The Kindest Thing - [5]

Graduating with a 2:2, I knew I didn’t want to work as a photographer. Perhaps I should have considered animation, though my drawing skills were average at best, or becoming a stylist, but at the start of the eighties there were precious few jobs for arts graduates.

Neil, who’d finished a year ahead of me, had gone on to do a teacher-training course. Jobs in history weren’t ten a penny either. By rights he should have started a teaching job that September. But I’d talked him into our Greek trip. We both worked for a temp agency through July and August to raise the money, then had two months away.

We arrived in Athens in the middle of the night. The air was hot and full of dust, which left our skin feeling gritty.

There was no bus to the port at Piraeus till dawn so we sat in the scrub on the airport approach road waiting for sunrise. At one point a car drew up, airport security, and a man in a crisp uniform and peaked cap harangued us until we got up and dragged our rucksacks back to the building. There was nowhere to sit and nothing to eat or drink.

When the bus came we repeated the word ‘Piraeus’ to the driver, who took some drachmas and motioned us down the aisle. The front windows were framed with coloured fringing and sprigs of plastic flowers. Central on the dashboard stood a large plastic glow-in-the-dark Madonna, and rosary beads dangled from the rear-view mirror.

‘My mother’d love it,’ Neil murmured.

The bus juddered its way along winding roads and through the crowded jumble of the city, the muddle of apartments, small shops and businesses, to the port. When we got off, the place was quiet. Nothing open. I wondered where all the fishermen were. Hunger and lack of sleep were making me grumpy but then a corner shutter rose and a small, round, wrinkled man plonked a table and two chairs outside. We made our way over and stepped inside. There was a garish menu with photos of sickly-looking food. I pointed to a cheese roll, treacle cake, coffee. Neil nodded for the same. We ate outside at the rickety table and watched the gulls swerving down for debris on the quayside. The day was already warm and the food set me right. The sea was a pure deep blue and I took a long breath of air and watched Neil. Early on, I often feared he would leave me. That was what men did. I hid it well. He never realized. Of course, I imagined he’d betray me for another woman. Instead it was neurones crumbling and muscles wasting away that stole him from me.

We were the only tourists on the ferry. Well off the package holiday routes, Syra was, according to the guidebook, a thriving ship-building island with a strong local economy and deserted beaches. It was also several hours on the boat from Piraeus. The Greeks on board were all laden with parcels and packages. Most of them wore black or black and white. They seemed curious about us, eyes sliding our way. As they chatted, I wondered if we were the subject of their conversation – the scruffy hippies with their backpacks.

We set off with a clamour and the smell of diesel in the air. The engine clattered loudly and made it impossible to talk. But after an hour or so, the roaring noise cut out abruptly. One of the crew, a man with skin like an old satchel and grizzled hair, climbed down into the hatch. For several minutes he and the captain exchanged words. He emerged now and then to throw up his arms and grimace. One of the older women, dressed all in black, remonstrated with the captain.

How long were we going to be stuck there? My dreams of lunch in some small taverna followed by a swim and sex in the shade of a beachside eucalyptus tree shrivelled as the minutes ticked by. The sun was high and fierce now. There was no land anywhere in sight, no rocks, no other vessels, no lighthouse or buoys.

The crewman emerged, wiping oil from his hands onto a rag, and another noisy debate erupted with several of the passengers chipping in. After a few minutes of this the crewman spat over the side of the deck and lit a cigarette. The captain and a young lad, who I guessed was his son, began to lower a dinghy into the water. The crewman climbed into it and, after a few attempts, started the outboard motor. Most of the passengers retreated to the shade in the lounge area in the middle of the boat.

‘He’s going for help,’ I said to Neil. ‘Will he go to Piraeus?’

‘Think so – there’s nowhere nearer.’

I sat back down and closed my eyes, my face tilted at the sun. I savoured the heat. I could feel myself sliding into sleep, but struggled awake, aware of the hard iron struts on the bench biting into the bones of my back. ‘I’m so tired,’ I murmured to Neil.

‘We could go over there.’ He gestured to a corner under the stairs. It was in the shade and dry. There’d just be room to lie down. We left our rucksacks where they were and moved over.

We lay side by side, facing each other. The floor was hard; my hip bone soon ached. I used a hand to cushion my ear. ‘I wish I could teleport.’

Neil smiled.

‘Click my fingers and we’d be in our room.’