[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
assume she s still waving, so I make one last grab at the
empty sky in case her eyesight s better than mine.
We never did establish if the whole private invest-
igator thing was a scam, but that doesn t seem to worry
Miller. No-one ever came by the pool hall, so far as we
know, to make sure it was not closed in the evenings or
to meet her staff, and we never even saw George. If it
was all an elaborate ploy to get some time off then she
probably deserved it. She tried to pay us this morning
for our week of playing pool and sleeping on sofas but
Miller refused the euros, though our own collection is
fast disappearing. Maybe this afternoon a couple of lads
from Luxembourg will be trading shots when Georgina
gets a frantic call from her sister-in-law.
I look at our remaining handful of hundred euro
notes, the very same ones we d got from the bank in
Perth. Luckily we ve had no accommodation costs in
235
our last two cities and so the rate of cash-dwindle has
slowed down which it certainly needed to. If we avoid
work much longer, though, it will have to be back into
the sky one last time for us. Me, I d rather take work at
the IDS branch office in Siberia than return, once and
for all, to Perth just yet.
Miller has put me in control of the cash on the
condition I don t spend it all on keftedes, which is now
most unlikely since I m totally over them. I ve eaten
them right from instant passion, through certainty of
everlasting love, followed by sudden complacency, and
now to boredom and irrelevance. Maybe this is my
signature process I immediately obsessed about Zoe
night and day, feasting on thoughts of her, and now I
rarely think of her and it appears to be the same with
lamb meatballs dipped in yoghurt and cucumber sauce.
The few notes we have left will get us to Antiparos
plus a couple of days of hanging, if there s anything to
hang from, and then all we ll have left is our remaining
frequent flyer points. It s fortunate that we ve never
once had to change currencies on this whole trip,
even though Amsterdam is a world away from Athens.
As a result I ve started to think in euros rather than
converting to dollars.
The Greeks are real proud to be thought of as
part of Europe, whereas I got the impression that the
German Government is a little annoyed that their club s
membership has been opened up so widely. In turn,
the Greeks are now looking down their substantial
noses at the really new kids on the block Bulgaria and
236
Romania. Some guy we met in a café a few days back
pretty well suggested that their inclusion in this special
club, the European Union, virtually heralds the end of
civilisation as we know it. Wait for the bitching when
Kazakhstan s application gets approved.
Miller spends the hours to Paros sleeping on the deck
as I watch our stuff and prepare myself for serious
disappointment. Today is gonna be brilliant or it s
gonna suck big time. My money, what s left of it, is on
the latter result, but everything else of value that I have
my heart, my head is all on today working out as
I ve daydreamed it a hundred times. I remind myself to
prepare for what in fact is the most likely result when
black battles white grey. The scenario where Cali will
show just enough to keep me guessing but not enough
to make me feel comfortable is something I m gonna
torture my brain with for the next few hours at least.
That s a guarantee.
Apparently Paros is a reasonable-sized island, and
it s only a thirty-minute boat trip to the much smaller
Antiparos. Why it s called Antiparos will be up for
discovering, I guess. The salty spray keeps drying on
my skin so that my face feels repeatedly stretched and
then loosened, like Joan Rivers . Most of our fellow
buccaneers are passed out on the benches inside the
boat, so the sea s spit and the sun s scorch have very
few others to compete over.
As we push closer to Paros, the midday sun is
amplified to extreme as it bounces off the brilliant
237
whitewashed cube-shaped houses, blue-domed
churches and tangle of dazzling white alleys. I wake
Miller so he can take this picture into his memory. He s a
little dozy on being woken, reminding me of someone else
recently. I have no idea what the next step should be with
regard to his mother. All I m sure of is that he wouldn t
want to know unless I could guarantee she wouldn t be
given the opportunity to fuck him over again.
Getting even closer to Paros, I now see fishing
boats with actual fishermen selling a catch that s never
known the inside of a refrigerator. The village is a living
postcard and I want to stamp all over it. We have less
than an hour here and, not just because I d happily
delay the impending embarrassment of meeting Cali
and her boyfriend or Cali and her memory loss, I wish
it weren t just a place we were passing by.
Now that we re docking into the port I can see
that the village centre and the alleyways, which rise
up softly through the hillsides of white, have all been
overrun by cats. They laze in the sun as if they ve never
encountered a dog in their lives. Miller grabs our packs
as I m too busy being blown away by all the happenings
in this still place. Fuck, there are more cats than people.
There are more cats than in Cats.
Can you believe we re still in the same time zone
as Athens?! says Miller, now getting up to speed on
the beauty of this place I d never even heard of just
a month ago. Which other amazing places have been
hiding all this time?
238
Yeah, it s not bad I suppose, I say, dripping with
understatement.
So, you re finally over keftedes, right?
She s outta my head for good, I reply, getting a
confused look from Miller.
I ve sorta linked my love-at-first-sight thing for Zoe
with my love-at-first-bite thing for lamb meatballs,
I explain, yet again proving that I ain t a friend of
Shakespeare s language.
I m sure any girl would love to hear that, buddy,
Miller laughs, adding, So I presume your slower march
towards other Greek delicacies like calamari is mirrored
in this quest for Cali?
Actually calamari does make sense now that you
mention it, given we re in a fishing village, I respond,
hoping to deflect conversation away from the real
reason we re here.
We sit on the edge of this world, our legs dangling
above a sea of food, and delight our way through as many
rings of squid as our budget can handle. The miniature
woman in the takeaway shop fried the calamari right
in front of us and packed our lunch as carefully as if it
were her life s blood. She smiled even though she knew
we d most likely never be this way again, and I tipped
her because she didn t expect it.
Antiparos moves closer to us with less dressing than [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl freetocraft.keep.pl
assume she s still waving, so I make one last grab at the
empty sky in case her eyesight s better than mine.
We never did establish if the whole private invest-
igator thing was a scam, but that doesn t seem to worry
Miller. No-one ever came by the pool hall, so far as we
know, to make sure it was not closed in the evenings or
to meet her staff, and we never even saw George. If it
was all an elaborate ploy to get some time off then she
probably deserved it. She tried to pay us this morning
for our week of playing pool and sleeping on sofas but
Miller refused the euros, though our own collection is
fast disappearing. Maybe this afternoon a couple of lads
from Luxembourg will be trading shots when Georgina
gets a frantic call from her sister-in-law.
I look at our remaining handful of hundred euro
notes, the very same ones we d got from the bank in
Perth. Luckily we ve had no accommodation costs in
235
our last two cities and so the rate of cash-dwindle has
slowed down which it certainly needed to. If we avoid
work much longer, though, it will have to be back into
the sky one last time for us. Me, I d rather take work at
the IDS branch office in Siberia than return, once and
for all, to Perth just yet.
Miller has put me in control of the cash on the
condition I don t spend it all on keftedes, which is now
most unlikely since I m totally over them. I ve eaten
them right from instant passion, through certainty of
everlasting love, followed by sudden complacency, and
now to boredom and irrelevance. Maybe this is my
signature process I immediately obsessed about Zoe
night and day, feasting on thoughts of her, and now I
rarely think of her and it appears to be the same with
lamb meatballs dipped in yoghurt and cucumber sauce.
The few notes we have left will get us to Antiparos
plus a couple of days of hanging, if there s anything to
hang from, and then all we ll have left is our remaining
frequent flyer points. It s fortunate that we ve never
once had to change currencies on this whole trip,
even though Amsterdam is a world away from Athens.
As a result I ve started to think in euros rather than
converting to dollars.
The Greeks are real proud to be thought of as
part of Europe, whereas I got the impression that the
German Government is a little annoyed that their club s
membership has been opened up so widely. In turn,
the Greeks are now looking down their substantial
noses at the really new kids on the block Bulgaria and
236
Romania. Some guy we met in a café a few days back
pretty well suggested that their inclusion in this special
club, the European Union, virtually heralds the end of
civilisation as we know it. Wait for the bitching when
Kazakhstan s application gets approved.
Miller spends the hours to Paros sleeping on the deck
as I watch our stuff and prepare myself for serious
disappointment. Today is gonna be brilliant or it s
gonna suck big time. My money, what s left of it, is on
the latter result, but everything else of value that I have
my heart, my head is all on today working out as
I ve daydreamed it a hundred times. I remind myself to
prepare for what in fact is the most likely result when
black battles white grey. The scenario where Cali will
show just enough to keep me guessing but not enough
to make me feel comfortable is something I m gonna
torture my brain with for the next few hours at least.
That s a guarantee.
Apparently Paros is a reasonable-sized island, and
it s only a thirty-minute boat trip to the much smaller
Antiparos. Why it s called Antiparos will be up for
discovering, I guess. The salty spray keeps drying on
my skin so that my face feels repeatedly stretched and
then loosened, like Joan Rivers . Most of our fellow
buccaneers are passed out on the benches inside the
boat, so the sea s spit and the sun s scorch have very
few others to compete over.
As we push closer to Paros, the midday sun is
amplified to extreme as it bounces off the brilliant
237
whitewashed cube-shaped houses, blue-domed
churches and tangle of dazzling white alleys. I wake
Miller so he can take this picture into his memory. He s a
little dozy on being woken, reminding me of someone else
recently. I have no idea what the next step should be with
regard to his mother. All I m sure of is that he wouldn t
want to know unless I could guarantee she wouldn t be
given the opportunity to fuck him over again.
Getting even closer to Paros, I now see fishing
boats with actual fishermen selling a catch that s never
known the inside of a refrigerator. The village is a living
postcard and I want to stamp all over it. We have less
than an hour here and, not just because I d happily
delay the impending embarrassment of meeting Cali
and her boyfriend or Cali and her memory loss, I wish
it weren t just a place we were passing by.
Now that we re docking into the port I can see
that the village centre and the alleyways, which rise
up softly through the hillsides of white, have all been
overrun by cats. They laze in the sun as if they ve never
encountered a dog in their lives. Miller grabs our packs
as I m too busy being blown away by all the happenings
in this still place. Fuck, there are more cats than people.
There are more cats than in Cats.
Can you believe we re still in the same time zone
as Athens?! says Miller, now getting up to speed on
the beauty of this place I d never even heard of just
a month ago. Which other amazing places have been
hiding all this time?
238
Yeah, it s not bad I suppose, I say, dripping with
understatement.
So, you re finally over keftedes, right?
She s outta my head for good, I reply, getting a
confused look from Miller.
I ve sorta linked my love-at-first-sight thing for Zoe
with my love-at-first-bite thing for lamb meatballs,
I explain, yet again proving that I ain t a friend of
Shakespeare s language.
I m sure any girl would love to hear that, buddy,
Miller laughs, adding, So I presume your slower march
towards other Greek delicacies like calamari is mirrored
in this quest for Cali?
Actually calamari does make sense now that you
mention it, given we re in a fishing village, I respond,
hoping to deflect conversation away from the real
reason we re here.
We sit on the edge of this world, our legs dangling
above a sea of food, and delight our way through as many
rings of squid as our budget can handle. The miniature
woman in the takeaway shop fried the calamari right
in front of us and packed our lunch as carefully as if it
were her life s blood. She smiled even though she knew
we d most likely never be this way again, and I tipped
her because she didn t expect it.
Antiparos moves closer to us with less dressing than [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]