Page 11 of Take a Chance on Greece

Fighting the urge to panic, I told myself I could deal with this problem too. Sami was a small town, I remembered. How hard could it be to track down a tattoo parlour?

The answer was, quite hard. Despite its modest size, Sami was a thriving place with a plethora of shops and businesses tucked down streets here there and everywhere. What I really needed to do was dump my suitcase somewhere so I could explore unimpeded, but as I didn’t have a base, or in fact the first clue where I was going to spend the night, that wasn’t an option. I dragged it along behind me, painfully aware of the noisy clatter the wheels made on the pavements, convinced it was making everyone stare at me. I marched up and down the main streets which formed a triangle around the port, but while there were plenty of touristy shops, there was no sign of a tattoo studio anywhere. If I didn’t find it in the next five minutes, then I would have to be brave and start asking people for directions, I told myself. I felt like I was sweating from every pore, while the skin of my face was growing tight, a worrying sign that I was probably causing myself some serious sun damage.

I dived down a side street in search of some shade. It was much quieter here, with more residential buildings than shops, judging by the lines of washing which were hanging up on the blue-painted balconies in between the clouds of bougainvillea. I paused in a doorway to get my breath back. I was starting to feel rather dizzy, a sick, floaty feeling which gave me unpleasant flashbacks to my hungover state the morning after I’d got the tattoo. I took a couple of deep breaths and told myself to pull it together. I couldn’t fall at this first hurdle. I thought of the look of disdain on Jim’s face as I told him I was leaving and forced myself to stand up straighter.

Right on cue, the wind picked up, and a shop sign over the road started squeaking as it swung in the breeze. The sign was written in Greek, but the artwork surrounding the letters was a dead giveaway. There it was, the tattoo studio I’d been searching for, the window shaded from direct view by a couple of potted lemon trees. Finding a new surge of energy, I hurried across the street, dragging my complaining suitcase behind me, and practising what I was going to say to the artist.

But as soon as they had been raised, my hopes were dashed. The door of the shop was locked and there were no lights on, in fact no sign of life at all. I rapped my knuckles against the doorframe to see if it would bring anyone out, but no such luck. I peered through the window, my hot palms steaming up the cool glass, as I tried to spot any sign of movement. As I leaned forward, I knocked my suitcase, sending it clattering against the door.

Then I heard the sound of someone speaking in rapid Greek behind me.

Chapter Six

Iturned around quickly, leaping away from the window, suddenly conscious that I must have looked like I was trying to break into the tattoo studio. There was a man standing in the doorway of the building opposite. He was tall with tousled dark hair, around my age at a guess, wearing jeans despite the heat, and he was watching me closely from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles, his expression intent. He seemed startled by my presence, but I guess I was looking rather suspicious, loitering outside the shop dressed in clothing more suitable for slobbing around in England than holidaying in Greece. There couldn’t be many tourists who were so desperate to see a tattoo artist that they’d stand outside an obviously closed studio banging on the window. As my gaze locked with his, he took a step forward, knocking his elbow against the doorframe, the sudden shock of which made him drop the armful of books that he was holding. I rushed across the street, feeling unaccountably responsible for his injury.

‘Are you OK? Can I help you with these?’ I asked, then knelt down and started picking the books up without waiting for an answer. I couldn’t read the titles, but the pictures on the covers made me wonder if they were translated copies of Jane Austen. I thought about the matching English language versions which I’d rescued on my flight from Jim’s house and managed to stuff into my suitcase.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ he said, kneeling down beside me, concern for his books obviously overriding his suspicion at my presence. ‘It was my mistake.’ We both reached for the same book simultaneously, and he snatched his hand back as if he’d been stung.

‘Sorry,’ we chorused.

I stood up, but the combination of high emotion and the long day without eating sent another woozy rush to my head. I reached out intending to grab the doorframe for support, but encountered the man’s firm arm instead. This time it was my turn to move away quickly.

‘I think you had better come in and sit down,’ he said. ‘You have turned a most peculiar colour. Is that your bag over there?’

He led me inside, pulled out a chair and pressed a glass of cold water into my hand, a kind gesture given that the reason he’d confronted me in the first place was that he thought I was trying to break into his neighbour’s studio. Then he fetched my suitcase and quietly pottered around, while I tried to get my act together.

Gradually the buzzing in my brain quietened down and the room came into focus. I examined my surroundings and realised I was either sitting in a bookshop, or in the front room of someone who was as big a bibliophile as me. The shelves nearly reached the ceiling and they were packed with books, mostly in Greek, but with a few English and German titles here and there. Comfortable armchairs were situated at key points around the room, perfectly placed for people to sink down into after a good browse. My host caught me looking and smiled.

‘I like to keep stock for the holiday visitors,’ he said, nodding towards the shelves. ‘My sister says I should display them more clearly and in a more logical way, but I think people enjoying exploring bookshops and accidentally coming across a treat. Are you feeling any better? It is very hot today.’

I nodded, gingerly at first, then more confidently as I realised the movement wasn’t setting off a chain reaction of nausea. I supposed what I really needed to do was have a good meal and then a long sleep, but given the situation I’d got myself into, I couldn’t see either of those things happening for the time being.

‘Thank you for helping me…’ My voice trailed off as I waited for him to tell me what his name was.

‘Alexis,’ he said.

‘I’m Lydia,’ I introduced myself, feeling an unreasonable pang of disappointment that the guy’s name wasn’t Andreas. It would be absurd to expect the first attractive man I spoke to in Sami to be the one I was looking for. Alexis nodded, then took his glasses off and started cleaning them.

‘So, Lydia, what brings you to my street?’

It was such a simple question, and yet the answer was anything but.

For a moment, I considered lying and telling him I was here on holiday, ashamed to admit my impulsive behaviour and ridiculous dream. But there was something about his quiet manner, a kind of restfulness, that inspired confidence, and I decided to trust him with my story. It was all well and good making a dramatic point by running away to Greece, but time was marching on, and I was going to have to ask somebody for help if I didn’t want to end up sleeping rough on a bench in the harbour. Hopefully Alexis wouldn’t end up spitting at me. He seemed too kind for that sort of thing.

I took the plunge, and told him about my predicament, slightly downplaying Jim’s behaviour because I didn’t want to look like one of those people who go around slagging off their exes. Alexis raised an eyebrow when he heard about the tattoo, but his expression quickly returned to quiet concentration, and I found the courage to continue.

‘So, I decided to return and track down the mysterious Andreas,’ I said, feeling ridiculous all over again as I said the words out loud. ‘And so far, it’s not going well. I’ve failed to find the tattooist, my phone has run out of battery, I have nowhere to stay and I’ve been nearly spat at by an old woman whose bag I carried off the bus. Massively offending someone before I’d even properly set foot in town was definitely not part of the plan.’

‘Now that I can help with,’ said Alexis with a warm smile. ‘You will not have offended her. Quite the opposite. I think the spitting was not because she was angry, it was because she was warding off the evil eye. It is an old Greek tradition. If someone makes a spitting sound at you, it is because they think people will be jealous of your niceness and would wish you harm, so they are protecting you from their jealousy. It was her way of showing her gratitude for your help.’

‘Oh, thank goodness. I was worried that I’d inadvertently been rude or something. I really do have a lot to learn.’

Alexis laughed. ‘You have come to the right place. You should be able to find all the answers you want in here.’ He gestured around him at the bookshelves.

‘If only I could find my dream guy in a bookshop. I don’t suppose you know the Andreas I’m trying to find?’ I kept my tone light, as if I was making a joke, although it was a genuine question.

Alexis seemed to think carefully about his answer, giving a final polish to his glasses and checking the lenses from several different angles before he put them back on.

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