Footprints in the Sand

‘Tar. I’ve got it all over my new shorts.’

‘Oh Lucy.’

‘Oh Lucy’ – it was the way she said it. Mum had her tired voice on. I could tell she was really fed up too. We made our way back over the sun-baked rocks. I was forced to limp with one sandal on and one foot bare, and I could feel the sole of my bare foot practically griddling on the hot stone.

‘I think we should treat ourselves to a really nice lunch to make-up,’ said Mum, trying to cheer me up in the most obvious way as the harbour came into view once again.

The ‘restaurant’ the taverna owner had mentioned was nothing but a few blue-washed tables and chairs set out in a sloping lopsided way on the beach. The whole place was salt-encrusted and fishy, and by the look of it, salmonella was generally the dish of the day.

But by the time we reached it, I was past caring about food. I just sank down gratefully on one of their rickety rush chairs.

‘All I want is a drink,’ I said.

‘Oh Lucy.’

‘Well, do you seriously want to eat here?’

‘There isn’t anywhere else. Not without climbing up all those steps again.’

I just sat on my chair not speaking. By all rights, I should be stopping off somewhere glamorous with Migs and Louisa – somewhere clean and civilised, sitting at a café in Venice maybe, eating a nice squidgy slice of pizza, with loads of dark and gorgeous Italian boys chatting us up.

‘Well, the dredger’s stopped anyway,’ said Mum.

‘I thought something was missing.’

‘Oh come on Lucy, what are you going to have?’

I sighed. ‘What’s the choice?’

‘Umm…’ Mum peered at the menu, which was all in Greek.

‘I bet it’ll be fish, fish, fish or fish.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with fish.’

‘I loathe fish, as well you know.’

‘You used to love fish fingers.’

‘That was ages ago.’

‘I think we’ll have to go into the kitchen and choose,’ said Mum, after a minute or so. ‘They won’t mind, everyone does that in Greece.’

The kitchen was dark after the bright sunlight outside. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, I found I was face to face with a glass-fronted fridge.

I was right, the choice was fish. There were loads of them, all shapes and sizes, staring back at me. This fish wasn’t cut up into neat white rectangles like it was back home. And it didn’t have batter or breadcrumbs on it. It had heads on, and tails on, and looked as if, ever so recently, it had been swimming around alive and well, unaware that the day’s swim was going to come to such a nasty end.

There was a large lady in a witch dress standing behind the fridge, grinning at us. A gold tooth gleamed in the darkness.

‘I don’t fancy anything if you don’t mind,’ I said with a grimace.

‘Oh Lucy. Don’t be such a wimp, darling, it looks simply delicious. It’s probably just come out of the sea.’

‘Can’t I have chips?’

‘Only chips? Well, if you must. But we didn’t have much to eat last night.’

‘Chips’ll be fine.’

So I had chips and a Coke and Mum had fish and some wine. We sat at a table in the shade not far from the water’s edge. I think the wine must’ve been pretty strong because after a glass or so, Mum kept going on about what a brilliant place it was. She came out with all this ‘unspoilt’ stuff again and droned on and on about how we were getting back to the ‘real Greece’ and how time stood still in this kind of place. It was all that ‘alternative lifestyle’ nonsense that Dad sometimes came out with. I reckon the olds had been brainwashed with it when they were young.

All I could see was that we were sitting on a grotty beach that had several centuries of discarded fishbones and rotting fish heads mixed in among the pebbles. And that there were feral-looking cats hanging around which seemed horribly mangy and possibly rabid. And that the sea looked weedy and oily and fishy and had bits floating in it …

‘Oh look at those children. It must be paradise for them here. It’s like going right back to nature…’ said Mum, absent-mindedly filling her glass again.

I looked. A couple of unhealthily chubby little boys were wading in the rust brown sea. They had a plastic bag with them and they were emptying it into the water a few metres out. A load of bloody-looking fish guts fell from the bag. As they did so, a shoal of tiny fish surrounded them and the water boiled around their legs as the younger fish eagerly devoured the remains of their elders. The boys squealed with delight and tried to catch them with their fingers.

‘Yeah, what’s that phrase? Nature raw in tooth and claw?’ I agreed.

The trek back up the steps to the taverna seemed to go on forever. By the time we reached the top, we were both hot and cross and headachy.

‘Bags first in the shower,’ I said.

‘Don’t be long then. I think I’m going to melt.’

I turned the shower on and nothing happened. When I tried to flush the loo it made a hollow cranking noise and no water came out.

‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s the final straw. I’m not staying here any longer.’ I was near to tears.

‘Oh Lucy. Don’t tell me the water’s off.’

‘Try for yourself.’

I lay down on my bed as Mum tried a range of clanking and cranking, but she had no more luck than me.

‘See?’

She sat down on her bed. ‘Do you really hate it here?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘Well, I suppose it is a bit primitive…’

‘Primitive! It’s positively Stone Age. I’m hot and I’ve got a headache and there isn’t even any water.’

‘Maybe we should have looked further.’

‘Hmmm.’