Everything was packed and
organised. Plaka was where I'd decided to spend 12 July, my last day in Tilos for months. I
set out with Lisa in late morning. Walking by Elpida, the taverna by the sea
where the road turns one way to Ayios Andonis, the other to Plaka, on impulse I
stopped and bought dolmades se paketo
to take to the beach for lunch. The clouds that had kept the day cool seemed to
be clearing, and I might want to linger by the sea.
The
dolmades were warm as I wrapped them up and tucked them in my backpack.
Sotiris, the taverna owner, sat down again on the terrace and asked about
Yianni, when he was coming back from Australia. Not yet, I said. His mother needs him. But he wants to come back. I asked Sotiri to fill up my water
bottle, needing enough for Lisa and me for the day.
The
walk was beautiful; though it’s a road, not a footpath, there are hardly
ever any cars. I kept Lisa on the lead so she couldn’t chase the goats.
We passed the little monastery of Kamariani, where back at the start of the
year I had arranged to meet Ian – known to locals as Yianni – for a walk to
Plaka.
After
eight years in Tilos, he had to leave, he said, as his 82-year-old mum needed
help. He would go at the end of January. We’d been friends since I arrived
on the island but never close – strangely, as we both loved writing and books and walking. Until recently, I'd assumed the 'S' he wrote about in his blog was still his girlfriend; and on the other side of the mountain I'd been with my own S, though quietly I'd felt it wasn't to last.
In the final days before he left, realising there might be something more
between us, we got to know one another, walking to some of our favourite places
in the hills and swimming in ice-cold sea together. And
now, six months later, I was leaving Tilos too for a while. Why would anyone
leave Tilos in the summer to go to Australia in the winter? For love, of course.
When
Lisa and I reached the top of the track that leads down to Plaka beach, the sea
looked clear and blue and perfect. I let her off the lead so she could run to the
sea to cool off.
There'd been a fire at Plaka just a week before. My mum had been
staying with me, and we’d seen the plume of smoke rising from the side of the
mountain one day as we returned home. They’d managed to put it out quickly, dropping
seawater from above, though that night we’d seen the red lights of the helipad still
illuminated.
Now
I made my way slowly down the rough track, surveying the fire damage. A large
area of the park was charred to dark grey. The peacocks, I'd heard, had all
survived. When I looked up from the beach, there was still a view of trees and
green hillsides, but when I swam out into the sea, large blackened sections of
ground were visible. It would probably take the winter rains to start things
growing again.
People
used fire sometimes to help things grow better, didn’t they? What can seem
terrible damage one day… like what I’d done at the end of January… that was for
the best, I hoped.
Along the beach was a scattering of hippyish Greek holidaymakers.
I walked farther around to my favourite place, and found Lisa some shade to
sleep in. I swam underwater over the posidonia, the sea grass that sustains so
much sea life, as it flowed back and forth with the waves. Using Dimitris’ old
mask, which his family gave me, I got up close to some of the fish: a skaros below
me tilted its body a little to look up, then spotted me and
shot away; a yermanos, mottled grey and white and black, had ferocious spines
sticking up from its back although it was only half the length of my hand. I
touched bright orange-red anemones and swam into shoals of tiny fish, and watched
groups of others as pale and uniform as the Christian ichthus.
As
Lisa and I walked back across the beach, peacocks stalked the sand, moving
their heads back and forth under delicate tiaras. A couple of them flew up onto
the crumbling gateposts as if pretending to be ornamental; then they stared at
one another, and leaped down into the park.
I
considered what I love about Tilos: it’s rugged, wild, vibrantly colourful,
diverse and yet empty, like living in a national park. Yet it’s small enough to
get to know intimately, to see how the view changes from season to season, from
morning to evening or depending on the way the wind’s blowing. It’s uninhabited
enough – except for its roaming animals and underwater life – that you can believe
it’s your own.
Those
last few days had been intense, with many powerful emotions coursing through me.
But it was time to leave and continue getting to know the man who also loved
this place in very similar ways, who loved being alone in the emptiest parts of
the island and who also cried to leave it. At these times when I felt utterly
in love with my surroundings, he was the only person I could really imagine walking
and swimming with.
After
I got back to Megalo Horio, I went to say goodbye to my landlord, Antoni, and
he told me he wanted to keep the house for me when I returned, and that I
should pass on his greetings to Yianni. As I walked up the hill, Vasiliki was
at Kali Kardia and Lisa attacked her with love, holding her face in her front
paws. Vasiliki said she’d make sure Lisa got to spend some time at their house
over the summer with their dog Freddie. I couldn't take her with me, but she'd be happy at home with Stelios in Tilos.
Nikos
and Rena were sitting outside the supermarket. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ I said,
and Nikos nodded to Rena, who went inside and came back, smiling, with the aluminium
bottle that Nikos had asked me to take to Yianni. Ouzo. Nikos never tired of
telling me how Yianni would hike up to the monastery in the rain or swim all
the way across Ayios Andonis bay. ‘Tell him to come back sooner!’
I
sat on my terrace looking out at the dark with a glass of wine,
listening to the footsteps of people passing through the alley in front of the house,
Lisa growling or barking at a person or a cat from time to time. I hadn't managed to see Michaelia before leaving; like so many people in Megalo Horio, she has relatives in Australia.
When Lisa and I arrived at Kali Kardia, it was busy with people from
the village and for a while Maria sat down with me, pretending to be a customer
so she could get off her feet. Michalis and Vasiliki invited me to join their
table but understood when I said I wanted to sit alone tonight. Lisa had picked up on my
mood and sat quietly, looking out over the balcony. When it was time to go, everyone
wished me a good journey to Australia and sent ‘many, many greetings to Yianni’.
‘We
are waiting for you!’ they shouted and waved goodbye as we walked up into the
village.
So
now, for a little while, ‘an octopus in my ouzo’ is based in Oz – as is that
other Tilos blog, ‘when the wine is bitter’ – writing about Tilos and listening
to Greek songs... I hope both will be back in Greece before too long.
