The Explosive Nature of Friendship (15 page)

Mitsos looked out to sea, past the island where the breeze ruffling the surface.

Mitsos was at a loss. Manolis came out of the boat and strode across to their usual kafenio for a Greek coffee.

‘
Why?’ Mitsos asked, as they sat in the wickerwork chairs. Manolis said nothing. ‘If you don't obey the rules the result is inevitable.’ Manolis still didn't say anything. ‘Now you have to pay the fines without even having an income. I presume you have no savings?’ Manolis pushed his sunglasses back onto his head, stretched out his legs and looked across the harbour to the bay but did not reply.

Mitsos gave up. He too stretched out his legs and sipped his coffee.
‘Marina is due any day now.’ He hardly opened his lips to speak.

‘
You are like a nagging old woman. Shut up or go away.’ Manolis broke his silence.

‘
I was just thinking about your baby, your son or daughter,’ Manolis qualified.

‘
It'll give her something to do, something to think about other than me. Now be quiet, I am thinking.’

They sat as the town came to life, the fishing boats ‘putt-putting’ out into the bay, laden donkeys arriving with goods from nearby villages, men in white shirts walking briskly.

‘
Got it!’ Manolis stood up. ‘Come on.’ Mitsos threw some drachmas on the table and followed in his wake back to the boat. Manolis unhooked the ropes from the bollards and started the engine. Mitsos stood on the harbour edge.

‘
Where are you going? What’s the idea?’ But the engine drowned his voice. ‘Manolis! Hey! What’s the idea?’ Manolis cupped his hand round his ear and shook his head; the engine was too loud. He began to pull away from the dock. Mitsos shouted again, and again, and at the last second he surprised himself by jumping the gap to land beside Manolis. Manolis’ grin made Mitsos wonder if his spontaneity had been wise.

‘
The solution’s simple. We cannot work this town any more because they won’t let us, so we will work another town,’ Manolis said, and relaxed his stance, one hand on the helm.

‘
You can earn enough to pay all the fees and fines and be back in a couple of weeks. Could be a good idea!’ Mitsos said, thinking of Marina, and her need for Manolis once the baby arrived. Manolis looked out to sea. He was chuckling to himself.

The next town was bigger than the one they had left. A wide palm-dotted walkway hugged the harbour edge, a child's playground with swings and see-saws and metal rocking animals fenced in at one end. There were people walking in their best clothes, children running, men in white shirts, sleeves rolled up, smoking and talking, young men with nothing to do sitting side-saddle on their stationary mopeds watching the tourists. In all, it felt like a lively, prosperous place. The first night reaped a good reward. Mitsos offered to keep the fine and fees money safe but Manolis said he could handle it.

But within two weeks they had officials harassing them again
.

Mitsos had had enough. ‘We have more fines now than when we left our home town,’ he observed, watching Mitsos fold the latest official letter into four and then eight before he slipped it behind the handrail by the door.

‘
You look like a farmer,’ Manolis scoffed. Mitsos, for the life of him could not figure out what that had to do with the situation and replied that of course he looked like farmer, because he was a farmer.

‘
How can I forget it?’ replied Manolis, but he didn't smile.

Mitsos said he was going home, he would walk.

‘Let us sail today!’ Manolis replied.

‘
You’ll go back and face the fines?’ Mitsos asked.

‘
A big breakfast, clear up a bit, a quick sleep in the heat and we’ll be off,’ Manolis replied.

Mitsos no longer cared or wondered why the change of plan; he just wanted to go home. He ate his breakfast, he tidied up the boat and he fell asleep early, wishing the time before they were under way would pass.

When he woke Mitsos could hear the lapping of the waves: they had already set off. His heart felt lighter, he missed his routine, the quiet, the view from the hill. He was eager to be on deck and see the familiar coastline.

The sun hit him as he came out from the shade of the cabin and, for a moment, he could see nothing, just brightness. He heard Manolis cough. The brightness dimmed and the sea shone a dazzling blue.

Mitsos sat by the helm to get his bearings. He was fuzzy with sleep and nothing looked familiar. He studied more intensely the lie of the land and the curve of the rocks. Nothing was recognisable.

‘
Where are we?’ he asked. A churning in the pit of his stomach knew the answer before Manolis spoke.

‘Thought we would give it one last go.’ His voice was flat without even the pretence of believing his own lie.

‘
Where are we?’ Mitsos demanded, but the crumbling medieval tower halfway up a hill gave him a bearing. He had been this far down the coast one time with his father on a week’s fishing trip. ‘Let me off,’ he demanded, but there was no place to stop. It was all rocks and cliffs and seagulls shouting.

Mitsos was furious and he shouted and bellowed at Manolis, who sat and smoked as he steered, calmly looking out across the water. By the time they reached the next town along the coast they were too far for Mitsos to walk home; it would take days. He wondered if there was a bus, but he would have to stay and work that night as with the paltry amounts Manolis was giving him these days he hadn't even enough money for a ticket. He swallowed his anger, mentally washed his hands of Manolis
’ reform and planned his return home.

They worked that evening, but there were not many tourists and takings were slim. The port police had asked for mooring fees before they had even finished tying up, and the council people had come to them with forms that needed filling out before they had opened that night.

‘They know who we are. They have been warned,’ Manolis spat. He was as much thinking out loud as telling Mitsos.

But Mitsos wasn
’t interested. The night gave him enough money to buy a bus ticket home. The next day he took his afternoon sleep earlier than usual, forgoing his morning coffee. The bus left early in the afternoon. The whole thing with the boat and Manolis felt like a mess and he just wanted to go home. More than anything, he felt a failure.

He awoke to the throbbing sound of the engine and roused himself as quickly as he could to dash on deck to see what was happening. Manolis was smoking and steering and looking out to sea. He looked content. Mitsos looked about him. The rhythmic thumping he could hear was his own pulse in his temples. He clenched his fists tight, his breathing rapid. He felt on the brink of exploding and didn
’t trust himself.

‘
If we get far enough away they will not have been warned so we will sail the whole day and find a fresh town that isn't wise to us.’ Manolis grinned.

‘
No!’ Mitsos felt tears prick his eyes. ‘I want to go home.’ He heard the words leave his lips, plaintive and childlike. He could not retract them. The view of the endless sea did not calm him. It brought visions of his chicken shed, his kitchen, where he wanted to be.

‘
For God’s sake, Mitsos, are you ever going to grow up?’ Manolis scoffed.

‘
Drop me off here, right here, right now. You do everything you can to be outside the law and I'll have no part of it. You have not given Marina a second thought – she may have well had your child by now, and she doesn't even know where you are!’

‘
I thought that part of it would please you, Marina not knowing where I am!’ And he gave Mitsos a nasty smile.

‘
Sod you!’ Mitsos exploded and wished Manolis no longer existed.

Manolis refused to take the boat in to shore and Mitsos sat seething as the hours passed. The sun was strong and they had no water with them. Manolis was drinking whisky and singing to himself and lighting cigarettes one after the other.

Mitsos’ money had gone, his worthless unused bus ticket crushed in his pocket. The sun on the sea was too bright for his mood, the seagulls too raucous. He went below deck and poured himself an ouzo.

The next town turned into another and then another, as they went further and further from their village. In each town Manolis gave Mitsos a little money, but not enough for the bus fare home, adding promises of debts being paid and dreams for the next day. Mitsos was repeatedly sucked in to Manolis’ reality and found his own reality and reason ebbing away.

The only reality he knew was that the money he had he needed for food; nothing was left over. One evening, feeling brave (and just a little bit desperate) when serving a drink, he took the payment and put it straight in his own back pocket.

But he was not a natural thief, there was no fluidity of movement, no grace in his action, and Manolis caught him, and then, if that was not enough, accused him of being part of the problem, the reason why they had not saved anything for the fines. They stopped talking. Manolis no longer let Mitsos serve drinks. He could clean, wash glasses.

On two occasions Mitsos drank so much he took a swing at Manolis, but Manolis was taller and stronger and a return slug was the end of both fights. On both occasions Mitsos had wished him dead and had shouted as much in front of an astonished clientele.

They stayed in each town until, with the level of the fines, the authorities threatened to imprison Manolis. The fines he owed just grew and grew with each stop they made. Authorities from previous towns showed up in the new towns and the web of debt closed in around them. In each town Mitsos made it clear to the authorities that he was hired help and if they could offer him a way home he would take it.

They had just left one particularly busy town and Manolis was humming at the tiller, heading towards a very picturesque village. Flat-topped white houses coursing down the hillside to a palm tree-lined water front; the sea clear and blue and calm in the shallow waters, children swimming and tourists sunbathing under umbrellas. Manolis said he had a good feeling about this town. Mitsos asked for a decent day
’s wage, seeing as the last town had been so profitable.

‘
You cannot pretend you are saving for fees and fines any more, Manolis, so just give me a decent day’s pay.’ They were the first words Mitsos had said to Manolis in a week.

‘
What, so you can abandon me? No chance. This would not be half so much fun on my own. Besides, you enjoy the chase, and you have all the ouzo you can drink, and you are surrounded by different girls each night. What more could you want?’

‘
That's what you want, Manolis, not me. I want my almond orchard. I want my own bed. I want to watch the cats laze in the sun by the flower pots at my back door.’ Mitsos looked inland to the hills. He had no idea how far from home he was now since Manolis had, laughing, thrown their one chart overboard when Mitsos accused him of kidnapping.

‘
Oh, for pity’s sake! Cats and flower pots – can you hear yourself?’

‘
Shut up, Manolis. Pay up or go to hell. I am getting off here either way. I will get a job on a farm, whatever it takes. I am not staying any longer.’

‘
You'd have to work a month on a farm to get enough saved to take a bus home from here.’

‘
I don't care.’ Mitsos hated the way he sounded like a child when he got angry. He stuffed his hands as far in his trouser pockets as they would go.

Manolis paid him no more attention. He was pulling in alongside the harbour wall. He stood up, and taking a rope jumped the gap and tied them to a bollard.

‘Manolis?’ A deep voice said.

‘
Yes. Who wants to know?’ He turned to see a policeman.

‘
I am arresting you for non-payment of fines, for not complying with licensing laws and for failure to ensure the safety of the people that go aboard your boat.’

Manolis hesitated for a second before turning to Mitsos.

‘Can you get my prayer book out of the first box seat for me, please.’ Mitsos looked at him to see if he had gone quite mad. Why would Manolis even own a prayer book?

‘
He can bring it to you when you are safely locked up.’ The policeman did not even look at Mitsos as he handcuffed Manolis and took him away. Mitsos made as if to follow, and the policeman made it clear he would be wise to stay away unless he, too, wanted to be arrested. He was left standing opened-mouthed, the pink Love Boat’s engine still throbbing.

Mitsos, a little bit dazed by the event, wandered back on board and closed down the engine.

‘“Get my prayer book”! He has never said a prayer in his life, God damn him,’ Mitsos announced to the empty boat. He pondered his own words and went to the first box seat and lifted the lid. Two life jackets and a box with a crude cross drawn on it. Mitsos lifted out the box and opened the lid. There was no prayer book. It was full of money.

His first thought was to take enough for the bus home and just leave. But then he wondered if he could do anything for Marina. Should he just take her the cash or should he try to bail out the mess Manolis was in? It was bad enough Manolis being in prison the first time, but if she knew it had happened again the shame would be too great for her and the shame would be passed on to the child. Better he try to sort out the mess.