Paxos, 2003
Ants swarmed over Sofie; their bodies crawled between her legs. They crept to her abdomen and then to her chest in their thousands. Some trickled along her arms, up her neck and into her ears. She heard a voice shouting; her eyes snapped open. It was a dream. She was in her bed, in the room she shared with Nico. It was her voice.
Nico’s wide brown eyes were level with hers. He was running a small Lego car over her arm. She forgot to close the shutters last night and the bright light must have woken him. The room was warm, he was wearing his swimming trunks. She wanted to stay in bed, but this was his promised time. He would spend the rest of the day with Mama in the kitchen or hanging around with Dimitrios, who might allow him to pull up weeds or pick tomatoes, but no one had time to play.
It was no use protesting. She was still in her pyjamas, a thin top and thinner shorts, and as soon as her feet were on the ground, he began tugging her out of the door. He was strong for a four-year-old, unrelenting when he wanted something. They had to be quiet: they weren’t allowed on the beach when the guests were here, and they shouldn’t go into the sea. Neither of them could swim.
It took ten minutes to hurry down the path and through the trees on the headland, crunching on pine needles, jumping down narrow stone ledges to the beach. The air was mint fresh. They avoided the easier steps leading from the garden path through a gate to the quay on the other side of the cove, too exposed. Babas might spot them, or one of the guests. Nico ran over the pebbles and straight into the sea, while Sofie walked to the edge of the water and stood ankle deep, ready to wade in and pluck him back.
This was the year she should learn to swim. Christos would teach her: he offered every year, but she was scared. What if there was something hiding beneath the water that no one could see, like the shark in that film? She stepped further, a little deeper, shivering with fear. Most people plunged in and swam, emerging with a grin, as if they had shed something they didn’t want in the water. She made herself go forward and now she was up to her knees.
She heard the boys before she saw them, two figures emerging from the dazzle, walking slowly at the water’s edge, footsteps crunching in shingle: the two new boys without their friend. Even at a distance they looked tired. They were wearing what they wore last night but their shirts were crumpled, the pink linen stained. They were smoking, blue-grey fumes drifted in the air.
Nico was still in the water; he hadn’t noticed the boys approaching. Would they be angry that she and her brother were on the beach? They were new, perhaps they didn’t know the rules. Sofie faced away from the shore, that way they might walk on by, but the crunching stopped. She stepped further, the water creeping higher, reaching to the divide between her legs.
“Nico,” she whispered. He carried on jumping up and down, his hands slapping the water, and took no notice at all.
“Hey.” The new voice was English, it had an unfamiliar, twangy accent and sounded amused. Could they see through her thin clothes? Was that funny? She didn’t dare turn round.
“Hey there.” There were two voices this time, they sounded impatient. What if they reported her for being rude?
She turned around. Both boys were taking off their shirts and their trousers. The ginger one had rolls of fat on his front, the dark one was scrawny. She saw him notice her glance and smile. She looked away quickly, her skin prickling.
“Nico, come back,” she whispered, hoarsely this time.
He was muttering to himself in that fast way he had and still hadn’t noticed the boys. She wanted him closer, much closer, for herself as much as for him. The next moment, she was up to her waist.
The boys splashed up to her, one on each side. “Had a swim then?”
She shook her head, not looking at either of them.
“Why not?”
“Fovos.” Unnoticed, Nico had come near. He spoke so rarely to strangers that she stared at him, surprised. The boys seemed to know what that word meant. Fear.
“Aha.” The dark one gripped her arm with his thin fingers, his clasp surprisingly strong. The cold shivered to her shoulder.
“For God’s sake, Jay,” his friend said, laughter feathering his voice.
“Fuck off, Ginger.”
Jay bent so his mouth was level with Sofie’s ear. “Would you like me to teach you?” he whispered. The words were warm and wet in her ear.
She stood very still, excitement swelling alongside surprise. He had heard what Nico said, and he wanted to help her. No one usually noticed her. She wanted to close her eyes as she did when the sun was too bright; she wanted to bask in the moment.
“I’ll take care of you.” His breath moved her hair.
Ginger was grinning but she didn’t look at him. This kind of thing didn’t happen, not to her, not when guests were here, when all the days were the same, with lists of jobs to do and no time to spare. This was a moment to hold close and examine later, to share with Gabriella who would be jealous.
She nodded, her heart fluttering.
“Trust me,” Jay whispered.
He took hold of her by the waist and tipped her body forward, his arm pressed under her abdomen like a clamp as her face dipped into the water. She could hear Ginger’s grunting laugh.
“Kick,” Jay said.
There was a little block of stained concrete among the pebbles on the seabed beneath her; she had never seen the bottom of the sea like this. She felt weightless and very strong. A quicksilver pulse of excitement, of triumph coursed through her body. Jay told her to kick again, and she felt her feet break the water into shards. For those moments she was someone else, someone different, with power and daring.
And then her lungs were bursting, so she put her feet on the ground. Jay’s arm slid away, and she was standing, gasping for breath. Jay was grinning but now she felt awkward. She was in the sea with a guest against all the rules and her clothes were clinging to her like wet paper. She turned and ran, kicking through the water to the beach. Nico followed more slowly, picking up stones for his collection. They scrambled up the cliff to the wood, the boys’ voices following them into the trees. She reached the path and Nico caught up and raced her back, both gasping with laughter, though she wasn’t sure why.
Nico showered first. Sofie threw him a towel when he’d finished and showered quickly, dried and dressed. A clean skirt, her tight shirt. Gabriella had a bra, a lacey one with a pink satin bow, but Athena hadn’t noticed Sofie was growing and changing, that her breasts were swelling. They felt sore, especially the nipples. There was no point in asking Athena for a bra, she couldn’t spare the time to take her daughter to the shops while the guests were there. She would just have to wait. Sofie tucked her curls behind her ears, shoved her feet into plimsolls and hurried outside.
It was hot now. The cicadas had started. The males had tiny drums hidden under their bodies; the noise attracted females, Dimitrios told her, though Sofie thought that couldn’t be right, surely it would scare them away. Dimitrios was already in the vegetable patch, watering the lettuces. She waved, and he grinned back with a thumbs-up sign. Even if her eyes were closed, she would know exactly where she was in the garden, the dark odour of wet earth mixed with the sharp smell of tomatoes and the bitter scent of lettuce. She rounded the stand of lemon trees and hurried through the courtyard at the back of the house with its beds of sage, thyme, and peppery basil. The kitchen door was wide open.
Athena was walking back and forth, slippers slapping against the soles of her feet. The radio was playing the Bouzouki music that Athena loved. She danced to it sometimes in the kitchen at night, but mornings were busy. She was throwing away the shells from the oranges she’d just juiced. Sofie was late, squeezing the oranges was her job. Athena didn’t say anything, there wasn’t time to talk, though a swirl of words from the guests outside flowed into the kitchen. Babas said talk in the morning was a luxury you had to be rich to afford.
Athena’s eyes were shadowed with tiredness, but she looked as calm as she always did. It seemed impossible that her mother had ever had thoughts like Sofie’s, multitudes of wordless ideas, frightened and hopeful, fluttering together like birds in a cage. Athena must have let those kinds of thoughts escape a long time ago, she seemed so peaceful, her movements so certain. How did you get to that stage?
Athena handed Sofie the basket of bread and the jug of orange juice. Sofie carried them both to the terrace outside where the family was sitting. Jane took a slice of bread from the basket before Sofie had put it on the table and placed it on Julia’s plate, but Julia ignored it completely.
Sofie ran back and brought out slices of thin pink ham and hard-boiled eggs, Athena’s fig jam. Her stomach growled as she hurried back and forth, bringing a cake studded with apricots and almonds, peaches, and bowls of creamy yoghurt.
Christos was cleaning the swimming pool beneath the terrace; she could hear his footsteps and the splashy sound as he dragged the net through the water. When Sofie looked over the wall, a fragment of blue gleamed from the pile of old leaves and cigarette stubs by his feet. The friendship bracelet. It would be swept up and dumped with the rest of the rubbish in the bin for collection. She ran down the steps, picked it up, put it in her pocket and ran back again, eyes stinging.
More guests arrived at the table one by one: Paul arguing with his wife in an undertone, the baby whining in her arms; the pale guy was yawning, his grey hair stragglier than ever. By the time Sofie came back with the coffee, Jay and Ginger were sprawled in their chairs, ignoring everyone including the friend who’d invited them, already hunched over his phone. Would they give her away? She needn’t have worried, they gave no sign of having seen her before. Ginger seemed half asleep, his red curls falling over his face, while Jay leant across the table, holding out the butter to Julia. She ignored him, turning to Paul. Jay’s face flushed pink, he withdrew his hand abruptly, knocking over the jug of juice. Orange juice soaked into the cake, some dripped onto the blonde wife’s lap. Peter was furious, shouting for cloths, snatching them from Sofie. Later she took the wrecked cake away.
After breakfast, Peter asked Athena to lay a separate table for the boys for future meals. That evening at supper the boys talked and laughed louder than ever, though Sofie saw Jay glancing at Julia across the gap between the tables, his face sullen.
After the meal, everyone went back to their rooms apart from Peter, Julia, and Paul. Julia sat by the pool; her legs hanging down in the floodlit water looked like sea creatures in an aquarium, the toenails were little red eyes. She was smoking and leant against Paul’s shoulder, laughing and talking with a slurred voice. When she had cleaned Paul’s room last year, Sofie had seen a little pile of white powder on his bedside table. Dimitrios had come to see; he said it was cocaine, she was not to touch and not to say anything. Perhaps Paul had given Julia some of that. Peter sat at the table on his own, watching Paul with his daughter. His expression was remote but intent, like the emperor watching wild animals circling the prisoners in Dimitrios’s film about gladiators. After a while Peter got up and stumped off to his bedroom, as though he already knew how this would end.
SOFIE WAS WEARING her swimming costume the next morning when the boys came to the beach for the second time. She was holding hands with Nico in the water, and her heart began to pound when she heard footsteps on the shingle. Jay came close and smiled and she smiled back; she imagined Gabriella telling her not to grin like a child, but she couldn’t help it. She put her hand to her mouth to try to disguise the way her lips were stretching in case it made her look ugly.
“So, you want to do it again?”
She nodded and, slipping his arm around her waist, he tipped her forward and told her to kick hard. She was conscious of the grip of his arm and hands, his high-pitched laugh. He half pulled and half dragged her fast through the water, more roughly than yesterday. It was exciting but frightening at the same time. She squirmed away after a few moments and ran out of the water, taking Nico’s hand and hurrying him up the beach. They clambered up the cliff together, and ran through the wood to their home. Later, sweeping the terrace and making beds she found herself smiling for no particular reason. That evening when she brought out the lamb kleftiko, she was aware that his gaze swung briefly from Julia to her and then back again. He wasn’t smiling though.
She wanted to tell her mother she’d had a swimming lesson with a guest, but she didn’t. It was one of those things that were forbidden for reasons never properly explained. Excitement and guilt bubbled inside; it was as if she had pushed at the boundary between her and the guests and, for a few seconds, it had seemed to give.