and forces her to look in his eyes.

There is a toot of a horn, and Dino releases her, their smiles fading at the sight of the taxi.

‘Tell him,’ Juliet says, bringing out Dino’s huge bag.

‘
Nothing.’ Michelle answers.

Juliet gives Dino
’s big bag to the taxi driver who puts it in the boot.

‘
Not going till you tell me,’ he says softly. Juliet waves her goodbye and retreats indoors.

‘
OK, the meeting has been postponed again and I may be here a little longer.’

‘
Oh!’ Dino replies. Michelle is aware that he will be confused, as this news can have no effect on him, but better a small lie than the truth.

‘What are you doing?’

‘
Well, it is my computer.’

‘
Yes, but that is not your email.’ Michelle cannot raise a smile, even though she is teasing. She couldn’t give a hoot about her email. Where her lungs once were is a bottomless hole, and in the dark centre is a heavy weight that is extinguishing her life. Dino has gone.

‘
Oh, don’t get mawky, he has only been gone two minutes,’ Juliet says. ‘I love this bit. Actually, I love it all. I take it we can talk about it now he’s gone? “Dear Sloughlow and Grotchet”,’ she affects a more refined accent, ‘“With regard to your last ‘newsletter’, I have a solution for the chamber’s economic crisis. In my opinion, the partners are all cost effective and have earned their places on the board with merit. It is uncalled for to put them under pressure to prove their worth, as they all did at the beginning of their careers.’” Juliet pauses. ‘I hope you sent this to all the associates as well?’ she asks.

‘
No, but I copied in Doreen, which is the same thing; the partners will know about it before it has got past Sir Sloughlow and Lord Grotchet’s secretaries.’

Juliet straightens her back to read on.

‘“My solution to this problem is to tender my resignation with immediate effect. I will of course attend the meetings in Athens and pursue the claim, and will work a month’s notice if required.”’

‘
I mean, could you have made it sound any more pompous?’ Juliet starts to laugh. Michelle throws herself across the bed. The cotton sheets feel cool.

July

‘I found Yanni’s number and rang him for you whilst you were in England,’ Juliet says as she passes Michelle.

‘
Yanni the donkey man?’ Michelle calls to Juliet from the drive.

‘
Yes. You weren’t mistaken. He didn’t want your money. But I understand; it’s very Greek. So I talked to him and explained how it was only right and he understood what I was saying, but it didn’t make any difference to him and so I suggested he take the money to make you feel better.’

‘
Good move. What did he say?’ Michelle goes into the house as Juliet returns to the drive.

‘
He said he would think about it, so he did, then and there whilst I was on the phone. He went so quiet I thought he had hung up.’ Juliet laughs, passing Michelle again.

‘
Yes, he went quiet like that when he realised Dolly was dead.’ Michelle’s voice drops off at the end of her sentence.

‘
Anyway, he says OK, but he will not take the money itself from you. Instead, he will come up to the donkey breeding centre, which isn’t far from here, and that you must choose the replacement, and then you can pay them.’ Juliet stops to breathe.

‘
For goodness’ sake, what do I know about donkeys? And besides, what difference does it make if I hand the money to him or the donkey breeder?’ Michelle stops shifting boxes too.

‘
His pride. He said he didn’t want to take the money and for you to think he was spending it on something else, taking advantage.’

‘
But I wouldn’t.’ Michelle sets off into the house, another two boxes in her arms.

‘
I know that, but he doesn’t. Anyway, it will be a good day out, so I said we would go.’

Michelle shrugs, exasperated.
‘OK, we’ll go.’ She takes another three boxes into the guest room.

‘
Don’t put them all in there. There’ll be no room for you.’

‘
Yes, but there are loads more. You don’t want them all over the living room.’

‘
It’s not for long,’ Juliet beams.

Michelle carries in a box of shoes but wonders why she has brought them. They will be too hot for Greece.

‘Coffee or wine?’ Juliet asks, putting the box on top of the fridge.

‘
Wine? During the day?’ Michelle picks up her guidebook, wondering where to put it.

‘
Get used to it, girl. You are in Greece now. Oh, by the way, Christies also called …’

‘
Oh, yes? Do you know what they said, by the way, when they came round? They said that they have a lot of foreign investors taking advantage of the slump in the economy and they thought they could sell it relatively quickly, especially as it’s furnished.’ Michelle puts a box of gloves and scarves under her bed and tuts at herself for bringing them. ‘Oh that fits then. They said they had lined up five viewings already, all overseas buyers. But here is the best bit. They just happened to mention one was Greek, from Orino. How funny is that!’ Juliet pours the local wine and takes the two glasses outside. The pile of boxes dumped on the driveway doesn’t look to have diminished by much.

‘
What is all that?’ Michelle asks as she sits, still holding the guidebook, looking at the stack of her boxed things in the sun.

‘
I don’t know. You packed it and brought it over. You tell me.’

‘
The thing is, if I don’t know what is in any of them, then I’m not missing the stuff, and if I’m not missing the stuff, then why not just dump it?’ She puts down the guide to pick up her glass.

‘
Ah, you say that now, but in a few months’ time when you want your automatic electric cheese dicer dispenser, you’ll wish you’d kept it.’

‘
Ha ha, very funny.’ She sips the chilled red wine. It seems normal to chill red wine now.

‘
So when do you sign?’ Juliet asks.

‘
I decided to use an estate agency. “Dreams of Greece,” they call themselves. How tacky is that? Anyway, the bloke who runs it seems very professional. He knows all the pitfalls. He says I could sign at the end of month.’

‘
Fantastic. I had a word with a builder in the village, and he reckons a team could have it done in a month.’

‘
A month!’ Michelle sounds incredulous.

‘
He thought your biggest problem will be pinning down an electrician. Apparently they are like gold dust. Oh, and a chippy to build you some doors. Those that are left are just rotted.’ She sips her wine. ‘Wow, it’s going to be so great having you as a neighbour. Here’s to you and your barn conversion!’ Juliet raises her glass.

‘
Here’s to you having the sense to move into a place with a disused barn next to it!’ Michelle touches glasses, which ring.

‘
Oh yes, you said you had come up with an idea of what you were going to do over here. Come on, spill the beans.’

‘
Umm.’ Michelle stops drinking in her excitement and puts her glass down. ‘Once the house in England is sold, apart from renovating that,’ she nods at the stone barn next door, smiling, ‘I thought I would buy a guest house or a small hotel on Orino.’

‘
Really? It’s a fair run to there. Why not get one in Saros?’ Juliet nods toward the gate that leads to the village centre and the coastal town beyond. ‘Besides, would you really like introducing lots of tourists to Greece on a daily basis? I couldn’t think of anything worse.’

‘
Oh no, I wouldn’t run it.’ Michelle sounds absolute. She is still thumbing through the guidebook. ‘Oh, look, it has a Greek philosophers’ quotes section in this guidebook. I never noticed that before. How about this one? “There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” Epictetus.’

Juliet narrows her eyes.
‘So who would run it?’ she asks.

Michelle looks up from her guidebook, raises her hand so she can see Juliet against the glare. In the sun, everything is so full of colour, prisms of life dancing in all she sees. Juliet is waiting for an answer.

Michelle shrugs.

And smiles.

She looks up to the sky, blues as far as she can see, not a cloud in sight. She touches her shirt pocket where the letter with the Greek stamp is nestled. The letter that arrived in England the same day she did, the letter that she has kept in her left shirt pocket ever since.

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