Rampaging roosters, p.7
Rampaging Roosters, page 7
The young woman was mortified anyone could have the gall to presume she could not afford a washing machine. She told the hapless American pair in no uncertain terms they should get up to speed on traditional Greek customs before sticking their noses into other people’s business.
Achilles the borrowed builder roared with laughter as they explained their faux pas to him. He reassured them they’d had good intentions and the woman they had offered to help was a snobbish type who did not socialise in the village.
“Anyone else would ‘ave appreciated yous kind gesture was meant well and yous is just ignorant of some of our traditional ways,” he told them.
“Is work on the house progressing well?” Quentin asked him.
“Very goodly K-Went-In, come and look at the new chicken coop” Achilles invited, leading the way towards a most luxuriant wooden structure in the garden.
“Well it’s perfectly lovely, but we rather hoped you’d go about making the house habitable before building somewhere for our non-existent chickens to live in luxury,” Quentin said, reluctant to voice any criticism but peeved by the distraction.
“Well I built it quick as I ‘eard on the village gossip vine that the bird man from Kokkoras is ‘eading this way any day with some ‘andsome roosters for sale. Yous wont’s get better cocks than ‘is an’ he don’t come this way very often,” Achilles explained.
Pointedly ignoring the subject of roosters Deirdre told him “we are off to town on the bus to participate in the prison protest. Will you be coming along Achilles?”
“Try and keep me away, I ‘ate injustice and Nitsa isn’t a bad old bird,” Achilles replied. “In the meantime I will get back to ‘ammering new wood in place on yous bedroom ceiling to stop any vermin dropping on yous bed when yous is in it and making Did-Rees shriek.”
Back in Astakos Toothless Tasos arrived home to a warm welcome from Thea. He was delighted at the fuss she made over his finger and applauded the way she had not wasted any money on paying for transport to the hospital. He was less than delighted however when he discovered the kitchen bin was full of broken crockery. Thea admitted she loathed washing up dishes and instead smashed the dirty plates on the tile floor and then threw them away.
“This is profligate waste,” Toothless Tasos admonished her. “We is not living in a Greek wedding film, woman.”
Thea defended her actions by telling Tasos she had a surfeit of crockery she had bought from the home shopping channel in the days when she was still a compulsive shopper.
“We ‘ave plenty of plates still left to break,” she assured him, before he put his foot firmly down and told her there would be no more breakages and she could sell her excess plates to Stavroula for use in her taverna.
Over at the supermarket Fat Christos was doing a roaring trade in yoghurt as the villagers stocked up ready for their excursion to the prison. They intended to throw it at the prison guards to protest Nitsa’s incarceration, having been inspired by the ancient Greek tradition of ‘yiaourtoma,’ the noble art of chucking yoghurt at politicians.
The Pappas was writing a rousing speech about the inhumanity of imprisoning old women, which he hoped would win the approval of the church higher-ups, when Petula arrived at the church and dropped her bombshell.
“I know yous ‘ave been ‘aving adulterous relations with that church going widow Mrs Christeas and now I want a divorce,” she told him.
The Pappas immediately denied his infidelity, claiming there was nothing going on between him and the widow.
“’Ow easily the lies trip off yous tongue and yous a supposed godly man. Yiorgos ‘as a photograph of you and the widow doing unspeakable things on ‘er kitchen table,” Petula stated.
All the colour drained from the Pappas’ face as he realised he had been caught in the act and photographic evidence could not be denied.
“This will ruin me if word gets out,” he told Petula in a muted voice thick with apprehension.
“I don’t want to ruin yous, I only want a divorce and to keep the goat,” Petula said. “You can keep your mucky secret and the ‘ouse too, if yous just give me a divorce. I love Yiorgos and we plan to marry when I am free from yous.”
“You promise not to blab in the village about the widow and me?” the Pappas begged her.
“I’ll keep yous sordid secret if yous go and sees Slick Socrates and make the divorce official and gives me custody papers for Nero.”
The Pappas realised he had no option other than to comply with Petula’s demands. Since he had given up wine and wife beating his status in the village had begun to improve. He had his eye on the highest echelons of the church ladder and could not afford any new stain on his character becoming public knowledge. In truth he would be glad to rid himself of Petula though he felt sad at the prospect of losing Nero.
“Can I at least have access to the goat on weekends?” he asked plaintively.
Chapter 23
The Prison Protest
“Po po Pedro, what is that most malodorously unpleasant pong?” mail order Masha demanded to know as Prosperous Pedros took his seat on the bus, laden down with the weight of a large bucket which stunk to high heaven.
“I’ve brought rotted sardines to chuck at the prison guards,” Pedros revealed to the olfactory horror of all those who had the misfortune to be seated near him.
Mail order Masha had dressed for the occasion with great care as she considered Paraliakos, the town where the prison was located, to be the height of sophistication in comparison to the endless dullness of backwater Astakos. She could barely walk in her six inch heel stilettos and the skin tight red mini dress she had chosen was so tight it restricted her breathing, but did wonders for accentuating her silicone breasts and her impossibly long legs.
The smitten young doctor had managed to get an afternoon off from his hospital duties, pleading excruciating pain from his broken foot. He followed Masha onto the bus with his eyes glued greedily to her surgically enhanced bottom. She pouted at him in annoyance, considering he ought to be more circumspect about his infatuation in public places as she was a married woman. She took a seat next to Evangelia from the beauty parlour and launched into conversation about the benefits of Botox, leaving the smitten young doctor stuck sitting next to Prosperous Pedros and his foul-smelling bucket.
The Pappas carried a large megaphone. Taking a seat on the bus far away from the widow Mrs Christeas he carefully avoiding eye contact with her, pointedly ignoring the seat she had saved for him. He wanted no hint of his involvement with her getting out for the villagers to gossip about. Petula had agreed not to make his philandering public knowledge if he agreed to a divorce. He realised he would need to be very discreet in any future assignations with the widow. The Pappas had a list of everyone who had signed up for the prison protest and stood up to call a register and tick off those present.
The villagers had done themselves proud with a high turnout in support of Nitsa. Local businesses were represented by Takis and Yiota from ‘Mono Ellinka Trofima’ and Stavroula from the rival taverna, Fat Christos and his mother Mrs Kolokotronis from the supermarket, Adonis the mechanic from the garage, Mr Mandelis from the jewellery shop and Vangelis the chemist from the pharmacy. The fishing contingent was boosted by the presence of Tall Thomas, Toothless Tasos and Gorgeous Yiorgos, while other earnest supporters of Nitsa’s freedom included Achilles the borrowed builder, Petros the postman, Slick Socrates, Sotiris, Petula, Thea, Fotini, Hattie, Quentin and Deirdre.
Moronic Mitsos, in his capacity as the retired ex-chief of police, had pondered long and hard about joining the protest. He had been persuaded to come along by Bald Yannis who had decided at the very last minute to join the outing seeing as there would be no one left in the village to buy anything from his shop. He thought it might prove to be an amusing jaunt and he could always try to sabotage the protest.
As the Pappas finished taking the register he was surprised to see a number of Japanese tourists board the bus, mistaking it for a guided tour. Thinking they would help to boost the protest numbers he let them stay and instructed the bus driver to set off towards town. The bus had barely started to roll when Adonis flagged it down and jumped aboard, determined to stick close to his Japanese guests and attempt to sell them a house, even though they could barely understand a word he said.
The villagers had made so many placards reading “Free the Astakostan 1”, “Old Crones’ Lives Matter” and “We Heart Nitsa” they had plenty to spare for the rather baffled Japanese tourists who thought it most generous the villagers were gifting them these incomprehensible signs. They signified their gratitude by beaming politely and offering the other bus passengers strips of dried seaweed they had pocketed as delicious snacks and which drew many curious glances. Fotini mistook the green square of seaweed as a pocket handkerchief and blew her nose noisily into it, while Hattie used her piece to mop her sweaty brow as she had still not acclimatised to the scorching Greek temperatures.
As the bus began to wind its way up the hairpin mountain bends Mrs Christeas stuck her head out of the window and vomited violently. She reasoned she couldn’t be sick from the previous evening’s meal of red rooster as the Pappas had eaten the same dish and appeared in rude health. She had no idea his offering of olive oil had been tainted with the ghastly germs of the snotty brat who had been dunked in the supposedly Holy oil the cheapskate Pappas had bottled. The smitten young doctor was summoned to the widow’s side to aid her but she promptly threw up all over his trousers.
The combined smell of musty rubber from the gas masks, rotten sardines and vomit, all made for a very unpleasantly malodorous journey and the villagers fought each other to be the first to get off the bus when it pulled up in Paraliakos square opposite the prison. The Japanese tourists were far too polite to elbow their way out of the bus and were the last to descend into the confused commotion, but were soon rounded up to join the circular march constituting the protest.
The protestors’ rowdy cries of “Free Nitsa” soon attracted the attention of the prisoners who were on their exercise period in the prison yard. The prisoners lost no time in hoisting Nitsa onto their shoulders from where she screeched words of encouragement to her fellow villagers. The guards, woken from their afternoon nap, were taken by surprise and unsure whether to point their rifles at the prisoners or the protestors.
The raucous noise soon stirred the locals and before very long an enterprising kiosk owner hoping for a backhander summoned the local television station to come along to film the protest. As the camera crew filmed the now preening protestors shaking their placards in the air the reporter was busy trying to find the best representative from the protestors to interview for this breaking news story. Although the Pappas was in charge of the protest he was dismissed as far too unphotogenic to speak on camera. The reporter honed in on mail order Masha’s plastic beauty and she was delighted to be thrust into the spotlight.
“We is protesting the unjust arrest and incarceration of Astakostan Nitsa, an innocent old woman what ‘as been treated disgustedly by the authorities,” Masha said with a surly pout. “All she did was accidentally knock the electric man off ‘is pole and for that she ‘as been strip-searched and tortured. She is over eighty an’ should be at ‘ome with the other old crones she lives with. It’s not as if the electric man is even dead.”
Fotini elbowed Masha roughly out of the way and piped up “the electric man deserves what he got, he cut off me electric supply. Nitsa and me ‘ave no lights in the ‘ouse and were the victims of a murdering rapist what tried to burn the down the ‘ouse we live in. The police did nothing ‘bouts it then arrests poor Nitsa what is innocent. Where’s the justice in that?”
The reporter was in his element at this wonderful scoop of such an obvious miscarriage of justice. He decided to play up the victimisation of innocent old women as his angle, compounded by the incompetence of the police in failing to arrest the nasty criminal who had obviously terrorised them.
Hattie pushed her way forward and linked arms with Fotini, declaring on camera in excruciatingly mangled Greek, she intended to bring this miscarriage of justice to the attention of the American Embassy. The reporter got overly excited when he realised the protestors included Americans and upon spotting the Japanese, who had no idea at all what they were actually protesting but were quite happy to wave their placards, he realised he had the makings of an international story that could make him famous across the world. He decided to exploit the story for all it was worth, never questioning Nitsa’s actual guilt or the ridiculous claims she had been strip-searched, starved and beaten.
On the other side of the prison wall the prisoners refused to return to their cells and joined in the calls to free Nitsa. The prison governor was watching the protestors spread their lies on the television in his office and rushed outside flanked by two burly prison guards to put his side of the story to the reporter. Pushing his way in front of the camera the prison governor insisted Nitsa was receiving the best treatment possible. The reporter interjected to question,
“But do you deny an innocent eighty-two year old woman who has not many years left on this earth is locked up in your prison and has been starved and tortured?”
“Well she is old, it is true, and she is technically locked up, but she is having the best of treatment,” the governor replied “and it is not proven she is innocent of the charges.”
“Innocent until proven guilty,” the protestors began to chant while taking the opportunity to lob smelly sardines and yoghurt at the governor and his guards.
The governor and his flunkies hastily fled back into the safety of the prison compound, doused in yogurt and rotten stinking sardines, totally humiliated by their very public ‘yiaourting’. The governor immediately telephoned the chief of the Paraliakos police to demand a riot squad be deployed to disperse the protestors with tear gas. The police chief had been glued to the television coverage and had been guffawing uncontrollably at the sight of the prison governor and guards being ‘yiaourted’. He argued tear gassing the protestors may be overkill as the protestors were not ripping up paving slabs or breaking shop windows. However the governor’s pride had been dented and he insisted his demands were acceded to immediately, reminding the police chief he had the ear of the mayor.
As the reluctant riot squad arrived and prepared to fire tear gas at the protestors the Astakostans and the Americans pulled on the gas masks they had precautionarily purchased from Bald Yannis. The unprepared Japanese tourists were the only ones to suffer from the tear gas attack, apart from Bald Yannis who had neglected to buy one of his own protective devices, and the Pappas who was determined to act like a martyr to the cause.
The tear gassing of the Japanese tourists soon prompted a major international incident as they were filmed prostrate on the ground, hacking painfully while temporarily blinded. This instantly put Astakos on the map and won Nitsa legions of worldwide fans who thought she looked like a sweet old granny in the blown up photographs the protestors waved. The international audience immediately wrote to their governments demanding they intervene diplomatically to free the charming old dear.
Chapter 24
Nitsa Revels In Her Torture
The villagers decided it would be prudent to spend another hour in Paraliakos before heading back on the bus to Astakos, enabling the Japanese tourists’ time to seek medical attention from the smitten young doctor for the noxious effects of the tear gas. Bald Yannis, being made of sterner stuff, pushed the smitten young doctor aside and considering he was on safer ground headed off to the nearest washing line, feeling nostalgic and fancying a spot of underwear stealing.
Tall Thomas took the opportunity to bribe a prison guard with a freshly caught swordfish providing he would ensure Aunty Nitsa received a bottle of brandy to help her sleep and a lobster adorned patriotic shower curtain to use as a bedspread to make her feel more at home. Mail order Masha used her ample charms on another guard who willingly agreed to sneak some cosmetics in to Nitsa. Masha could imagine nothing worse than being locked up without anything to slap on her face. As she touched up her own lipstick the by now smitten young reporter persuaded her to let him whisk her off for an intimate dinner in an expensive taverna and she told the others to tell Vasilis she would be home later. The smitten young doctor boarded the bus in a foul temper as the object of his affections was proving so fickle.
The Pappas wished the widow Mrs Christeas would stop winking quite so obviously at him. As soon as the bus took off she resumed vomiting out of the window, leaving him temporarily safe from her advances. The villagers were satisfied their protest was all over the television news and hoped international public opinion would soon sway the authorities to release Nitsa.
Meanwhile Nitsa was basking in all the attention. The prison governor was so worried all the adverse publicity may reflect badly on him he set up a bed in his office for Nitsa before heading home to shower off the yoghurt, completely forgetting this would give her total access to his telephone. In no time at all she was ordering take away food to be delivered to the prison gates and conducting interviews over the telephone with every television station she could contact.
She was in her element as she described how the prison guards had put her on a rack. She revelled in her ludicrous account of being stretched from limb to limb, before being hung from a hook in the prison dungeon and whipped mercilessly. The horrified prison governor listened as Nitsa wrapped the easily duped saps at Amnesty International round her little finger. It came as no great surprise when the Minister of Prisons telephoned him in a great fury and announced he was sacked for gross incompetence.
