The Gypsy's Dream (13 page)

She pulls herself to her senses and finds she is in a dry car heading back to the village.

There is another rumble and then the clouds disgorge their contents wit
hout reserve. Stella rubs her neck. It is still sore and she still has a headache. The rain is running down the street like a river within minutes. The heavy droplets ping off the parked cars like peas. The sandwich shop closes its doors to stop the rain blowing in. A man with a newspaper over his head runs from the kiosk to the kafenio. The rain brings a different heat. Ozone fills the air. The smell of wet dust comes up to her from the pavement as she stands watching the spectacle. The grey sky deepens and the growling comes more often. Lights come on around the village and shutters creak closed.

Then, a flashing strobe sheets across the sky, casting deep shadows on everything for a fraction of a second, leaving Stella blinking in the after-dark. She wonde
rs if Abby is somewhere dry. To throw her out at the beginning of a storm, what kind of person is she?

She waits for the
lightning to come again, and this time the thunder is fast upon it.

‘
No one will come to eat day,’ Stella announces to herself. ‘Sometimes these storms they last a couple of hours, but with this one, I think, the sky will go as black as night.’ She realizes it would be nicer if Abby was here with her. ‘Stupid woman.’ she chastises herself. ‘Stavros does wrong and you blame it on a child of sixteen. Stupid.’

Stella had just turned sixteen when she had gone down to the cheese factory to get her mother some feta. Wrapped in a cloth and paper she carried it under her arm when the bus from the town had stopped in her path. A group of boys sh
e had known from school got off, amongst them one called Demosthenes who, on spotting her lurched and made a grab. The boys played catch with the cheese, Stella running widely from one to the other, the laughter growing, the throws more abandoned until Demosthenes himself threw the package into the bus. Stella had scuttled after it, the concertina doors closing after her.

She had not told the bus driver to stop. She was afraid to get off, to walk back to the village, the boys might still be there. But with
each moment of her fear she was half a kilometre further from her home. She had walked half way back from town with the sweating cheese to her mother. The memory serves to remind her how young sixteen is, how dangerous the world could be. She crosses herself and prays for Abby’s safety - and forgiveness.

She watches for a long time and then the rain begins to ease off. The water stops pouring from the gutter above the shop, and the sky lightens a little. Stella steps into the shop and, from a peg on the w
all at the end of the grill, she lifts a folding umbrella. Even if she drove to town Abby could be on the boat by now, gone to Saros. ‘Stella, you are a very stupid woman.’

Abby repeats Vasso’s name and mimes the roof of a house. Eventually the baker’s eyes shine and he grins. ‘Ah,
spiti
, Vasso. House Vasso.’

‘
Yes.’ Abby feels relief. Facing Stella can come later. Her passport and her stuff take priority. As they pass the
ouzeri
Abby slips further down the car seat. She is dropped on the corner just as Stavros strides down the lane, shoulders hunched against the rain, passing her by Vasso’s gate. He says nothing and strides on. The rain becomes strong again. A gust drives the rain through her clothes. Abby shakes herself off on Vasso’s porch. The skies are darkening even more. The usual village choir of dogs has stopped barking. No cockerels crow.

The front door is unlocked, as always. Abby flicks the kettle on. She patters down to her room at the side of the house. When she sits up in bed, the view from th
e window is down towards the village. If she stands straight on to look out she can see the rows of orange trees in lines telling the seasons. Goats taking shelter from the rains trim the pale underside leaves, cats slide through the undergrowth trying to keep out of the rain.

Coffee in hand, Abby makes herself comfortable, propping her pillows up and listening to the sound of the water on the tiles, on the window and on the sloping metal roof of the tool shed in the garden.
She has never seen a downpour so intense. It distracts her from reading. Even though she isn’t cold she puts on her jumper; it feels comforting. It is as if someone is on the roof pouring bucket after bucket of water down past the window. She gets up to look at the ground outside. Where is it all going?

The pale dusty garden has become a deep, rich, reddy-brown, the rain soaking in as quickly as it is falling. No puddles and no streams: the ground is a sponge. She sighs and returns to her seat on the bed, her coffee and her book. No soone
r is she settled than the lightning shoots a flash across the valley, lighting up the room in high relief. She opens her mouth to count out loud the interval before the thunder, but she is not quick enough. There is a dark and menacing roll.

She switches
on the bedside light. The room appears dull by comparison with the spectacle.

She wonders what to do about her passport, she could try talking to Vasso but they can barely communicate, she might ask Stella directly but she would have to know what mood she
was in. Confronting Stavros himself is not a good idea, there is just something about him, a bit scary, and creepy. Perhaps she could ask the English teacher to help, she must speak Greek, what did Stella say her name was? She will ask Vasso, but she is not going out in this rain, she will wait until it stops or until Vasso comes home. Her little room is comforting, safe.

Part of her wants to watch the storm, witness the local weather, but the other part tells her a storm is a storm, and if she does find a
way to stay on at school, all the reading she can fit in between now and September will be of benefit. Trying to forget about her passport she pushes on with the book on economics. It is a possible choice for one of her A levels. She got a grade A at GCSE.

The chapter on supply and demand is next. She can relate that to the
ouzeri
, maybe learn something she could have implemented. She skips the chapter she is on, bookmarking the page. The lightning sheets across the window and then cracks into jagged fingers down the darkened skies, lighting up twisted trees and angular buildings. The thunder rages again, louder than before, prolonged.

The light flickers. She watches it splutter once more and then die. She turns it off at the switch and wonders if she shoul
d check the rest of the house. The thunder crashes again in unison with the sheets and cracks of the light. Up in the heavens the blanket glow illuminates the clouds from above, showing layer after layer of heavy rain that will soon be falling, the forked lightning now being saved to spear the ground.

Stavros chucks the sodden newspaper onto the counter in the
ouzeri
and shakes off the rain from his legs and arms before pulling his tight T-shirt from his stomach and letting go, bouncing off the raindrops.

‘
Why are you here? There will be no people,’ Stella says, not looking at him, still watching the rain, which is building again.

‘
No bloody food in the house. You feed the whole village but not me,’ Stavros grumbles, mopping his bare arms with some kitchen roll.

Stella does not answer.

He takes a plate and loads it with half a chicken and five sausages, pouring lemon sauce liberally all over it. He takes it through to the restaurant area, pushes the blanket Stella slept under off the chair onto the floor and sits eating, using neither knife nor fork, just his bare hands and his teeth.

Stella cannot watch. She turns to look at the rain again. The gutter above the shop must be broken. The cascade is worse than before and the noise is loud and slightly frighteni
ng.

‘
What were you and that woman cooking up last night?’ Stavros belches between mouthfuls, thick with saliva.

Stella turns to see if she has heard properly. Is he seriously asking her to defend her behaviour?

‘Vasso came for a drink. She was not at the kiosk talking to you. Which leaves the question what were
you
cooking up last night?’ Stella is alarmed by her bravery, and no sooner have the words reached his ears than she wishes them unsaid. Unsure of the possible reprisals, she takes a step backwards.

‘
That is no business of yours.’ He rips some meat off a chicken leg with his teeth, grease on his lips, and pulls at the dangling tendons with his fingers.

‘
Isn’t it?’ Stella feels the strength of Juliet behind her. Juliet would speak up, and so should she. ‘On paper you are my husband, which means if you are out with other women then it is my business.’

‘
Who said it was women?’ Stavros laughs with his mouth open and Stella can see his half-masticated food.

‘
The stink of perfume on you,’ Stella retorts.

‘
That was his wife!’ Stavros sounds triumphant.

‘
Whose wife?’ Stella asks, but she thinks she already knows the answer.

‘
The bastard that took my money.’ Stavros throws his chicken bone onto the plate. It skids forwards across the ceramic surface and drops over the edge onto the table as he stands.

‘
Took it? Or you gave it to him attached to a deck of cards?’ Stella says.

‘
If our life is such that I play cards to entertain myself then you should be grateful it isn’t women, or drink for that matter.’ He pours himself an ouzo.

‘
I am delighted, no ecstatic, that our money is “only” lost on cards, not drink and women. You must think I am an idiot, Stavros. I work here, slaving all day, every day, thinking I am making enough money to cover our outgoings, but the reality is I am covering your debts. So how much did you lose?’

‘
If I had won you would not be complaining.’ Stavros lights a cigarette.

‘
Gambling is a fool’s game. There is no winning. If you could win, casinos would never stay open. So how much?’

‘
If I had won there would be more than just you fawning over me.’ He puffs on his cigarette at if it is a cigar.

‘
Meaning what?’ Stella asks.

Stavros smiles to himself.

‘If you mean Abby ...’ Stella’s voice does not sound like her own and she is surprised by the force of emotion behind it, her throat tightens and she cannot finish her sentence.

Stavros turns, a trail of smoke across his cheek with the speed. His blue eyes have a dark glow to them. His shoulder and hip follow his head until he is facing her.

‘Abby?’ he bellows.

At that moment the thunder crashes. Stella jumps. The rain is falling fast, in sheets. Behind Stavros the sky is so dark that lights are coming on all over the village, the road a swelling river. A car crawls past, its windscreen wipers on at
full speed, making no impact on the rain sliding off the roof.

‘
She’s just a kid!’ Stavros exclaims.

‘
Exactly!’ Stella retorts.

The slap is so hard that spikes of pain run up her nose and her eyes water.

It doesn
’t register as an action from him. It is just pain searing through Stella’s cheek bone. His blue eyes stare into her, making contact in a way he has not done for years, searching for her surrender. Stella’s eyes narrow: he isn’t having it. She pushes to get past him out into the street, but as her hand touches his shoulder he shoves her back with such a force that she stumbles against a table. Shock pumps adrenaline, and energy surges to her muscles. She rights herself and lashes out at him, fear and anger mixing into a pool of uncontrolled aggression. She catches him by his hair and pulls, bringing his face down to meet her, his bulging eyes wary and wild, like a captured animal. He pulls his head back up but Stella clings on, their eyes level. She can see all the red veins in his eyes, smell the chicken on his breath, the individual greying hairs of his unshaven chin. She is repulsed.

The air exhales from her body with a gush and she doubles over, his fist buried in her stomach. Her hand releases its grip of his hair, both arms covering her stomac
h, defending and protecting.

‘
Sterile, dirty, gypsy, whore.’ She hears the words spat at her as another blow hits her shoulder and she drops to the floor.

Her rage shrieks though her limbs, her legs scuttering. She is determined to stand, to face him. She
fights for balance. Each attempt is met with a savage blow, to her shoulder, her thigh. With each blow her body grows weak but her mind is strong and she will not submit. Determinedly she finds her feet, every hit taken as another chance to defy, submission not an option. She blocks the pain, stubbornly facing him. Denying defeat; she will not be crushed.

He reigns dominant over her. His body is alive with power, with the satisfaction of making good contact with each blow. The smack of fist against muscle, the pleasure of her cowering. The contortions of her limbs trying to protect her. He enjoys bruising, obliterating. Demanding acquiescence, he rages, unreachable.