On his way home he had found himself curiously light-headed. Thoughts of suicide no longer plagued him, it was true, but as he purchased a travel card and walked through the barrier towards the escalator, he was aware that a deep malaise still clouded his every waking hour. Fatalism had become his religion, and as if to prove its omnipresence, no sooner was he through the barrier than he was confronted by a small blackboard with a child-like scrawl chalked across it, which read: ‘Services on the Piccadilly Line will be delayed due to a body under the tracks at Leicester Square’. Great, thought Daniel, recalling his previous journey on the Underground, just what I need.
He stepped on to the escalator and held tight to the rail; he was still not entirely steady on his feet, and he worried about falling and further damaging his neck.
As he descended into the bowels of the system, he stared at the advertisements that lined the stairs. Daniel had always believed that these particular ads had to be especially effective, as they flashed past one’s eyes with almost subliminal rapidity. He suspected that there was a special department of hot-shot copywriters and graphic designers locked away in the depths of each advertising agency, their sole task to design these specialised, high-intensity commercials. He also reflected that by and large, hot-shots or not, they usually missed the mark. Only rarely did an image or phrase reach out and grab his attention. Most of the time they were inane, banal or just nasty. And sometimes they had effects that, Daniel was sure, were not intended at all.
‘Do you need help?’ asked one advertisement for a pregnancy advisory service. Daniel briefly studied the photograph of the pretty girl with the sad expression. Yes, I need help, he said solemnly to himself, I need an advisory service.
Another headline caught his eye: ‘If you miss out this time, you’ll kill yourself!’ sang the bold type for a hi-fi store having its annual clearance sale. Daniel shuddered; just the sort of nasty, cheap trick he despised. He reread the copy as it disappeared behind him. ‘Bargains galore at Lapdogs! If you miss out this time you’ll kick yourself! Don’t miss our annual sale of hi-fi and video!’
Daniel stood on the southbound platform and waited for the train. The long corridor was empty save for an old man sitting on a bench at the far end. The man was evidently just one of the growing number of the homeless and dispossessed, an itinerant army growing greater by the day. Where do they all come from? wondered Daniel as he peered at the unkempt, unshaven tramp, who was drinking from a large brown bottle and muttering to himself between swigs. Or was he? Although Daniel could not see anyone else, he supposed it was unfair to assume that the tramp was necessarily carrying on a wholly one-sided conversation. One man’s reality, thought Daniel, momentarily recalling his strange, Mediterranean dream world, is another man’s fantasy. Or vice versa, perhaps.
Out of the corner of his eye Daniel watched the old tramp nattering away and could not help but wonder what had brought the old man to this state of affairs, What miserable conspiracy of events could be responsible for such a sad decline? What had brought him to this, drinking cheap booze on a lonely station platform?
Daniel looked on in increasing distress, his assumptions and conclusions veering dangerously towards the naive and sentimental. This poor man, thought Daniel, with his filthy clothes and drunken rant had once been an innocent child, loved, presumably, by caring parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and friends. He had probably had a promising future once; perhaps he had been top of his English class, or top scorer for the school football team? Perhaps he had been handsome, prematurely good-looking, a string of pretty teenage girls following in his wake. And maybe he graduated from a fine red-brick university and ended up a wealthy man. Perhaps he had once been a bank manager or company director.
And perhaps, thought Daniel, watching the tramp slide from his seat and collapse in a heap on the platform, perhaps he had once been happy. That the man might have been an axemurderer or paedophile did not occur to him. In those few moments Daniel, who had created his own reality for the pathetic victim at the end of the platform, was plunged into morbidity. Was this how he, Daniel, would end his days; alone, unloved, desperate... reduced to a bag of grey skin held together by rags and bits of string?
It was not such a great leap from where he currently stood. If Lisanne left him, then how long would it be before he found himself on the same platform, bottle in hand, talking to people no one else could see? Lisanne already thought he dressed like a tramp - it was true, he had let himself go - and without a job he was wholly dependent on her income. If something should happen to her, then Daniel knew he would not survive. He was frail enough as it was. Another blow - another death - would send him over the edge for sure. Poor Alex. If only...
But there was no point in wishing; there was no ‘if only’. Alex had died, victim of an unforeseen accident in a foreign country where the death of one more person meant next to nothing. Poor Alex. So young, so promising, so beautiful, her whole life ahead of her... Daniel could not bear to think about it, and yet the knowledge haunted him day and night. Was it any wonder he felt so morose, so hopeless?
He sat down on the nearest bench and, rather than look at the tramp, buried his face in his hands and waited anxiously for the train that would spirit him off to an altemative, albeit temporary, future.
But the train did not come. Daniel waited impatiently for twenty minutes, then remembered the chalk-scrawled message on the blackboard. Death, it seemed, would be his undoing one way or another. A body under the train at Leicester Square. An accident? Or something more active, something with greater intent, like murder.
Or suicide.
He returned to the escalator, rode it silently to the top. He exited into bright, glaring sunlight and walked home through the empty streets, carefully avoiding Green Lanes with its bustle, activity and life. For reasons that he hoped he would never have to explain, there were times, such as now, when the sight of another human being was more than he could bear.
‘Pleased to know you, Daniel. You here on vacation?’ Barry shook Daniel’s hand firmly.
‘Ah, just passing through,’ said Daniel, looking around him swiftl. There was no doubt about it. He had returned.
‘Oh you should stay a while. You’d like it here. It’s a little quiet in the afternoon, but it livens up in the evenings.’ Daniel placed the accent as unmistakably East Coast rather than the softer, less characterful Californian drawl that he usually associated with American television sitcoms. He was grateful for the distinction.
They unclasped hands and Barry turned momentarily and looked over towards the taverna as if someone had called out to him.
‘Well, I gotta get back to work. Why don’t you call in later tonight? Come and see me at the bar and let me buy you a drink to welcome you to Atheenaton. Okay?’
‘Atheenaton?’
Barry frowned at him and Daniel realised that he must have made some unpardonable
faux pas
. ‘I mean,’ he said, covering as best he could, ‘I didn’t know that was how it was pronounced.’
Barry nodded and smiled. Daniel could not help thinking there was something knowing in that smile, something a bit theatrical. But, if so, there was certainly nothing threatening in such playfulness.
A noise like someone shifting a large, heavy piece of furniture emanated from inside the darkened building. Once again Barry turned and this time he called out in a language Daniel did not recognise.
‘I’d better get back or else there’ll be tears. So, about that drink. We’ll see you later?’
‘Yes, of course. That’d be great. Thank you.’
‘Sure.’ Barry turned and strode back into the darkness of the taverna.
Atheenaton. That must be the name of the village. It certainly sounded Greek, but if so, it was not a name that Daniel had ever come across before. But then, why should he recognise the name of a fantasy town? At least, he had to assume it was a fantasy, even if it did seem as real as his own life.
Still, wherever he was and whatever it was called, Daniel was now sure of only one thing: the only way of visiting was in his dreams.
So what do I do now? wondered Daniel, finding himself alone once again. What had Barry said? That the place was livelier in the evenings? Then where was everyone? Where were they hiding?
Daniel peered out on to the dirt track outside the taverna; there was no more sign of life than the last time he had looked. It was a little disconcerting. He looked down to the table, to the empty coffee cup and remembered that on the previous occasion he had had some sort of money in his pocket. He checked again and sure enough there was a small bundle of well-thumbed notes.
He picked up the menu and tried to figure out the price of the coffee. He found the drinks section, and a little ‘60’ next to the ‘Nescoffee’. That must be it.
He picked up his cigarettes, left one of the crumpled pink banknotes on the table, and descended the three concrete steps which led back to the road. As there was nothing to be seen along the main road, Daniel chose to investigate the narrower track that led off to the right; if there was a village anywhere around, it had to be in that direction.
It was still extremely hot, but although this caused Daniel to sweat profusely it was a comforting heat, which seemed to penetrate down through his light clothing to warm his muscles and bones. He wandered slowly, keenly alert to all possible movements; if there were other people about - and there surely had to be - he wanted to meet them. He had no idea who Barry was or what an American should be doing in such a place, running a taverna of all things, but he sensed that the more people he met and spoke to, the more likely he was to be able to put together some explanation.
The track twisted, snake-like among the olive trees and Daniel was grateful for the shade they provided. To his left the foliage was fairly sparse and if he peered between the trunks and branches he could just make out the main road and, beyond, faint and distant, the shimmering water. To the right, however, the trees were dense and terraced, rising up a steep hill.
He had walked only a few hundred metres when his suspicions were confirmed; ahead of him, spanning both sides of the narrow lane, was a small village. It was, from a distance, both quaint and picturesque, an impression that strengthened as he approached it.
The first building Daniel came to on the left-hand side was a small grocery store. It was a two~storey building, whitewashed like the tavema, with a narrow balcony jutting out half-way up the front facade. The building was covered in trailing plants, and a neat open staircase wound its way up the outside of the left-hand wall. A few chairs and tables were set out on the shop’s large concrete forecourt. The windows were grey and dusty, and beneath them were stacked several wooden boxes full of brightly coloured fruits and vegetables; Daniel recognised apples, lemons, grapefruits, eggplants, watermelon and small, squat cucumbers that he guessed were zucchini. Once again, the place looked deserted.
He wandered across the forecourt and peered in through the opalescent windows. Inside he could make out a wooden counter, several ramshackle shelves full of unidentifiable boxes and packets, and an antiquated cash register that would not have looked out of place in a museum. Behind the counter were stacks of cigarette packets, but none of the designs was familiar. An old-fashioned set of scales rested on the counter next to the cash register. But there was no sign of life.
Perhaps it’s siesta time? thought Daniel. Certainly the place was suffused with a sleepy, dreamy air. Daniel remembered at once that this place wasn’t real, that it was all probably a figment, a construct of his unconscious. For a moment, a familiar panic seemed to overcome him, but this diffused swiftly to make way for a much more pleasant sensation, that of warmth and comfort.
He proceeded along the track at a slow pace, taking account of all the new sights and sounds. On his right he came across a single-storey green building, which looked very run-down. Paint peeled in large untidy swathes from around the doors and windows, and on the ground there were little piles of what looked like green and white pebbles, where the plaster had cracked and fallen from the walls. It was pitch black inside, and again there was no sign of activity. Outside, leaning against the building was a small wooden telephone kiosk. The telephone, supported on a small, rickety wooden shelf, was an ancient Bakelite model, maybe forty years old, with a heavy, chunky handset.
Three or four more buildings bordered the track, among them another grocery store, a bakery, and something that looked like a small butcher’s shop. There was no meat displayed in this last, but the red-streaked wooden benches looked as if they had only recently been wiped down. The town was asleep, certainly, but it was not dead.