One Greek Summer Wedding

Chapter 15

‘Is she dead? Please tell me she is not dead, because if she is then that is another sign that my marriage will be unlucky.’

‘Shut up, Cosmo. I cannot hear a thing.’

Akis knew that his grandmother wasn’t dead, could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest, but her breathing was a little noisy. Either it was a very deep sleep or she had another chest infection. He leaned in closer.

‘Wren has made good luck chickens and voodoo dolls. What am I supposed to think about that? One thing to wish for good things to happen, the other to make bad things happen to anyone or anything that even thinks about bad things happening.’

‘Cosmo, please!’

Pig brayed and nudged Akis’s hip. Then his tail hit a stack of magazines and they all tumbled to the floor like a toppled Jenga mountain.

Suddenly, Irini opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. ‘Am I dead?’

‘Thank you, God! Thank you!’ Cosmos said, eyes to the ceiling, hands together in prayer.

‘Yiayia, you are OK. Would you like a drink?’ Akis asked, supporting her back and using one hand to plump up pillows, cushions and apparently several more magazines in the bed.

‘Yes,’ Irini answered. ‘I would very much like another vodka.’

‘What did she say?’ Cosmos asked.

‘She said she would very much like a coffee,’ Akis said. ‘And I would like some too. Could you make it? And take Pig out of here.’

‘What should I do first? Take Pig or make coffee?’

Akis looked at his brother. Turmoil was written in his expression, as if instead of asking for a few manageable tasks, he had demanded that Cosmos compete in Survivor – whilst running for prime minister at the same time.

‘Leave Pig alone,’ Irini ordered.

‘Make the coffee,’ Akis said.

‘I will make the coffee,’ Cosmos repeated, heading out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

Akis sat down on the edge of his grandmother’s bed. ‘What time did you get home?’

‘I do not know. Ask Pig.’ She pulled a sparkly hair clip from her hair.

‘Did you come home with Anastasia and my mother?’

Irini laughed then. ‘Your mother? Have someone like me in her precious black Mercedes that looks like it belongs to a member of a drug trafficking family? Or squeezing up beside me in a taxi? Sharing the same air. I do what I always do. I call Yiannis. He come. I do not know what time.’

‘I think I need to thank Yiannis. Offer him some cash for fuel.’

Irini snorted. ‘I pay Yiannis with my cooking. He does not eat well since his wife died.’

‘But, Yiayia, you do not cook.’

‘I do not cook for one person! What is the point of that! When I make something for Yiannis and his sister I make something from scratch. And it is none of your business! What are you doing here anyway?’

‘Pig came to the house again. Cosmos thought you were dying. He called me.’

Irini shook her head, pulling the bedcovers off and trying to swing her nightdress-covered legs out of the space. ‘I am surprised I did not wake up to a priest… but then again. That is exactly how you were dressed last night.’ She smiled. ‘I found it very entertaining. It took me right back to when you were five years old, singing Elvis songs in my garden, dressed only in your underpants.’

‘Please do not tell that story in public.’

‘OK, leave now, help your brother with coffee, I want to get dressed.’

Akis stood up and took hold of Pig’s collar.

‘Leave Pig. He likes it when I use him for balance.’

Akis patted the donkey on the neck and made his way out of the bedroom.

‘This place, it is a mess,’ Cosmos complained when Akis had joined him. He had a cloth in one hand and the coffee pot in the other and seemed to have not started making anything at all.

‘You sound like our mother,’ Akis said, taking the coffee pot from Cosmos’s hands.

‘In this case she is not wrong.’

‘She is wrong,’ Akis snapped. ‘Yiayia has a lot of things. Things she loves. That’s what she wants to be surrounded by. It is an untidy host of memories, that’s all.’

‘Why are you shouting at me?’ Cosmos asked, eyes tearing up. ‘You know I don’t like it when you shout at me.’

‘Cosmo, come on. What’s wrong?’

And then his brother burst into tears. Loud sobs like the world was about to be destroyed. Cosmos was the youngest sibling, had always been the most emotional, babied by their mother, almost terrified of life itself from the second he arrived. Akis always remembered sending his army cars flying over ravines and Cosmos worrying for the plastic doll passengers.

He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and guided him from the space to outside. There was a slight breeze this morning, moving the eucalyptus and olive trees on his grandmother’s land.

‘Tell me, what is going on with you?’

‘A wedding! You know that!’ Cosmos exclaimed, hands almost tearing at his curls.

‘Yes, I do know that but, Cosmo, it is meant to be the happiest day of your life. You get to commit to Wren who you have loved for the longest time now.’

‘I know… I know… but what will I do when Wren becomes bored with me and has an affair with Milo? I see how he looks at her. The way he passes over the bread each morning. There is something behind his eyes, you know. Or what if one day Wren dies? What do I do then? I mean?—’

‘Cosmo, Cosmo, take a breath,’ Akis said, taking his brother’s hands out of his hair. ‘And stop pulling like that or you will have no hair left for the wedding.’

‘And Wren will not love me without hair. Milo has strong hair.’

‘Cosmo, you are catastrophising without any reason for it. And I expect Milo just has a stye or something. I have never seen anyone more in love than you and Wren. She only has her eyes on you.’

Akis swallowed. Well, Wren did have her hands on Horatio last night, but he also knew Anastasia would have pumped her full of alcohol to loosen her up and what woman didn’t have her hands full of something on her hen night? This was something his brother did not need to know.

‘And then there is you refusing to become a priest. Mama says that if you do not do this, the wedding will be doomed from the outset and we may not be able to have children.’

For fuck’s sake. This was getting out of control.

‘Cosmo,’ Akis said, his tone laced with anger. ‘That is a wicked thing for Mama to say. Nothing is going to happen to you and Wren if I don’t become a priest.’

If? He needed to be clearer about this. He went to make that statement but Cosmos beat him to the next word.

‘That is not what the scriptures say. And I have done online research. Where there is this history of the first-born son becoming a priest, if the tradition is not followed, the families have experienced all kinds of trauma. One family had to leave their village because frogs moved in. Not just into their home, the entire village was besieged by a plague.’

Akis shook his head. He didn’t believe this shit. ‘So, what happened?’

‘What do you mean?’ Cosmos asked. ‘You want frogs to swallow up Notos? I hate frogs.’

Right now, Akis wouldn’t mind a giant toad opening its mouth for their mother.

‘What happened to the village?’ he asked. ‘When the disobedient first-born son didn’t become a priest and they all had to leave, what happened next? Did the frogs follow them from place to place? Wherever they settled more frogs would come? Or did they have bad luck in other ways? Did any of the frogs become lethal and hop into the first-born son’s ear, poison him and then eat his brain while he slept?’

‘Aki!’ Cosmos exclaimed, putting his hands over his ears like he used to when he was a child and was uncomfortable with loud noises. ‘Don’t say that!’

‘You don’t know what happened. Because even if the first part of the story is true in some tiny way, no one followed it through. I expect everyone was fine. I don’t even believe the frogs were brought by anything but the rain. If this was Skripero they would have given thanks and eaten them all.’

‘Please, Aki. Please become a priest. You do not have to do it forever. You can even get married. Well, you can marry before you are ordained so there wouldn’t be much time but?—’

‘Are you hearing yourself, Cosmo? You are asking me to give up my life for a fable with no substance, become a priest, not marry unless I find someone in what – a week? It’s insanity!’

‘So that Wren and I can have children,’ Cosmos reminded him.

‘This is Mama in your head, Cosmo! Like she tries to be in all our heads! Like she tells Anastasia not to bring a girlfriend home! Like she tells our father what to think and feel! Like she doesn’t care at all for Yiayia!’

‘But I want to have children. I have always wanted to have children. And Wren would be a wonderful mother.’

Akis couldn’t stay here any longer. This was a nightmare. His family was a nightmare. And it was exactly this kind of drama that had had him moving out of the village and making a home in Corfu Town. How could he possibly have thought he could be any part of this? Be Cosmos’s best man. He turned on his heel and strode towards his motorbike.

‘Aki! Where are you going? You know we have the cake and wine tasting this afternoon! Aki! Please!’

Akis put his helmet on, started the engine and hoped that the sound would drown out his brother’s pleas.