The Tourist

This is how he died. He went to Maria's Taverna for his usual coffee. Then he went to the fields to see his sheep, he called into his shop, went home feeling unwell, sat on the sofa and died.

The last time I saw the grocer alive was when I went into his long, dark shop to buy some of those blue tablets that slot into a plug-in anti-mosquito device, a tin of evaporated milk and a gaudy pink and white beach mat. He darted about as he always did, muttering in Greek; his voice sounded like rusty nails. There was no price label on the beach mat, nor on any of the other similar mats in the shop. He shouted something to a female in the back room and the female shouted back. To English ears it sounded as though they were having a marriage-ending quarrel, but I knew that all he had probably said to her was ‘How much are the pink and white beach mats?’ And that her reply to him had probably been, ‘I don't know, love.’

Everything about him was bony: his nose, his forehead and his limbs – his elbows could have cut cheese. I don't speak any Greek, apart from the essential pleasantries, so he mimed bafflement, bringing his shoulder blades up to his ears. I mimed back that I would pay what he asked: on the island of Skyros it is taken for granted that everyone is honest.

He went behind the battered shop counter and dragged a fat, dog-eared book from the shelf window. He rifled through the pages. Eventually he found the page he wanted and ran a thin brown finger down a column. I couldn't help but notice that the date at the top of the page ended 1991. He shook his head and threw the book back under the counter, then he took up the beach mat and examined it minutely again. A moment later he was outside in the street asking passers-by if they knew the price. Old women in black put down their shopping bags crammed with onions and aubergines and examined the beach mat. A small crowd of people gathered, each contributing to the debate. In the end a small boy was ordered to go to the haberdasher's down the hill. He came back with the information that the beach mat would cost me 250 drachmas. The grocer wrote the price out for me on a brown paper bag and I paid him, thanked him and left.

The next time I saw him was two days later, and he was being carried shoulder high in an open coffin. His bony, noble head was surrounded by fresh flowers. Somebody had shaved him and the skin on his face looked unfamiliarly smooth. The grocer's funeral was a big public event in the town of Skyros. He had been a very popular man, so businesses and shops closed for the morning. His daughters and sons hurried from Athens to be there on time (the dead have to be buried within twenty-four hours on Skyros as there are no facilities for storing bodies). Large crowds of grieving townsfolk lined the main street, waiting for the coffin to be processed down the hill towards the graveyard.

Then, walking up the hill came three women and three men; obviously tourists. They looked about them with an air of amusement. One of the women was blonde and wearing shorts and a pink and white gingham bikini top. She was obviously anxious to avoid spoiling her tan with strap marks, so she had left the straps dangling so that her breasts were exposed. She was a truly shocking sight. A friend of mine, a lovely woman in her sixties, crossed the street and spoke politely to the blonde, telling her, ‘A funeral is about to take place.’ The blonde had a T-shirt hanging from her belt, and my friend indicated to her that she should cover herself. But the blonde (who was English) merely said excitedly to her friends, ‘There's going to be a funeral,’ and stepped forward to get a better view, so exposing herself even more.

Right until the last moment, when the coffin came into sight, I thought she would relent and put on her T-shirt. But she didn't, and the priest and the boys carrying holy artefacts, the grocer's crying sons and daughters and his friends who had loved him passed by the dumb English tourist who had so little respect for their dead. I watched their eyes flicker towards the shocking patch of pink and white and saw them register their disgust, and I cried behind my sunglasses and wanted to apologize to the grocer's family for the terrible disrespect the Englishwoman had shown towards their small town. When the crowds had dispersed the woman strolled up the street, oblivious to the great insult she had caused the polite and courteous people of Skyros. My one consolation was the sight of her retreating back: the sunburned skin looked red and inflamed and I thought that unless she covered up very soon she could be suffering from agonizing sunburn by that evening. But I wasn't going to warn her. Quite honestly, I hoped she'd burn in hell.