Under a Croatian Sun (26 page)

R
efreshments during matches had been served on a collection of plastic plates and cups, but, now the visiting teams had told the club members about the elaborate lunches and teas that some clubs provided in England, Ivana and I were sent over to Split's equivalent of B&Q to upgrade the tea service. Waiting on a bench for the ferry with our purchases, we were watching the world go by on the promenade when we spotted Tanya strolling along with a group of young things. We called out and the arm draped over the shoulder of a dark young man with heavily gelled hair was quickly whipped away and she came over to us.

‘Please don't tell Marin you've seen me.'

‘Who's your friend?' I asked, indicating the matinee idol who was checking his hair in a shop window. (I've always wondered about gel. Doesn't it get all over your girlfriend's face when you're snogging?)

‘Oh, he's just a good friend, but please don't mention him to Marin. He won't understand.'

She rejoined her friends and I noticed she was careful not to get too close to the matinee idol as they walked away. There was something going on between her and Mr Gel. That was plain to see.

Back on the island, we went to confer with Marko the Wise.

‘Go and talk to Tanya's parents. Her mother will know what's going on. She doesn't miss much. But I don't think her ten-year plan for Tanya includes marriage to a Bosnian. She was always an ambitious one, Draga Tomic. We were in the same form at school and she always had to be the best even then.'

‘Rougher than a boar's rear end, that Draga Tomic,' said Dali the postman. ‘She should have joined the army. Dedo her husband's a good man, mind you, but he doesn't wear the trousers in that household.'

‘Go and tell her that a mother who casts her net too wide may end up catching no fish at all,' said Marko.

The Tomics' house was tucked away behind the post office. It must have been an attractive building in the eighteenth century, but it looked as if the owners had been ashamed of it and had smothered it with add-ons. This was actually the case with a lot of Vis houses, each generation having turned them into a dire cobbling together of mismatched elements. But then, who were we to criticise with our middle-class sense of aesthetics? Families had modified their homes to suit their needs as best they could, and it was only us latecomers who could afford to indulge in heritage-friendly renovations.

The outside stairway led us up over the ground floor where Filip and his mother lived, and on the first floor we found a hunched old lady sitting on a chair crocheting a blanket. She blinked at us and called, ‘
Gosti! Gosti!
' (Guests! Guests!) up the
stairs before shuffling off to clatter some pots around in the kitchen. Draga Tomic came down to greet us. A tall woman, there was an air of Queen Elizabeth I disapproval about her. She greeted us politely and we were led up to the next floor with the grandmother teetering dangerously behind with a tray of rattling cups and saucers. Tanya's father was sitting on their terrace, and rose to welcome us with the contented expression of someone who didn't want any more from life than he had. I could see where Tanya got her dazzling smile from. Draga took the coffee tray from her mother, shooed her downstairs and began to pour. I suspected she knew why we were here. She talked in a nervous, staccato voice about their married daughter who lived in Zagreb as she poured.

‘Her husband is in the technology business, you know.'

Ivana made appreciative noises.

‘But I cannot understand them. They have a perfect space for a vegetable garden at the back of their house and he has paved it over with stone. What a thing to do!'

Her husband put his hand on her arm. ‘Don't upset yourself again, my dear.'

She shook her head crossly. ‘They are putting sculptures there. What a ridiculous idea! At their age they should be more practical and think about what they eat. But what can you expect? Her husband was brought up in a city and only thinks about other people's opinions. He wants his friends to see he has the kind of house people have in magazines, and he wants people to think he has a sophisticated wife, not one who grows vegetables and worries about her husband's health. How will they bring up their children?'

Her husband patted her arm again. ‘They are two sensible, hardworking, young people. We need not worry about them.'

But she wasn't to be consoled. ‘And as for Tanya,' she
exclaimed, ‘she should be going out with our own kind.' (There is a Croatian word for ‘our own kind' – ‘
Nasi
', meaning ‘ours' – with all the hidden connotations the word implies.)

Ivana pointed out that Marin was hardly a foreigner as he came from Bosnia.

‘Blood is not water. Those Bosnians have been under the Turk for so long they're not the same as us. Most of them are Muslims. How can one of them ever understand the heart of one of ours?' She gave a Karmela-like tilt of her chin.

I put in that Marin seemed a nice hardworking young man and the father nodded. ‘He looks a respectable young man, but with those Bosnians you never know. Their values are so different despite how similar they look. I think it's best if I find her a job in Split and she can meet some nice Croatian boys.'

The conversation seemed to be slipping a cog, but, not wanting to be too obvious, I couldn't commend Marin too much without it sounding fabricated. It all sounded rather lame.

We left them feeling that we'd failed and went to find Marin. We found him sitting at Marko's with a letter in his hands; he put it on the table and then picked it up to read it again as if he couldn't understand it. He gave us a lacklustre greeting when we came over, and, in the sort of tone that an ancient Greek might have used when asking for a cup of hemlock, he asked the waiter to bring some more coffee.

‘Her parents want her to stay in Split and find a job,' he said, gesturing to the letter. ‘She says she still loves me, but thinks we shouldn't see so much of each other for a while.'

That didn't sound good. The ‘I-love-you-but-we-shouldn't-see-so-much-of-each-other' was the line I used to get given when I was being dumped.

We left him looking about as downhearted as a young man can.

But the next day he had put on a brave face and was helping me out with my new navigation equipment. He was the sort who would do this anyway, but I think he saw us as a conduit to Tanya and was hoping that somehow we might help to get her back. Ivana was actually already on the case. Despite thirty years of my telling her not to get herself involved in other people's emotional entanglements, she finds it difficult not to, and I had twice seen her in a huddle with Karmela and the other wise ones of the village (and Grandma Klakic was in the group, too – so perhaps the old bat did have human feelings after all).

For the village matriarchs, Marin and Tanya were still the island's Romeo and Juliet, and they wanted to get the star-cross'd lovers back on track.

September was when the annual regatta took place and Richard entered his boat. He had brought out a Cornish crabber in kit form with their furniture and, after he'd assembled it in a disused naval hangar, he had sailed her over here. She now rocked at anchor with a certain prim dignity among the large sleek racing yachts that had come to take part. With her turquoise-green hull and rust-coloured gaff rig sails, for me, she was the prettiest boat in the bay.

Richard had enlisted Bozo as his crew, but, nonetheless, his regatta application created something of a stir. Some of the committee had objected to a foreign-owned craft taking part – and one so much smaller than any other boat. But luckily Marko and Filip were on the committee, and when they pointed out that most of the money for the regatta came from foreign sponsors, and that if more foreign boats took part they might get even more sponsorship, the objectors were overruled.

We stood on the terrace to watch on race day; Nora and Ivana with binoculars and me with a telescope. With the rust-red sails
fluffed out in the breeze, Richard and Bozo bobbed jauntily across the bay, looking blithe and bonny, but, just as they got to the start line, the gun went off for the category ‘A' class yachts, and the four monster super yachts came sweeping down on to them. I could see Richard frantically trying to get out of their way, but Cornish crabbers can't move very fast, and the first of the ten-tonners swooshed past, creating a wave that sent the little boat bouncing about like a toy. Bozo fell over, and through my telescope I could see him trying to get upright (difficult when you are almost spherical and in a confined space), as Richard's lips were mouthing words that started with an F. Bozo had almost succeeded in getting up when he caught his foot in a coil of rope and fell over again and rolled around like an upturned turtle when the second super yacht thundered past, missing them by a whisker and drenching them with a tidal wave of water. The half-submerged little boat was now wallowing dangerously with Richard hanging on to the tiller trying to keep it steady and Bozo trying to untangle himself. Nora was gripping her binoculars with white knuckles as the third ten-tonner bore down on the little boat. ‘It's going to hit them!' she shrieked as Bozo finally managed to get up and grabbed hold of the boom to keep himself from falling again. But Richard then shouted something that made him let go and he fell again. The yacht passed behind them and, the danger now over, Richard untangled Bozo and put him to work bailing the boat out while he repositioned her on the start line for the correct gun with as much dignity as he could muster.

That evening, all those in the regatta and most of the village career drinkers had gathered at the hotel for the prize-giving ceremony. As most of the races had been won by island boats, the place was filled with
rakija
-fuelled cheering and inane
shouting as if inmates from a lunatic asylum were celebrating early release. Eventually, Marko shouted for some quiet so the prizes could be given, and Filip, the president, handed them out to the winners; the highlight being the presentation of the prize for the Cornish crabber category to Richard and Bozo – the only participants in the class – but these were the kinds of boats the islanders used to sail, and the loudest cheers were for them.

After the prize giving, we spilled out on to the waterfront and moved along to Marko's. By now, the singing had started and soon the gathering was singing along to good old Croatian favourites such as ‘Memories Are Made of This' and ‘Yellow Submarine'. In the crowd, we saw Marin, whom we hadn't seen since he'd gone on holiday to Bosnia two weeks before, and went to join him.

‘So you're back,' I said. ‘Find any new girlfriends in the mountains?'

He gave his slow grin. ‘Well, yes, but she went off with another sheep.'

‘No news from Tanya?' asked Ivana.

‘Not really. Her father's got her a job working with some fashion chain in Split. It's a great opportunity. I hope it works out for her.'

‘Oh no you don't,' said Ivana sharply. ‘You want her back here with you!'

He hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.' He looked at us earnestly. ‘I still can't stop thinking about her.'

‘You see. It's love! Now don't you give up! You go over to Split and stand on her doorstep until she says she'll marry you.'

‘Er… I wasn't quite thinking of marriage just yet,' said Marin, rather taken aback.

‘Oh, men!' sighed Ivana. ‘You're all hopeless!'

‘Well… it's a big step, you know…'

Ivana took hold of his face and put hers up to it (difficult with her being a good foot shorter). ‘If you really loved her, stupid, you'd want to marry her. Heavens, if we had to wait for you men to make up your minds, we'd all be old, wrinkled and single!'

Marin scratched his head.

‘Go on, get on with it!'

Later, I saw him sitting on a bollard by the water, no doubt giving the matter some thought.

The festivities ended around midnight and we were walking home along the front when Bozo's van came reversing erratically down the quay towards us. He shot backwards past us and waved in the confident style that comes from sampling too much grape-based product at a public gathering. Just as he had passed, the unmistakable figure of Grandma Klakic emerged from a side street into his path. We thought he was going straight into her, but, silhouetted against the night sky, she loomed like a shipping hazard, and he saw her and somehow managed a reverse slalom around her. Then he swerved into his turning and a loud crashing and clanging told us that his dustbins had got themselves involved in his parking arrangements. We rounded the corner to see him opening the door, catching his foot on the sill and sprawling on to the ground.

The dustbins had woken up the neighbouring dogs and heads were appearing in windows. Just as we arrived, the front door flew open revealing Nora, silhouetted by the light like Judy in a Punch and Judy show. She shouted at Bozo who was still on the ground with his short legs waving in the air like an upturned beetle. With an effort, he rolled himself upright and lumbered into the house, trying to fend off Nora's cuffs.

According to Karmela, Bozo had never been able to stand up to Nora ever since he lost most of their savings. ‘Bozo's business partner ran off with it all and Nora still blames him for not going and beating the man up. And she's right. What sort of man wouldn't beat up a thieving partner? Pah! And the man only lived over the hill. The problem is that Bozo was the only man in the house. His mother had five girls and his father was always away at sea. That's the problem there, I'm telling you. That's what you get when you have too many women in a household. They didn't even have a dog! Pah!'

She went off muttering to herself – no doubt about the psychosomatic factors at play in a post-Freudian society.