A Stringed Instrument Ch. 07

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"Yeah, Susan said the same thing. Anyway, what's the plan for the weekend?"

"Well, I get in Saturday morning, Dad picks me up from the airport, we head straight over to Yaya's. Feel free to show up whenever, just because I'm getting up early doesn't mean you have to. I don't know if we can finish in one day, we might have to come back on Sunday."

"When do you go back?"

"Monday morning. I'd like to stay longer, but I have a couple of lessons on Tuesday, and I can't be away too long or I'll start losing students. I'm staying with Dad, and we'll probably be doing family stuff most of it, but I'm going to try to find some time with you. Maybe Sunday night? Don't know if I'd be able to stay over, but I should at least be able to get out for dinner and a movie?"

"Thanks. I'd really like that. But I understand your family have priority."

"They do and they don't... I want to be there for Yaya and Dad, but I need a shoulder to lean on myself sometimes."

"Always happy to oblige." And the conversation drifted onto other things, quietly affectionate, and so on to drowsy good-nights.

***

On Thursday I went over to John's place for dinner.

If you'd just met the two of us, you'd never pick us as brother and sister. I look and talk like what I am, a professional geek who spends most of the day staring at a screen and then goes home to spend her evenings staring at a different screen. John, on the other hand: tall, tanned, tattooed. Although his job description is 'civil engineer', he's more comfortable out on a construction site in his safety boots and helmet than he is sitting behind a desk.

But we've always been close. At school I always felt a little safer when he was around. When I told him at age fifteen that I preferred girls, he just said "no shit, me too". After he finished high school, he took a year out working for a local hardware barn; while he said it was a chance to spend some time in the real world before he moved away to start on his engineering degree, I've always suspected it was more about staying close until I was old enough to leave town myself.

And he has good taste in women. As teenagers we'd go to films together and compare notes on the leading ladies afterwards. All of his girlfriends that I've met have been lovely, and Cat was no exception. She didn't blink when John started asking me "about this lady you're chasing..." and the three of us had a good talk afterwards about nothing in particular while doing the dishes.

I was feeling more relaxed than I'd been in some time, and I'd have stayed longer, but after seeing the way John and Cat were looking at one another I thought I'd be a generous sister and give them some quality time together. So I thanked them both, wished them a good night, and made my way home.

Friday was hectic. Peter's printer broke down; he was doing SECRET CONFIDENTIAL TENDER STUFF, so he didn't want to use the general office printers, and I spent most of the day chasing up a repair tech after determining that it wasn't something I could fix myself. After that I had a backlog of minor things to fix. I got home late, fixed myself dinner, chatted with Phoebe to wish her a safe flight, and got an early night.

I'd set my alarm for nine, but I was woken an hour earlier by my message notification:

Just left airport with Dad. OMW to Yaya's.

I got there around eleven. My first impression of the house was just as I'd imagined it: an old brick place in Brunswick East, roses at the front fence, and behind them a large fruit and vegetable garden that almost completely concealed the house. Phoebe must have been looking out for me; she was there to open the front gate as I walked up, standing just a whisker closer than a friend should stand, talking just a decibel too loud.

"Yvonne! Thank you so much for coming!"

"Don't mention it. I need the exercise." I kissed her on the cheek, a little longer than a friend ought.

"Come on in." She led me into the garden, where RJ was busy with a large set of pruning shears. "Dad, you know my friend Yvonne, of course."

"Of course." He pulled off a glove and shook my hand. "So kind of you to come for my mother."

"Don't mention it."

"Grandma's in the lounge," said Phoebe. "I'll introduce you before we get started." And she showed me inside.

The place was clean but very cluttered. Evidently Grandma had a fondness for cardboard and plastic boxes, piled high all along one side of the corridor. Some were open, and I caught glimpses of books and clothes; most were sealed.

Kalliope was in an old leather armchair, with a male nurse beside her taking her blood pressure. She was watching a video, something in Greek with no subtitles. But as we approached, she paused it and turned around in her chair to see who was coming.

"Yaya and Hamish, this is my friend Yvonne. She's come to help with the garden. Yvonne, this is my grandmother Kalliope, and this is Hamish. He's looking after her." Hamish nodded a "g'day" at us.

"Thank you for coming." She still had a strong Greek accent, but there was no hesitation in her English. She gave me a searching look, dark eyes moving sharply in a weathered face, and I thought: One day, Phoebe will look like this. I tried not to stare at the brace on her arm, or the cannula in her wrist.

"I made this whole garden myself, front and back. Forty years. Dug, planted, picked, everything. All myself, her grandfather did nothing." She looked and sounded sour. "Now my arm is broke and I can't even look after myself. But when it's fixed I will keep my garden again. You're a good girl to help." Then she turned to Phoebe, asked something in Greek, nodded at Phoebe's reply.

"She said we should take some water out, it'll be thirsty work." Phoebe found an empty glass bottle and we filled it, adding some ice from the freezer. "Yaya, we'd better get back to it, before it gets any hotter."

"I will come out later. When I'm feeling better. These drugs they give me, did you know they make you piss red?"

I was alarmed by that, but Hamish just nodded. "They do. It's okay, it's not blood."

"Okay for you maybe," she growled. "You're not pissing red!"

He didn't attempt to argue. Phoebe kissed Yaya on the cheek, and we returned to the garden.

Apart from the roses, there was nothing ornamental in the garden. Everything else was for food: tomatoes, beans, lemons — lots of lemons — and countless others. Most I couldn't identify, but for a man who usually hired others to do that sort of thing for him, RJ turned out to know a surprising amount about gardening. I suppose as a child he must have watched his mother at work in this same garden.

It was in sore need of work now, much more overgrown than I'd have expected from two weeks' neglect. Phoebe and I both suspected that her grandmother's arm had been hurting much longer and much worse than she'd been willing to admit to anybody, and had been letting things slide while she avoided dealing with the issue. Although there were three of us working on it I could see we weren't going to finish in a day, not in February heat. The fruit trees shaded me from the worst of the sun, and Hamish brought out bottle after bottle of chilled water, but I was still dripping with sweat within half an hour.

We soon settled into a routine: Phoebe pulled weeds, RJ pruned, I picked up the green waste and trundled it to the compost heap in a barrow. RJ and I shared more words that afternoon than we'd done in all the six months I'd been working for him. Social chit-chat: how far had I come today? Where was I from? What did my parents do for a living?

Was I married?

Apparently not everybody in the office had heard about me outing myself a couple of months earlier. While Phoebe stood behind RJ trying not to look alarmed, I held up my hands — look boss, no rings! — and he nodded, and we moved on to safer topics.

Eventually Kalliope came out to the front porch, and she sat in a wicker chair giving directions until we stopped at one. We sprawled in the shade panting like dogs, while Hamish stretched his job description enough to go and fetch us all pies from the corner shop; as soon as the pies were gone, we got back to work.

As often as I could, I found opportunities to work near Phoebe. We exchanged glances and smiles, and occasionally I brushed past her on the way to the compost. Beyond that things were strictly business; with two generations of Karavangelis blood looking on, there was precious little room for flirting.

I was close to dropping when RJ called a halt at five. I've never in my life been so glad of a cold shower, or of a sweat-free change of clothes. RJ must have seen how exhausted I was, and I was relieved when he offered me a lift home.

Leaving Hamish to prepare Kalliope's dinner, we flopped into RJ's car. I sat in the front passenger seat and Phoebe sat behind; now and then, when RJ was focussing on the road ahead, she and I touched hands in the space between my seat and the door.

By mutual agreement we stopped at a Chinese place near my apartment. Phoebe and I were alone together only once, when I ducked into the ladies' before our mains arrived and came out to find her waiting outside the door. We kissed hard — although it felt like it was over before it began — and she spoke in a low voice. "I've missed you so much."

"God, me too." I checked that we were unobserved and hugged her tight. "Tomorrow night."

"Oh yes." And then I went back out to enjoy crispy duck in plum sauce at RJ's expense. I felt I'd earned it.

***

About an hour after they'd dropped me off at home, just as I was settling into bed, Phoebe called.

"Hey sweetie. Long time no see."

"Hey there. So, you up for another day of gardening tomorrow?"

"Just gardening?"

"No, I was thinking if we work hard we can be done by teatime, and if you're not too hot and bothered by then we could find something else to do with the rest of the day."

"Oh? What did you have in mind?"

"Well, I was thinking we could head over to your place for a bit. I ought to get back to Dad's before midnight, but I'm sure we could think of something to do until then..." She went on to suggest several things we might do, and I contributed a few ideas of my own before we said our good-nights.

The weather was cooler on Sunday, and we had an extra volunteer. His name was Leon, a Greek gentleman of about Yaya's age who knew her through their church and had passed up Sunday service to come and help. I had my doubts about how much he'd be able to do — he looked like his better years were well behind him — but he threw himself into the work with such vigour that by eleven o'clock the sweat was in danger of boiling off his face and we had to make him rest before he did himself a mischief. While the rest of us continued, he sat on the porch next to Yaya and the two of them talked enthusiastically in Greek while they supervised our work.

I'm not a great fan of manual labour, but it does have a way of eroding barriers, and RJ and I had become quite chatty. "You know," he said as I scooped up his clippings for the wheelbarrow, "I don't think that fellow's here for the gardening."

Phoebe, weeding nearby, chimed in. "Oh no. He and Yaya have been seeing quite a bit of one another. I understand he was coming over for dinner twice a week before the..."

"Really? I never saw him."

"She probably didn't think you'd approve."

"Phoebe, your grandmother has never in her life allowed that to influence her decisions."

"Wait," I said, "you mean to say this fellow came here today just to play sweethearts? What a scoundrel!" RJ chuckled along with me, but behind him Phoebe was giving me a look of warning, so I didn't push it any further.

At lunchtime Hamish brought out cold drinks and sandwiches for everybody, and we sat and stood around on the porch catching our breath. I took the opportunity to take stock of the garden: there really wasn't much left to do.

Kalliope had come to the same conclusion. Turning away from her conversation with Leon, she caught Phoebe's arm. "Bee-bee, you've done so much today. I think you'll be finished very soon. What do you do after?"

"Well, Yaya, I was going to go visit Yvonne's place."

"And what do you do there?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just... have dinner, hang out."

"Well then. If you don't have anything to do, you should have dinner here." She waggled a finger at me. "And you too, Yvonne, you should let me say thank-you. I make avgolemono for you."

So we were very neatly caught in a trap of our own making. True, it was nice to be invited to dine with the family — even if they weren't aware of my exact role in Phoebe's life — but it was very much a consolation prize. That's the problem with being invisible; it's so easy to get stepped on.

I decided I'd just have to make the best of it. Leon came back to assist, and with four of us working we were able to finish things off by three o'clock. I pulled off my gloves, stowed the wheelbarrow by the side of the house, and strode back to the porch with a certain air of dirt-encrusted triumph: job done!

But just as I'd helped myself to a heavily-iced glass of water, I caught Phoebe's eye and saw her looking pensive. I drifted over and bumped glasses with her.

"You okay? You don't look okay."

"I was just thinking. This isn't going to last." She turned to look out over the garden, taking a few steps away from the others, and I followed her. "It's going to be months before she can do any of this again. If she ever can. By that time, it'll be a jungle again."

"I know." I touched her arm, nothing too demonstrative, just enough to say: I'm here. "But she's happy today. That's worth something."

"Yeah, I guess." She turned back to me, but her eyes were bright, and she looked away again before anybody else could see her on the verge of tears. I touched her arm again, and then before anybody could read too much into our behaviour I drifted back to the others. Leon was making his apologies: his own granddaughter was visiting that afternoon (with his first great-grandson!) so he needed to get home for them. RJ agreed to drop him home and pick him up again at dinner time — he needed to stop by the office anyway — leaving myself and Phoebe to keep Yaya and Hamish company until dinner.

I'd wondered how Kalliope was going to cook for all of us with one arm out of action. It turned out that when she said she'd "make dinner", what she really meant was that she'd direct me. Of course Phoebe would have been better at it — she told me afterwards they'd made this soup together dozens of times — and Hamish was at her disposal. But I suppose teaching me a recipe was her way of saying thank-you, and that's why she sent Phoebe to the shops for eggs instead, and Hamish to do the cleaning.

"This is a soup from Greece. My mama used to say, you take everything you find on a Greek island and put it in the pot, and that's avgolemono. Chicken, eggs, rice, lemon, so good for you. That pot there, fill that with water. And this is my last time to eat it."

"Oh." I've never been good at platitudes, and I didn't know how to reply to her sudden fatalism. But she caught my tone of voice and rapped me on the shoulder.

"I don't mean dying, I mean it's last time before Lent. Next Friday I'm back in hospital and after that I don't eat meat. Not until after Pascha."

"Oh! Sorry, I misunderstood."

"Don't worry about me, Yvonne. I'm not dying yet, I've been sicker than this. When I caught the whooping cough..."

While she told me that story, I prepared the chickens and set them on the stove to simmer; once that was done, there was nothing for us to do until they were cooked. Kalliope was feeling tired, so she retired to her chair in front of the TV and left me to watch the pot.

Buzz. A message from Phoebe: Stopped to call airline and change flight, going back early Tuesday. Hope you didn't have anything planned tomorrow night.

I do now.

She came back from the shops just as the chickens were starting to look ready. "Yaya, do you want to check the taste?"

"No good, I can't taste properly since these drugs. You do it."

"Yum." She tested a spoonful of the broth and smacked her lips. "Mmm, salty, but not quite there." After tinkering with the seasonings, she tried again, and nodded approvingly. "Yvonne, would you like a taste?"

"I'd love a taste."

She held out a spoonful of broth to me. I took the spoon from her — stroking the side of her finger in passing — and raised it so I could make eye contact with her as I licked, tongue extended. First around the edge of the spoon, then lapping daintily at the middle to catch the salty-steaming broth, and at last wiping it clean with an elaborate swirl of my tongue. As Phoebe was spluttering silently, I smacked my lips.

"Delicious. If you don't watch out, I just might finish mine first and then help myself to yours."

Phoebe gave me a look. "We'll see about that. Anyway, as long as we're both satisfied, it's time to strip." She reached for a pair of long-handled tongs. "The chicken, that is."

We took one chicken each and worked side by side on the bench, picking off the meat with forks, tearing it into small pieces, and dropping it into a bowl to be returned to the pot. Well, most of it went into the bowl; it smelled so delicious that a certain amount was diverted for testing purposes along the way.

Then Phoebe offered me a piece of hers, which I caught with my teeth. Then I gave her some of mine. And then as the action on the TV reached a melodramatic climax Phoebe sucked my fingers into her mouth and did something very suggestive with her tongue on the webbing between them, and I had to go wash my hands and splash water on my face before I could continue with the chicken. (We probably could've gotten away with it — it was all going to be brought back to a boil later on — but I'm fussy about food hygiene, especially when cooking for somebody whose immune system had been knocked around by chemo.)

Eventually the chickens were reduced to skeletons and the meat returned to the pot, along with a generous amount of rice. "Yaya, do you want us to go on cooking now, or wait a bit? What time do you want to serve dinner?"

Silence.

"Yaya?"

Phoebe went over to the chair, stooped: "Ah, she's just snoozing." She picked up the remote and switched off the TV in the middle of the musical finale. Suddenly it was very quiet: just the distant Sunday-afternoon traffic, and the faint whirr of Hamish vacuuming at the other end of the house, and the hum of the air-conditioner fighting the February heat.

We looked at one another, and came together, and we kissed. Despite our recent banter, it wasn't a steamy sexy sort of kiss at all. We barely touched our lips. And yet it left my heart hammering in my chest, so hard I barely noticed when the vacuum cleaner stopped, not until Phoebe broke off.

"I think we'll leave the soup a while and let Yaya sleep. We can wait 'till Dad and Leon get back before we start on the rest of it. Looks like it's not going to cool off for a while yet anyway, don't want to start dinner too early. Tell you what, we can juice the lemons and separate the eggs."

We picked about a dozen from the garden and squeezed them one by one. It was a slow process; just one small lemon was enough to clog the juicer with pulp and seeds, so we had to keep cleaning it out again. That gave us plenty of time for idle conversation.

I asked: "So what did your grandparents do? What made them come out here?"

"Well, Grandma's parents put up the money for them to emigrate. I've never been exactly sure what that was about, but I think it might've been politics. There was a civil war after World War Two, and I get the impression Grandpa was a bit too close to the KKE for comfort." Seeing my blank look, she added, "Communist Party. So you're a respectable businessman and your daughter gets pregnant to a political undesirable... maybe they decided it'd be easier to ship them off down under."