The Way It Breaks Read online

  The Way It Breaks

  Polis Loizou

  Cloud Lodge Books

  Copyright © 2021 Polis Loizou

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover Art by: Anastasia Loizou

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Cloud Lodge Books (CLB)

  51 Holland Street, London W8 7JB

  cloudlodgebook.com

  To a liberated and united motherland

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Note On The Text

  PART I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  PART II

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  PART III

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  PART IV

  One

  Two

  Three

  PART V

  Acknowledgement

  About The Author

  Books By This Author

  A Note On The Text

  ‘Ah’ and ‘Eh’ appear as ‘A’ and ‘E’ to denote the flat, solid sound of Greek vowels, while most proper names are presented closer to the original rather than colonial versions, e.g. ‘Lemesos’ in-stead of ‘Limassol’.

  ‘Re’ (pronounced like ‘red’ without the D), used by the Cypriot characters, is an informal inter-jection, something along the lines of ‘hey you’, ‘man’ or ‘dude’. Its female equivalent is ‘kori’ (the K pronounced as a G), which also means ‘daughter’.

  ‘Pe’ (like ‘pen’ without the N) is used to denote frustration, annoyance, usually at the ridicu-lousness of something.

  PART I

  One

  It remained to be seen how much he was worth. If the Harley overtook the Toyota before the traffic lights turned amber, the woman in the tortoise-shell sunglasses would leave Orestis a tip. He watched her from behind the glass. She’d lunched on her own in the shade of an umbrella, towel wrapped around her wet swimsuit, and sipped at a glass of pineapple juice as she turned the pages of a bloated paperback. Slow, dainty sips. Some people had all the time in the world. Though the wave of them had ebbed, Orestis guessed her to be a Brit; of all the tourists he’d served, they read the most. But the skin of her shoulders was unfreckled, her hair a midnight black. Maybe a London Cypriot, a Charlie like his mother.

  The bike had overtaken the car. He waited for the outcome.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the woman, hand at half-mast. ‘The check, please?’

  When he returned with her bill, he asked in English: ‘It was all OK?’

  ‘Mm. Just what I needed.’

  ‘You are American?’

  One side of her mouth curved into a smile. She removed her sunglasses and was older than he’d thought. ‘Canadian, actually. But my husband is Scottish. He works at the base, in Akrotiri? Leaves me on my own most days, to frolic at the beach and whatnot.’

  North Americans: they shared so much with so little effort. He hadn’t managed to catch everything, what with her English spilling out as it did. But she fixed him with a stare so frank that translation was redundant. Orestis’ cheeks burned.

  ‘Thank you,’ was all he could say.

  ‘Keep the change,’ said she, in a different voice.

  Still smiling, the woman returned the sunglasses to her eyes and her eyes to the novel. Droplets of sweat dried on her forehead, her neck, the fresh-tanned skin at her bikini straps. The spark-white day was beginning to cool, and she left him to compute his generous tip.

  She wasn’t short of cash. So why eat here?

  On his lunch break, he microwaved his grandma’s pasta and took the Tupperware down to the beach, where he settled on a rock to watch the walkers, the swimmers, the joggers. No way had that Canadian been flirting; it was all in his head. Women — at least, not the good ones — weren’t in the market for waiters. Aside from the job, there was his weight. You had to offer something to offset your flaws. The fat had snuck on after his Army days like a stowaway, extra filling in his face, extra puff around his middle. It had consumed what muscles he’d built. Not to mention his mother’s legacy: the long Greek nose, the large eyes, the things he liked about himself. He recalled his school-day scores when girls would let him touch their legs beneath the desk. When they’d fondle him on nights out, bite his lip, in the blare of a club in the tourist district. In the alleys where Turkish beggarwomen sat on stools inking henna on the arms of tipsy students. Those old conquests were now architects, marketing execs, recruitment consultants. Fuzzy-ended pencils replaced with branded ballpoints. He was a waiter with a paunch, working like a kid in his uncle’s taverna.

  A guy went jogging past him, shirtless. Orestis lowered his head from the glossy pecs to finish his pasta.

  Afterwards, while the restaurant docked in its afternoon slump, his uncle sat him down for a private chat. For the first time, Orestis saw the grey roots in the man’s hair.

  ‘You know you’re my favourite here,’ his uncle said, ‘you know that. Not just in the restaurant, in the family, too. I wish I could do more for you, but you know what it’s been like. They’ve fucked us over.’ From repetition, Orestis knew that They were the government who’d tied the island to Europe. ‘Prices are up, everything keeps going up. I remember when you could buy a coffee for seventy-five cents. Now…’ He waved the air away.

  From his uncle’s monologue, Orestis guessed another pay cut was coming.

  He was right.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to,’ his uncle said more than once, while Orestis, thinking of the man’s swimming pool, and the wife and kids sprawled around it in Dolce & Gabbana swimwear, kept a red-faced silence.

  ✽✽✽

  Dinner was stewing in the steamed-up kitchen, a khaki stain of a room that hadn’t seen a paintbrush since 1974. As always, the old girl’s radio was tuned to the bouzouki classics. She sang along with her trembling murmur to songs that sounded like ghosts.

  When he walked up to his grandma she kissed both his cheeks, pinched them. ‘My strapping young man.’ Then ‘A!’ — batting his hand away — when he reached for a piece of chopped carrot.

  ‘What? I’m trying to be healthy.’

  ‘Health is for the rich.’

  In the garage, his father lay beneath a neighbour’s RAV4, which had been everyone’s car for a while. Kostas didn’t bother to slide out, mumbling instead from under the vehicle. ‘Finally, you’re here. Get me a Coke.’

  Swaddled in the tang of gasoline, Orestis began to calm. He grabbed a can of Coke from the spare fridge and handed it over to his old man. Lowering himself onto a stool, he took a deep breath and came out with it: ‘Uncle’s cut my pay again.’ His finger played with the ring-pull.

/>   Kostas slid out from under the car, face creased and daubed with oil. Instead of an outburst, there was only a gathering cloud. ‘Your mother’s fucking family…’ he said at last. ‘Liars and pimps, every single one of them.’

  Orestis nodded, tipping the ice-cold Coke down his throat. The rush of gas and bubbles made him choke.

  Kostas exploded. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I keep telling you not to work for that goddamn crook?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Now look.’

  ‘I said I know.’

  ‘If you learned how to fix a car, you could work for me and we’d double our clients. Then you could go to Mercedes or BMW or any of them. Do you know how much they pay?’

  ‘Why don’t you work for them, then?’

  ‘I’m too old. Who’s gonna give me a job?’

  ‘E…’ Orestis took another swig of Coke.

  ‘The tourists are gonna stop coming, I promise you. We’re not Dubai.’

  Orestis’ face burned as if his pants had been pulled down before a crowd. ‘We won’t have customers ei—’

  ‘You still want to own a hotel, are you fucking crazy? For what? So you can clean it up and down for whores like your mother and crooks like your uncle? God have mercy. You’ll go there tomorrow and tell him you quit.’

  Orestis raised his voice, too. ‘Then what? How will we live?’

  Kostas was silenced, and unhappy about it. He glared at his son, who gazed at the floor. It was the same conversation between them, again and again. If their circumstances ever changed, the shock of new things to talk about might shut the old man up for good.

  Outside on the scorching concrete, a pair of car doors clicked and shut, one of them snagging the leaves of a loquat tree. Uncles Andros and Andrikos waddled over to them.

  Andros threw an arm around Orestis, his beard scratched the young man’s cheek. ‘What’s new, gentlemen?’

  ‘Same shit,’ said Kostas. ‘His uncle’s cut his pay again.’

  Andrikos made that gesture with his hand, frustration and hopelessness. ‘Pe…’ That old baseball cap on his head. The Nike tick, Just do it.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you about that family?’ Andros simultaneously ramped up his volume at Kostas and his grip on Orestis’ shoulder. ‘Arseholes and thieves, the lot of them! Remember your wedding, when her father wouldn’t pay the deposit on the venue because he just bought a Lancia? Remember that?’

  And the men rehashed the story Orestis had heard at least once a month since birth.

  ‘All right, lads, all right,’ said Andrikos in his throaty citrus voice. He patted his nephew’s hand. ‘He knows this, poor boy. What else can he do, when they’re giving all the jobs to Russians and Poles?’

  ‘He could do this!’ Kostas said, indicating the garage as if it was the Tsirion stadium.

  ‘And then go to BMW?’ Andros cut in. ‘Forget it, cuz. Better to stay with the Nazi relative than the Nazis buying Europe.’

  Andrikos wheezed a laugh. He looked at Orestis, then leant back. ‘Re, you’ve put on weight.’

  Orestis’ hand went to his stomach. ‘Yeah…’ he said, forcing a smile.

  ‘Orestis, get them some Cokes.’

  ‘It’s because you don’t exercise, am I right?’ said Andros.

  ‘Yeah, uncle, probably.’

  ‘Not “probably”, I’m right. ‘Cause when you were in the Army, you built some muscle, you took care of yourself, didn’t you? You were so handsome! How many girlfriends did you have?’

  The Army days were an endless slideshow of the barracks. Talking shit with a bunch of guys from his ‘enemy’ high-school. Drinks and sex jokes and card games, the occasional rifle assembly. Two dead years of service with no reward, while non-Greeks flew abroad to study, earned degrees, got started on their lives in the nick of time. Before house prices burst and restaurants wiped the Greek off their menus.

  ‘Re!’ said Andrikos. Though he’d been seated on a plastic chair for the past few minutes, his breath was noisy, a throat full of holes. ‘Why don’t you go to Pavlos? That gym by the park.’

  ‘Pavlos works at a gym now?’

  ‘What “now”, did you forget to put your clocks forward? He’s been there since Easter.’

  Orestis couldn’t picture Andrikos’ son working at a gym, or working at all. Selling weed outside the clubs and blasting tunes on the highway, easy. But good honest work? Pavlos was the sort of heavy-lidded fucker that everyone liked but no one could trust.

  ‘Go over there, he’ll give you a discount.’

  ‘Yeah? He can do that?’

  ‘E, who knows if he’s allowed… But you know him, he does what he wants anyway.’ Beyond the smile, the teenage exploits of Andrikos’ son fogged the man’s eyes.

  ‘Re!’ Kostas was back to yelling. ‘My son’s had a pay cut and you’re telling him to go wank around in a gym?’

  Andrikos waved his hand again as if to sweep away their troubles. ‘Cuz,’ he said, ‘as our blessed departed grandmother used to say: even poor people need a good time.’

  ✽✽✽

  The old girl had cooked enough for everyone, so they crammed the kitchen with two more plastic chairs for Andrikos and Andros. The woman fussed around them, fetching third and fourth cans of Keo, passing houmous and tahini, pushing everyone to eat more salad. She held her nephews’ hands and laughed at anecdotes of times long-gone with their parents. But as she heaped the last of the stew onto their plates, Orestis caught a helpless look in her eyes. She’d made so much, but there’d be nothing left for tomorrow. She crossed herself, mouth tight.

  Later in his room, he opened the wardrobe door, still puckered with football stickers from his childhood. His reflection drew its T-shirt up over its wobbling stomach. A bilious ball went up his throat like a lift. The reflection pushed the fat at its sides up and down and sideways. Those shoulders, once rocks that held him upright, had eroded to dunes. Andros was right. Once, not so long ago, Orestis drew the right sort of glance from a stranger. He’d always been grateful for his mother’s looks, as his pug-faced father must’ve been. And those were still there, they would never change. For the moment they were confined, awaiting release. It was up to him to make that happen.

  ‘Worthless,’ he whispered at himself. ‘Wanker.’

  He slapped his stomach.

  ‘You make me sick.’

  Another slap, more like a punch.

  ‘Loser.’

  Punch.

  ‘Wanker.’

  Punch.

  He would go to see Pavlos.

  Even poor people needed a good time.

  Two

  Orestis’ limbs sagged. He should’ve been on his break, but the late-shifter was taking the piss. On top of that, every duty in his job description was now worth less per hour. Parents let their kids throw felt-tips to the floor and smear the menus with mustard and vinegar. A couple of Russian wives had repeated their order with obvious eye-rolls as they pointed to the English words. He’d bit his tongue and smiled. Women like them were buffered by a coat of money, legs and status. And they would never get their due. At last, his colleague arrived. Orestis threw off his apron and stomped out. One day he’d carry on walking.

  On foot, the road to the gym was longer and busier than he’d anticipated. After what seemed the entirety of his break he arrived at that familiar but intimidating glass-fronted building. He asked for Pavlos at Reception and shut his eyes to the AC as he tried to ease his panting.

  ‘Hey buddy, how’s it going?’ His cousin strode over with a towel slung over his shoulder, that big grin on his face. Orestis thought too late of their mingled sweat as they hugged. ‘Dad told me you would come. It’s good to see you, re! I thought we’d have to wait for another wedding.’

  Orestis made his usual excuses: work, his grandma’s health. As he did so, Pavlos searched him with those curious eyes, Andrikos’ grey-green marble made hazy from weed and peace. Orestis had tried marijuana one night with some guys from the s
tate school. One puff and an icon of the Virgin hanging on the wall had made him think of his grandma. He’d refused another toke and blamed it on feeling queasy.

  Now he tried to focus on Pavlos’ chitchat, rather than his sculpted torso in a tank-top. Pavlos seemed to have both nothing and everything going for him. A general ease. A Ducati. A sex life. A body to turn heads.

  After a while, Orestis cut the chat short. ‘I’d better get back to work,’ he said. ‘I haven’t even eaten.’

  ‘OK, buddy. Go eat. Don’t stop eating, a? Coz that’s dumb.’

  Orestis laughed. ‘OK.’

  ‘Come whenever you want, I’m always here. Half price for you.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, re! Don’t even think about it. This is Tinos’ place. Half price for family.’

  Tinos was the husband of a cousin on Pavlos’ mother’s side. It was doubtful the offer extended to him, but Pavlos was fixed on it. He squeezed Orestis’ bicep and said with a wink and a grin, ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll make you a stud.’

  Orestis grabbed a takeaway souvlaki to eat on the move. One of the few things he knew about his mother was that she baulked at people eating on the street. Any mention of the Charlie absentee made his grandma’s eyebrows rise, but Orestis secretly sided with his mother. Every so often, he discovered terrible traits he shared with her and kept them to himself. At the kitchen table, where his father and grandma slurped and smacked and guzzled and burped, he zoned out to the empty chair beside them, with its straight back, elbows off the table. Reading between the lines, he concluded his mother was a different breed, with other expectations of life. How bored and alone she must have felt with her husband and mother-in-law. On the other hand, if she’d stayed she might have grown to love her child. He might have been the one to moor her.

  Back at the taverna, he noticed a text whose buzz he’d missed. It was from Paris, asking if he was up for post-work drinks in Old Town. On any other day, fatigued and moody as he always seemed to be, Orestis would’ve declined with a vague lie. But today was wired differently; something about the injection of hope Pavlos had given him, the discounted gym pass and the promise to be moulded and bettered — something told him to accept.