FOUR
Rhodes Airport – Coach park – 5.00 pm

‘Right,’ Kate said firmly, snapping shut her file with equal force. ‘That’s fifty of mine to dump at the Plaza and only six going over to Symi with you. Think you can manage queer boy?’
Jason looked at his colleague and stuck out his tongue. ‘Have I ever let the team down babe?’
‘Oh, now let me think…’
‘Bog off.’ Jason pushed her playfully and Kate span away from him laughing.
‘Just make sure you get my guests to their hotel before you get on your boat. You’ve got an hour, even you can mange that.’

Jason boarded his coach and wandered to the back counting heads, well counting blue rinses and bald patches mainly. There were fifty five clients, with a combined age of about three thousand years, and still one guest was missing. He made his way to the front again where the driver, Dino, was checking his watch.
‘We miss the boat,’ Dino grinned through a face full of beard. ‘Then you stay in Rhodos the night and we go out for jig-jig.’
‘I’m not jig-jigging with you Dino, I’ve told you,’ Jason didn’t look at him as he climbed down onto the tarmac again.
‘Not with me malaka,’ Dino crossed himself. ‘With pretty ladies.’

Jason ignored him and scanned the car park. Somewhere in the airport complex was guest number fifty-six, his grandma. He noted the time again. The ferry for Symi left promptly at six and would not wait. It was now five past five. With the two drop offs he had agreed to do for Kate in return for her favour that morning, the journey would take forty-five minutes. He wouldn’t put it passed his boss to have kidnapped a guest in order to make him miss the boat, another Slipe made nail in his career coffin. He dialled Kate’s number on his mobile.

‘What now queer boy?’ The Kiwi greeted him cheerfully from somewhere inside the arrivals hall. ‘What’s up?’
‘Have you got one of mine?’ Jason asked, heading back towards the terminal building.
‘No. Who have you lost?’
‘A Reah from the Gatwick flight.’
‘It’s all you think about,’ Kate laughed back down the line at him. ‘What is it with you poofs and rears? Well, all mine checked through and there’s no rears here wandering around looking lost.’
‘Oh my god!’
‘What?’
‘Got her. Bye.’

Jason snapped off his phone and quickened his pace towards the old lady who sat on a concrete bollard. She was looking down into an open travel bag and Jason thought she was being sick.
‘Mrs. Reah?’ he called, waving his clipboard to attract her attention. ‘Grandma?’

The old woman looked up suddenly and then down again. She appeared to be talking to the contents of her bag as Jason trotted up in front of her. ‘Yup,’ he thought. ‘Taking to her luggage, she’s with SARGO.’
‘Grandma Margaret?’
‘Grandmother,’ the old lady corrected him and looked up.

Margaret closed her case and locked it.
‘Grandma?’ Jason said again, hardly believing that he was seeing his elderly relative for what seemed like the first time.
‘Grandmother.’ Margaret chided, standing up.

Jason looked at her closely for the first time in twenty years and saw himself looking back. He could tell that, through his mother, he had inherited his grandmother’s eyes, blue and sparkling.

‘You look just like your photograph,’ Margaret said pinching his cheek and pulling him down to her. ‘Kiss your grandmother like a good boy.’

Jason felt her powdery cheek on his as the old lady kissed the air beside him. He noticed that he had inherited her jaw too; strong and in need of a shave.

‘Mind you,’ Margaret said cheerfully. ‘In the only photograph of you that I have you are eighteen months old and naked. But still you haven’t changed.’
‘I was sorry to hear about granddad.’ Jason looked at his watch again as he stood up. Whatever he felt about this reunion would have to wait until his guests were securely on the ferry.
‘Grandfather,’ Margaret tutted. ‘We have so much to do…’
‘Later.’ Jason reached for her bags. ‘We are in a bit of a hurry just now.’

He grabbed her imitation Louis Vuitton luggage and started dragging it towards the coach. It was heavier than he had expected and Jason wondered what on earth she had brought with her for a seven night stay. The kitchen sink, it felt like.

‘Slow down dear. And do be careful with that,’ Margaret said as she followed him. ‘Your grandfather is inside.’
‘Sorry love, but we’ll miss the boat.’
‘Love?’ Margaret was shocked.
‘Grandfather!’ Jason even more so.

He dropped the imitation Vuitton as if it had suddenly turned red hot in his hand. Margaret overtook him.
‘Come along dear, there is much to do.’ She winked at him as she hurried past.

By the time Jason reached the coach he was hot, out of breath and praying that he had misheard. His grandmother had taken up residence in the front seat and Dino was revving the engine. Jason tried to fit the bag into the overfilled luggage hold but it was crammed full. He checked that his grandmother could not see him, said ‘sorry granddad,’ and gave the case a hefty shove with his foot wedging it in under a pile of Samsonite. He slammed the lid of the hold firmly and came around to the door. ‘O.k. Dino, we can go. And step on it.’
‘Is Stanley quite safe?’ Margaret placed a hand on Jason’s arm as he boarded, she looked concerned.
‘He’s just dandy love,’ Jason replied turning to adjust his highlighted hair in the wing mirror and check that his tie was just so.
‘Thank you, he’s not travelled for such a long time.’ The old lady sat back in her seat and drew her handbag in close. ‘When can we talk?’
‘Later. On the boat.’

Dino took the microphone, clicked it on and announced: ‘good afternoon loidies and men. I am your driver Dino and I get you to the harbour quick now. Normal day takes fifty minutes, I do it for you today in thirty. Please no smoking,’ he lit another cigarette, ‘and no spitting. You do good for me and I do good for you and you give me big tip. Ha ha.’

Jason grabbed the microphone from him. ‘Just drive,’ he ordered and was relieved to hear the door swing shut with a hiss and a clunk.

He pulled down his centre aisle front seat, flipped open his clipboard and ticked off the last name on his list. All he had to do now was drop off Kate’s guests and he’d be heading for the ferry and back home to Symi.
As he sat he glanced over his shoulder to his grandmother. She was looking out of the window with her handbag clutched on her lap and her eyes wide. She seemed to be taking everything in while, at the same time, staring into space. Jason wondered why his mother had not contacted him to mention the visit and his mind flashed briefly on old family history.

All he could remember about his grandparents was their presence and the last time he had seen them. They were at the house on the day his mother returned from hospital. Jason remembered the day, it was a warm one and he was at the front of the house on a large lawn playing with two Action Men while he waited for his parents to come back. Granddad Stan was sitting in his wheelchair behind him on the porch, sleeping. Grandma Margaret was inside cleaning the house. The sound of the vacuum cleaner was droning on in the background. Jason had been looking forward to the day because it was the first time he was going to see his new brother or sister. His mother had explained that she would be going away for a short while because she was fat and, when she returned, there would be a new baby in the house. This was that day.

He remembered seeing a taxi pulling up and his father helped his mother out of the back. She was crying, her face red and her nose was running. His father took out a small suitcase and Jason worried in case the baby ran out of air. It had to be in the suitcase because the taxi pulled away and there was no sign of a new brother or sister. His parents walked straight past him into the house, ignoring his pleas to see the baby and the vacuum cleaner stopped droning.

‘Are they back?’

His granddad had woken up but he hadn’t moved. He never moved much and, because of that and because his eyes were always hidden behind dark glasses you could never tell if he was asleep or awake.
Jason didn’t have a chance to reply. A low, frightening wail started inside the house and he froze in terror. The sound got louder and Jason started to cry. Something was terribly wrong.
Within seconds, it seemed, of his parents marching into the house his grandma came running out, pulling a handbag over her shoulder. She kicked the bottom of granddad’s wheel chair, releasing the break and causing the old man to protest. Without even saying goodbye to Jason she bumped granddad Stan down from the porch and raced him through the front gate. Her face was screwed up tight and she too looked like she was crying.

That had been the last time Jason had seen her.

She looked different now; older, obviously, and much smaller. Not frail, she had a determination about her and she seemed to be thinking. More than thinking she appeared to be plotting.

Jason turned back to his clipboard and his duties. The coach had pulled out of the airport and had turned left towards Rhodes Town. He set his mind back to his tasks and prepared to give his welcome speech.
He had made it so many times that he didn’t have to think about it too much. He simply opened his mouth and the words came out. This usually allowed him time to think of other more interesting things, like Britney Spears and Greek men, but today his mind was full of his grandmother’s visit, her strange letter and the promised ‘heirloom’. Let’s hope it’s valuable, he thought, then maybe I can sell it and stay on the island for the winter.

He tapped the microphone to ensure it was working properly.
‘Well, good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, or as we say here in Greece, Kali mera!’ A silence followed. ‘Kali mera!’ he repeated pushing himself into smiley Sargo mode.
There were a few weak attempts at a response from behind him. He stood up and faced his audience.
‘Bravo. That’s better. So: my name is Jason and I will be one of your SARGO reps during your holiday in the lovely land that is Greece. SARGO, as you should all know by now, stands for Sensational and Relaxing Getaways Overseas. I am the sensational part…’
No one laughed.
‘And you are here to getaway from it all and relax. Are we all ready to relax?’
Silence.

This was not a good audience. Jason continued feeling suddenly nervous. His grandmother was looking at him from beneath his left elbow and he felt pressurised to perform well for her.
‘Shortly we will be dropping some of you off at the Plaza hotel where your resort rep, Kate, will be meeting you later. For the rest of you, who are coming with me to Symi, we will be catching the six o’clock ferry from the harbour.’ His inner mind butted in, that is if Dino doesn’t kill us all first.

The coach rounded a corner and Jason was sure he felt two wheels lift from the ground. He grabbed the driver’s seat beside him and tried to appear calm. ‘Now then, if I can just see a show of hands for my group? Hands up who is going to be having a riot with me on Symi with me?’
His Grandmother waved proudly at him and he counted another four hands dotted around the coach. Only five? Oh bugger, who’s missing?
‘I was supposed to have six…’ he muttered to himself and the microphone picked it up.
‘You have pet,’ a husky, Northern accent piped up from further down the coach. ‘There’s another one behind Pavarotti here.’

Jason looked up to see who had spoken. A large woman in a gaudy shirt was signalling to him and pointing to an equally fat man across the aisle.
‘You calling me fat?’ The fat man tried to turn to the woman who had spoken but was wedged into his seat.
Jason saw a wiry arm pop out from behind ‘Pavarotti’. The arm was covered in yellow plastic and followed by a small face. A man, wearing a cagoule and sunglasses peered out into the aisle like a surfacing mole and waved timidly.
‘Ah ha!’ said Jason. ‘You must be Mister Simpson.’ He only had one male guest this week, this must be him. ‘Glad we found you,’ he added, ticking his clipboard and returning to his speech. ‘When we arrive at Symi you will be taken to our villa by complementary transport and we will have our welcome meeting this evening before dinner.’
‘Excuse me.’
Oh hell, they’ve started already. ‘Yes grand…’ It was his grandma who had spoken. Was she to be treated as a guest or as family? ‘Yes love?’

He decided that she was principally a guest. After all, he knew as little about her as he did about the other people on the coach.

Margaret frowned at his use of the word love as she lowered her hand. She cleared her throat and lent forward. ‘It’s Grandmother. If a person has a title you should always address them as such. Now then, may we stop en route for the little girl’s room?’
‘We will be at the harbour soon,’ Jason tried to smile. Thanks to the delayed flight there was no time for stopping.
‘Oh dear,’ Margaret sat back and looked worried. ‘I don’t really need a harbour, just something with a pan, lid and flush. Is there not somewhere more private?’
‘Toilets,’ Jason announced cheerfully to the entire party over the airwaves. ‘The question was about toilets…’
‘And we need one very soon,’ Margaret insisted.
Jason looked down at her and the empty seat beside her. ‘We?’
‘Well, that’s a little personal don’t you think?’ Margaret looked very uncomfortable. ‘The detail is immaterial, the necessity is what is important here.’
‘As we are on the subject of toilets…’ Jason’s routine had been thrown but all he needed to do was swap a few paragraphs around and he would be back on track with his Sargo script. ‘I should say a few words about Greek plumbing.’
‘The best in the world,’ Dino laughed, swerving the coach violently onto a roundabout.
‘The plumbing in Greece is what is known as small bore,’ Jason went on.

His confidence was slightly undermined when he heard someone whisper, ‘how appropriate,’ loudly enough to be heard by the front five rows.
‘Which means that the pipes are very narrow.’ Like the minds of some of these guests. ‘And this in turn means that nothing must be put in the toilet bowl unless it’s been…man made.’ He emphasised the last two words to ensure that there was no doubt about what he meant.
‘In what sense man made?’ A woman in a straw hat raised a hand and lent into the aisle.
This lot are definitely going to be trouble, he thought. Everyone knows about Greek toilets.
‘I mean that nothing goes into the bowl unless you’ve… well unless it’s been made by man,’ he tried to clarify. He didn’t like this part of the speech at the best of times but usually got away without having to go into details.
‘So plastics are acceptable then?’ the straw hat woman queried, taking out a note book and pencil.
‘Plastics? Not that kind of man made no…’
‘Well make up your mind,’ someone huffed and a ripple of dissent could be felt filtering around the coach.
‘Hon?’ An American accent pierced the air from behind a pair of huge sunglasses and heavy make up. The thin faced woman clicked her fingers over her head. ‘I’m confused already. What constitutes man made?’
Shit, thought Jason, but before he could open his mouth straw hat woman had chipped in again.
‘If you don’t consider plastic to be man made I would like to know exactly what you do mean,’ she was taking notes.
‘Bakelite is man made,’ the timid mole man pointed out, gaining confidence. ‘But why would you want to flush that away?’
‘Do we have to put these things in the toilet? It seems rather strange,’ straw hat asked the people around her.
‘I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about,’ big sunglasses whispered to her companion. She spoke with such perfect clarity that her voice sliced through the muttering which had started in the centre rows.
‘Give the lad a chance,’ the rough voice from up north boomed and the bus fell as quiet as if they had just sensed the far off rumble of an earthquake.
‘What I mean,’ Jason said when he thought had control again. ‘Is that nothing goes into the toilet unless you have produced it yourself.’
‘Say Cassie,’ the theatrical companion to big-round-sunglasses spoke with projection and clarity, ‘just like your last show.’
‘Bitch,’ the sunglasses replied.
‘O.k.’ Jason thought it was time to move on. ‘So if we are clear about that, I will now tell you about…’
‘Not yet!’ Straw hat woman raised her hand and waved her pencil in the air. ‘This is very confusing. What must we not put into the toilet?’

Jason was getting bored with this. His inner mind whispered to him like a tempting devil. Tell her exactly what you mean babe, that’ll shut her up. ‘What I mean exactly,’ he said slowly and deliberately, ‘is that you must not put anything into the bowl except natural waste. Number twos for example. Things like your used toilet tissue, sanitary towels and condoms must go into the little bins provided.’

All muttering stopped and a deathly hush befell the coach.

‘Condoms?’ Someone whispered the word as if it was blasphemy.

Without warning Dino slammed to a halt at some traffic lights, jolting the passengers forward.
‘Do you mean to say,’ straw hat went on oblivious to the false teeth that skidded past her along the aisle, ‘that the toilet paper in the bins has been used?’
‘Jackpot! Free glass of Retsina for the lady in the straw hat,’ Jason tried to break the startled atmosphere.
‘Oh dear,’ straw hat had turned pale. ‘I thought it was a strange place to keep it.’
‘I read about that in a Gerald Durrell,’ mole man lent over to her and said helpfully. ‘So I brought some quilted Andrex.’ He passed her a roll. ‘Now that’s suitable for the lavatory surely?’ he enquired of his rep.
Jason shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Only poo and piss in the bowl,’ the big northern woman clarified for everyone once and for all. ‘Now let the lad finish. Stop interrupting him.’
‘Thank you,’ Jason tried to smile at her but her helpfulness was only acting to further undermine his authority and he had trouble regaining everyone’s attention. ‘We will shortly be stopping at the Plaza…’ You’ve done that bit. ‘for those of you….’
‘Can I smoke?’ Northern woman interrupted him.
‘Not just yet…’
‘I say?’ Margaret had raised her hand a while ago and now lent forward to tug at the hem of Jason’s shorts. ‘All this dreadful talk of the W.C. only serves to remind me that I need to pay a visit.’
‘We will be at the boat in a few minutes gran,’ Jason began.
‘Does the boat have a toilet?’ Someone asked.
‘What is this obsession with toilets?’
‘And does the rule, vis-à-vis the quilted Andrex apply on the boat?’ straw hat asked, licking the lead in her pencil.
‘I must insist,’ Margaret said apologetically and Jason could see that she was in trouble.
‘If you are very quick you can pop into the Plaza when we drop the other passengers off.’ Jason gave in. He was, after all, there to help.
‘Are they clean?’ Margaret whispered back conspiratorially.
‘They have individual hand towels,’ Jason winked and this seemed to satisfy her. Best shut up now and leave the rest of the speech, his little voice told him. ‘Good idea,’ he answered it aloud. ‘So, if there are no more questions about toilets…’

Several hands shot into the air and he ignored them all. Pretend they’re not there.

‘Good. So on behalf of SARGO holidays may I thank you for choosing to travel with us and wish you a happy stay. Now, just shit back and enjoy the rest of the journey.’ You said shit back. I know, but I think I got away with it.

Margaret’s eyes widened and not just because of her urgent need for a W.C.

Her grandson, on first inspection, seemed hardly up to the task that Stanley had set them both. She suddenly feared for her mission.