LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 01 - post169

“She is so different. I do not know how to handle her. There is a hardness in her that none of you have. She is a mess of contradictions. She is vulnerable, of all of you she is the most cheerful and yet there is a darkness that comes from a lack of empathy. She has a viewpoint on just about everything and no place in her for understanding how the other feels.”

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“That was spoken in bitterness dad.”

I laughed. “Are you telling me you are here as my daughter? You chose a funny time to remember to call me dad.”

“You would be surprised at how often I do - in my thoughts. Robbie, you have to help her. She needs to find a way to unsay what she said. She is still in the hotel room, lying on the bed. She cried for a while, but now she is just lying there feeling miserable.”

“Self pity? She said she hates that.” I grinned down at her.

“No. She feels she has hurt you. She does not know what to do to make things better between you. She spoke like a child does, since when did you lose that special empathy you have for kids?”

“Bullshit! How can I have empathy for someone who scares me.”

She bent over with her amusement. “You better not say anything more, you will never live down that comment. Come, let’s return to your room.”

“You coming with me?”

“Don’t be silly, you are on your own.”

She hardly blinked as I appeared at the foot of the bed. I took one look and without need for a second thought sent a wave of love and tenderness to her. It was as if I had struck her. She burst into tears. As I pulled her into my arms I felt hers wrap themselves around me. She cried for a very long time and when her sobs had turned to sighs I found she had fallen asleep. Any effort to move would have awakened her so I spent hours lying as I was until she turned over.

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In the morning she uncharacteristically waited for me to speak first. When she saw I did not intend to, she tried to open the discussion but I stopped her.

“No talking today. This is the day for adventure and fun. We can do our talking after you have become my woman tonight. Then, and only then, you can tell me if you were right. Come on squiggly tail, get dressed, I’m hungry.”

“Squiggly tail?”

“You ever looked at yours? Okay, I’m teasing. But you do tend to squiggle your arse around when you are in one of your bubbly moods. Claw and squiggly tail - strange pet names for a strange girl.”

“I’m going to find one for you and you will be sorry.”

I laughed. “Maybe you and Cherine should get together on that. Meli has the best imagination, but she is far too sweet to come up with something really nasty - nasty was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Are we going to search for that Estella?”

“It is Friday, she will be at school now. How good a swimmer are you?”

“In this weather?”

“It’s not too cold and we will be wearing wetsuits. I want to go diving. I learnt that apparently there is a wreck of a ship somewhere out there and I heard some locals talking about an octopus that lives in it. It sounds as if it is about fifty years old and is huge. Claudia, octopi are one of the most intelligent creatures after man, can you imagine what it has learnt over so many years? But, you know how these stories go, I want to check it out. We will have a professional with us and you don’t have to come all the way down with us.”

To prove she was not as crazy as I am, she spent the time waiting in the boat, freezing her butt off. Once I was underwater I did not feel cold and enjoyed myself. It seems nobody knows exactly where the ship is and we spent our time searching. Being a romantic I also hoped we would come across some antiques from the days of Ancient Greece, but we hardly ever saw the bottom, since I’ve not had any training my companion felt it was too deep for me.

The young diver was very friendly and a bit of a chatterbox and he told us a lot about his village. This is the first young person I’ve met who has shown any yearning for their village and he talked about saving up enough to return there. He likes the idea of farming and of getting out of the rat race life is in the towns. The only problem he foresees is the difficulty he is likely to have in convincing some young maiden to join him there. I found the idea of any woman choosing the hard life he would be offering very unlikely, especially the young girls of today who are spoilt and, as a separate issue, have dreams of their own. I hope they can both find a way to compromise so that the dreams of each of them can come true.

Once on land and as I was paying him, he invited us to go with him; he told us he had arranged with his family a trip to his village for the day. The family have prepared a good lunch and there will be more than enough for a couple of guests. On condition that he allow us to make some purchases at a supermarket we agreed to go. Claudia did not say anything, but I could sense she expected to be bored, but was willing to endure without complaint if it is what I want.

For parts of the trip the countryside did not look like Cyprus. When we came around the side of a hill, the road winding down into a valley, I had a feeling of déjà vu - I suspect the déjà vu feeling came from seeing something like this in a movie or a fairy story book, I know it is not from real life. There were two very large rocks, with trees growing on them, on either side of the road. It looked as if they had been cleaved by a giant with an axe. The valley was green, but the village we came to looked unkempt, with giant red clay pots, most of them broken and half buried, lying in the fields and amongst the stone houses. Stathis explained the condition of the village as being due to all the younger people leaving for the towns and thus half the houses being abandoned.

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The parents looked older than they were, their faces deeply lined and tanned by their life in the open. As most village people are, they were extremely hospitable and were eager to show off to their neighbours the ‘xenous’ their son had brought. Claudia felt it had turned into a party as the neighbours drifted in with dishes of food, wine, fruit and loud voices full of cheer and warmth. The radio was switched on, adding to the bedlam and we hardly knew who we were talking to, nor understood the half of what was said, especially the older ones who spoke with a heavy accent.

Claudia was treated like some rare princess, or like some mythical creature; the old folk repeatedly exclaimed over her beauty, the smooth silkiness of her skin and they were not shy about touching her cheeks or arms to feel her. They pampered and stuffed her until she was ready to cry from it all. By the time we had reached the moment for the little cups of coffee to be served, Stathis had the sensitivity to arrange for Claudia to lie down. She sent to me that there was no way she could sleep, the room and bed smelt so clean and strange from the herbs and lavender. In less than five minutes she was sound asleep and I sat chatting, drinking coffee after coffee and even enjoying a couple of cigarettes. Once they had understood I earn my living as an artist I found I had to draw a multitude of sketches. Most of them did not wait for me to leave, they would grab their sketch, exclaim over it, show it to all and then hurry to put it away in a safe place at home before returning for more coffee, fruit and sweets. To tell the truth, the idea of works of mine being treasured by these people meant more to me than the compliments I get for my artwork which appear on the internet.

It was almost evening by the time we left, burdened with gifts of delicacies cooked by the givers. Claudia and I were fascinated by a sweet in the shape of a candle with a string through the center. It has pistachio nuts inside and is made from the pulp of grapes after the juice has been removed for making wine. Rubbery and almost tasteless though it was, both of us kept on nibbling at it. At the hotel Stathis politely declined our invitation to join us for a drink and thanking us for going with him, he left.

If this day had left an impression on my mind, I could hardly imagine what it had done to little Claudia. In the room she flopped down onto the bed and within minutes was fast asleep. Cherine and Dommi both promised to keep an eye on her and to let me know if she wakes up. I went downstairs to the verandah by the sea and had a cappuccino, gazing off into the distance, my mind a blank sheet of happiness.

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^{For those readers who have not understood, when they speak using telepathy, what they say is enclosed within stars, and the thoughts exchanged are in italic.
e.g *Hi, I bet you are wishing you could read thoughts.*?}

I hope you enjoy reading this story of fantasy, adventure and love. Yes, most of all, always of empathy and love.

Αλέξανδρος Ζήνον Ευσταθίου

(Alexander Zenon Eustace)
^{9th July, 2018}
* posted on Steemit: 9th July, 2018