The Days Pass
Despite the trials of modern travel and modern travellers, Shirl soon finds herself relaxing. This has much to do with a large piece of limestone that has a very ancient story to tell. It does so silently, which, after being a woman alone in Greece for a week, she is happy about. You see, Shirl has quickly come to learn not to ask a Greek man a question for risk of getting an answer.
It’s not the language thing. Just about everyone she meets under the age of ninety speaks English of some sort, even if it’s highly Americanised, thanks to television programmes and a private English teacher who hailed from Southern Texas, but who was a) the cheapest to hire and b) the only one available to fly out for a season. However, he’s been deported now, because his contract was for a year, but his visa was only for three months, and Shirl’s quite pleased, because asking a Texan to teach the King’s English is a little like asking the Wests to run a creche.
No, the problem, she has discovered, is philosophy. Having given birth to it 2,600 years before yesterday, Greek men have taken it to heart.
‘Can you tell me the time of the next bus?’ A simple question asked of a waiter.
‘Pah! The bus is for those who make no money. Why would I take a bus? To show my family I have no respect in myself? I take my car, because it is mine and I have earnt it. I am right, yes?’
‘Well…’
‘Yes. I am right.’
And that’s the end of that.
Actually, that was what Shirl has come to think of as a quickie. Only yesterday, she happened to ask another waiter what was good on the menu and got what she calls a virtual quicky because it wasn’t that quick, but it wasn’t as incessant as some monologues she’s had to listen to.
‘Is all good on my menu. Is made by me. Yes, me. I do this because it is love. Food is the way I say, I love you. It brings me from my heart to the heart of the inside of my customers, those who I love, and I feed with love, so it comes straight from here,’ (slaps heart area), ‘to my customer insides, where it warms you with my love.’
‘Yeah, and comes out as shito. Just the Greek salad for me.’
Other encounters are ‘longies’, and that’s a polite way of putting it, Shirl thinks as she listens to diatribe after diatribe. Personal philosophy pours from the mouths of local lads as young as the latest social media craze, as it does from the beaten moustaches of the ancients who doze outside bars of an afternoon. No-one, it seems, is capable of holding a discussion that does not revolve around their view of life, love and the universe, and they/he is always right. To debate otherwise is to invite a Jehovah’s Witness into your house to meet the Mormon boys on their mission. To stay silent only produces more of the same spouting, but still, Shirl’s in Greece. It’s what happens.
What also happens are fellow Brits, and much as she tries to steer clear, they find her. Phil and his inanity were bad enough, and she only made it through that lunch with the help of her support post, but those she encounters elsewhere… Heavens to Betsy!
There are those who arrive pre-stained and slightly orange but who think if they say nothing about it, everyone else will be too polite to notice.
There are those who arrive as white as if they’d just read their restaurant bill in Mykonos, but who think they are untouchable, and so parade in as little as possible for the first day, and in calamine lotion for the rest of their trip. These are usually men.
Next, come they who believe they have the body of Venus being transformed from a pearl to a goddess in an oyster. These special creatures waft through even the most traditional and out of the way villages in heeled shoes with a piece of string between their legs in a failed attempt at modesty, and a stretch of something across the top to distract from the pimples on the exposed arse. If they’re trying to be Venus, then they’re being transformed from a manufactured imitation piece of sand to a laughingstock in an ashtray that might once have held a clam.
And then, among others, she discovers those who gather at the same tables in the same kafeneion at the same time of day, every day, she discovers a mild form of competition. It can be found in snatches of conversation that she overhears while taking her afternoon coffee.
‘You can’t sit there, that’s where Raymond always sits. Is Raymond here yet?’
‘He’s coming on Tuesday, staying at Katerina’s for a week, moving to the village for his second week, we’re having lunch on Friday, and we’re all doing the boat trip on Sunday.’
‘Oh? Boat trip?’
‘Have you not stayed here before? This is our, what is it…? Our tenth time.’
‘Oh, only ten? We first came in 1989.’
‘As late as that? You won’t remember Spiros, then. He was only a boy when we first met him in eighty-two.’
‘You mean him, serving that lady, there?’
‘Yes, that’s him. Like our grandchild he is.’
If he was, you’d know his name’s Yiannis, Shirl thinks and finishes her drink.
Despite all this, as every day passes, she becomes more and more enamoured with the place, the people, their eccentricities which are only eccentricities to others, the pace, the care, the rocks, and even parts of male philosophy. It’s all going so well, she’s not been sectioned for holding conversations with inert objects. Yet.
Exit, Fade, and Cut.
It’s all going well, she’s learnt to avoid the traps, and she’s now a different person because she has decided a few things. For example:
Why pay for a costly sunbed when a towel on the beach will do? Why opt for a fancy lunch when a few supplies from the super market (sic) will suffice? Why dress in expensive designer outfits for dinner (who you gunna impress?) and pay a fortune for a spit of foam beside something resembling a golf ball and titled, The waft of the Aegean or whatever, when a family-run village taverna is all you need? In other words, Shirl had realised it’s the simple things in life that matter.
Talking of which, the husband arrives. (We forgot about him.) At this point, we’re left to assume there’s a happy ever after. The husband has come to realise that the wife is of some importance, Shirl’s got an illegal job working in Costas’ café on days when the IKA or Tax aren’t on the island, and even her rock’s now a tourist attraction. Packs of ‘influencers’ line up to take pouting selfies beside random lumps of limestone, and one of them is the new he/her/they/etc. friend of the travelling companion (we also forgot about her). Thanks to Shirl, her island is now thriving in the way a wasp’s nest thrives, but among the mayhem, she/you/we/us will always find a peaceful spot, a beautiful view, and most of all, a friendly welcome.
‘I’m gonna miss you!’
No, I don’t know why I wrote all that either, but it was fun. Btw, I’m not talking about any one person here, so I’m not talking about that Costas, or that ferry, taverna, accommodation or even that island. I’m just talking. Have a good weekend. Back on Monday (with photos).