Corfu, 2003
Mama was dead.
Babas was dead.
The words played again and again like drumsticks on the skin of Sofie’s mind, but they didn’t make sense. Everything had happened so quickly, though even that wasn’t true.
“The tumour had been there for a while,” Roxana said. They were in the kitchen after the funeral. Roxana had made her hot chocolate and was sitting at the table with her, her warm hand over hers. Nico was next to her. She spoke softly. “You remember Athena had those headaches?”
Sofie nodded.
“And the fits?”
She nodded again.
“That was the tumour growing; the doctor said it might have been there for a long time.”
“But she went to see the doctor for her headaches. Babas took her, they could have done something then.”
“The doctor organized tests but she didn’t go for them,” Dimitrios said. He was leaning against the door looking serious. He had the sort of face that was meant for smiling, but it had been a long time since she had seen him smile.
Mama didn’t look after herself because of what happened to me, Sofie thought. She was worried about me, so she didn’t think about her own health, she never did and now she’s gone for ever. It was impossible to imagine that. How would she and Nico manage without her tomorrow or the day after that, or for the rest of their lives?
“Babas didn’t take his tablets for blood pressure either,” Dimitrios said. “That might be why he had a heart attack. People make their own choices.” He looked at her and tried to smile. “It’s no one’s fault.”
That was wrong, it was her fault. Babas had died of a broken heart after Athena died, which wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t talked to those boys in the first place and caused all the stress. Dimitrios said stress lowered your resistance and that was why the cancer took hold. What she had done had destroyed their old life like some ravenous beast and then, still hungry, it had taken Athena and Babas too. The black tar-like lump inside her head grew darker and larger than ever, until there was almost no space left.
Grandfather went back to his own flat; he preferred it that way, Roxana said. He was used to it. Sofie saw him on Sundays. She lay down in her old room or sat in the kitchen with him. She liked the quietness and the fact that she didn’t have to say anything. Sometimes she slept all day when she was there: she was always tired. It was noisy at night in Roxana and Dimitrios’s flat because of the restaurant below; they had to keep the windows closed and then it was too hot. Every morning before it was light, the rush of bottles being tipped into a truck woke her with a clatter.
Some nights Nico would slip into bed beside her in the night and she didn’t mind. She liked the warmth from his body, the feel of him pressing up against her back. She never sent him away. He still didn’t say anything, but she felt closer to him than to anyone else and she knew he felt the same.
Roxana told Sofie she needn’t go back to school until she felt better, but Sofie knew she would never feel better, so she said she would go. Roxana hugged her and told her she was brave, but she wasn’t brave. School was just a line like the lengths of string Dimitrios had tied between sticks as a guide for planting seeds in a straight row. She knew where she was if she kept to the line.
There were more things to bury now, like the way Mama had sounded in the hospital when she tried to speak and the different feel of her hand. Babas’s twisted face as he sat by her side. The coffins in the church.
She worked all the time she was awake, so she didn’t have to think. She had heard Babas say to Athena that no good came of looking back so she tried not to; instead she read and wrote and went to the language club on Wednesdays after school. She helped Roxana and Dimitrios in the café on Saturdays and visited Grandfather on Sundays and she didn’t think about anything. Life continued in the same way until one Wednesday in early December.
SCHOOL CLOSED EARLY on Wednesdays. Nico was collected by Dimitrios; they were taking a football to the beach with some other boys. The teachers were worried about his silence and Dimitrios thought a team game might help. Sofie went home. She didn’t want to go to the beach or look at the sea.
She had to wait in the café, but she didn’t mind, there was homework to do. She sat just inside the entrance and pulled out her books. A few boys were drinking at a table further in, two girls sat chatting together at a table beyond that. The noise melted into the background. She began to read a story in English for the language club the next day. She could hear plates clashing in the kitchen and the sounds were comforting somehow.
A loud male laugh and a sharp scream jerked her head up. She hadn’t meant to look but it was as though she was a puppet, and someone was pulling the strings. The scream had come from one of the girls. Two boys from the group on the table next to them had got up and were standing either side of her. One of them was bending low over the girl and had put his hands on her shoulders. His face was close to hers. The other boys were laughing. The girl’s friend was sitting very still in her chair as if frightened that if she made a fuss, the boys would come to her too.
Sofie stood up so quickly that her chair fell over backwards and hit the floor. The noise alerted Roxana who came out from the kitchen; she saw the boys and strode over to help the girl. Sofie didn’t wait to see what happened. She left her books on the table and ran upstairs to the flat. The door had been left open because Nico and Dimitrios had just returned and were inside, taking off their coats. She yelled at them both for not having shut the door, anyone might have come in, she shouted. That night she didn’t want supper, she pushed her plate away. Later, Nico was making a noise under his breath as he walked his Lego man over the sheet. She got out of bed, snatched it up, opened the window and threw it out. Nico began to cry but she ignored him. She washed her hands and didn’t stop even though they were bleeding. She refused to go to school the next day and the next and she didn’t eat anything. Roxana tried to talk to her, but it was difficult to hear anything, the monsters were roaring.
The day after that Roxana had a day off, it was the weekend. She said they were going for a bus ride out of town to visit the mother of her friend, who lived in a village. Sofie looked up, it was the word mother.
“She has had six children and she’s very kind,” Roxana said. “She has a garden and a cat. You need space of your own, pedimou, time away from all of us for a few hours.”
Sofie didn’t believe the woman had a cat, it was probably something Roxana was saying to make her go. She didn’t care about space or time either, there was too much time already. The problem wasn’t Roxana or Dimitrios or Nico, but she hadn’t the energy to explain. She was too tired to explain anything. She didn’t care. She already knew the woman wouldn’t be able to help. How could she? She couldn’t wind the clock back, stop Sofie going to the beach with the cake or make her mother go to the doctor earlier or tell her father to take his pills, but she didn’t have the energy to say any of that, so she nodded.
She wanted Nico to come to the woman’s house too, but he had football practice. He hadn’t said anything about the Lego man but then he wasn’t saying anything anyway. Roxana said she needn’t feel bad about it, but she didn’t feel bad, just empty. Roxana told her that someone at school, a counsellor, had been talking to Nico since they arrived. Sofie thought that was pointless, it didn’t seem to make any difference, if anything he was quieter, but Roxana said that he was getting better bit by bit.
THERE WAS NO one else waiting by the bus stop next morning, and when it came there was only one woman with her bag of shopping at the back, which was a relief. When they were sitting down, Roxana offered her an apple, but Sofie shook her head. Roxana opened a book and began reading. She was the one who needed time, not her. Roxana hardly had any for herself, like Mama, and Sofie felt a stab of worry, what if something happened to her too?
The bus was driving along the sea front, so she closed her eyes. It was warm, the seats were comfortable, and the driver drove very carefully, even the noise the engine made was soothing. Without meaning to, Sofie went to sleep, waking when the bus turned a sharp corner. Outside the windows were olive trees, rows and rows of them, stretching back either side from the road as far as you could see. Sofie stared. It was like being given a glass of cool water when you were thirsty. She hadn’t realized she was so thirsty for olive trees.
The bus lurched into a village with stone houses and orange roof tiles and front gardens. It came to a halt by the side of the road. Roxana got out of the bus, smiling goodbye to the driver. How did you do that, Sofie wondered, smile and say something friendly to a stranger? People managed that all the time, they must be stronger than she was or much cleverer.
They walked down a lane with houses strung out either side and cypress trees sticking up over white walls. They stopped outside a small house; there was a wall around it too and a bell with a twisty rope which Roxana asked her to pull.
The clanging noise echoed down the street. She must have pulled too hard, other people might come out to see what was happening. She shrank back against Roxana but then the gate was opened, and a tiny woman stood there, with grey hair piled on her head and strands which had come loose around her face. She had an apron with roses on it, like Athena’s, though the roses on Athena’s apron had been red and these were blue. She was smaller than Sofie, so despite her wrinkled face, she seemed a bit like a child herself.
She held out her hand to Sofie first. It was warm, and the skin was rough, so Sofie knew she had looked after a family, cooked their food and scrubbed the floors. She didn’t smile back but she felt her mouth relax just a little.
“Hello Sofie,” the woman said, still holding her hand. “My name is Eleni.”
Her voice wasn’t trying to be anything special; it wasn’t being careful or quiet and it wasn’t as if she was talking to a child. Eleni turned to Roxana and said how lovely it was to see her again. Roxana chatted for a bit, then she touched Sofie lightly on her shoulder. “I’ll be back later,” and then she disappeared.
Eleni was waiting but Sofie wanted to turn around and run after Roxana. She was very frightened, everything that was familiar had vanished.