The Summer of '93

Sounion summer

I woke up in Alexandros' spare bedroom, bleary eyed and a little tired. It's the moment that your body clock awakes but the brain tells you it needs more rest and this conflict of brain cells fighting awake makes you feel woozy. The heavy shutters that fended off those mozzies were shut firmly closed so I opened them. They were electric, brown metal, nothing like we got back home. Greek sun streamed in and woke me up. 

I gazed disappointingly into the mirror as I brushed my teeth, trying to untangle my unruly hair and recover my pillow face skin. Having splashed some life onto my skin, that was looking forward to some sunshine  and order into my curls, I was prepared to meet people. I was glad I hadn't drunk anything last night and I smiled uncontrollably as the recollection of last night as images and sounds, filled my brain. The music brought back a whirlwind of welcome memories from my nightclub days at Mr Craig's in Leeds. Nostalgic music had brought it all back; my love of dance and all things ear filling. I'd forgotten how I vibrated like a speaker when the base flowed through me. I'd missed my old dancing buddies like Chaka Khan, S-Express and Rose Royce. Last night had been pure joy, with a flourish of Dionisis on top. It's that internal scream of dilirium when the few bars first play that spark recognition, followed by the pure emotion of love that trigger those dewy tears of appreciation when the tune registers. 

There was not much music kicking around this house. At home I had my CD and record player. Here it felt bare and felt like it was missing something intrinsic to life. The kitchen in this household was the hub of family life, so I knew I would find Alexandros' Mother in there busy with something. I recognised their cleaner Aretha and smiled. She was quite shy but was a firm friend of the family, as she had worked many years for them. She was cleaning in, what I named myself as the 'Posh' room. It had a secretive air of a mystique about it, in that apart from Aretha and Alex's Mother, no one went in the room that I ever saw. That said, no one really needed to. My understanding was that as Doctors, Alex's Father Giannis (I never called him that, and Alex always spoke to him in the polite form, Sir, Dionisis later confirmed to me, that it was a very different world from the one I was used to) had a public surgery as part of his job and also a private surgery. I had never pried or asked too many questions but I got the feeling that Doctors were held in high esteem in Greece and as a result, he had a number of very high profile clients. My memories of going on holiday with Giannis was that he was always studying late into the night and I also understood that part of the job was entertaining those customers. In that lucid state, at that time of night we always had our best conversations. He would impart wisdom and I would listen. For the valuable work that he did, in turn they got presents of wine and such, as reward for their gratitude. This room was for welcoming special guests, I imagined. It had a grand dining table and the shutters were always shut so it was never really possible to actually peer into it properly. But the marble floor was especially beautiful.

Alex's Mother, Maria was always exceedingly kind to me. She was a gentle woman who always gave me the feeling that she wanted to be able to speak to me more, and I wanted the same, but given the limits on vocabulary, well I had tried to teach myself but never got the real opportunity to truly practise as everyone I met wanted to practise their English on me!

She always insisted on making me breakfast. I always found the breakfast a bit strange and stodgy with bread and olives and the odd pastry. The last thing I ever wanted was to ever offend this wonderful family and we sort of settled on eggs and fruit in the end. I didn't feel comfortable at all with her waiting on me. She was very important to me. I would have loved to have a greater insight into her life, her beliefs, what being a working mother was like and what I should know as a visitor, not to offend but language, or lack of it, impaired everything. Alex and Ioanna soon joined us and the small table by the fridge became very quickly, an area of laughter and activity. I always felt blessed that I was integrated into and included into the family when I was with them, and here was Alex compiling breakfast on a plate, in his vest!