A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson

Author:Polly Samson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

The days grow so hot I don’t know where my skin finishes and the air begins. By lunchtime there’s only one place to be and that’s in the sea. Jimmy carries the basket packed with our towels and books and a picnic of feta, fresh bread from the baker, and tomatoes as big and knobbly as my fist.

A cruise ship is moored at the mouth of the harbour. Its passengers disgorge in a flotilla of rowing boats and, with not enough to interest them at the port, now swarm over the rocks above the cave at Spilia.

Jimmy and I pause beneath the fig tree at the turn. Maybe there’s fun to be had? I follow his gaze, check all the bikinis, like none as much as my own. My new two-piece is stitched from pale blue-and-white-striped seersucker. I wear it with my dress buttoned over because, unlike the Edies and Janeys of this world, I’m not willing to risk a fine. Police Chief Manolis patrols the waterfront with a new vigour since so many beautiful young women are flouting the public-decency rules of the island.

Music floats up to us from a transistor radio; the sea ripples with bright rubber hats, flippers, snorkels, mermaids on the rock; and a pair of young gods in matching red swim shorts have roped inflatable beds to the iron steps and lie golden and bobbing side by side. Toddlers squirm beneath their mothers’ sun-creaming hands, two beach balls are in play, Lena is at the lip of the cave with the other Swedes and has daringly removed her top to sunbathe.

Jimmy and I have been talking about Bobby. My brother has gone off on another long hike by himself, heading out straight after his chores with his backpack.

‘He’s looking better for it, whatever it is he does while he’s away,’ Jimmy says as we continue along the clifftop path. The heat is hazy, the rocks beaten bronze and rust and iron by strong light, faceted, run through with scraggly olive and pine, clumps of thyme and balls of acid-yellow euphorbia. Most of the wild flowers are brown with seed, only the occasional bright stab of a poppy flares and, as we turn a corner, below us a miraculous swathe of yellow meets the lapis-blue sea.

We decide to head for the beach in front of the old olive mill, which is never too crowded, and wander on through the lanes to the supermarket at Four Corners for a bottle of retsina.

I can’t wait to cool off in the pebbly shallows, while around every corner the sun-dazzled white walls offer enchantment, splashed with hibiscus bright as blood, or overhung by cascades of baby-blue plumbago and clashing pink and purple bougainvillea, narrow passageways leading us back to the sea. We stand high on the crest of the harbour, the fishing boats rock at their moorings, nets have been stretched out to dry on the shoreline. A gang of tabby cats are sleeping in the shade of a grove of cypress trees with a donkey snoring beside them, a white cockerel and his hens scratching about.

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