Under a Croatian Sun (9 page)

Preserving the demeanour of a resolute gardener, I strode stoically back to my solitary travail.

Another assumption I’d made was that I’d be able to borrow someone’s mower when it was time to mow, but, since mine was the only lawn on the island, no one had a mower, and I had to go over to the mainland and buy one of those electric plug-in jobs.

When the day came for mowing, attracted by the noise and the pleasing smell of freshly mown grass, a posse of neighbouring aunties put their heads over the wall. At last, a gardening conversation, I thought, and turned the mower off. I looked up eagerly as the first of them said, ‘I’ve seen them on the television.’

‘What, a lawn?’ I replied.

‘No!’ She stabbed a bony finger. ‘A lawn mower!’

‘I never knew grass smelled so good!’ said the second.

‘It’s English grass,’ said the third. ‘That’s why it smells so nice.’

‘The Queen’s lawn must smell like that?’

‘With a smell as sweet as that,’ said the first, ‘there must be something you can make with it. Grass soup? Grass juice? Egg and grass sandwiches?’

I glowed with reflected pride at the appreciation of one of my nation’s unsung products – though, after a boyhood of lying on the boundaries of cricket fields chewing on grass and daisies, I didn’t hold out much hope for any of their recipes making it into Jamie Oliver’s next Mediterranean cookbook.

The discussion about grass foods continued, but not a word was said about the lawn itself or any of the many other fine features of my burgeoning garden. Eventually, they walked on, locked in earnest debate about the culinary possibilities of
herba vulgaris
, and I was left wondering if my idea of a village garden fraternity had been a delusion. Now that I thought about it, all the flowers in the village were in pots or tin cans and everyone’s backyards were full of bicycles, car parts and broken washing machines rather than flowerbeds. Clearly, fishing villages had not been designed with herbaceous borders in mind.

Not wanting to waste all the information I had downloaded and all the theoretical knowledge I now had about lawns, I wondered if I might drum up some local interest in the noble art of lawn growing. An entrée into the community, perhaps? Evening classes in the Town Hall? And, if I wore my battered straw hat and posed as a horny-handed son of the soil, I might make a rather good impression on some of the better-looking middle-aged ladies of the village. Monty Don has a huge middl-eaged fan club. They don’t get him on TV down here, so there’d be no competition.

As might be expected, I found scant support on the home front. ‘You never understand what people want. No one wants to hear about rolling, scarifying and edge cutting. Honestly, what will you think of next – croquet?’

(Not having the advantage of an Anglo-Saxon education, Ivana had no notion of one’s duty to disseminate the benefits of one’s cultural heritage to less fortunate people in distant
lands. No sense of missionary spirit at the Eva Peron High School for Girls.)

In the end, I was forced to admit that gardening was perhaps a peculiarly English preoccupation, and it certainly wasn’t going to make me any friends. I was even laughed at when I made the mistake of talking about it at Zoran’s. And what capped it all was when Zoran popped his head over the wall and saw me clipping my edges.

‘What are you up to down there?’

‘I’m clipping the edges. What does it look like?’ I called up testily.

‘You wouldn’t catch John Wayne doin’ things like that,’ he called out and his head disappeared.

I felt as if I’d been caught practising ballet steps in a tutu.

S
omehow, my gardening activities came to the attention of the Franciscan monks and I received an invitation to their monastery garden. Arriving at the gate, I knocked on the big wooden door and after a lengthy wait I heard the flap of leather sandals, a rattling of keys and a muttering that sounded very much like muted swearing. (Are monks allowed to swear?) The door creaked open and a friar in a brown habit stood blinking nervously in the sunlight (definitely more of a Father Dougal than a Father Ted). The minute I announced myself as the English gardener, though, the nervousness disappeared and I was beckoned inside and led down a long dark hall as cool as a sepulchre. What had made him so nervous? Had he thought I was a Bible salesman – or, worse, the episcopal VAT man on his rounds? But then, perhaps the Brothers just didn’t have many visitors these days.

We emerged into a riot of green and leafy things. Neat rows
of well-hoed vegetables – beans with bulging pods, lettuces tied up with raffia, purple eggplants glistening in the sun, tomatoes swelling on vines. By the sea wall, beets and parsnips poked up perkily from well-mulched earth, and a small orchard of apple, peach and plum trees heavy with fruit nestled against the cemetery at the end. You could have fed two dozen Brothers and a legion of poor with a garden like this. Surprised to see everything growing so well right beside the sea, I asked the Brother why, and this was the excuse he had been waiting for. He now listed every single plant that did well by the sea and every single one that didn’t, and standing in the sun I was beginning to feel dozy when I was suddenly jolted awake. ‘Your Royal Navy used most of this as a field for their cricket pitch when they occupied the island?’

‘Cricket! Here? Are you sure?’

‘Our records say that your Navy played the game on our field for many years.’

‘I can’t believe it!’

‘I thought British people always played this cricket when you were fighting your wars. Is this not true?’

‘Well, I’ve never thought about it, but maybe we did when we weren’t too busy polishing our boots or painting our battleships. But they must have had a club if they were playing here for nearly ten years. They probably had a pavilion, too.’

I thanked the Brother for showing me the garden and left with my ears still tingling. I could hardly believe it. Of all the islands in all the world, I’d landed on one where they’d played cricket! Was that fate or what? I’d given up the idea of playing again, but maybe I could start something up, even if only beach cricket. Yes, this would be my first project. I hurried home to tell Ivana.

‘You won’t believe it! Our Navy used to play cricket on the
monastery field. Isn’t that incredible? Maybe I can start it up again. I know I said I’d never play again, but this changes everything. My own team! Now that’s something I’ve only ever dreamed of. They play down in Corfu so we could have an Adriatic cup. The “Adriatic Ashes”! How about that? I’ll be back in the world of cricket again with my own team! I always knew I was destined to be one of the world’s great sporting figures in some way or other!’

I got a look that could have soured milk.

‘I thought my days of making teas for thirty and spending my weekends sitting at home or waiting in the car for your wretched game to finish were finally over.’

Whoops! I should have angled it more carefully. I back-pedalled madly. ‘Oh, there’ll be lots of locals to make the teas. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger.’

‘But you’ll always be home late again.’

‘On an island only six miles long, I couldn’t ever be late. I promise.’

‘I know you!’

I quickly changed the subject to the repositioning of the tumble dryer.

I thought it might be politic to spend the rest of the day at home to try to assuage the fears – a good bit of assuaging usually pays dividends in our household – but I was feeling like a missionary on his way to the Congo with a trunk full of bibles. What a turn-up. It looked like I’d be playing again – and with my own team!

Considering the matter later that evening, I had second thoughts. It did seem a bit of a long shot. For a start, would anyone want to learn how to play? Besides, the village might think it rather pushy – trying to start up my national game so
soon after our arrival? It might be a black mark against us. But then, if it caught on, it could be the best way yet of bonding with the village.

The next morning, I left Ivana at the market and went to ask Marko if he had heard about the Navy playing here.

He had.

‘Last year, Luka, one of our young winegrowers, told me he had read in a book about Napoleon’s Adriatic campaigns that the British played the game on Vis. He was at a school in Australia during the war and he played your cricket there. He said it was a good game that required much skill.’

My heart rate quickened. There was another cricketer on the island! That might do a lot to ease any adverse local reaction.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before, for heaven’s sake?’

‘But you have never talked about this game.’

‘Well, I didn’t think anyone would be interested.’

‘Do you play this game yourself?’

‘I used to play a lot, but these days I mostly follow it – and that takes up quite a lot of time if you know the game. Do you think I might be able to start it up again? Maybe some of your young men might like to give it a go. I’m just a bit worried that it might antagonise some of the community. Would they think it a bit arrogant, starting up an English sport?’

‘You must meet Luka. If he is starting the game with you, people will not think it “arrogant”. It will be good to have a special game played on our island. A special sport will bring attention to us. We must think of tourism these days. When Luka returns, you will teach some of our young men to play. Yes?’

English reticence came to the fore. ‘Well, I’ve never actually coached anyone, and I’m really not that good.’

Marko laughed. ‘But you are an Englishman, and we all know
that Englishmen are always too modest. I am sure you are very good at this game and you will teach it to our young men.’

‘Well, as long as you don’t think it’s being too pushy.’

‘A special game will bring great honour to our island, I am sure,’ he replied, smiling broadly, no doubt picturing an All England XI in caps and blazers striding off the ferry to take us on for the Adriatic Ashes.

Ivana came back from the market and, hearing the word ‘cricket’, gave me one of the dirtiest looks seen on the waterfront that summer. I changed the conversation, but Marko brought it back again.

‘Tell me. Which other peoples play this cricket game?’

‘Well, England, Australia, India and Pakistan for a start, and then there’s South Africa, the West Indies, New Zealand…’

‘But these are all countries of your Empire.’ He laughed. ‘So you conquered these people to make them play your game because you had no other peoples to play against? Yes?’

‘Well, no. It wasn’t quite like that…’

‘So our island has been invaded by the men of Nelson and then the men of Churchill, and now another English invasion – this time of cricket men!’ He winked at Ivana and said to her in Croatian: ‘And how are these cricket men as husbands?’

Ivana laughed.

I pretended I hadn’t understood.

There was a whiff of drains in the courtyard when we arrived home, but, as it soon disappeared, we thought no more about it.

The next morning, it was back at twice the strength.

‘Phaugh! What’s that awful stink?’ said Ivana as I put her morning tea on the bedside table. She sat up, wrinkling her nose. ‘It smells like a pig farm!’

‘But there aren’t any pig farms on the island.’ I stuck my head
out of the window and was assailed by that rank mix of sewage and vegetation that the Mediterranean does so well. I quickly shut the window and went down to investigate. After rootling around, I found a tell-tale stone slab in the far konoba and levered it up with a screwdriver. A dark and evil liquid vision confronted me. I quickly dropped the stone back.

‘Did you know we had a cesspit?’ I asked Karmela when she arrived.

‘Of course you have one. All large houses used to have one. But it’s not blocked. It’s just the south wind.’

‘The south wind? You mean it’s the wind that’s bringing the smell?’

‘No, it’s the cesspit drain. When the south wind blows, it makes all our drains smell that aren’t connected to the main sewer. Nearly all our houses were connected up twenty years ago, but the Town Hall thought connecting this house up would cost too much. Mind you, what our Town Hall spends our money on, I just don’t know! If you knew how they throw it away, you wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. If only they stopped spending our money on all the stupid things they do, they could double our pensions. And they won’t spend a single kuna on getting water to Grandma Velikov’s house. She still has to walk all the way to the pump and fetch it. At her age, too! It’s a disgrace! And as for poor Mrs Babic by the…’

‘But where do our drains run to?’ I interrupted.

‘Why, into the sea. Where else did you think they’d go?’

‘What? Right outside our door? But that’s where we swim! And so do the village children!’

I flushed a loo and ran out to check. Sure enough, it came out right where we dived in. Horrors! What might we have been swimming in as we gloried in the clear blue water? I rang Lenko, our builder, and half an hour later he had worked out the cost of
connecting to the mains. The figure he arrived at showed why the Town Hall hadn’t done it before. It was more than we’d budgeted to spend on the house in the whole year. This was a severe setback.

‘Maybe the south wind doesn’t blow that often?’ I said hopefully when Ivana joined us.

‘I’ve already asked Karmela about that. It’s the first time it’s blown with any strength since we’ve been here, but it’s the prevailing wind for the summer months. Anyway, even if it only blows once a week, it’s bad enough. The smell’s so awful that you’ll have to stand beside me all day with my smelling salts or I’ll be swooning like a Victorian mother-in-law.’

‘Ah…’

‘And what does that that “Ah” mean this time?’

‘Oh, nothing in particular.’

‘Oh yes it does! “Ah” usually means you’re thinking how to get out of doing something…’ Her voice tailed off and she jumped to her feet. ‘Eureka! It’s just what we’ve been waiting for! If we make the children’s bathing spot pollution-free, the village will be so grateful that it’ll more than compensate for the expense. To hell with the cost!’

So to hell with the cost it was.

Karmela, who had relations in most key places, marched us off to see her second cousin, Mr Samka, the Director of the Town Drains Department. Mr Samka was a florid, portly man with a permanently worried expression, and who was perspiring copiously and mopping his face with a large handkerchief behind a large untidy desk when we arrived.

We explained our problem as he puffed at a Walter Wolf.

‘This is a major project. It’ll be a dirty job but we’re the ones to do it,’ he said after we had finished explaining. He wiped his
brow and got up to consult a chart on the wall. After looking at it fixedly for some time, he turned to announce that, although all his team of sanitation experts (blokes with shovels) were busily engaged on many other important projects, if we paid in advance, they would be put at our disposal at the earliest opportunity. ‘Like priests and prostitutes,’ he said with suitable gravitas, ‘sanitation experts need the money on the table before they give their services.’

I expressed my instant agreement, and for the first time he smiled.

We went to the bank to transfer the money, and, after getting the island’s only architect to draw up some plans, we all met at Mr Samka’s office to look at them. The architect mentioned in passing that, because our building was under protection, the Ministry of Heritage would have to be involved, and I noticed Mr Samka’s florid face blanched visibly at the news. I couldn’t think why, but we were soon to find out.

The following week, the air-conditioning packed up. I hadn’t actually wanted air-con and had only agreed to it after severe pressure was brought to bear, but now we had it I was very glad that we did. On the days that the temperature got up to 35 degrees, even the lizards that scurried up and down the garden walls loafed about in a semi-stupor, barely bothering to move when we appeared, and our squadron of manic bluebottles that usually buzzed hysterically about the house only managed to do lazy loops around the ceiling or sit on the wall. On days like that, coming back into an air-conditioned drawing room was as near to heaven as you could get.

When it was that hot, any movement drained you of energy, and the moment you stepped out, the sun hit you like a hammer. To my surprise, the locals seemed just as affected by the heat as
we were and moved about as if they were pushing their way through the heavy air and took double the time to do anything. The most intelligent of them seemed to spend most of the day snoozing behind closed shutters.

I had a go at fixing the air-con unit myself, while Karmela buzzed annoyingly around me like a blow fly, but, after an hour of barking my knuckles and cursing, I found that the thermostat had burned itself out. Feeling thoroughly irritable (the damn thing was almost brand new), I rang the supplier in Zagreb. Accustomed as one is in the West these days to twenty-four-hour delivery, when told I wouldn’t get the part until the end of the week, I became even more irritable and was about to make a facetious comment about walking to Zagreb to get it, when I managed to stop myself in time. I shouldn’t be behaving like a spoilt foreign brat, I told myself. Slow delivery was just one more thing I’d have to get used to now we were here.

Sweltering in the heat, I waited until Friday came and rang the supplier again.

‘What about my thermostat?’ I said, as my sweat dripped on to the receiver. ‘It’s thirty-six degrees down here.’

‘It was put on the ferry from Split on Wednesday afternoon,’ the man replied. ‘We tried to ring you, but we couldn’t get a telephone signal.’