‘Amnesia, Gran? She’s never going to buy that.’ I scoff at the thought.
‘Fine. I’ll text her. The pounding in my head is too loud for a phone call with your mother right now.’
Chapter 19
Later that afternoon, pig farmer Zorba wanders into Gran’s villa looking fresh as a daisy. He doesn’t seem to be suffering from the effects of the poison they downed last night like she is.
‘Why do you look so healthy?’ Gran asks.
‘It’s my Greek constitution.’ He pats his belly and pulls at his suspender straps. He’s a bit of a contradiction wearing a white linen shirt and suspenders coupled with farm-worn denim jeans and plastic boots.
‘You’re far too cheerful and my granddaughter says you’re a bad influence.’
He grins as if he’s pleased. I don’t bring up his very worst trait of mixing up the colour order of the books, but I really want to. ‘Gran,’ I say. ‘I’m supposed to meet Georgios and Roxy at the vineyard. I’m already running late but you’re in no fit state to run the bookshop. Shall I reschedule with them and leave you to rest?’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s nothing a glass of Crazy Donkey can’t fix.’
‘Do I even want to know?’
‘A crisp cold beer, a bit of hair of the dog.’
‘What?’
Zorba turns to me. ‘It’s a well-known beer made by the Santorini Brewing Company. It’s a local secret that it cures hangovers. Helps with hydration, you see.’
‘Sounds legit. Why have a blood stream, Gran, when you can have an alcohol stream?’
‘That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard you say since you arrived. Now scoot. Zorba can drive you to meet your friends and then he can return with said miracle hangover cure. I’ll sit on a sun lounger in Muses and let the customers come to me.’
There’s not point arguing with her. I won’t win. ‘OK, thanks.’ I get my things and give Gran a kiss on the cheek. ‘Eat something too, won’t you?’
‘Zorba would you bring me back a gyros too? Extra garlic sauce.’
He touches the side of his nose. ‘That’s the second hangover cure. But you have to have extra garlic sauce or it doesn’t work.’
Just how many hangovers have these two shared? ‘Call me if you—’
‘I won’t. Go and have fun.’ Zeus barks a goodbye.
We go to Zorba’s dusty farm truck that is so rusted out I’m amazed the panels are still attached. It’s so decrepit that I’m hesitant it’ll make the distance to the winery. Still, there’s one positive. I bet it can’t go very fast, otherwise the panels would surely blow away in the wind. He starts it up and I’m surprised to find it thrums and purrs like it’s got a powerful motor under the hood.
Seatbelt fastened we take off, and I clutch the dash. Why does everyone drive like it’s the apocalypse and we’re being chased by brain-eating zombies? What the hell is the rush when every other facet of life here is lived so achingly slowly?
I’m meant to be meeting Roxy and Georgios for a team meeting at Santorini Vineyard. But will I make it there alive? I call out for Zorba to slow down but the words are snatched away by the wind that blows through the many rust holes in the cab of the truck. I’m going to die next to a retired pig farmer who may or may not feed dead people to his pigs. There’s a certain Guy Ritchie aspect to it all, and I envision Posy playing the part of me in a daytime movie. She’d get a kick out of it too, she would. She’d overplay all my quirks until she was a caricature version of the real me. Still, it would mean I’d live on, if only in film.
And then I picture my beloved Gran, flannel atop her head waiting patiently for gyros and a bottle of Crazy Donkey, only to find Hellenic Police at her door, sharing the terrible news that not only is her hangover not going to be cured, she’s also lost her late-night drinking buddy, and her favourite granddaughter has met the same fate as her eight or possibly nine husbands and is waiting for her in the afterlife.
No, she couldn’t stand that sort of shock. Not at her age. ‘Zorba, I don’t want to die!’
‘Eh?’
‘I DON’T WANT TO DIE!’
‘I no understand.’ He lifts both palms off the steering wheel. That crafty so-and-so. It’s now evident why he and Gran are as thick as thieves! Now, he suddenly doesn’t understand English either?
‘Would you mind steering the vehicle with your actual hands?’ I gulp back the acidic taste of fear as he drives using only his knees. Hiskneeswhile he combs his windblown hair back with his fingers.
Just when I’m about to give in to my fate we arrive at the vineyard. I open to door and the handle comes clean off in my hand. Never mind. There’s no chance in hell I’ll ever be a passenger in Zorba’s vehicle again.
