That evening we went back to Virgenia's for dinner. I was still stinging from the previous night's humiliations. We were discussing Daphne's reappearance the other day when in walked Jools and Robbie looking guilty and not a little knackered after dancing the night away with Mercouri and his henchman, so we weren't surprised when they made their apologies and left early. Nikos wouldn't take any money for our meal but instead sat down to talk about the night before. I asked him why he let it go so far and told him how disappointed I was.
'I forgive Mercouri because the man is crazy. I have known him for many years. It's true he's overbearing, but I don't think he would hurt you.'
'But Niko, he did hurt me. He hurt you. He took away the goodness of our evening.'
'He came out looking for a woman, that's all. And when he couldn't find one he wanted, he chose a man.'
'But Niko, it might be OK to him and even to you but it's not OK to me. He's very offensive.'
'I have never seen him do this before. I will talk to him.'
'It will be very bad for your business if it continues and Mercouri could lose his job.'
'That might be a good thing. They would have to replace him.' said Alessandra.
Niko nodded. 'Mr. Godfrey, I know you're right and I know I was careless. I am very sorry. I should have apologised when I saw you with my sister this morning, but I didn't come to you then because I was so embarrassed. Please, I am very, very sorry. I will speak to him and I will speak to the bus company. Tonight, I would be very happy if you would like to come with me and my sister as my guest on my boat down in Dorini to fish the kalamari.'
'The kalamari?'
'Squid,' Alessandra pointed to my plate.
'Of course.'
'Just for an hour after your dinner is digested? It is to apologise for last night.'
At home in Cornwall, whenever things were quiet in the library, I'd pretend to busy myself in the Reference Section because from there I could see the waters of the harbour and if I raised my head a little I could just about see past the lighthouse to the distant horizon with its line of silver light. In my imagination, beyond that light was my land of legend and fantasy, my refuge and my sanctuary. That very evening, I would be there at last, sailing by the sigh of the salty sea in an almost diamond silence.
I stood on the stern next to Nikos and reminded him to look out for dolphins. He laughed, his teeth shining in the darkness, 'No dolphins at night, Godfrey, although maybe just one.'
'Just one?'
'My boat. You did not notice? Her name is Delfini.' He looked at me. I looked at him and we laughed.
'Oh dear, Niko, Godfrey, this is embarrassing,' Alessandra put her arms round both of us. 'Now shake hands like good little boys and for goodness sake, let's go fishing.'
'Yes. Let's go, my friend,' we were laughing again.
His boat was a traditional wooden Aegean island fishing boat. I'd seen photographs. About six metres long. Space for a single crew member in the wheel housing and steps that lead down to a tiny protected observation area and little more space for when it was too stormy to stand in the open. But there was enough room on deck for three crew and a good catch with nets and baskets stored for and aft. She was coloured blue and white with a red hull. A winch, emergency oars, and the blue and white striped flag of Greece.
'The nine stripes in our flag symbolize the nine Muses, the goddesses of art and civilization although we have many theories like that, if you are interested,' Alessandra put her arms round her brother.
'So where do they go, Niko?'
'What? Where do what go?'
'The 'delfini' at night.'
'They shoot into the sky and thank the stars they have such good company,' he was a boy with his sister again, happy to be rocking and rolling to the rhythm of the choppy seas.
Staring into the void was hypnotic. Behind was the ghost of the mountain range barely silhouetted against the darkening sky. We were almost two miles off shore when we cut the engines and made ready to fish, testing the twine with gentle tugs and hanging the blinding light over the side to attract the squid.
'Spread your feet, bend your knees and you won't topple about,' to Nikos the fishing wasn't important, he wanted to patch things up, for us to be friends. He wanted to sharpen our hooks for the future. We caught just two squid that night. Once out of the water they flopped and gasped and looked so pitiful I wanted to throw them back.
Nikos tried to explain, 'We have an agreement with the kalamari - they keep us alive and we don't take too many. You know, where they live, just over twenty metres down, they're fiery red and orange but when they land on deck, they turn almost white and just when you are filled with amazement they fire a jet of water from their sac, maybe in defiance.'
The clouds rolled away, leaving a moony diamond sky. Our boat swayed and I saw the Aegean as it must have looked when the triremes sailed for Troy and although the skies were clearer then, the sea was just as oily, just as choppy, dark and deep. Our boat floated in space, between the air above and the sea below and we fell into silence like children in a dream until we had to let the feeling go and get on with our work. Nikos placed a hand on my arm.
'You know there are not many moments like this on land, without the need to make a sound. If we were fish, we'd communicate with our minds.'
We tried two more fishing places until Nikos let out a loud sigh and hauled in his lines, 'It's over. We go back.'
'So soon, Niko, but why?'
'She is coming, Godfrey.'
'Who's coming, Niko? Who?'
'The lady moon. Her light is softer, more kind, so the kalamari don't come to me, they go to her. You understand, my friend?'
As we returned to shore, Nikos encouraged Alessandra to steer the boat. She was a natural.
'You've done this before.' I said.
'No, no, never ... well, not never, just about all my life.'
We tidied up and were walking between the boats along the jetty with our catch when a tourist whipped out his digital and took a flash photo of the local fishing folk coming home after a long day hunting the fish. Alessandra straightened her back, took his face in her hands and planted a kiss on his forehead. He almost dropped his camera.
Nikos was Greece. The catalyst. We gathered every day around his tables and enjoyed the ambience, the times, the fishing, the genuine and the, sometimes misguided, open hospitality and of course, the generosity. The restaurant was closed by the time we got back to Sophia, so we bunched in the side room so he could lay down on a bunk. The stillness came with us from the boat. We sipped some Metaxa and let Nikos spread out his idea for donkey trekking along the old route from Sophia across the shallow causeway to Faria.
'We will follow the sublime but wild and desolate grandeur of the dusty fields and high plateaux. But first, we must find English donkeys,' he sucked the brandy from his moustache, his otter eyes fluttered closed and his voice fell to a whisper. 'They are better trained in England.'
At that he opened one eye and winked.