Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories (28 page)

“But how do
they get away with it?” I asked.

“Haven’t you
been listening to anything I’ve been saying, Jeff?

If two screws
say that’s what happened, then that’s what happened,” repeated Mick, “and no
con will be able to tell you any different. Understood?”

“Understood,” I
replied.

On 12 September 2002 Prison Service
Instruction No. 47/2002 stated that the judgment of the European Court of Human
Rights in the case of
Ezeh
& Con-
nors
ruled that, where an offense was so
extreme as to result in a punishment of
additional days, the protections inherent
in Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights applied, A
hearing must be conducted by an independent and impartial tribunal, and
prisoners are entitled to legal assistance at such
hearings.

Pete Bailey was released from Lincoln prison
on 19 October 2002.

G
eorge
Tsakiris
is not one of those Greeks you need to
beware of when he is bearing gifts.

George is
fortunate enough to spend half his life in London and the other half in his
native Athens. He and his two younger brothers, Nicholas and Andrew, run
between them a highly successful salvage company, which they inherited from
their father.

George and I
first met many years ago during a charity function in aid of the Red Cross. His
wife Christina was a member of the organizing committee, and she had invited me
to be the auctioneer.

At almost every
charity auction I have conducted over the years, there has been one item for
which you just can’t find a buyer, and that night was no exception. On this
occasion, another member of the committee had donated a landscape painting that
had been daubed by their daughter and would have been orphaned at a village
fete. I felt, long before I climbed up onto the rostrum and searched around the
room for an opening bid, that I was going to be left stranded once again.

However, I had
not taken George’s generosity into consideration.

“Do I have an
opening bid of one thousand pounds?” I inquired hopefully, but no one came to
my rescue.
“One thousand?”
I repeated, trying not to
sound desperate, and just as I was about to give up, out of a sea of black
dinner jackets a hand was raised. It was Georges.

“Two thousand,”
I suggested, but no one was interested in my suggestion.

“Three
thousand,” I said looking directly at George.

Once again his
hand shot up. “Four thousand,” I declared confidently, but my confidence was
short-lived, so I returned my attention to George. “Five thousand,”

I demanded, and
once again he obliged.

Despite his
wife being on the committee, I felt enough was enough. “Sold for five thousand
pounds, to Mr. George
Tsakiris
,” I announced to loud
applause, and a look of relief on Christina’s face.

Since then poor
George, or to be more accurate rich George, has regularly come to my rescue at
such functions, often purchasing ridiculous items, for which I had no hope of
arousing even an opening bid. Heaven knows how much I’ve
prised
out of the man over the years, all in the name of charity.

Last year,
after I’d sold him a trip to Uzbekistan, plus two economy tickets courtesy of
Aeroflot, I made my way across to his table to thank him for his generosity.

“No need to
thank me,” George said as I sat down beside him. “Not a day goes by without me
realizing how fortunate I’ve been, even how lucky I am to be alive.”

“Lucky to be alive?”
I said, smelling a story.

Let me say at
this point that the tired old cliché, that there’s a book in every one of us,
is a fallacy However, I have come to accept over the years that most people
have experienced a single incident in their life that is unique to them, and
well worthy of a short story. George was no exception.

“Lucky to be
alive,” I repeated.

George and his
two brothers divide their business responsibilities equally: George runs the
London office, while Nicholas remains in Athens, which allows Andrew to roam
around the globe whenever one of their sinking
clients
needs to be kept afloat.

Although George
maintains establishments in London, New York and Saint-Paul-de-
Vence
, he still regularly returns to the home of the gods,
so that he can keep in touch with his large family
Have
you noticed how wealthy people always seem to have large families?

At a recent Red
Cross Ball, held at the Dorchester, no one came to my rescue when I offered a
British Lions’ rugby shirt–following their tour of New Zealand–that had been
signed by the entire losing team. George was nowhere to be seen, as he’d
returned to his native land to attend the wedding of a favorite niece.

If it hadn’t
been for an incident that took place at that wedding, I would never have seen
George again. Incidentally, I failed to get even an opening bid for the British
Lions’ shirt.

George’s niece,
Isabella, was a native of Cephalonia, one of the most beautiful of the Greek
islands, set like a magnificent jewel in the Ionian Sea. Isabella had fallen in
love with the son of a local wine grower, and as her father was no longer
alive, George had offered to host the wedding reception, which was to be held
at the bridegroom’s home.

In England it
is the custom to invite family and friends to attend the wedding service,
followed by a reception, which is often held in a marquee on the lawn of the
home of the
daughters
parents. When the lawn is not
large enough, the festivities are moved to the village hall.

After the
formal speeches have been delivered, and a reasonable period of time has
elapsed, the bride and groom depart for their honeymoon, and fairly soon
afterward the guests make their way home.

Leaving a party
before midnight is not a tradition the Greeks have come to terms with. They
assume that any festivities after a wedding will continue long into the early
hours of the following morning, especially when the bridegroom owns a vineyard.
Whenever two natives are married on a Greek island, an invitation is
automatically extended to the locals so that they can share in a glass of wine
and toast the bride’s health.

Wedding crasher
is not an expression that the Greeks are familiar with. The
brides
mother doesn’t bother sending out
gold-embossed cards with RSVP in the lower left-hand corner for one simple
reason: no one would bother to reply, but everyone would still turn up.

Another
difference between our two great nations is that it is quite unnecessary to
hire a marquee or rent the village hall for the festivities, as the Greeks are
unlikely to encounter the occasional downpour, especially in the middle of
summer–about ten months. Anyone can be a weather forecaster in Greece.

The night
before the wedding was due to take place, Christina suggested to her husband
that, as host, it might be wise for him to remain sober. Someone, she added,
should keep an eye on the proceedings, bearing in mind the bridegroom’s
occupation. George reluctantly agreed.

The marriage
service was held in the island’s small church, and the pews were packed with
invited, and uninvited, guests long before vespers were chanted.

George accepted
with his usual grace that he was about to host a rather large gathering. He
looked on with pride as his favorite niece and her lover were joined together
in holy matrimony. Although Isabella was hidden behind a veil of white lace,
her beauty had long been acknowledged by the young men of the island.

Her
fiancé
, Alexis
Kulukundis
, was
tall and slim, and his waistline did not yet bear testament to the fact that he
was heir to a vineyard.

And so to the service.
Here, for a moment, the English and
the Greeks come together, but not for long. The ceremony was conducted by
bearded priests attired in long golden surplices and tall black hats. The sweet
smell of incense from swinging burners wafted throughout the church, as the
priest in the most ornately embroidered gown, who also boasted the longest
beard, presided over the marriage, to the accompaniment of murmured psalms and
prayers.

George and
Christina were among the first to leave the church once the service was over,
as they wanted to be back at the house in good time to welcome their guests.

The
bridegroom’s rambling old farmhouse nestled on the slopes of a hill above the
plains of the vineyard. The spacious garden, surrounded by terraced olive
groves, was full of chattering
wellwishers
long
before the bride and bridegroom made their entrance.

George must
have shaken over two hundred hands, before the appearance of Mr. and Mrs.
Kulukundis
was announced by a large group of the
bridegroom’s rowdy friends who were firing pistols into the air in celebration;
a Greek tradition which I suspect would not go down well on an English country
lawn, and certainly not in the village hall.