Just Go Down to the Road by James Campbell

Author:James Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Me on Zorba, leading a pair of riders into town after a tour of the island. Courtesy of Jerry Robock.

Heading back to the ranch on Spetsai, with Carl (left), and Oliver, Romeo, Caesar and Zorba. Courtesy of Jerry Robock.

We were having this conversation on the brick-and-plank bench outside the front door of the house. Jerry squinted behind his tinted glasses in the afternoon sunlight. His black hair was drawn back in a pony tail and he had kept his bushy beard all summer. He was only a year or two older than me, but seemed at times to belong to a different generation. In between our first encounter in Glasgow and the unexpected reunion in Syntagma Square, he had fulfilled his stated ambition of going to Israel, which he talked about with subdued pleasure in his characteristic, even tone.

“You could go to Kibbutz Mishmarot for the rest of the season and live there … work there. It’s not autumn yet, but soon they’ll want people to help bring in the avocado harvest. They won’t pay you anything, or not much, but you can live for free. Get all your food and a place to sleep. Interesting experience. Why not?”

Why? Because Israel is separated from Europe by the Mediterranean. I made that or some other petulant comment. “It’s difficult to hitch-hike across the sea.”

Jerry said nothing more about it. One of the horses needed a new shoe and we took him down to the port to be shod by a man in a Stetson hat and leather boots with decorative stitching, into which he tucked his trousers. We knew him as Black Bart. While Bart hammered in the nails, Jerry cupped the upright hoof in both hands, his back pressed against the horse’s rear haunch, as if he had been doing this kind of thing all his life.

The next morning, after we had brushed down Caesar, Zorba, and the others, Jerry told me he had been thinking about my situation and was going to suggest something to help me get off the island and make my way to Israel.

“Quite a few people haven’t settled their accounts for some days,” he said. “That Greek girl, for example, Lia’s friend, who rides Romeo, you know the one …” Of course I did: her beautiful face and bobbed hair consoled me during lonely nights at the shell. Don’t touch Greek girls. “… her parents owe us,” Jerry was saying, “… probably a decent sum. Then there’s this one and that one. Friday’s going to be a busy day, with several rides, starting early. Barbara wants us to split at the weekend—but I haven’t said anything about it yet to Takis.”

He looked at me for a moment fixedly in the silence before going on. “Saturday evening, we can ask a fisherman to take us in his boat to the other side.” From the harbor in Spetsai to the mainland coast of Sparta was a short distance. “Then we can all hitch up to Athens the next morning.

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