In the Shade of the Monkey Puzzle Tree (5 page)

‘
So you want the room?’ She purses her lips, and the skin around her mouth crinkles into well-worn grooves.

‘
I need a room, but I am afraid it will depend on the rent,’ Theo says. It is important to be straight from the outset. The old ladies back in the village are either soft and kind or known for being sour, but they are all known quantities. Having grown up with everyone in the village from birth, there is nothing they can hide. But this lady has a new aspect. There is a hard, closed edge to her that is alien to Theo. He leans back, trying to appear at ease, but he doesn’t feel it, his finger tapping on the seat.

Looking him up and down, her eyes rest on the bottom of his trousers, his flares.

‘You hippies always want something for nothing,’ she grumbles and watches him, presumably for a reaction.

Theo looks down at his trousers and, frowning slightly, lifts his leg to show off the extent of his flares as if to mock them. Putting his leg back down, he says,
‘I am from a village near Saros. I am no hippie, just wearing a bit of fashion.’

‘
Village boy,’ she states.

Theo nods, still smiling, although she made it sound like an accusation, a disadvantage.

‘Right, the room.’ She gets on to the real topic. ‘Rent will be every Monday. I don’t expect to ask for it, I expect you to come and give it to me. I require two weeks rent in advance, and for damages. There is a good solid bed but if you want anything else, you must get it yourself.’

‘
May I see the room?’

‘
You will.’ She pulls out a piece of paper from a drawer under the table without moving from her seat on the bed. The bed has a blue blanket as a cover, and where the standard lamp casts enough light, he can see the woollen material has worn thin and is darned in several places. She flattens the piece of paper in front of her. It appears to be a flyer from some shop that is opening. She takes a pen from a jar on the table and leans in.

‘
Name?’ she croaks.

‘
Theodoros Kokoromitis,’ he answers automatically.

She begins to write in the empty space in the top corner of the flyer. Her writing is shaky and she takes her time. The pen leaks down her fingers. She stops and wipes her hand on her bed, adding to a patch of black on the blue blanket that suggests this is not the first time. After his name, she writes the word tenant and then her hand writing grows illegible.

Theo is about to object—he has not agreed to take the room yet; he hasn’t even seen it. But then again, he has not signed anything, so why not let her write, she seems to enjoy the concentrated movement, the act of producing something official, maybe it gives her a sense of importance, a place in the world, her own mark. She writes more words underneath and keeps going until she hits the printed words. To Theo’s amusement she continues, curling around each letter like a snake. He sits and waits for her to finish. The two bar heater is making the room stiflingly hot and after a while, he shuffles and opens the cuffs of his shirt, rolling his sleeves up.

She looks up, her eyes cold, her lips pressed into a jagged rosebud. Theo stops shuffling. The space left for her to write on the flyer grows smaller and when she gets to the bottom corner, Theo heaves a sigh of relief, but the woman turns the sheet over. She tuts when she finds a shopping list on the back. Pulling another flyer out of the drawer, advertising a taverna
‘To Kotouki,’ she begins again. There is a taverna with the same name in Saros. She curls her letter around the word
Kotouki
.

‘
What is it that you are writing, if I may ask?’

‘
A tenancy agreement. What? You think I would let you into my home without an agreement?’ She seems to expel air from her nose as she talks, as if the world is a bad smell.

‘
But you have neither told me the price or shown me the room,’ Theo points out.

‘
There.’ She stabs her fingers at the first sheet. ‘Can you not read the price? It is in your contract.’ Theo puts his hand out to pick up the sheet, but she slams the palm of her hand down on it to stop him from removing the paper as she continues to write. Theo is beginning to find her rudeness too aggressive, but he leans over to read and is pleasantly surprised by the moderate sum. He sits back and relaxes. She might be a bit odd but at that price, if the room is even half-decent, he will take it. He needs somewhere to stay tonight and reminds himself that he is in no position to be choosy.

The heat is becoming unbearable.

‘Is all this writing really necessary?’ Theo asks. ‘If I am to be in your house, wouldn’t it be better to start with a feeling of trust?’

Her look is enough to wither the very idea. She continues to scribe. Somewhere, a clock ticks, but not in this room. This room has only a few pieces of furniture, each too big for the space, and the result is not that of a pleasant living space, more a museum, crammed in, claustrophobic.

Between the end of the bed and the dressing table, at right angles to it, are stacks of boxes around the standard lamp. Material peeps from one which is half open as if someone has rifled through the contents. On the other side of the dressing table, behind his chair, is a rack hung with clothes. The smell of mothballs dominates. A sleeve of a fur coat ruffles his mop of hair at the back if he moves.

‘
Right. Sign here,’ she demands.

‘
Whilst I appreciate that you will take me as a tenant, I wonder if I might see the room first?’ Theo speaks kindly.

‘
I hope you are not going to be a difficult tenant.’ She glares at him, her sharp features intensifying her words.

Theo stands. If she is not going to show him the room, there is nothing more to be done here, even if the rent is reasonable, and even if it means he must spend a night in the park.

‘Help me up, then!’ she hisses. Theo lunges to her aid. Her arms are as fragile as chicken bones; he tries not to grip them too firmly. His own
Yiayia
grew thin in her last years, paper skin over protruding bones, her frailty making her grumpy. Confusion took over, especially about people, and she mistook the living for the dead, talking to both. She thought his baba was her brother who died in the war, and so his baba became terse and officious with her. She thought his mama was a German soldier come to steal the food, as she always had a plate in her hands, so Dimitra stayed away, sent Theo around with the home-cooked food. But
Yiayia
always knew who Theo was. He would look forward to the times he popped in with a meal. She would tell him stories of her childhood, the old days, the better ways.

Soon after the onset of her illness, he was called up for his military service in Corinth, and not long after that, his baba wrote to inform him of
Yiayia’s
passing. He stared at the ceiling, lying in his bunk that night, his heart heavy because he could not be by her bedside to hold her hand as she left, to whisper his words of love and comfort, let her know she was not alone and that she would be missed. He would have given anything to be with her in the moments of her departure so her final feeling would be one of love.

‘
I won’t break.’ The old landlady snaps, but she is on her feet and Theo lets go. He remains alert, ready to catch her if she falls.

She makes her way to the door. Theo hopes his room will not be directly opposite hers. She may be alone and vulnerable, but he is in Athens to live his own life. He does not want to end up at her every beck and call. For that, he can stay at home with his baba.

But she walks past the doors on this floor and begins a slow descent. Even better, he will not be on the same floor at all. This could work out well.

Theo peers into the shadows as he follows her down the staircase, eager to know which of the doors on the ground floor will be his, but she walks straight to the front door and out onto the steps.

‘Shut the door then,’ she snaps. Theo rolls his eyes behind her back, but he cannot take her too seriously. Old age must be hard, especially if you are a woman alone.

With one hand against the building, she walks to the corner, Theo following. Out in the light, he can see that the woman
’s dress is very faded and many of the beads are missing, leaving pale bald patches. She turns the corner round the side of the house and they pass two more windows at head height and two that are half-submerged below pavement level, with iron grates to stop people falling down the cutaways made to let the light in. There is another balcony above, with more fine stone-carved brackets. At the end of the building, between this property and next door, is a painted cast-iron gate. Taking a key from around her neck, she struggles as it gets caught in her feathers and she mutters to herself as she tugs it free. The gate opens, she takes another key, which also becomes caught. Theo’s hand raises to help instinctively, but he decides it will probably not be welcome at this stage in their relationship and puts it back in his pocket.

‘
Ah ha!’ she announces triumphantly. There are two doors almost side by side into the building here, with no carving or ornamentation like the front door. Instead, they are plain and not very tall. Theo can’t but help think that they must lead into the grand house’s storage rooms. If so, it will probably be damp and most certainly too low to stand up straight. Much as he needs somewhere to stay, he is glad he has not signed anything.

The first door swings open and two steps take them down into a good-sized room. The woman struggles with the shutters, and Theo offers to help. She leaves him to do it. When the shutters open, he witnesses a pair of legs striding past on the pavement above. He turns away and coughs; the legs were a woman
’s, her skirt not long enough to preserve her modesty from this angle.

‘
Bathroom,’ he hears the landlady say from a doorway in the corner. He follows the sound of her voice down a short corridor. A door to the left opens to a bathroom, the ceiling of which slopes, suggesting that it is fitted into the space under some stairs of the main house. It smells of damp, and there are black spots in the corner. The woman has already gone through to a second room.

‘
Kitchen,’ she says. The room is large, and in it is a double bed and a very ornate wardrobe with fine wooden carving and delicate wood inlay. There is no damp here. The kitchen area consists of a concrete shelf with a sink at one end and a two-burner stove with a gas bottle at the foot of the bed.

She struggles with the shutters in here, too. Theo helps. Light floods in, filtered through a layer of dust on the glass. Two rooms to call his own. The floors are tiled with old-fashioned tiles which make floral designs, a border around the edge. He loves them, and as if it is a sign, they are the same as were in his
yiayia’s
house.

‘
Right, sign here and give me the deposit.’ Until that moment, Theo has not noticed, folded tightly in her fist, she has brought her hand-written contract with her. She pulls it straight. Theo signs and then looks at the amount she has asked for.

‘
But this is four weeks’ rent, I thought you said two weeks in advance,’ he argues. The image of his
yiayia
fades and is replaced by the man in the white dressing gown.

‘
You need to listen. I said two weeks, in advance, and for damages. So another two weeks for damages. Which is refundable,’ she croaks.

Theo is beginning to no longer be amused by her, and his
kefi
is wearing thin.

‘
I’ll give you two weeks in advance for damages,’ he says.

‘
You looked like you were going to be trouble.’ She holds the door open for him to leave.

Theo struggles. On the one hand, he feels she is taking advantage of him, but he also considers that nothing in the paper even came close to matching her price, and he really does need somewhere to stay. Two weeks in advance somewhere else would be the same as the four weeks in advance that she is asking here, and the idea of going through the whole process of looking at another place to stay is just too much.

‘Fine.’ He takes out his wad of money and peels off the amount she has requested. Her eyes watch the roll as he replaces the majority of it and she hesitates to take the share she is offered.

‘
I need a deposit for electricity,’ she says, her words rushed, her eyes on his pocket.

‘
Is it on a separate meter?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Then I will get it put in my name.’

‘
But until then, you must pay.’

Theo does his best to remain patient. He takes his money out again and peels off a note of low value. She waits with her hand open, but he does not offer any more.

‘Your key.’ Her voice is sulky. She drops the keys to the gate and the door on the concrete shelf and turns to leave.

‘
The contract?’ Theo holds out his hand.

‘
I will write you out a copy. Come with me.’ She begins her slow walk back to her own home. But the thought of sitting in her stuffy, mothball room, watching her slowly scribble her nonsense on bits of scrap paper is more than Theo can face.