Page 65 of Summer in Greece

Gordon decided the football was more important.

CHAPTER 26

GERTIE

Greece, 1916.

AFTER A HURRIED LESSON ON the crutches, Perkins hopped up and down while Josephine and I folded the bedlinen and tried to restore the school room fit for purpose.

‘I must say farewell to Yiayá,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you on the quayside in a few minutes.’ I rushed around to the matriarch’s home and found the cutest white goat tied to the donkey loop in the wall. I knocked on the door while the goat nibbled on my apron bow.

‘Ela! Yiayá,’ I called.

‘Agapití mou! ’ My lovely!’ she cried reaching up and tapping my cheek.

I stepped inside and the old lady’s face lit in such a lovely way that I knew I would miss her terribly. ‘Me,’ I pointed at my chest, then out towards the horizon, ‘Syros!’

Yiayá’s eyes widened as she understood, then with an alarmed voice, she shook her head and cried, ‘Allá o engonós mou se agapáei! ’ She thumped her heart with alarming ferocity.

With no clue as to what she was saying, I pointed at my chest then out to sea and shouted, as shouting seemed to be the thing to do in a serious situation, ‘Me, Gertie, go with Manno, to Syros!’

The lovely old lady blinked for a moment, pointed at me, slid her two forefingers against each other and cried, ‘Tee, Manno, Syros?’ in a questioning way.

‘Yes, yes!’ I replied, happy to be understood, though confused by the finger sliding. ‘With Manno.’ Then Yiayá did an odd thing. She placed one hand on my head and made the sign of the cross three times with the other.

Yiayá was so lovely and kind, on impulse, I enfolded the little woman in my arms and kissed her cheeks. Then to my alarm, I realised the old lady was weeping. ‘No, no, Yiayá,’ I said, wiping her tears away. ‘Me . . .’ I drew a circle in the air then pointed at the ground, ‘Kea!’ It was the only way I could think of to say I’d come back.

‘O engonós mou se agapáei,’ Yiayá said again, and I made an effort to memorise the words as they seemed so important to the old dear.

‘Gertie!’ The cry came from outside.

‘I must go, Yiayá.’ I lifted the woman’s hand and kissed it, then hurried out of the cottage and headed for Manno’s mooring where Josephine and Perkins waited with my pillow-bag.

Manno’s boat approached. My heart fluttered, but then I stared in disbelief at the contents of his caïque. A basket of fish, a pile of yellow net, his father Yianni, and a huge, curl-horned ram whose goatish stench overpowered everything. The creature was clearly unhappy with his mode of transport.

‘Holy Moses, what the blazes is that?’ Perkins cried. ‘Just take a look at the business end of that ram! He’s got gonads down to his knees!’

Josephine and I blushed at Perkins’s choice of language.

‘Magnificent, yes?’ Manno beamed as if it was a personal compliment. He leapt onto the quayside, tugging on the goat’s rope halter. ‘Ela! Ela! Malaka! ’ he yelled, telling the ram to come, then swearing at it.

The ram, nimble despite its robust size, hurled itself at solid ground. Manno thrust the rope into Josephine’s hand. ‘Hold on to him, nurse, while I get the post.’

Josephine pulled in her chin, reluctant to breathe the acrid goat-stench that encircled her. Startled to the point of speechlessness, she wrapped the rope twice around her fist and gripped tightly.

The ram, clearly uninterested in its human audience, sniffed the air. Manno steered the wooden wheelbarrow towards the boat and his father passed the mail sack up. Before anyone could react, the ram caught the scent of Yiayá’s pretty goat. It hurtled towards the cottage, its physical attributes making its intentions very clear, dragging a yelping Nurse Josephine with it.

The ram was not a romancer. The creature mounted the goat without so much as a ‘hello’.

Josephine, her face aflame, turned her back on the beasts but kept a grip on the rope.

Manno strode over, took the rope from Josephine’s fist, and with a grin said, ‘Very good, nurse. Maybe you marry a shepherd, yes?’ He tied the ram’s halter to the metal ring while Josephine scurried back to me.

Manno thrust the air with an open hand, in the direction of the ram’s behind in a slightly lewd manner, and grinned at Perkins.

‘Is one happy boy, yes!’ he cried.

Josephine and I stared at the fisherman, then at each other. After a moment of shocked silence, we grasped one another to save falling over while trying to contain our laughter. ‘This will not do,’ Nurse Josephine squeaked, trying to apply a sombre face while smoothing my apron. ‘Not the correct conduct for upstanding nurses in public.’