Aftershock Page 4

  Within a week, Prince’s Fields had become a different, wintry place. Everyone was shivering – and Denny Clarke sloped off home at kick-off with a look at Makis that was meant to turn him to ice.

  The game was played on a hard, cold pitch – against Hawley Road boys who were hard, cold players. Running in strange boots on a frosty pitch jarred Makis, and the tendons in his arms sent twitches up and down. But Kefalonia can have some hard winters, too – and Makis was a boy who in the past would have gone out in his father’s boat when ice .was creaking all the ropes and the cold stuck the fish to your hands. Also, a boy who can dodge a charging goat can easily get out of the way of a Hawley Road defender intent on kicking him up in the air.

  Makis’s style of football suited playing against a rough side. He wasn’t big, and although his arms were strong from wrestling goats and hauling heavy nets, he couldn’t boot the ball as far as some of the others, so he kept things tight, made short passes, running on and calling to get the ball back, then sending it somewhere else. And he used what he’d learned in the playground – how to make passes with the outside of his foot as well as the inside – so that a hulking defender would come in at him expecting the ball to go left, then see it going right and lose his balance.

  The game was tight, and muscle gave Hawley Road a dubious goal when keeper Brian Cooper caught the ball and their centre-forward shoulder-charged him over the line, which their teacher allowed.

  That was the score at half-time: nil-one. But after a word from David Sutton, Mr Hersee pulled a stroke. He told Makis to switch positions with Gordon Tremaine, who was at inside-left. ‘Keep those side-foots going,’ he told Makis, ‘across and forward to Tremaine, and you both send balls to the wings – with Gull and Hickson running in.’ He added a touch of assembly-time poetry – ‘Slink between their tree trunks like wolves in a forest’ – which in plain language meant: use guile and speed and close control against these hefty foulers.

  And Makis set up the equalizing goal. David Sutton had just been floored by the Hawley Road centre-forward – although Mr Hersee didn’t whistle for a foul, having just given three on the trot – but Sutton managed to knee the spinning ball to Makis, who instead of controlling and using it, took a chance and met it in the air, volleying it out to Hickson on the left wing. Ray Hickson ran in and as the keeper came for him instead of the ball, shot early and slotted it between his legs.

  Goal! Mr Hersee spun on the spot and whistled as if he were a referee at a Wembley Cup Final.

  Sleeves were rolled up on the Hawley side. Socks were rolled down by Imeson Street. But the hero was Mr Hersee. With two minutes to go, as Michael Long went for a header in the Hawley box, out came their keeper and clattered him – long before the ball arrived. What would the ref do? The most likely answer was nothing, because the ref would be favouring his own team. But he blew his whistle. Penalty! The playing decision was easy; it was the ref’s ruling that was brave. And on the dot of twenty-five minutes, after Sutton had scored the winning goal, Mr Hersee emptied his lungs blowing the final whistle. Imeson Street was through to round three.

  Makis realised, as he walked home steaming-hot in the cold, that the next game could be played anywhere – even a bus-ride away if Imeson Street wasn’t drawn at home. But he was too pleased with taking that chance when the ball spun off David Sutton to start fretting yet. He could have tried to control the ball and pass it short – but that volley had split the other team’s defence. And he could still feel the warmth of Mr Hersee’s pleasure after the game. He hadn’t said anything, but he’d ruffled Makis’s hair – and Makis hadn’t had his hair ruffled since his dad died.

  His mother was cooking snapper when he got in, not fretting in the living-room – so perhaps she was getting used to him coming in late on Thursdays. When the meal was over – with the two of them still at the table – Makis brought out what he’d been sitting on: the Red Spot reading book.

  ‘Mama, please will you help me with this?’ he asked. He was far above this level now, but he put on a puzzled look as he opened the book.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘My reading, in English.’

  She looked at it. She frowned. But she was still Sofia Magriotis, Makis’s mother, who had always helped him back in Kefalonia.

  ‘All right – after we’ve cleared the table.’

  And then the pretence began. Setting the Red Spot book between them like two pupils at a desk, Makis opened the first double page.

  I am Sally.

  I am Mum.

  “Hello, Sally.”

  “Hello, Mum.”

  Makis could read the words perfectly, but his fingernail grooved the page beneath them as if he couldn’t. His mother tried to mouth the words with him, then he slowly went over them again with his mother joining in. He turned the page.

  I am John.

  I am Dad.

  “Hello, John.”

  “Hello, Dad.”

  After one go-through, Sofia read the page with him, the two of them saying the words together.

  Makis risked one more page. This idea of him needing help seemed to work, but he didn’t want to keep going on until it didn’t. He had to be patient. He would always remember how one summer his father had tried night after night to catch a large grouper lurking in the bay. He had used this bait, he had used that – but most of all, he had used patience. And on the fourth night he had come home with the grouper in his arms, heavy, with a dorsal fin that scraped the lintel of the door as he carried it through. There was a look on his father’s face that couldn’t be bought for silver or gold.

  So Makis would be patient. For tonight, they’d do just one more page.

  “Hello, John,” said Sally.

  “Hello, Sally,” said John.

  “Hello, Dad,” said Sally.

  “Hello, Mum,” said John.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Makis. ‘That helped me a lot.’

  ‘Good.’ His mother turned to the front of the book and looked through the three double pages again, the words on the left-hand side and the pictures on the right – of a sunshiny garden with trees, under a blue sky.

  ‘Aaah!’ she sighed.

  ‘I’ll wash the plates,’ Makis offered. He wanted to move things forward, not back. Back was too sad.

  And at the sink, he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself. He’d helped to win a football match, and he’d got his mother saying words in English!

  Chapter Eight

  Even Denny Clarke’s jealous spite couldn’t take away Makis’s glow the next day. The Cup match result was announced by Mr Hersee in assembly. The Head’s pride was the school’s pride, too, and some of the children dared to cheer.

  ‘We do not boo, we do not cheer at Imeson Street,’ Mr Hersee admonished. ‘We clap, like English gentlemen.’

  ‘Magriotis isn’t one!’ Denny Clarke growled. ‘Dirty little Greek!’ He came out with insults in the playground every time Makis touched the ball. ‘Dirty Greek! Dirty Greek!’ But Makis didn’t let them get to him. The others, led by David Sutton, were shouting encouragement at him, and in the end Denny Clarke shut up.

  No one could take away what had happened the afternoon before: Makis had been one of the team that had scored a David and Goliath victory. He was beginning to feel at home in Camden Town. And his reading in English was moved on to the Purple Spot in the lesson after dinner break. He couldn’t ask for much more.

  But when he got home, more was given to him.

  After their meal, again he asked his mother to help him with his reading – and she read with him the first three pages of the Red Spot book. He hesitated before he read the first Hello, and she said ‘Hello’ before he did. Then they moved on to page four.

  “I can run, John.”

  “I can run, Sally.”

  “See me run, Mum.”

  “See me run, Dad.”

  Makis’s mother stayed silent as Makis painfully spelt it out – but she joined in with him as he tried to
speed up, to make more sense of it. And it was while they were doing this – heads touching, minds together at the age-old task, that Makis had his next big lift.

  It came with a knock at the door.

  ‘Forgive me for intruding.’ Mr Laliotis said.

  ‘Of course.’ With Kefalonian courtesy, Sofia gestured for him to come in.

  He glanced around the room. ‘You are working…?’

  Sofia looked at Mr Laliotis, then at Makis, who was holding up the Red Spot book for their visitor to see. And, lifting her head, she said, ‘Makis is teaching me to read English.’

  Makis nearly fell off his chair. What? Was she saving face for him – or had she guessed what he was doing? Had she worked out that he was tricking her into learning English? Whatever it was, he could only smile like a good loser.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to interrupt such a worthy enterprise…’

  So did she feel OK about learning to read English? Or was this just to let him know that she had seen through him? Some footballs go where you want them to go by bouncing them off a player’s legs.

  ‘…However, my wife is out this evening, and I’ve dusted off my balalaika. When you’ve finished, perhaps Makis would like to come and rehearse a tune or two?’ Mr Laliotis looked at the mandolin hanging on the wall. ‘The Gibson looks good, but it always sounds even better.’

  And Mr Laliotis, the famous BBC violinist, knew his name!

  ‘We’ll read the next page, and then he can come up to you. Thank you.’

  ‘And another time, we’ll make it a little party, eh? When Mrs Laliotis is at home…?’

  But Makis’s mother was vigorously shaking her head, and shrinking a little, back into the other, sadder Sofia Magriotis. ‘Thank you, but I don’t go out,’ she said.

  Mr Laliotis rode over the refusal like a gentleman. ‘That’s very sad. But it would give me pleasure to play balalaika tonight,’ he said. ‘Is it all right for Makis to come?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sofia Magriotis was a Kefalonian lady. ‘I’ll send him up.’

  ‘Thank you. Then for the moment I’ll say… ‘ and here Mr Laliotis smiled, and with a look over at the Red Spot book, finished in English – ‘Goodbye.’

  To which Sofia bowed her head, ‘Goodbye,’ she said, also in English and very matter-of-fact, as if she’d been saying it all her life.

  Mr Laliotis’s flat was everything that Makis’s wasn’t. It was high above the street, it was light, and it had matching furniture. Where Sofia and Makis walked on linoleum and mats, Mr Laliotis had carpets; and while Sofia and Makis had one armchair, up on the middle floor there was a long sofa and two armchairs. But it was the piano that really set the places apart. It was a baby grand, near the window where the light fell across the keyboard. Makis stood in the doorway and felt like a delivery boy wringing his cap in his hand.

  ‘Come in, come in!’ Mr Laliotis had swapped his jacket for a short-sleeved pullover, his bow-tie for a collarless shirt. And in his hands he was holding his long-necked, maple balalaika. ‘Let’s tune our instruments, eh?’ He took the mandolin from Makis and plucked the E string. He then plucked the first of his three balalaika strings, also an E. ‘That’s not bad!’ The tuning Makis had done downstairs brought a little nod from the man, and a wink as he began to tune the other strings of both instruments. ‘Please check it,’ he said to Makis, handing back the mandolin. It was perfect, of course, and Makis found himself doing that same sudden uplift of his face that his father had used to do, to say that he was ready. But he didn’t have a plectrum, and a mandolin needs a plectrum.

  ‘Here.’ From a small leather pouch Mr Laliotis took a couple of plectrums, held them in front of him, and handed the smaller of the two to Makis.

  ‘Makis, do you know, “The Cuckoo Sleeps”?‘

  Makis nodded. Of course he did. Every child of three knew the bedtime lullaby; but the way Mr Laliotis pronounced the title, it could have been one of the classics. ‘So, how about if you play the D chords? I’ll bring you in.’

  Makis set his fingers on the E and G strings and checked the sound with a couple of strokes of the plectrum. He looked up again – to see that Mr Laliotis was now wearing a serious BBC face, the professional musician giving respect to his instrument as he played a concert introduction to the simple tune. In came Makis with his D chords, picked rhythmically across the strings like the tick of a clock. And as they got into the tune, they both began to sing.

  “The cuckoo sleeps on the hills, and the partridge in the bush;

  And my baby sleeps in his cot to fill his soul with slumber.”

  Only pride held back Makis’s tears. At one and the same time he was his father playing mandolin under the olive tree, and the small boy he had once been, hearing the words of the lullaby.

  They stopped. ‘Will you take the melody now?’ Mr Laliotis asked. Not can you, but will you? And Makis thought he could – in fact, he knew he could. It was simple.

  ‘So… ‘ Again Mr Laliotis did the fancy introduction, and with a nod to Makis, he dropped to the chords while Makis took the tune. And again they sang the lullaby.

  ‘Bravo! Well done!’

  Makis was pleased with his playing. He rested his father’s mandolin across his knees. No, not his father’s mandolin – his mandolin, inherited from his father. Makis Magriotis’s Gibson. His lips quivered, which he quickly turned into a smile; because if he hadn’t, he’d have burst out in a mixed-up wail.

  Chapter Nine

  Makis was disappointed when the next round of the Fred Berryman Trophy was drawn. Not by the team they had to play – Larkson Lane was a name that meant nothing to him – but by being drawn away at Chase Fields, Kentish Town – not even in Camden. Makis should have been proud to know he’d been picked to play; instead, he wanted the name on that team sheet to be Denny Clarke. But it wasn’t, and Denny looked at it and swore when he saw the note underneath: Reserve to travel: Clarke.

  ‘Dirty Greek! Comin’ over here an’ taking the place of a proper English boy.’

  ‘How do we get to Chase Fields?’ Makis asked Costas.

  ‘Get a bus after school,’ Costas told him. ‘It’s a good long way.’

  Under his breath, Makis said a Greek word that he shouldn’t have known. The game was on Thursday next week. What was he going to do? Tell Mr Hersee he couldn’t play? Or work on his mother, prepare her for him being extra late that evening? Well, he didn’t know right now, so he just had to leave things as they were.

  The problem went out of his mind when he walked in on her. She was sitting at the table with a Red Spot book. It wasn’t open, but it was there – and somehow her face seemed different. The no-hope look wasn’t there tonight. Instead, she looked the way she’d be on a bad day in Kefalonia, not a bad day in Camden Town. There was a world of difference.

  ‘Are you going to help me again?’ he asked.

  She gave him a look, as if to say, who’s fooling who? He broke away and warmed his hands at the electric fire, rubbing them enthusiastically, the way his father always did when he saw his favourite meal on the table.

  Like a girl in school, Sofia opened the Red Spot reader at the first page, and even as Makis was pulling up a chair she read from the beginning with hardly any prompting from him. It was only her accent that was different from a London schoolgirl’s. So now there was no pretence. She wasn’t helping him – he was teaching her.

  They came to the next new page.

  “I can jump, John.”

  “So can I. I can jump, Sally.”

  “See me jump, Mum.”

  “See me jump, Dad.”

  See you jump off Mount Énos! Stupid kids! Makis thought. But after helping his mother with a phonic sounding-out of j-u-m-p, he was delighted with the way she raced down the page. In his chest he felt a teacher’s pleasure, thinking how she was going to enjoy The Man Who Ran to Sparta when they got to it. He’d enjoyed it best of all the books when he’d read it himself. It was a proper Greek story.

&n
bsp; Sofia finished the Red Spot book, and with a flourish Makis pulled the Green Spot book from behind his back.

  ‘Red,’ Makis said in English, tapping the first book. ‘Green.’ He pointed to the colour of the second. ‘Like the traffic lights. Red and Green.’

  His mother nodded patiently. Yes, she understood.

  The green book started with Sally in a sunny garden, standing in a small paddling pool: “See me in my pool, John.”

  Sofia looked at the picture and put the back of her hand to her mouth, the way she used to laugh at her husband’s jokes. ‘See me get eaten by a giant squid!’ she said in Greek. ‘Silly girl!’ It was the first time Makis had heard her chuckle since sunnier times.

  He laughed, too. ‘No, squid, wait till John gets in the water. Get two together!’ Sofia gave a little squeal – and on an impulsive surge, Makis went to the kitchen and brought back a green bottle of cleaning fluid. There wouldn’t be much sensible reading done for a bit. He unhooked the Gibson from the wall and, with his fingers finding the right chord, he put a foot up on his chair.

  ‘Bottle,’ he said in Greek, pointing to it. ‘Bottle,’ he repeated in English. ‘Green bottle.’ He showed her how it was the same colour as the big spot on the cover of book. Now with his free hand flashing five fingers twice, he told her, ‘Ten.’ He showed where nine imaginary bottles were standing beside the real one. ‘Ten green bottles.’ And he started on his song:

  ‘Ten green bottles hanging on the wall,

  Ten green bottles hanging on the wall,

  And if one green bottle should accidentally fall – ‘

  he made the bottle drop over, just a little way –

  ‘There’ll be nine green bottles hanging on the wall.’

  ‘Nine,’ he said. ‘Nine.’

  Sofia looked a bit puzzled, so he started singing again, ‘Nine green bottles hanging on the wall…’