Free An Inch of Time by Peter Helton

whitewashed walls; woodwork and floorboards were painted blue. It had a single bed, a chair, a chest of drawers and smelled of fly spray.
    I hoped no one else in the house wanted a shower that night because I stood under the blessed stream of hot water for a very long time, trying to iron out some of the aches and kinks I had acquired on my journey. I finished towelling my hair in my room while looking out of the small window at the square. The village had quietened down now. I could see the van from here. Just then the birdwatcher strolled up to it. He stopped, looked around him, then peered through the side windows at the interior, shading his eyes with both hands against the glass to do so. Then he quickly walked out of sight.
    Dimitris assured me that Greeks didn’t go in for breakfast much; a coffee first thing in the morning had to suffice for most. Despite this, he managed to find freshly baked bread, butter, thick slices of mortadella, yoghurt and honey, as well as cups of instant coffee for me. While I turned my attention to these offerings in a patch of early morning sunshine at a table outside his cafe, a boy on a scooter was dispatched to the nearest petrol station to fetch a couple of gallons of fuel in a jerry can. Dimitris was a quiet man in the morning and didn’t ask me any more questions. Last night I had finally had the sense to get my story straight: I was on a two-week holiday. What could be simpler than that? Now I unfolded my map and showed him where I was heading: the end of Alexis’s inch-long biro squiggle.
    â€˜Ano Makriá?’ He looked surprised, but his frown was quickly replaced by a smile. ‘Ah, you like to be painter, yes?’
    â€˜Erm, yes, very much,’ I said truthfully.
    â€˜Ano Makriá.’ Dimitris gave a knowing shake of the head and scratched his already stubbled chin. ‘Is not a good place, I think. There is no nothing there, no . . . fertilities?’
    â€˜Facilities?’
    â€˜Yes, that word. Bad road in winter. Much rain and then perhaps no road in winter. Is crazy there. You can be a painter somewhere elsewhere. With facilities.’
    â€˜OK, I’ll bear that in mind. So how do I get there?’
    Dimitris sighed as though I had defeated him in serious negotiations, grabbed my map and folded it impatiently. Then he walked off, eventually disappearing between two houses. He returned two minutes later with a seven- or eight-year-old boy on a small bicycle who would be my guide.
    Derringer looked even grumpier than usual, despite the can of baked squid I had bought for him at the grocer’s. ‘Cheer up, cat; this is the last leg, nearly there.’
    The Greek kid was very excited by his appointment and sped away along the narrow road, pedalling frantically. I followed at a careful distance in the van, since the boy looked over his shoulder every five seconds, each time wobbling dangerously. Not far beyond the last houses of the village we turned off on to a rutted dirt track between terraced olive groves. For a while the track remained level as it twisted between the dense groves of tall, ancient trees, then began to rise into the hills. The kid still pedalled like mad, but when the track rose more steeply, he had enough. He stopped and let me overtake him. As a farewell, he gestured up the track with a fishtailing gesture, said something incomprehensible and turned his bicycle around.
    â€˜
Evcharistó
– thank you’ was all I managed before the kid hurtled back down the track through the dust cloud the van’s wheels had kicked up.
    The track climbed first up, then down again and wound itself around the mountain just above sea level. To my left, the turquoise of the Mediterranean came into view, quite close now, but I was concentrating hard on the potholes and the crumbling verge that was all that stood between me and the rocky shore below. The well-tended olive groves had fallen behind and been replaced by