Under a Croatian Sun (19 page)

‘Well, apart from that, I’m in pretty good shape compared to most of my contemporaries, and you can go on playing cricket for ever. W.G. Grace played until he was sixty-six and Charles Absolom of Fulham took 206 wickets in one season when he was seventy-six.’

‘Go on. You can hardly bend any of your joints properly these days. You’re almost fit for the scrap-heap. I should have married that polo player. He had a nice hairy chest and arms like tree trunks. I bet he still does press-ups.’

W
e were in the middle of yet another of our circular telephone conversations with the Ministry when I heard Mr Samka and his team of hefties arriving in the courtyard. (Despite the advance payment, it had taken some time for them to get round to us.) We quickly ended the conversation and hurried down to where the men were lining up their entrenching tools along the wall like surgeons lining up their instruments. Mr Samka introduced us to his team and they started to inspect the terrain – a celebration of all things masculine. Walls were tapped with wooden handles, flagstones were marked with chalk, calculations were made on scraps of paper and the suitability of various tools was debated. They then rolled up their sleeves, picked up their pickaxes and were about to start when a diminutive figure in khaki fatigues carrying a large sieve appeared in the entrance and announced herself as the representative of the Ministry of Heritage. Neat and trim with
cropped hair and John Lennon glasses, she had a small sharp face that would have looked quite pretty in a gamine sort of way if it weren’t for her ferocious expression.

‘Ha!’ said Mr Samka out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I know the type. The bane of any sanitation man wanting to do an honest day’s work!’

The burlies eyed her suspiciously, too, but unperturbed by the glower factor, she proceeded to sweep every cubic inch of earth they dug into her dustpan and sieve it. This made the digging painstakingly slow and for much of the time the men had nothing to do except lean on their pickaxes and glower, so, trying to keep things off the boil, I chatted to her while she sieved and learned that there had been a fishing settlement here until our villa was built on top of it in the sixteenth century. However, when I asked her about our present drainage system, she wrinkled her nose contemptuously. ‘Merely eighteenth century,’ she sniffed.

On the second day, Mr Samka arrived with his florid face knotted in concern. ‘Last night, I dreamed that she discovered some ruins.’

‘Wouldn’t that be rather interesting?’ said Ivana.

Mr Samka looked at her in disbelief. ‘Can’t you imagine what will happen then?’ he spluttered. ‘Even if it’s just a lot of old pots and pans that some housewife very sensibly threw away five hundred years ago, it’d mean a complete stop to everything while the entire Archaeological Department from Zagreb descend on us like a pack of seagulls on to a shoal of sardines. They’d probably suspend our project indefinitely.’

‘Oh, they wouldn’t go as far as that, would they?’

‘Oh, yes they would! You don’t know the Ministry. Their hearts are as black as my mother-in-law’s soul.’

We were having lunch the next day when we heard a commotion in the courtyard and hurried downstairs. The woman from the Heritage was hopping about in the trench, excitedly taking photos. She looked up as we approached and, with a hitherto unseen air of command, held up a hand.

‘Mind where you step! These are the walls of the medieval settlement.’

I looked down and saw a stubbly line of stones. It didn’t look like much.

‘It’s a priceless find!’ she enthused, scrambling up from the trench. ‘And, if I could do some research and write it up, it could make my name in the world of archaeology!’ She wiped her mud-spattered glasses and smiled conspiratorially up at me as if we were colleagues.

Surprised by this sudden familiarity, I tried to think of something encouraging. ‘You could send the photos to museums and magazines. I’ve got a friend in the British Museum, if that’s any help.’

She beamed up at me. Full of enthusiasm, she really did look rather attractive.

‘And what about getting the
National Geographic
down?’ I went on. ‘If you make enough noise about it, your face might end up on the front of
Archaeology Today
!’

Enthusiasm is an infectious thing, and even the burlies were now taking an interest. She gave me her camera and I snapped away as she posed coquettishly beside them. It was then that I noticed Mr Samka glowering away at the end of the courtyard. I motioned to Ivana and we went over to him.

‘Just what I feared. Bloody ruins! I can’t knock the damned things down and I can’t run a drain over them.’

‘Why not?’ asked Ivana.

His face took on a pained expression. ‘Water doesn’t run
uphill; that’s why,’ he replied rather sharply. ‘And that midget from the Ministry is clearly hell-bent on doing her second PhD on the wretched stones. God only knows what this is going to do to my work schedule!’

Just as he was about to voice his thoughts publicly, our next-door neighbour (under whose house the drain was going) came into the courtyard. A stocky seventy-year-old with a face nearly as fierce as Karmela’s, Grandma Volov stopped in front of Mr Samka and put her hands on her hips.

‘My cousin Josip tells me that I’ll get damp in my konoba if you put your drain under it.’

‘Whoever told you that doesn’t know what he’s talking about!’ snapped Mr Samka. ‘A drainpipe under a konoba creates no damp at all.’

‘I don’t care what you say. I can’t risk getting a damp konoba. My mother-in-law has had one all her life and what a Calvary that’s been for her. A lifetime of damp linen she’s had to put up with, poor soul. She has to hang everything in the kitchen to get it dry. It’s even there when we go for Christmas lunch. You won’t find me living like that. You’ll just have to put your drain somewhere else, and there’s an end to it!’

She turned on her heel and stomped out without waiting for Mr Samka’s reply.

Mr Samka’s face turned from its customary red to the colour of a purple King Edward potato. ‘My workforce and I,’ he stuttered, ‘have become subject to the whims of ill-informed women and government jack-in-offices. This is an insult to my department!’

We took him upstairs and I poured him a
rakija
while Ivana sat him on the sofa.

‘I don’t care what we have to do or what it costs, Mr Samka,’ said Ivana, ‘but you’re going to get rid of that cesspit!’

‘That is not the only issue!’ he replied irately. ‘It is a matter of principle. My department and I will not be pushed around!’

‘Look,’ I whispered to Ivana, ‘if we’re not careful, they’ll be arguing about it forever. Unless we can find a solution that saves Mr Samka’s face, we’ll be sitting here with no drains at all until next Michaelmas.’

I poured Mr Samka another
rakija
and listened as he vented his spleen about government interference, inter-departmental duplicity and the state of modern democracy. But, two glasses later, his spleen somewhat mollified, he started to draw up a new plan and work out the cost. Twenty minutes later, I looked at the figure he’d come up with and I wished I’d had three
rakijas
, too. The existing plan had already eaten up our whole yearly budget and this was another 30 per cent on top. I took a deep breath and told him to go ahead.

Two days later, the new trench had breached the sea wall and the next morning Mr Samka came wheezing up the steps with a big smile on his face. ‘At last a stroke of luck!’ he panted as he sat down to catch his breath. ‘The midget from the Ministry has to go back to head office for a few days!’

‘Can we carry on unsupervised?’

‘Ha! She had the nerve to ask me to stop the work until she returned, but I set her straight on that one all right. “This project is private, not municipal,” I told her. “We’re not a communist state any more, in case you hadn’t noticed.” That set her back on her heels. These days, you need a warrant to stop work on a private project, and she knows it.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Once she’s gone, I’ll get the boys to do some overtime, and the whole trench will be dug by the time she’s back. Ha!’

‘But what about the sieving?’

He chuckled. ‘I think she did ask me to sieve, and I think I
might have said something about incorporating it into our schedule.’ He chuckled again and slapped his knee. ‘But our job is to dig, and dig we will! No time to stand around sieving!’

True to his word, Mr Samka had his team out from seven in the morning till seven at night, and the trench forged along the waterfront like in a Roadrunner cartoon with spades, earth and flagstones flying up on either side. Three days later, the woman returned from the Ministry and Mr Samka was there to greet her, looking very pleased with himself. ‘And I can assure you,’ he said with a straight face, ‘that every piece of earth was carefully inspected.’

‘Another instance of “subtle island diplomacy”, don’t you think?’ said Zoran that evening.

(We called it ‘lying’ at school.)

The village had been watching the operation closely, so, on the day it was finished and the village children were splashing around in pollution-free water at last, I waited for the outburst of spontaneous gratitude from thankful neighbours. But by the evening no one had even so much as mentioned it.

I went round to Zoran’s.

‘Well, the operation was certainly a great success,’ said Zoran. ‘Another example of island ingenuity triumphing over mainland bureaucracy, I’d say.’

‘And a very skilful handling by yourself and Mr Samka of a tricky situation,’ said Bozo.

‘But what about the health hazard? It was an ecological disgrace,’ I protested. ‘And we’ve gone to huge expense to rid the village of it. No one’s even mentioned it. Doesn’t that show how much we care about the local ecology?’

A volley of hostile glares came winging over the bar at me.

‘Ecology!’ exclaimed Zvonko. ‘You mean all that Green stuff
people in the cities go on about these days. Bah! No one’s interested in that kind of nonsense here, and let’s hope it stays that way.’

His brother joined in. ‘Once those tree lovers get to hear we’ve got any of that ecology business going on here, they’ll be swarming over the place setting up stray cat homes, donkey rescue havens and I don’t know what else!’

My best Captain Mainwaring frown of disapproval passed unnoticed.

‘Yes,’ said another bar-propper. ‘They’ll be dancing by the light of the moon and playing their Afro-Croatian music to our goats. That’s the kind you’ll get once you start with that ecology stuff. Hippies!’

‘They’ll be bringing llamas from Peru,’ said Zvonko. ‘They like llamas, hippies do.’

‘And they’ll be dropping big brown ones all over the waterfront when they come to market,’ said Bozo.

‘Llama dung is full of marijuana,’ said Domigoy.

What was it with these islanders? I protested to the night sky as I walked home. Was there anywhere else on earth you’d find such a curmudgeonly lot? What did they have against hippies anyway? I’d never given it much thought, but, now that I did, I liked hippies. Hippies smiled a lot and said nice things to you like ‘peace and love, brother!’ They’d certainly be a lot more fun as neighbours than those around us now. They can come and set up their donkey rescue havens and play Afro-Croatian music to my goats any time they like.

So the whole operation had been another misplaced effort. But we couldn’t make a thing about it, as that would only highlight our outsider status. We couldn’t even complain about the 6 a.m. jam-jar clattering or Grandma Klakic not letting us
park the car in the shade of the palm trees. The cats liked to lie there, she said. Ridiculous, I know, but we got into a boiling-hot car every day without complaining. I did once think of just leaving it there and letting her complain, but, on second thoughts, I didn’t see Grandma K waiting around for an ASBO to be served on me – more likely I’d be on the receiving end of a wielded frying pan and land up with a row of stitches down my nose.

I went back to Zoran’s the next morning to see if he’d thought of a way we could get at least some sort of PR out of our drains initiative, and we were discussing it when we heard the unmistakable bullfrog voice of Boyana. Every head in the barroom turned apprehensively.

‘Looks like she’s after someone to water her garden again,’ said Zoran, looking out of the window.

Everyone in the bar shifted uncomfortably or began to sidle out the back, but I jumped to my feet as if to a clarion call and shot outside. This was the opportunity we’d been waiting for. If we did her a favour, she couldn’t keep cold-shouldering us. My offer was accepted, but she continued on inside to collar anyone who hadn’t been quick enough to leave, and grabbed hold of Marin and Domigoy.

The next morning, the three of us presented ourselves at her door and after a cursory greeting she herded us into the garden.

‘Now this is the tap for the green hose. Only water the tomatoes and lettuces with the green one and pay attention to how I adjust the nozzle. Like this. Keep it wide so the water won’t damage the fruit. You can bruise the whole crop if you’re not careful. Now you be careful, Domigoy. I don’t want to see any damage!’

There were two other hoses: a black one and a stripy one, and both came with different instructions. Domigoy was sweating
by the time she finished and, when she started to tell us about the way the leaves on the various different fruit should be turned, he voiced his thoughts.

‘I’ll never be able to remember all this, Boyana!’

‘Well, you can write it down if you can’t remember it. And, if I find any damaged fruit when I come back, there’ll be trouble. Now you all can practise what I’ve told you.’

We stood with our hoses like convicts in a chain gang and Boyana marched up and down behind, barking at us like a gang boss. At least she didn’t have a whip.

There were three watering times in the day, so we religiously did our stints, and, when she returned a week later, eager to consolidate our new channel of communication, I went round with Marin, expecting thanks and maybe a jar or two of jam.

Boyana opened the door looking more like a bilious bullfrog than ever. ‘The lettuces are all limp!’ she barked. ‘Someone gave them too much water! Now who was it? It was Domigoy, wasn’t it? I know it was. He was always the laziest in the school.’

‘Well, I did notice the ground was a bit too wet when I did the afternoon session,’ said Marin, catching my eye and winking.

‘Yes, I did as well,’ I added quickly. ‘Much too wet.’ I looked surreptitiously at Marin for the next lead.