Page 54 of Summer in Greece

*

This is the start of it, I thought in the middle of the night. Perspiration trickled off my forehead. Another punishment for causing so much misery. My throat burned, limbs deadweight, head throbbing. I stared at Perkins. He appeared to be in the same state, flushed, sweating, eyes wide and unblinking, staring at the ceiling.

Perhaps he’s died.

‘Nurse Josephine,’ I croaked, the words hurting my throat. ‘Some water, please.’ She came over with a glass. ‘No, Perkins first. He’s overheating, look.’

‘He’s just had his morphine. I’m trying to reduce his dose, but he gets so distressed. Poor man. I hadn’t realised that he didn’t know the extent of his amputation,’ she said hurriedly, sighing and holding her hand over her mask for a moment. ‘I guess he was so heavily sedated, it simply didn’t register when they told him.’ She stuck a thermometer in my mouth. ‘I have to report on your condition in five days. If your temperature goes down, they’ll probably pick you up in a week or so.’ She read the thermometer. ‘It’s over a hundred. You’ll be feeling pretty rotten.’

‘I am, but at least I still have two legs.’ We both looked at Perkins. His eyes had closed. ‘Will they send us back to England?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, to be honest. You might be picked up by a ship on its way to Lemnos. I’ve heard they’re awfully short of nurses. I’ll probably go there too. I’ve been meaning to ask, are you the woman who gave him blood in the lifeboat?’

I nodded. ‘I want to train to be a proper nurse, as soon as I can.’

‘Have you told anyone?’ she asked.

I shook my head. ‘I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I am now.’

*

At sunrise, eight days later, I walked out of the school room. Weak, but deliriously happy to be back on my feet, I took myself to the old chest on the quayside and sat in peace, enjoying the wonderful view of the harbour and surrounding village. Although it was the first day of December, the air had a spring-like quality. The windows in square white buildings flashed gold, reflecting the rising sun. The day was fresh and still and made me feel oddly weightless. The bay, mirror flat and crystalline, and on the rocky seabed, hundreds of silver fish darting in and out of the green-brown sea grass. I moved to the edge and gazed into the water.

Instantly, my mind flashed back to the bay at home and the Sunday afternoons of my childhood, kneeling at the edge of the water with Sissy beside me. Mother’s voice calling, ‘Don’t let her fall in, Sissy! I don’t want her to get wet stockings.’ The sound of cork on willow as Father played cricket on the sand with Arthur. Mother spreading a table cloth and unwrapping paper parcels of sandwiches and pouring homemade lemonade. Later, Father and Arthur skimming stones and arguing about the number of bounces. Big white fluffy clouds. My wonderful childhood.

I looked up. There were no clouds here, and the sky was ten times bluer. How I wished dear Sissy could be with me.

The fishing boat’s thudding engine drifted over the sea, louder as I put my ear nearer the water, drawing my attention towards the horizon. The red and blue boat rounded the lighthouse. My heart skipped. Without even thinking about it, I primped my hair and smoothed my uniform, which the kindly Yiayá had washed, starched, and ironed while I lay on my bed. Even the rip where Sissy’s watch had been was neatly stitched.

My thoughts went to my parents; they must have heard about the ship going down. I should send them a message right away. Let them know I’m safe. The fishing boat didn’t seem to be moving, so I walked around the harbour to the kafenion.

‘I want to send a telegram to England,’ I said very slowly to the kafenzies. ‘Tel-e-gram.’

He lifted his chin, showed his palms to the ceiling, and shrugged.

I poked the table several times, mimicking a telegraph operator. ‘Dot, dot, dot, dash, dot, dash . . .’

‘Ah!’ the old man said. ‘Tilegrafo? ’

‘Yes, yes, tilegrafo!’ I cried excitedly.

He shook his head. ‘We no have.’

‘How do you send urgent messages?’

His eyebrows puckered as he unravelled the foreign words, then pulled his hands into his shoulders and wiggled his fingers. ‘Poula! Poula! Athina!’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, shaking my head.

He repeated the episode only this time shouting at the top of his voice.

A teenage boy raced into the kafenion and a boisterous conversation took place before the lad turned to me and said, ‘You have urgent message for England?’ I nodded. ‘I am Pavlo, my father is the mayor of the island.’ He did a head waggle. ‘We can send a pigeon to Athens with few words. They send a ticker tape to England. Arrive tomorrow.’

‘Good! Thank you, young man. Who do I see?’

‘Come, come, we go to the mayor, my father.’ Another head waggle. ‘He plays the tavli.’

I followed him, away from the harbour. We tramped up compact earthen streets, so narrow they’d barely take the width of a robust donkey, never mind a coach and four. The mayor was involved in a game of backgammon outside a small house. A number of villagers sat in a semi-circle around the two competitors, eyes riveted on the game. I squinted at the mayor. The man had a very relaxed mode of clothing but a perfectly waxed and curled moustache of some grandeur.