Free Watching the Wind Blow (The Greek Village Collection Book 9) by Sara Alexi Page A

hopefully, their claws tapping tiny sounds as they ran from place to place looking for scraps. Looking down on them from my cage, I found them frightening but I felt safe because I was high up. It was the sound of their claws on the wood. That scuttling, clicking noise. But if an adult was there, they didn’t come out, and there was usually an adult there. But this is not really the point. I was telling you about Yiayia.
    ‘Sometimes Yiayia would mother me as if I was the most precious thing in the world to her. Caring and kind.’ She smiles at this memory and then the smile drops. ‘The next moment, it was as if I did not exist. The change was so sudden, as if something had shifted in her head, in her thinking. Even if I cried at those times, it was as if she could not hear me. Her eyes glazed over and often, she would rock and stare out of the window and I would be frightened of her. Other times, it was even worse, as if I was something evil and dirty. If I cried for long enough at these times, she would throw the end of a piece of bread in my cot with me and then go out to the fields. During the course of the day, she would come in and out but each time, it was as if she was searching for something and she never seemed to see me.’ Irini stops talking to see if Sam will encourage her to continue.
    With a glance, he does. She prepares herself before she continues. ‘But, and this is the bit that no one believes. I remember getting hungry and looking amongst the crumpled covers for the piece of bread and finding a rat with its teeth sunk into it. It showed no fear, this rat. I grabbed the bread and pulled and only then did it jump from my cot. After that, being alone was frightening. I thought the rats were going to eat me.’
    Sam’s expression does not change. But nor does he show any signs of disbelief. Nor does he laugh, which someone did once. He just listens and Irini feels a great relief. She allows the feeling to settle within her before saying more. But eventually she feels driven to go on.
    ‘But although the rats were the immediate problem, it was my yiayia that caused the hurt. I never knew what mood she was going to be in, and what I did didn’t seem to influence her moods. It was all so uncertain and I craved her love, you know?’ She has never admitted this even to herself before. ‘Mama and Baba where there for so few hours a day, and when they were, they were either in the fields or sleeping. Yiayia was more like a mother to me because she was there the most. But trying to explain what it was like growing up with her. Well, it’s difficult to explain without sounding bad.’
    ‘You have told this to your husband though?’ he says, looking at her wedding ring.
    The mental image of Petta fills her with love and yearning but also a loneliness. She cannot share this part of her life. He cannot even listen to it.
    ‘He finds it too hard to think of me in these situations.’ It is uncomfortable to confess this and she senses she is being disloyal. She waits for Sam’s judgement on Petta, but he says nothing.
    Picking up the binoculars, he takes another look at the port police.
    ‘They will wait until it is dark,’ he says.

Chapter 7
     
    ‘Wait for what?’ Irini asks, but he does not answer.
    The clouds over the horizon have grown mountainous; where they meet the horizon, they are dark and foreboding. The sea in that direction is green and ruffled, not enough for white caps to form but not the smooth silk of transparent blue that surrounds them. The gentlest of breezes lifts the longer strands of her cropped hair.
    An image of Stathoula comes to mind. Her plane will have landed now, and she will be in the car, on her way down from the airport. Irini pushes the thought away, but at the same time is interested to note that the intensity with which she was anticipating Stathoula’s visit has diminished a little.
    ‘Put the sails up,’ Sam says. Irini looks at him blankly. ‘You know how?’