Free The Gypsy's Dream by Sara Alexi

eggs. Stella cares about Mitsos’ chickens because he cares, but what she would like to say is she wishes he was fifteen years younger, although she wouldn’t really. She likes the creases in his face, particularly the ones around his eyes. But she has not ever dwelt on the subject more than that, pushing such thoughts away, forcing Mitsos into a father-figure role which he doesn’t quite fit.
    There is Stavros, and Mitsos has shown only kindness. She is just lonely and enjoys his attention.

    Abby turns right, out of the square. There is a stone wall painted white snaking up the hill. The whitewash is so thick the wall appears iced, all edges rounded, gentle curves replacing sharp corners. Grass grows along the bottom but it is trimmed back, presumably by the passing of cars. Abby climbs the slope, the sun beating down on her white skin. She forgot to put sun cream on and already her shoulders are pink. There is a line of dust up the centre of the road. She has never seen a road like this in England: they always have puddles.
    Maybe Stella has a phone charger; there are so many things to take pictures of. The whitewashed wall. The donkey in the field over the other side. The back yard of someone’s house that has a line hung with huge white knickers side by side. The buckets and tins that have been painted and spotted blue and white and planted with geraniums, with shocking red blooms. Everywhere a postcard, but actually better than a postcard as none of it is staged, it is all real. Another back yard and a man is … Abby turns away. So revolting, how could he do that? Ok, so he has to eat, but to skin a goat in public, there should be laws.
    Coming up from the square floats a clanking and clanging of bells. It must be a herd of goats. She turns to see but the lane has twisted and the view is blocked. Puffing up a track to the right she passes a gate with a home-made letter box, but it looks old and disused. It has a drawer front as a lid and there is a lizard sunbathing on the brass handle. But Abby is determined to see the herd of goats and jogs as fast as she can bear in the heat up the track until, before she reaches a tiny cottage, there is a break in the bushes and she can see the village laid out before her, including the goats in the square, so many of them, a heaving sea, ears flicking, white tails bobbing.
    The la dy from the kiosk is wafting a newspaper at them to stop them eating her wares and she is talking in a high-pitched voice to a man who does not look at all bothered. The animals begin to leave but the herder doesn’t follow the goats or his dog. Abby waits until all the goats have turned out of sight and Vasso has finished wagging her finger at the goat herder, who is now buying a bottle of water from her. Abby turns from the scene to continue to climb the hill.
    She decides to go past the cottage, which loo ks deserted, and along the outside of the wall that surrounds the grove of some sort of trees. The branches are black against the deep blue sky. There is not a cloud anywhere. Abby puts her hand up to shade her eyes. Her forehead is hot; so is her hair. She pulls the cap Stella gave her from her shorts pocket. It smells but somehow seems like a better option than the heat. She waves it about a bit to de-scent it and balances it on her head rather than pulling it on. She walks stiffly so it won’t fall off.
    A bby has been here less than a day and she is amazed by, well, just about everything she has seen. The people are so funny. One minute they shout and it seems like they will kill each other. In England, if two people in the street argued with the same vehemence, then it would definitely conclude in a physical fight, or worse, a knife being drawn. But actually no one would dare to shout like that unless they were really drunk, or married. But here they shout like it is life and death, other people join in, and then they act like nothing has happened. Abby finds it unsettling. How can she know