The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8) (17 page)

‘Walking up here.’ She turns to look at the arch over the drive to indicate what she means. ‘It all looked so perfect, so peaceful, so inviting that I forgot about the church.’

‘Oh, I see. I think …’ Juliet sits up a little, moves her book and glasses to the table beside her so she can lean on the arm of the sofa. Something in the way she looks around the patio without really seeing suggests she is going to say more, which Sophia would be glad of. She opens her mouth to unlock her jaw.

‘Tell me, did you always know you had a calling for the church?’ Juliet’s voice is not loud but the question slaps hard. Her head jolts back and her eyes grow wide. ‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ Juliet adds on, but it softens nothing.

Chapter 21

The cat jumps off her knee, trots across the patio, up onto the wall and over the other side, gone. Its absence from her lap, the warm spot suddenly exposed to the breeze leaves her feeling naked, vulnerable. Juliet is not all she seems. Of all the questions she could have asked, she chose the one that cut straight to the heart of the matter. In her one question, she has suggested opening all those closed doors in her mind and her heart to let her life fall out. She can imagine the pitiful contents spread in a thin, transparent layer and there, staring back, exposed for the world to see, the worst sin of them all: her wasted life.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,’ Juliet says. But she does not move, she does not break the spell. Nor does Sophia want to let it go. She just needs the courage to speak. Start with one word. Just one, and let what follows follow.

‘No,’ is all she manages. Her breathing is shallow, there’s a knot in her stomach and a tightening in her throat. A film of cold sweat across her brow gathers and a dribble of sweat runs down one temple. She wills herself to say more. ‘I never chose it.’

‘Oh.’ The exclamation from Juliet is light, surprised, inviting more. ‘How old did you say you were?’ It’s an easy question to answer.

‘I was thirteen.’ It seems like yesterday, so much rushes back at her. ‘Vetta was living in the storeroom with the nets down at the port, much to my mama and baba’s horror and the gossip of the island. Stamatia had married Yorgos, the half-American, and they had moved to Athens. Angeliki was engaged to Miltos by then and cooking alongside his mama every night in their taverna, and everyone was trying to keep Sada away from Aleko and his bad moods and never-ending bottles. It seemed the island was always talking about us for one thing or another and I was the last straw, I think, for my mama.’

‘You? They were talking about you?’ Juliet asks.

‘Yes, especially about me.’ Although it crosses her mind from time to time, most days, she hasn’t thought in detail about it for years. It would be preferable not to think, but her past is crowding her thoughts, demanding to be spoken out loud, and Juliet’s calm presence makes it feel safe enough to speak. Once, as a nun, she had a pain. It began under her tooth, just a niggle, nothing really, a dull pressure. Her body wishing to rid itself of some minor infection. Ignoring it seemed like the easiest option and sure enough, it went away. Well, sort of. It turned into an earache, only slight, nothing that anyone could do anything about surely? Then it went away all together. It was forgotten about until a lump appeared on the roof of her mouth. It wasn’t exactly painful but nor was it pain free, and it affected the way she spoke and the things she ate and it was all she could think about. But still she did nothing, hoping it would come to a head, burst, and let the poisons drain. But that wasn’t what happened. After some days, the lump left her mouth and it was natural to believe she was in recovery. Maybe it had popped in her sleep, who knows? The good thing was it was gone. But then the pain started in her throat. It grew worse and worse until she could neither speak nor eat, her limbs lost power, and a doctor was called. She was on a variety of tablets for weeks. She spent many days in her unadorned cell looking at the arched ceiling, too weak to do anything else. Sister Maria was her designated aid and she came a couple of times a day with food and to pray with her. Other than that, she was left alone.

‘If you had said something sooner, it would have been easier to treat,’ the doctor scolded her. ‘If the lump was still on the roof of your mouth, we could have drained it, got rid of the poison, and you would have recovered quickly. But now the infection is in your system. It will take time.’ Then he packed up his bag and left her to two weeks of silence and solitude and boredom.

This feels the same, but she is not sure which stage of the process she is at. Wherever she is, though, speaking now, draining the poison must be the right choice.

‘There was a boy, Hectoras, who was also a cousin, but distant, through marriage. If you look hard enough, nearly everybody is related to everybody on the Island.’ There, not so hard. ‘I had seen him around all my life but I first really had anything to do with him at school. By the time I had reached thirteen, he showed some interest.’ Not hard at all.

‘You mean in you?’ Juliet asks.

‘Yes.’ It’s getting harder. ‘He would come to the house on errands from his aunt. She was a second cousin to my mama, also though marriage. She wanted fish. My baba was a fisherman. Did I say that? With my mama, Hectoras was very polite, correct, but always spoke down to her. One day, when she was out, he sent my sisters away on little jobs.’ Speaking the words is becoming painful now. Sophia forces herself on. ‘I begged them not to go but he had declared his intentions by then and they thought it was all part of the courtship. His ways were not right. His words were crude.’ She looks away across the drive, memories of his bitten fingernails scratching her skin as he pinned her to the wall, his hands forcing their way up her skirts until she kicked him and Sada returned. ‘I told them he was not right but I did not want to get into trouble again. I told Sada, and she understood. After that, she did not let him alone with me again.’

‘Didn’t you tell your mama?’

‘She did not believe me.’ She looks at Juliet, who has developed a small frown, her shoulders lifting a little, asking for more information. ‘I have always spoken out about things, ever since I was small. It is almost like a compulsion. If I see wrongs, I have to speak out. But it has been held against me.’

The smell of the headmaster’s office, the stale smoke, the damp walls, the faint odour of ink returns to her nostrils as she begins to tell of that memory. Her mama was called to the school because Sophia had spoken out about an event that was not just and the accused had not liked it. This was her first crossing with Hectoras—Hectoras the bully. All the children knew who he was. They all thought Sophia brave for standing up to him but as it turned out, Hectoras was not only a bully but also the son of the mayor’s brother and, to play out his defence, he was also a very convincing actor.

‘She’s lying.’ Hectoras brought tears to his eyes. His father in his new white shirt looking sympathetically at her mama in her Sunday dress, now a little tight after years of wear.

‘I am not!’ The accusation stung Sophia like a bee. ‘He had Yanni pinned on the floor and he spat on him.’ Sophia can remember her fists clenching so tight, her nails dug hard into her palms. Her jaw was so clamped, it hurt to speak afterwards.

‘I would never do anything so disgusting! What a mind you have,’ Hectoras threw back, calm, controlled, condescending, the tears still glistening. He was good.

‘Children, children,’ the headmaster soothed.

‘Perhaps we could ask this Yanni,’ Mama suggested. Her own tears were real.

‘He is away with the goats now, won’t be back … well, my guess is, probably this year.’ The headmaster shook his head at this futile line of enquiry.

‘We do not teach our sons to spit in my family,’ the mayor’s brother said. ‘If we had such manners, how would my brother have been elected mayor?’ The question hung in the room, waiting for an answer, but none came. Sophia knew at this point that the argument was lost and she stared out the window up to the hills, up to the place where Yanni might be, and she wished herself up there too. ‘May I suggest that this young girl, Sophia is it?’ The smooth tones broke through her reverie and she looked into Hectoras’ baba’s eyes as he bent to meet her gaze, on her level. He smelt of coffee and a chemical-based perfume. She wanted to cough, put her hand across her nose but did not want to appear rude. ‘That Sophia was mistaken.’ He straightened himself and addressed the adults. ‘Boys will be boys and he comes from a strong family. Maybe what Sophia saw was a little game of rough and tumble and her imagination did the rest.’ The headmaster sat down at this point behind his large desk and shuffled papers that looked like they had not been moved for a decade. Her mama glanced at her sharply and Sophia noticed her mama’s stomach relax outwards, straining her dress, as though she had given up making the effort to hold it in. Hectoras’ baba, sensing his victory, slapped his son on his back, made his excuses, and they marched from the room, leaving an awkward silence between Mama and the headmaster. Sophia’s disgust came as bile into her mouth and she ran from the room. Her mama caught up with her halfway home and lectured her about taking a firmer grip on the real world and to stop making such trouble. She was nine years old, and her mama did not seem to believe anything that she had said after that. Sophia prided herself on her honesty, for standing up for what was right, and it stung, her mama’s disbelief.

‘That’s harsh,’ Juliet says as she finishes speaking. This is the first time she has had the courage to tell her story to anyone besides Sada and Yanni, and it comes as a huge relief to hear that a stranger can recognise how unfair it was. Of course, in the totality of the world, it is and was a small event, but it was one to have devastating consequences for her later on.

‘So that was why your mama didn’t believe you later on?’ Juliet clarifies. Sophia’s arms lay lifeless in her lap, her legs without movement, her whole body slumped in sadness.

‘Yes,’ she answers softly, readying herself to lance the root of the poison.

Chapter 22

‘I am scared to tell you.’ The words come of their own accord.

‘Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to,’ Juliet advises

‘No, I want to, but I don’t want you to hold these images in your head, to live with this horror that I have lived with.’ Sophia is not sure she intended to say these words but now they are out, it seems only fair to warn Juliet. She waits for a response.

‘You know, I have lived through some horrors myself.’ Juliet seems unperturbed. ‘And I have talked about them.’ She exhales as if remembering the times. ‘And I thought, maybe even hoped to some degree, that the horror would be transferred to the other person so I would not be alone, so that I could really share it. But the truth is, no matter how graphically you tell it, you can never express the depth of the impact that it has on you. The other person can only guess how it felt for you by relating it to the horrors of their own life.’ She takes a breath. ‘I may not feel what you felt, Sophia, but it will awaken my own memories and in doing so, I can get as close as it is possible to get without actually experiencing it myself.’ She looks from one of Sophia’s eyes to the other. ‘But you and I will be safe, Sophia, because it’s not happening now.’ After a pause, she adds quietly, ‘But you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to, of course.’

The silence that lays between them is like a silk blanket, billowing and shifting as their thoughts flow through them, each in their own world but both waiting.

‘I was in the house.’ It seems like a safe beginning. ‘Mama and Sada had gone down to the port to see Vetta. Baba was out fishing. Angeliki was using the chance to go and see Miltos, at the taverna. The one she married. Sotiria was already married and in Athens. So I was alone.’

Juliet settles more deeply into the sofa. The evening has become night. The moon is full and hangs over the stone barn next door, big and round and glowing white, with coloured rings around it that disappear as Sophia looks directly at them. The sound of animals scratching leaches round the end of the house from the garden. A moment of squealing is followed by quiet.

‘Pine martens.’ Juliet dismisses the disturbing sound, encouraging Sophia to go on.

‘I think it’s only fair to say in defence of my mama that I was quite full of myself at thirteen.’ In the early days at the convent, she spent hours on her knees telling the Greek Orthodox God the secrets of what seemed like her puffed-up pride and over-sized ego. Even though they concerned her, once in church, they always seemed so petty, trivial, compared to the horrors of the world which the sisters made her aware of and told her she should be praying about. But her attitude before her entry into the sacred walls continued to bother her once inside those quietened chambers and in the end, she sought a private interview and broached the subject with the abbess. The result was a lecture on vanity and the forms it can take. That Sunday, the abbess suggested her focus should be on vanity through prayer, and as a result, she forced herself to stop thinking about such things. She pushed her worries away as weaknesses, things to be overcome by silence, and her prayers, over time, became nothing more than hollow recitals.

Sitting here in the evening, opening up this subject that for years she has pushed aside feels cathartic. Surely even a nun, or now an ex-nun, has to be whole herself before she can be useful to others? The thought drives her on.

‘I found school easy. I had picked up English very easily and as a consequence, enjoyed it and studied as much as I could.’ Her poor mama, how hard it must have been for her, one daughter living amongst the nets, another playing with fire in the form of Aleko the drunk, and a third rubbing her nose in her ignorance whilst making herself unmarriageable. As Mama herself had said, ‘Who amongst the islander’s sons wants a girl whose head is full of books and learning as a wife? What good will she be if a rabbit needs gutting, a chicken needs plucking, or a puppy needs drowning?’

Her answer at the time was, ‘If there is a man here on the island who would want such a woman as a wife, then that is the husband for me.’ So slick, so cocky. Her mama must have despaired. She overheard Baba say to her mama on a couple of occasions, ‘Take her in hand.’

But what could she do, really? Her arrogance came from her intelligence, everything coming so easily, how could Mama undo that? But now, if she could, Sophia would do anything to take all her attitude back. Now, when her mama and baba are both dead. Now that it is too late. Then again, over time, who really suffered most?

She unclenches her hands and continues, Juliet listening.

‘For example, when I was about twelve, an English professor came to the island to give a talk on Nineteenth century poetry. Only about three islanders attended, the rest were Athenian academics who had come down specially. But I was there, the only child, pretending I understood what I heard. In reality, of course, I was out of my depth. He discussed one English poem, explaining its structure, what it meant. A woman with her hair so perfectly tied in a twist at the back of her head, smelling of soap, shared her book with the verse in it with me. She talked to me like an equal. The conversation thrilled me and she told me to keep the book. It was the most precious item I have ever owned.’ She stops for a second, letting the memory of the precious book sink in. ‘The fluent English, the in-depth discussion, the new words. I was in heaven. My mama was horrified I had gone. But the horror seemed to me to be fear. Fear of who I was, what I would become. I probably flaunted my learning in her face. I was cruel.’

‘Part of growing up,’ Juliet offers softly.

‘Anyway, that was the situation between us. She didn’t trust me and she certainly didn’t understand me. They were tense times, and she spent as much of it ignoring me as she could. She wanted me married and gone.’ Sophia sniffs, but all she can feel is a cold, hard core grow rigid inside her at the memory. ‘On the day I was going to tell you about, she was down in the port seeing Vetta. I was alone in the house and there was a knock on the door.’ She looks at Juliet, who appears composed. ‘I opened it. The house had a big courtyard, walled all the way around, very private. It was Hectoras, and I was afraid. He asked who was in.

‘I told him they were down at the port and to come back later and tried to close the door, but his foot was wedged against it, his chest pressed up against the opening. He said to me something like, “What I want is right here”. And I remember noticing that his pupils dilated and he did this funny movement with his tongue. It sort of came out and back really quickly, but it half-turned over as it did. It left his lips glistening with saliva.

‘I stepped back, away from him. Which was the wrong thing to do.’ The pulse in her temple grows stronger, she crosses her legs, uncrosses them, wraps one foot behind the other as her breath quickens in the telling of the tale. ‘He used the gap to come into the courtyard, took the door from my grasp, and shut it behind him.’

‘I was firm, Juliet.’ Her hands are sweating; she pats them on her knees. ‘I did tell him. “I want you to go”, I said. I looked to see if I could make a rush for the door and go myself. But he stood before it with his arms outstretched as if he was herding chickens, smiling as if it was a game. I had forgotten to breathe and I suddenly took in a depth breath, the oxygen rushing to my brain making me feel dizzy.

‘“We are to be man and wife, you and me, Sophia”, he said, or something like that, and I felt my stomach recoil, the food inside heaving, wishing to make a quick exit. “I have asked your mama and baba and they say yes. Why do you think she took Sada to see Vetta with her? She knows I am here. She knows I am come courting. She wants you married, Sophia. I want you, Sophia”. And his tongue made that darting, twisting movement, his lips left overly wet, shining in the sun.

‘I stepped back further, toward the house. If I could get in there, I could close the door on him. He took another step, his tongue darted again, and I ran, slamming the house door behind me.’

Juliet lifts her head a little as if coming up for air.

Sophia needs some space to breathe, herself. The emotion leaves her voice as she recalls the layout of the house.

‘The main room is the full length of the four bedrooms above. Under the floor is the
sterna
, a water holding place, a tank if you like, that collects rainwater from the roof all winter. It was built beneath the stone floor to help keep the house cool in summer. But the
sterna
does not reach the full length. It stops before the kitchen so this part drops lower, a step down takes you into this little room.’

She twists her fingers on themselves in her lap. She has surfaced long enough to continue, and the tension returns to her voice. ‘I backed down into the kitchen.’ With these words, the moment returns as if it were real.

Her heart was in her ears, the pounding in her chest shook her ribcage. She gasped once for air and then held this breath to be silent, to listen. The securing latch on his side of the door was dropped, shutting her in. Then his feet slid, grit on stone as he took the outside steps, one by one, up to the door that opened into Angeliki’s room. Sophia dropped to her knees, her hands together as she prayed that Angeliki had shut the door, bolted it from within, but she knew her prayers would not be heard and sure enough, the door upstairs creaked open. Her heart beating in her ears competed with the rush of blood. There was no door to the kitchen, nothing to close, nothing to bolt. Quietly, each step tentatively placed, she crept back out of the kitchen and pushed as quietly as she could against the downstairs door but it was jammed from the outside too and it would not open. Sweat ran in rivulets down her back, her mouth so dry she could not swallow, strands of her hair plastered to her sweating face.

Bare boards made up the floor of the rooms above, over wooden beams set in to the thick stone walls. With each step he took, the old wood creaked in complaint, gave a little. His steps were slow, as if he was looking around as he moved. He was in no hurry. When his steps reached Sophia’s room at the end, they paused. She wished she had been tidier, put her comb into the drawer, closed the book she was reading—a book of poetry lent her by an English woman who lived in town. She shivered at the thought of him touching her bed, his fingers on her nightgown. Then the stairs in the end room creaked as he came down. Step by step down to the ground floor.

The walls in the kitchen were nearly as thick as the length of a man’s arm, to keep the house cool in summer. Silently, Sophia struggled to reach the window catch. Even if she could reach it, the window was too narrow to allow her hips to pass. From the corner of her eye, she saw him enter the end of the room, silent, black in the shadowed interior. All the windows small, to keep out the sunlight, the heat. The long room in gloom. His silhouette advancing.

She retreated into the darkest corner of the kitchen. Her hands reaching out, finding support, keeping her legs from collapsing. Her fingers feeling until they touched her baba’s big fish gutting knife on the chopping board. They closed around it. Her grip was sure. He stood in the kitchen doorway. With one move, she flashed the blade in front of his face. His tongue darted and then he chuckled. She waved it at him again as she came out of the corner, but he seemed to have no fear.

He did not see the step down. One foot caught behind the other. His head leading, his shoulders following. His legs trailing. It was a lunge that looked like an attack. But really, it was a fall. All Sophia could focus on was his darting tongue. Her hands raised in defence. They lay on the floor together. Sophia wriggled and kicked but found little resistance. As she pulled herself free, there was a strange gurgling sound. She could see nothing in the dark. Her legs took control. She ran to the other end of the house. Two stairs at a time, past her bed to Angeliki’s room. Door flung open. Hand against the whitewashed wall, two stairs at a time down to the courtyard. No one following. Eyes focused on the door to the street. But behind the house door, the sounds inside quiet but alarming. Her heartbeat did not slow but it changed its rhythm. The adrenaline coursed, but for a different cause. The sounds from inside were like tiny waves trapped in pockets of rock, or donkeys drinking, their noses submerged. It was a sound that should not be coming from a man. With quivering fingers and legs ready to take flight, Sophia unbolted the door, expecting to find him still on the ground. He stood tall, legs stiff, arms by his side. For a moment, nothing made any sense. His shirt had a red streak down it. He was grinning, or so it seemed, his mouth partially open. His tongue darted, half twisting, half not, truly reptilian. He struggled to form her name ‘Ssssooph…’ The rushing through her ears defended her. The blade of the knife piercing the roof of his mouth. His twisting tongue divided. His jaw forced open. The sun reflected off the blade behind his teeth. The fish knife handle coming from under his chin. The blood coursing from there down his neck to the opening of his shirt.

He shook his head as if to pity her, his eyes only leaving her to see the door in the walled courtyard open and Sophia’s mama come in.

‘Oh my God what have you done?’ Mama rushed to Hectoras as he chose that moment to sink to the floor. Sada was behind her mama, her own mouth open, unable to move.

‘Don’t talk. For goodness sake, don’t talk.’ Mama held Hectoras as best she could as he sank further to the ground, his head resting on her knee. ‘Sada, run, get the doctor.’ His shirt was reddening more rapidly now, his face whitening. ‘Oh my God, Sophia, what have you done?’ Mama shouted and held his head, rocking back and forth. No words would come from Sophia.