Once and Future Times Steven Berryman Once and Future times.
Stefanos tugged firmly on the sheet, tensioning the sail, at the same time briefly relaxing
his grip on the tiller as the breeze pulled the bow of the ‘Evangelia’ gently around to
starboard. The boat slipped easily and quietly across the crisp blue waters, the leader of three
craft heading towards the haven of the harbour and home. A practical boat, wide in the beam
and low in the water; her elegant curves and single mast would have been familiar to any
man living in this region centuries, if not millennia earlier. She was designed, built and
ideally suited for one purpose; working the coastal waters of the Mediterranean. The gusting
breeze whipped the sea into life every few moments, a darkened area of rippling water
moving like the wake of some invisible beast across the surface before it reared up and
glanced off the single brown sail of the boat. The sail strained, whipping, pulling at the
woodwork and tilting the vessel briefly to port as it appeared to try and free itself from the
boom which was now sheeted in tight over the roof of the small stern cabin. The summer
morning sun was already high in the sky, brightly warming the air and glinting with a
dazzling intensity on the boat’s metal fittings. To watchers on the shore, the trio of small
boats appeared to sparkle and flash periodically in the light as if improbably encrusted with
jewels as they swayed almost rhythmically from side to side making their way steadily,
inexorably towards the harbour entrance.
Leaving the end of the quay about fifty metres to port, Stefanos’ voice broke the
tranquillity. ‘Ready about!’ he called. His two companions acknowledged the warning as
Stefanos released the sheet and threw the tiller hard over to a cry of ‘Coming about.’ The
‘Evangelia’ lurched awkwardly to starboard and then rolled to port with a surprising
suddenness as the boat turned and the boom swung away out over the port rail. Stefanos on
the tiller and Yannis sitting up in the bows moved as far over to starboard as they could to
help balance the craft as Maria moved forward to catch the sheets and steady the boom into
it’s new position. The bow now pointing in towards the harbour, the wind once again caught
and filled the sail, urging them forward on their new course.
© Steven Berryman 2011 The quay jutted far out into the sea; a legacy of those nearly forgotten days when a steady
flow of ferries and other craft would arrive almost hourly from the capital throughout the
summer months bringing visitors, tourists, goods, mail; the life blood that once kept the
island’s economy running; nowadays it’s length was something of an anachronism. An
unoccupied tower, concrete and rusting steel, sitting upright and looking grossly out of place
on it’s seaward end offered some shade for two teenage boys armed with fishing lines while
the superstructures and upper decks of the hulks of two ancient small tankers jutted
awkwardly above the surface of the sea, towering over the seaward side of the harbour wall,
blue and white paint still showing in blotchy patches through a bloom of rust. The crew
acknowledged the greetings of the two young fishermen as the ‘Evangelia’ glided gently into
harbour. Unbidden, Maria released the sail which dropped quickly to the boom, the
hammered brass rings clattering noisily as they concertinaed down the well worn mast. The
trio continued in a well practised routine; Stefanos feathering the tiller to eke out the
momentum as long as possible, Yannis standing in the bow, mooring lines ready and Maria
working quickly to secure the boom and sheet down the now redundant sail.
A small, largely male crowd exchanged cheerful greetings with the crew as they moored
alongside the landward end of the quay while astern, the following craft were now busy
dropping their own sails as they too glided into the harbour preparing to tie up alongside.
Nobody asked what all of them were itching to know though; they could see the answer in
the smiles of the crew. ‘We feast tonight!’ cried Stefanos, as he and his companions pulled
back the covers to reveal the fruits of their night’s work. The cry was a cliché. They all knew
it, but nobody cared and a loud cheer rang out on the shore as the deck was revealed, piled
high with open wooden boxes overflowing with bream, sea bass and mullet still writhing and
twitching and flashing brightly silver, white and pink in the sunlight. Stefanos picked up two
small cloth bags and hopped ashore almost unnoticed as members of the crowd surged
forward to begin unloading the catch. As he escaped the bustling crowd, several men dropped
down from the quay onto the deck to help Yannis and Maria as they began to pass the first of
the packed boxes up from the ‘Evangelia’ whilst further along the quay, others moved
© Steven Berryman 2011 forward to help the crews of the other boats make fast their lines and unload the rest of the
night’s harvest. Two donkeys waited patiently on the quay side, each standing between the
shafts of an ancient two wheeled cart, ready to move the precious cargo around to the relative
cool of the warehouse.
‘Father.’ Stefanos hailed his parent, who he had spotted sitting in his regular place at the
kafeneion.
The old man smiled, ‘Stefo, son. You had a good night I think.’
‘Every season gets better dad.’ Stefanos was almost painfully aware of the broad grin on
his face. Sitting down beside his father he nodded a thank you to the waiter who had
automatically placed a small coffee and glass of clear fiery tsipouro spirit in front of him. ‘If
this carries on, we’ll need a bigger boat.’ he joked with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Here father,
these are for you.’ He pushed one of the bags towards his parent. The old man gave him an
admonishing look.
‘You shouldn’t son.’
‘Crew’s privilege dad, you know that. Yannis and Maria are both going home with
snapper, there's plenty for everybody else and I know that you like these.’
‘Well thank you.’ he smiled at his son. Peering into the bag to find two large squid he
added, ‘Eleni and you must bring the children and eat with us tonight. There is more than
enough here.’ The old man gave a little snort, the lines radiating away from his eyes
deepened as he involuntarily screwed up his face. ‘I’m proud of you son.’ he almost choked
the words out as a tear formed in the corner of one eye.
‘Please don’t father.’ Stefanos found it hard to look at his parent at moments like that.
He quickly moved the subject on, picking up the second of the bags and pushing it across the
table. ‘Hey, look what we found.’ The old man’s face relaxed as curiosity got the better of
him and he pulled a small tablet of grey plastic from the bag. He turned it over in his hand
and laughed, the years appearing to fall away from him. When he relaxed like that, few
would have taken him for a man preparing to celebrate his eightieth birthday.
© Steven Berryman 2011 ‘You know what this is Stefo?’ the younger man nodded as his father continued. ‘I think
that in some ways perhaps this object once epitomised the sum total of man’s achievement on
this earth.’ he paused, ‘And now? It’s not even good for fish bait!’ Both men laughed out
loud as a shrill voice rent the air.
‘Granda! granda! What is it? What is it?’ A small girl literally bounced into the space
between the two men startling both of them; her short red dress flying one way as her long
dark hair arced out wildly in the opposite direction.
‘Ella Zoe.’ Stefanos pulled his four year old daughter up onto his lap. ‘Don’t make your
Granddad jump like that.’
‘But I want to see, I want to see.’ she shrieked, grasping towards the object in her
grandfathers hands. ‘What is it?’
The old man smiled, and handed the object to Zoe who grinned triumphantly at her father
before carrying on, ‘What does it do? What does it do?’
‘Thank your Granddad, Zoe.’ scolded Stefanos.
‘Ta granda.’ said Zoe quickly, continuing quite breathlessly. ‘But what is it ? What does
it do?’ Both men laughed.
‘It’s called a telephone Zoe.’ her grandfather spoke the word slowly, taking care to
annunciate each syllable clearly. She looked at the object with a puzzled expression forming
on her face. She turned it over slowly in her hands, stopping to study the array of buttons on
one side, their edges encrusted with a green slime of marine growth. The two men were
enraptured by her expression as she studied the ancient object.
‘Can I talk to it? Will it talk to me?’ she finally asked, her voice betraying her disbelief as
she worked out the literal meaning of the object’s name.
‘Well you could have done once upon a time Zoe.’ said her Grandfather. ‘In fact you
could have sat here and used this to talk with your mother.’ Zoe’s eyes widened further in
disbelief.
‘But she is at home granda.’ Zoe tried to rationalise what she was hearing. ‘How can I
talk to her when she is there and I am here?’
© Steven Berryman 2011 ‘With this you could have done. See there? Those buttons would help you to find her and
then you could speak to her even if she was at home and you were here.’ Zoe’s disbelief
became wonder.
‘Can we try daddy? Granda?’ Both men shook there heads simultaneously.
‘I’m sorry Zoe.’ said her father. ‘It won’t work anymore.’
‘Things were different then.’ added her Grandfather, a slightly weary look passing across
his face. ‘Very different.’ he added, a note of resignation in his voice. Disbelief briefly
became disappointment on Zoe’s face until she spotted two friends in the distance. Her
departure was a sudden as her arrival.
*
The old man turned to his son as Zoe ran off along the seafront brandishing the telephone
proudly over head. Whether or not it functioned no longer mattered; it was a worthwhile
trophy to impress her friends with.
‘You know that your mother still has one of those in a cupboard at home Stefo.’
Stefanos nodded. ‘She told me once. She said she kept it, ‘just in case’.’ there was a
moment’s reflective silence before he continued ‘Look, dad......’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you ever going to publicise that history you’ve written?’
‘It’s a journal son, my journal. Not a public history.’ he paused. ‘But I may think about
publicising it when it’s ready.’
‘Come on dad. As far as I know you are the only one here who has attempted to chronicle
our history since the Times Before. Call it a journal if you like, but it’s our history and it
should be available for our young people to learn from.’
‘People will argue. They will say it wasn’t like that.’
‘When did two people ever agree on what happened, even if it was only yesterday? You
© Steven Berryman 2011 know it’s ready; all you have done with it for months now is look at it and change odd words
here and there. Publicise it dad, let others read it. It’s the only record of where we came from;
of how we got to be here. And if you spark a debate then that can only be good. Our
youngsters have a right, they need to know.’
Peter looked straight into the eyes of his son and raised his left eyebrow. Stefanos smiled
at the all too the familiar gesture of enquiry. ‘Our history made us what we are; you know
that dad. If we don’t know, or if we ignore our history then we have no past - and no future.’
The old man smiled broadly. ‘You’ve been reading the books again haven’t you boy.’
Both men laughed, picked up their glasses, crashed them together and as one, threw back
their drinks.
*
Perhaps. Peter paused again and leaned heavily on his cane, smiling as he caught his
breath. ‘Perhaps I should listen to my son.’ he thought to himself, ‘This walk becomes longer
every week. One day soon it’s going to be…..’ he shrugged, had anybody been within sight,
they would have seen a sad look of resignation on his face. He planted the tip of the cane
firmly on the ground once again and walked on for a few more metres until he was past the
last house in the line, then he turned, looking up as he did so. It was a familiar and favourite
spot, from here he always felt as if he could take in his whole world. The sea, the sky, the
neighbouring islands, the hazy mainland away over there. The images flooded in through his
eyes, the brilliance of the colours, blue, white, green filled his senses.
Movement. Sound. The old man found himself transported momentarily back across the
years. How many? Thirty? No, closer to forty now. The sea alive with boats, the horizon
dotted with triangles of white sail, the dull rumble of the engines of the ferry overlaid by the
higher pitched racing noise of the motor yachts and smaller craft. The raucous two stroke
screaming of one of those Italian motor tricycles singing out above the flatulent burbling of a
myriad small motorbikes. And above all, people. People from all parts of the world filling the
cafes, the streets and the beaches of his island home. Once. But no more. The illusion
© Steven Berryman 2011 collapsed as quickly as it had formed and Peter found himself standing alone on that street
corner feeling old and very frail.
So much in one lifetime and so many alive now who had never seen those things and
never would. ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘those things, those times made us what we are today. We
cannot ignore our history because if we don’t understand where we came from then we can
never know where we are bound. Yes, perhaps Stefanos is right, it’s time to pass these stories
on.’
He looked down at his walking cane and then picked it up and held it up in front of him.
‘Come on old friend,’ he said, ‘Help me home, we have work to do.’
© Steven Berryman 2011