Pani's Island by Tony Brown - HTML preview

4

Ebby was catnapping in the shade of the montbretia near the pond when I got home. I eased my way towards him and sat down on the grass.

'Are you asleep, Ebby?'

'No, Godfrey, just resting my eyes.'

'Care for a fishy treat?'

'Very thoughtful, Godfrey. Now, how can I help you?'

''Er, I need some advice.'

'You do surprise me.'

'You know Uncle's just died over in Greece, don't you?'

'I do. You have my condolences, Godfrey. This is a very hard time for you and your auntie, I know.'

'Thank you. Guess what? Auntie has asked me to go over for the funeral and be her anchor, you know, moral support and all that.'

'Quite an honour. I know you thought highly of him.'

'The thing is, just the thought of all the travelling seems incredibly risky and totally unnecessary. The thought seriously petrifies me. Then there are all the changes and foreigners and weird food. Ebby, I've never been out of Cornwall. I don't really see that I'd be much help.'

'Godfrey, you're telling me that your uncle has just died and your aunt, who must be grief-stricken, is miles away from home trying to sift her way through all that Greek red tape and bureaucracy, sell a house in a foreign country, safeguard her interests just like she has safeguarded yours all these years, keep herself safe and now you can't be bothered to be by her side? What a strange nephew you are.'

'I would have thought someone who spoke Greek and English, like the local mayor, would be a preferable help what with all the indigenous legalities but for some reason she thinks I should be there. And I just don't like funerals. I can't control my emotions in confined spaces. It's so awfully claustrophobic. And I hate it when they all turn to see who's doing all the noisy sobbing because it's always me. Oh dear, it's all such a nightmare.'

'Mmm.'

'I've always thought the funeral was such a basic, left-behind, earth-bound reaction to the departed. All that sadness seems so misplaced, particularly from those who believe in heaven. Rather than mourning you'd think they'd be rejoicing because at last their loved-one had passed on and proceeded to heaven to be eternally in the presence of their God. I remember at Grandma's funeral wondering why they weren't all happy and joyful. I mean for heaven's sake, she'd finally won her just rewards and gone to be in Paradise and all they could do was wail. Maybe deep down they had their doubts.'

'All you say is irrelevant now. As next male in the household, doesn't the burden of responsibility rest with you? Come, come. You've had the call from your only living relative. Think again.'

'You make me feel a bit of a wuss but I really am confused. I've never been to Greece and without a smattering of the language I don't see how I can help.'

'Ever heard of gratitude? Family ties? Of blood being thicker than water? Come on, Sir. It'd be an adventure. What've have you got to lose?'

'My life! That's what! No, I'm still not sure. I promised I'd ring her back after I've spoken to the library and that's going to be a bit tricky too.'

Ebby got up and stretched then went over to the pond. After several noisy slurps, he raised his head, letting the drops fall from his beard into the mud.

'Tricky? Why tricky? Godfrey, there's something else, isn't there?'

'Well yes. I think I've finally decided to resign from my job in the town library.'

'I thought so. Big decision but good for you. What do you need money for anyway?'

'If I have to go to Greece, I'll be away for a couple of weeks at least and that'll give me time to think it over. If I get back safely, I'll probably hand in my notice. And even if I don't go, I'm going to hand in my notice this Monday. It's decision time.'

'Mmm.' Ebby yawned wide and long, like a cat.

That evening, we sat in the lounge for our dinners. As we chatted, I realised that he really knew very little of my background. I'd put some fresh cat food in his dish and was hoping that, with a little more bribery, he might be able to see things from my point of view. Then as he licked up the last morsels of smelly jelly goo, he gave a particularly loud snuffle, 'Apart from your aunt, are any other members of your family still alive?'

'Not now. Of all my relatives who helped bring me up as a child, she was my favourite. She was my mother's sister. By the time she was ten auntie was on the stage in the famous Footlights Revue in London. She was a dancer and an acrobat. She toured with various band shows right across Europe. She was my other hero.'

'And your mother?'

'She died just after I was born so I never really knew her. And I never knew who my father was either. I wish I did.'

'Same with me, but for some reason you seem to blame yourself for having no real memories of your mother and father. But that has nothing to do with your memory. One day you will find out all the facts but in the meantime don't be so angry with yourself. There is no point.'

I threw him some fish from my plate which he sniffed then ignored.

'Auntie Agnes always said that as my mother's best friend she was entitled to take her place and whenever she came home from her touring she'd always make a big fuss and bring me presents that no other kid in school had. I had a real Cowboy suit from the States, some lederhosen from Germany, a toy ambulance from Austria and just loads of Yankee comics. I was brought up in a happy family of adult aunts and uncles who gave me all the love a child could need and as a result I have to say with all due respect that although I held what I had of her memory with great love and affection, I never really missed my mother. I never knew her.'

'What were you like at school?'

'A bit of a loner, actually.'

'How did your classmates regard you?'

'Well since I didn't join in their games, I was ignored, and even bullied on occasions.'

'That must have hurt.'

'Well it did until one frosty night when my aunt said something that gave me enormous self-confidence, 'Godfrey, I hope you realise that your mother lives up there in heaven, and she watches over you and will always keep you safe no matter what.'

I remember waking that night in my bed, warm as toast beneath the blankets and coats, and as I cleared the condensation from the window and looked up at the stars it suddenly hit me that the reason my mother wasn't around was because she was from another planet. That's what Auntie had meant when she'd said, “up in heaven”. My mother must be living somewhere amongst the stars in outer space and that made me a child of the universe. It was so obvious. That was why I didn't fit in and why they thought I was so different. It was because I was a time traveller stranded in the wrong era.'

'No shit.'

'From the next day on, I felt special. The playground was full of average earthlings whereas I saw myself as extra-terrestrial because my mother was an alien. I knew then why I couldn't relate to anything to do with my classmates.'

'No shit.'

'In school they all thought I was a bit feeble because I didn't like football. My uncle took me to an important match once when I was twelve and he said I spent the entire time with my back to the pitch watching the faces of the people in the crowd. I think he was proud of the fact that I took an interest in people.'

'What were you interested in apart from people?'

'My two big interests were Life in Ancient Greece and Rock'n'Roll. Auntie called Rock n Roll, jungle music and used to shout, “Turn it down!”, whenever I had it on. I loved that music. It made me dance. Especially with my radio under the sheets at bedtime. Greece was the same. I first fell in love with Greece when I was really young, when Uncle Pantelis read me The Iliad and The Odyssey. When he told me the labyrinth in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur was the actual Palace of Knossos in Crete, I decided that if the myths were based on actual places then some might even be true. My biggest my heroes were Socrates and Alexander the Great. I could relate to Socrates since he was a loner and an outsider. Alexander stood for his beliefs and refused to take “No” for an answer. No one pushed him around which is the way I'd like to be.'

'So Greek heroes, yet you've never been to Greece?'

'Never really been anywhere.'

Ebby finished his lunch. 'Mmm. Yes. Well, I've been thinking over your problem and now I know you should go to Greece - definitely.'

'Ah no, Ebby. Really? Why are you so positive?'

'Well, I have come to the conclusion that your aunt wants you there for a particular reason. I don't know what it is but you have to go to find out. Anyway, it's time you got over your nerves and did some travelling.'

'It's not nerves. It's a phobia.'

'Oh, don't start again.' Ebby sat up, scratched his ear and sighed. Before he went out through the cat flap he said, 'You know Godfrey, I live in the knowledge that my character is my destiny and whatever happens to me, happens because I am me. Everything is as it should be. There is really nothing to worry about at all. Nice jelly. Thanks.'

I think he meant just take life as it comes but the trouble was I'd never done anything spontaneous in my life. 

Next day in the garden Ebby tried to convince me with a different tack, 'Godfrey, this excursion to Greece, why not look upon it as just another adventure. All life is an adventure. Why not enjoy it? Anyway, I've always believed that travel helps to put things in perspective.'

'Well, the fact is not only have I never been outside the county but also, I've never ever been abroad.'

'Really? Never abroad? In forty years? You do surprise me. I've been all over the place. Well, not all over the place but I know all the gardens round here like...er...the back of the gardens round here.'

'It's disgraceful to admit it but the only time I almost left Cornwall was for a honeymoon. Even that was something of a disaster, a portent of what was to come perhaps.'

'Nobody told me you'd been married. '

'It was a massive mistake. Daphne Drew was a local art student when we married and I was a lot older than she was.'

'Sounds like you were desperate or drunk or both.'

'I think we'd been seeing each other for about half a night when we named the day - late one night in the restaurant where we worked and in front of our friends too.'

'What was your job in the restaurant?'

'I was the chef.'

'Did you do the food for the reception?'

'Er, yes.'

'Dicey.'

'I even promised to take her somewhere exotic for our honeymoon to fill in the gap until her results. But just after the wedding reception I developed an embarrassing attack of food poisoning so we had to cancel.'

'How did your bride take that?'

'She fell into a silence that was akin to being in the grip of another ice age.'

'How did she do in her finals?'

'She was depressed because she achieved rather low grades. I tried to comfort her and told her it wasn't important but she was very bitter about the whole thing and said her tutor was biased. She never really got over the sense of failure and became almost impossible to live with; drinking, smoking weed, late nights - even having affairs. Two years later we were divorced.'

'What's she doing now?'

'Entrepreneur in the art world and quite successful actually. Buys and sells antiques, I think. Lives and works all over the place.'

'Mmm, a hard row to hoe.'

'Oh, Daphne won't be doing the hoeing. She'll be in charge of the harvest.'

'No shit.'

'No, the nearest I've got to travelling came via Bart, our local friendly Druid.'

'Oh yes. I know Beardy Bart.'

'He's keenly interested in Celtic folklore and the like.'

'Fascinating.'

'One evening we had a long talk about dowsing, rites and rituals, that sort of thing. Anyway, he seems to know everything about Cornwall, Druids, origin of the Pasty et cetera. He's really quite interesting.'

 'I might have guessed,' Ebby yawned slowly and widely. 

'I know. Then he invited me on one of his treks to check out the quoits and places like that. We covered quite a bit of the southwest tip of the Lizard.'

Ebby's eyes seemed to glaze over.

'After that, I took my tent and went walking the coastal path and the bridal paths, and across the moors to round barrows and cairns.'

Ebby fixed his gaze on something invisible arcing in the empty air above him then shook his head in despair and winced, 'Ah, Godfrey, Godfrey please stop. Please. Now, may I be open with you? We are trying to discover why you are scared of flying to Greece. Apart from your adventures over the tracks and treasures of the county, I wonder did you ever leave the trodden path to explore the undergrowth. In other words, have you ever questioned your own accepted beliefs? Discovered any new conclusions? Or do you simply accept everything you were taught? You seem to have nurtured this fear of dying at some point in the future but if you think about it there is no future and there is no past, they don't exist. There is only the eternal here and now.' 

'That's a bit weird,' I began to feel uncomfortable. 'But in my mind I don't feel I really belong anywhere. I live in my books, in the ancient days. At least there I feel at home.'  

'But flying - have you never wondered why you have this fear? Is it because you fear death? There's no need to you know. No one and nothing really ever dies. Nature, human existence is nothing but a rolling calendar. Its energy always returns in another form.'

I thought he'd gone mad.

'To put it simply, we are all the energy of nature. All of us. Everything. Absolutely nothing exists of its own accord. Nothing. Everything is interdependent. Interrelated. Interwoven like a tapestry. We tend to view time strung out as a line but in the natural world everything happens in cycles, or circles. Life moves through the cycles of birth, growth, flowering, and bearing fruit which in turn casts the seed that begins life. It's mad to think of our existence as a short and simple spark of consciousness between two unconscious, dark, eternities. That's unnatural. Idiotic. After the dark comes the light and then the dark again and so on. Repeatedly. Dark, light, dark light. It's just nature being natural - in cycles. You have nothing to worry about.'

'I...I don't know what you're talking about. I don't understand.'

'Dear, dear Godfrey, don't be so hard on yourself. Now is the time to stop and really think. Don't take yourself too seriously. Life is not serious. It's we who make it serious, that's all. So have fun. Nature wants you to be happy. Accept yourself as you are with all your good points and bad points. The real deep down you is the whole universe. You are the energy of the universe. You are life. When you see your body Godfrey, that's not all you are. That's just a tiny part. Stop and look around. Everything you see, everything, - now that is you.'

'Hang on. What if ...'

'Look, what I am really saying is that you really don't need to fear anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you will see you are as much an extraordinary phenomenon as are cats, trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, the form of a galaxy...you are just like that, and there is really nothing wrong with you at all. You and the universe are one.'

'What? Please. Slow down. It's too complicated. It's hard to take in.'

'I had something else I wanted to say to you, but it's gone right out of my head,' Ebby stood on all fours and closed his eyes. 'Never mind. But for now you'll have to excuse me. It's time for my nap.'

Back in the house, I put on a CD of The Pantelis Lambrakis Bouzouki Orchestra and wandered from room to room. I knew what I had to do but being a coward didn't make things any easier. I couldn't find the strength to do what I knew was right and then I began to see some light in Ebby's lecture and the more I thought about it, little by little, the more my confidence grew. In the kitchen I picked up a notebook that belonged to Uncle Pantelis. On the cover was one word, Stephanos. Auntie kept it handy in the kitchen so she could pop into it when he was away. It was full of his jottings and little notes and a few bits of poetry that he liked to make up,

'My dear Agni, One morning, weary from hours of wandering through a wilderness of boulders and rocks, I rested by a deep pool and when I looked, my reflection made me jump. It made me aware of other dawns and of what it might have been like for some innocent primitive being, travelling in isolation. I wondered about the peace of mind that comes from scant imagination and I wondered if our unquenchable thirst for riches was the source of all unhappiness.

I miss you.

With love and gratitude, forever yours,

Pani.'

I phoned Auntie straight away.

'Auntie, everything's arranged. Now, don't worry about a thing. Leave everything to me. We're going to be fine. Of course I'll come.'

'Oh Godfrey, thank you, thank you. I won't forget this, believe me.'

'I'm on my way.'