2
I couldn't and didn't want to believe my ears. 'What? Auntie! What do you mean? Dea...?' I couldn't speak. I felt as though I was choking. I swallowed. I couldn't bring myself to utter the word. She gave a short, throaty groan. It scared me. I didn't know what to say. What do you say into a little piece of plastic? 'Auntie? What’s happened? Where are you?'
'Godfrey. I'm in Sophia. It happened last night down in the main town at the other end of the island. They're not saying for definite but they think he might have had a heart attack over a difference of opinion with someone in his dressing room. You know what these men are like when they've had a few drinks. They start shouting and interrupting each other and bang their fists on the nearest surface and get angry. And I bet it was all over nothing.'
'Ah, no. Not Uncle Pantelis. Oh, Auntie.' My mind went blank. Nothing made any sense.
'I don't really understand how it happened. Pani used to have the constitution of a bull.'
'Doesn't anyone know anything definite? It's so hard to take in. How do we find out? Oh Auntie, I'm so sorry. What can I do?'
'Nothing just yet, lad. I'm staying with Pani's oldest friends, Maria and Manolis Kortakis. Maria is the mayor and she and her husband can't do enough to help. Listen I'll ring you back in half an hour. There's a lot to sort out and a few things I have to quickly arrange at this end. I don't half wish you were here. Anyway, I'll go now. Bye-bye, dear.'
Poor Auntie was devastated. Uncle Pantelis was the love of her life and this final, terrible shock must be staggering for her. They had been partners for eternity. She met him when she was on the stage and knew instantly that he was her man. Her Pani. Her Greek. Her very own.
Uncle Pani was a musician with his own Bouzouki orchestra and quite famous; a little older than she, with a wonderful easy going air. In his youth he'd been a Manga from Piraeus, and proud of it. She often told how he swept her into his arms and from that moment she never looked at another man. Their courtship had been very proper and when he proposed, Auntie said she couldn't help but laugh and cry and laugh in turn. She was ecstatic. She had expected there was something on his mind so when he finally proposed she was ready with her answer. At first everything was sunshine but as time went by they spent quite a bit of their time living apart. It was all due to his musical commitments. He went back on tour and eventually bought the cottage in Cornwall for them. Then every few weeks they would meet whenever he was playing in some favoured place and off she'd fly to be with him for a romantic break.
'We enjoyed the romance without the pain. Togetherness without the strain. Sometimes we'd stay in our house on Stephanos, in the little village of Sophia, right up in the mountains but he hardly ever came here to Cornwall. I didn't mind, we were together in our hearts, and solid, that's what counts.'
I know there was one time when she left him, but it seems he travelled all the way here to Trevean and begged her come back to him. And that's when she knew that all she really wanted was to belong to him. And from then on she was his and I believe he was hers.
'But I couldn't live in Sophia. He was born there and wanted me to live there with him but I couldn't. I tried it for a while but I got fed up with all the hills. Lovely people, beautiful island but it just wasn't me - always I felt like a visitor. So we'd have our trysts whenever we could.'
I was about seven when I became aware of this sensitive, big pirate of a man. He wore a beard that was so curly I could stick flowers in it. We got on instantly and spent hours laughing and crying in each other's company and when I was old enough he told me stories about his island, how he began touring, about his risky adventures around the old Lemonadika Quarter in the port of Piraeus, the gang fights, the ladies, the music, in particular the Rembetika music, and the poverty. He told me how the Mangas were the dispossessed, the travellers from the west coast of Anatolia who lived on the edge of society, like the Lom and the Gypsy peoples, but the big difference between him then and him now was his success.
'I have Agni, you my boy, two homes, an orchestra and today, plenty money.'
I loved my uncle. He was exciting, my hero and whenever he raised his glass to make a toast, he would always smile and say, 'Here's to a life well lived.'
Yes, Auntie Agnes married her Greek and I developed a fascination. And now he has gone. I looked around the garden. It buzzed and fluttered with life. I stared at the pond with its dragon flies, butterflies, gold fish, newts and frogs, all the living creatures that were here, like he had been, at the beginning of the week but from now on all my days would have to roll along without him. And oh, there were so many questions I wish I'd asked before he left. One minute he was here and the next he was somewhere else.
Ebby, came over from the shrubbery and rubbed his furry body against my bare legs. I bent down and ran my fingers down his back and on to gently tug his tail, 'Ebby, Uncle Pani's dead.' He stared up into my eyes, and with his simple acceptance, I fell to bits.
The phone trilled for the second time that day and again I jumped out of my skin. Before I could recite the number that she'd drummed into me, Auntie Agnes was under way, 'Godfrey? Are you all right? Oh dear, it's so cruel, isn't it? I don't want to believe my dear man has gone.'
'I know. I was talking to him the other day and we were laughing because I told him that the older I get, the more I look like his mother.'
'His mother? Ha! My Pani, dear man, I thought he'd live forever.' Her voice failed. She began to weep and all I could do was wait. 'There's only the two of us left now, lad.' The Liverpool Irish lilt gave her comfort. 'At least I've got you, Godfrey.'
'Of course you have, Auntie, always. Do they know what happened yet?'
'It seems he was heard having a private drink after the show with someone and they started arguing about Sophia, I don't know about what in particular, but anyway they got louder and there was shouting and they think that's when Pani must have keeled over. By the time the doctor arrived he was dead.' She sobbed and sniffed then took a deep breath.
'It's OK, Auntie. Don't say any more. Try and get some rest. Did the doctor give you any sedation?'
'Yes. But you know how much I hate taking tablets. We both did. I've had some whisky instead.'
'Well, it might help. I think I'll have one myself. But you need some rest, if only to recharge your batteries.'
'It's funny. No one seems to know who the chap was for definite. They think it might have been just a disgruntled fan or something. There's no sign of him now. Oh, I don't know. Everyday's the same until there's a change.' She always said that whenever she was about to make an announcement. 'So now listen, I've been thinking - and this is what we'll do. In the evening before the burial, there will be the wake and the prayers here, in Maria's house, because I don't want his body to be taken to our home. My memories of him there are happy ones and I want them to last for as long as I live. Next day there'll be the public service at the basilica and afterwards his body will be interred in his family grave in the valley below the village; that is what he would want - to be on his beloved island. Godfrey, if you were here, this is when I'd take hold of your hand because I have to ask you for an enormous favour.'
'Auntie, I'll do anything. You know that.' I was expecting some instructions to do with her cottage or some arrangement to make here in the village while she was away at the funeral.
'Godfrey, do you think you could come over here and help me get through all the traditions, the regulations and things?' She was asking me to drink hemlock.
'Leave the Lizard? Go all the way to Greece? Oh, er, ah, you don't have to do all that, do you? Anyway, is it really necessary? You know what I feel about travelling. It fills me with dread.'
'I'm not getting any younger and I want everything to be right, that's all.'
'What about the mayor, surely she'd be glad to help, or others in the village. I'm sure they'd be honoured.'
'Most people here would jump at the chance of helping me but I don't want to involve his family or anyone else at this stage. Pantelis was my husband and I was his wife and it's my responsibility to show them. Godfrey, he was your family. I wouldn't ask you if it was not important.'
'I'd do anything else in the world for you, but the thought of travelling anywhere literally terrifies me.'
'I know that, Godfrey, I realise it's unfair and I'll understand if you say no but it would mean so much to me and I'll never ask you for another thing. Please Godfrey, at least think it over.'
'But what about work? We're always busy at this time of year and you don't know what Ms. Woody's like when we're short-handed.'
'Godfrey, this is an emergency. I'm sure they'll cope. Do you want me to ring her and have a word?'
'No thanks. Give me a little while and I'll call you later.'
'Thank you. Bye for now.'
I stood rigid. Clouds of butterflies invaded my whole body. I had a definite phobia about travelling, especially flying, absurd or morbid or not. I had never left the county in my whole life. Cornwall was where I belonged and I didn't want to leave - ever. And there was only one thing more terrifying to me than travelling and that was the thought of flying. I think it was the idea of being out of control; at someone else's mercy with so far to fall even though I knew the pilot didn't want to die either. But there were terrorists. What if the plane was hi-jacked? Athens is almost the middle-east. Anxiety made me walk up and down and puff and pant. Also, I think I had a fear of heights because there was a time once when I'd looked down over the cliffs at Land's End and got a really weird sensation in my navel like something was trying to get out. I wouldn't say it was butterflies, it was much less pleasant and anyway, I like butterflies. Thinking about it, it's not so much the fear of flying, it's more a fear of the highly unpleasant physical sensation you'd get from falling from a very great height and crunching into any hard surface, like the ground. Or not being able to breathe when drowning and being circled by great whites and not being a strong swimmer without my snorkel and fins. On the other hand, I'd been brave enough to hide in cupboards as a kid without the feeling of being shut in and I suppose all my anxiety was in my imagination. Maybe I just thought it was unnatural to fly because I tended to imagine my life in a time when there'd be no airplanes although there may have been space travel. After all Alexander the Great never took to the air. Well, I don't think he did but on the other hand, who knows for certain? But this wasn't the time to look for excuses. Or rather it was. Mother of Zeus! That Socrates had it easy. I decided there and then not to go.