Nine Summers Read online

  ‘The untangling of the anchors was easier than usual. I think we should move and have breakfast on the way.’ I heard Felix switch on the engine and put her into gear. I came up, collected the fenders and put them into the locker. We waved. All the boats that had been tied up together were moving out of Otranto. We turned on the radio, motored out of the harbour, and set our course towards Fano, an island north-west of Corfu. The wind blew a steady 25 to 30 knots, and the forecast was for burasca, gale winds.

  ‘At least it’s clear and the wind’s with us,’ I heaved a sigh. The sea was rough but the waves rolled in our direction, propelling Galatea from astern as her bow sliced through the water. The waves raced and rolled onto the one in front, peaked, rolled over, tumbled, crashed and frothed, sucked in by the following wave. The wind sang through the stays.

  ‘We’re skating on water! With just headsail and mizzen we’re registering 7 knots,’ Felix beamed. Spray drenched our faces and wet suits.

  ‘We’re too unsteady running. I’ll pull in the headsail to a broad reach.’

  Downstairs the gimballed stove was swinging and squeaking, in need of WD-40. The fruit bowl was sliding across the carpet, books and cushions fell onto the floor.

  ‘Look! Two warships. They’re moving slowly in opposite directions. Can you imagine what it was like when the Venetians were policing this entrance to the Adriatic?’

  As far back as the fourteenth century, Venetian warships patrolled the 50-mile width of the Strait of Otranto, demanding that goods entering the Adriatic be taken to Venice. In times of famine they reserved the right to seize food from any vessel, regardless of who owned it. When the Venetian Empire dominated the Adriatic, entering this Strait was like entering a private lake.

  Corfu, Jan Morris suggests, was Venice’s Gibraltar. Their greatest threat came from the Turks who, in 1480, attacked Otranto and slaughtered all its inhabitants.

  Outside, a thick mist swept over the water, and by midday we were sailing blind, our eyes glued to the radar. Every so often either the French or Italian warship came on air: ‘This is French warship Charles de Gaulle patrolling on behalf of NATO calling vessel moving in a NW direction 310 degrees, doing 6 knots. Declare your nationality, destination and cargo.’

  ‘Charles de Gaulle, Charles de Gaulle, this is British sailing vessel Gypsy Queen, Gypsy Queen, call sign WXYZ, making for Ancona, carrying personal cargo only. Over!’

  ‘Gypsy Queen, this is Charles de Gaulle, message received. You have permission to proceed.’

  ‘What if they call us? Can I say that my cargo is one husband, un mari?’

  ‘What’d you say?’ Felix shouted from the cockpit. The wind was howling.

  Then I heard them call us. I wasn’t brave enough to play games with a French warship. ‘Charles de Gaulle, this is Australian sailing vessel Galatea, call sign Victor Juliet, Five Four Nine Four, making for Corfu, carrying private cargo only.’

  I’d found it exciting and exhilarating as long as the visibility was clear and I could watch the waves and see the sky, but now we were blanketed with fog. The drone of foghorns echoed through the mist. Boats showed up clearly on the radar, and the satnav gave us our coordinates every hour. They tallied with our dead reckoning.

  But these waters were notorious, at times churned into fury by boras. We were now getting a sample of it. The stays continued to play tunes, sometimes mournful, sometimes high pitched, like rasping violins. The sea seethed, sending spray soaring over the cockpit, through the companionway and into the saloon.

  ‘Put in washboards!’ Felix shouted, ‘I’ll furl the headsail.’ That steadied Galatea and reined in her charge.

  ‘What d’you think? Shall we go all the way to Corfu?’ Felix asked. Our speed still averaged 7 knots and the wind a steady 25 to 30 knots.

  ‘Might as well!’

  Beyond Fano the mist lifted and the air cleared. We saw sky. We changed course, to sail between Fano and the island of Errikousa. The harsh, forbidding karst landscape of the Albanian coast was close enough for someone on shore to hear our shouts. We saw goats graze, and heard the occasional bleat. As we entered the Corfu Channel, the wind died completely and we turned on the engine. At one point, the Albanian military outpost at Butrino was within a stone’s throw.

  To starboard we passed silent, lonely bays that beckoned us. But we were entering Greece for the first time, and had to continue to the customs quay in old Corfu harbour. We made for the Venetian citadel and the lighthouse on Cape Sidero. As we neared the port, the docks and houses of Corfu town were clearly visible.

  It was still light when we tied up at the packed customs marina, eleven hours after we’d set sail from Otranto. Windswept, drenched and smelling of sea water, we’d covered 80 miles.

  chapter ten

  In Corfu all boatsheds were packed and we were desperate, until we met an elderly man who repaired boats. In conversation, we mentioned that we had to return to London for treatment at the Marsden. He was stunned. ‘I also had treatment there.’

  From then on, our problem became Cristos’s personal challenge. He didn’t rest until he found us a spot. True, it was in a clapped out shed, which we suspected dated back to Pericles, but that no longer worried us. To drag Galatea out of the water, we had to wet logs, heave her over them, then pull with two heavy ropes to get her onto the dry. We found deserting her in that spot painful.

  The following day, we took an overnight ferry to Ancona and hired a car to pick up our car in Florence. And lest things go too smoothly, we lost 40 litres of petrol in 60 km on the autostrada, but made it to a service station where they replaced a rotten petrol tube. Two days later we were home in London.

  ****

  I flicked through a pile of old magazines near a window in the Marsden waiting room, and waited. Now and again I looked at the people around me. By now it was a familiar place — the sad, haggard and worried faces; the rattle of trolleys, the clatter of cups; the nurses’ urgent footsteps, a patient being called. People spoke in whispers, as if silence was associated with this place. The smell of food drifted in from somewhere.

  Felix looked gaunt and pale when he returned from the consulting room. He sat down next to me and stretched his legs. ‘I’ll need tests before they can decide on anything: I have to come in at 8.30 tomorrow to have a chest X-ray, blood tests, CT and then another meeting with Mike Hunt at 2.’

  ‘Shall we go home now, or would you like to go to a movie or a gallery?’

  ‘I’d like to go home, I’m tired.’

  On the following morning Felix had the tests, and in the afternoon an appointment with Dr Hunt. In between, we went to a Sisley exhibition.

  Felix and Dr Hunt looked at the X-rays together. I heard Dr Hunt say, ‘Looks as if there may be a lesion on the lung, so maybe you’ll need chemotherapy as well as radiotherapy to the eye. But we’ll need to see all the tests first.’

  We held hands as we walked out of the hospital. Felix’s hand felt icy. Although it was August, high summer, it was overcast, cold and wet. I had one migraine after another.

  ‘How about we install a gas fireplace that looks like wood? It’ll make the flat cosy on miserable days,’ I suggested.

  ‘Good idea,’ Felix said.

  As the bitter cold continued, we read by the newly installed fireplace, and in our tiny apartment we felt that same intimacy we enjoyed when the brass oil lamps glowed in the saloon on Galatea.

  When all the test results came back, the news was good. The suspected lesion in the lung was not confirmed by the other tests, so Felix only needed radiotherapy. For three weeks, Monday to Friday, we made our way to the Marsden for treatment. Although he grew progressively more weary, Felix was determined not to let it dampen our enthusiasm for London. Art exhibitions and concerts, theatres…on and on. We were perpetually tired.

  ‘Aren’t we lucky to be able to do so much?’

  At the end of the radiotherapy, in mid-September, we returned to Sydney for six weeks. Felix had to have a
hernia and a prostate operation. He arranged to have the two done at the same time. ‘It’d be a waste of time to have them separately,’ he said.

  Sometimes, when friends wondered about the frenetic pace at which we lived, I had to admit that the only time we discussed our medical problems was when something needed to be done, such as returning to London for treatment or booking check-ups. If Felix was tired, or I had migraines, we waited till we felt better.

  Of course there were times when we were depressed, but these passed in silence. We coped by concentrating on the present. We talked about our good fortune. We never referred to life after Felix. I don’t recall ever thinking of life without him. Denial? Maybe. But Felix and I knew that I couldn’t discuss the subject. It would have destroyed me. Perhaps it was the tacit assumption that we’d either crash together, drown together or go together in some other way that enabled us to cultivate this insouciance.

  ****

  I was pleased to get back to Sydney earlier than we’d planned. I was homesick, and in need of family and old friends.

  ‘We’ll be back in London in six to eight weeks and on Galatea by April,’ Felix assured everyone.

  But we were not back on Galatea in April. We returned to London to prepare for another summer in the Med. In early March Felix had the flu and put himself on antibiotics. His temperature was going up and down. Much of the time it was between 39° and 40°C. When he seemed to be improving, we booked our flight to Corfu. We were on a high when we set off to the ship chandlers to buy a GPS and a weather fax for Galatea.

  The following day, however, Felix started to cough badly. His temperature went up again. Hans, a close friend and general practitioner, listened to his chest. He diagnosed pneumonia. We went to the Marsden for new X-rays and a blood test. Dr Hunt, the radiotherapist and a physician at the Brompton Chest Hospital all thought he should have a biopsy. Felix was exhausted and looked ashen. I cancelled our flights.

  Three days later, Felix had an appointment for another CT scan of the chest and a chest X-ray at the Brompton. He had no temperature and was feeling better when he returned to the hospital some days later for a lung biopsy. He discussed the procedure with the pathologist and decided he didn’t want it done. They agreed to wait. During this period, Felix had to force himself to eat, and was unusually quiet, thin, pale and tired. I felt I was falling apart.

  A week later, Felix had another appointment with Dr Hunt and the chest physician. The latest X-rays indicated that the shadow was disappearing. The consensus was that the problem had been an abscess on the lung caused by a compressed bronchus as a result of the lymphoma. They felt that a biopsy was no longer necessary.

  This cheered us no end. We re-booked our flights to Crete, with a stopover in Prague.

  During this time, my rash problem, which had started after we’d left Australia, had taken off once more. By now I’d seen dermatologists in London, Sydney, Paris and Stockholm, and none could find the cause. I was finally sent to an allergist in London who diagnosed a rare condition, an allergy to a chemical substance used in dyes of dark or very bright materials. As I mostly wore dark colours, the rash was more or less endemic.

  ‘The good news,’ the doctor told me, ‘is that you will have to get an entirely new wardrobe. Whites, creams, beiges…’ After five years, this simple change solved my problem.

  But at the same time my neck and shoulder were excruciatingly painful, and my arm was so weak I had difficulty holding a cup; the shoulder muscle showed distinct wasting. I saw a neurologist. X-rays showed up problems, but he was reluctant to send me to a neurosurgeon at this stage, and suggested we wait and see. We decided to ignore whatever problems we could, and take off back to Galatea.

  ****

  We had personal reasons for going to Prague. I have a photograph of my mother in school uniform. It shows a group of six girls aged about 17, in navy blue pleated skirts and white blouses. At the back of the photograph is my mother’s handwriting: ‘Prague, War Years 1914–1916??’ What brought her to school in Prague? There is no one I can ask.

  Felix’s mother was born near Prague, and had spent much of her childhood in Telc, a Czech town that is now on the World Heritage list. We took a bus there from Prague and knocked on the door of a house in the main square, on the off chance that someone may have remembered his mother’s family. A tall, thin old lady, in a checked skirt and twin-set, opened the door. She looked as if she had been expecting someone. When Felix started in German, ‘Mein Name ist Felix

  Huber…’, her instant reply was, ‘Then you must be Tante Ida’s son!’ We were struck dumb. She remembered Felix’s mother and became so excited, she forgot her German and spoke a mile a minute in Czech, which we didn’t understand. Yet somehow we managed to communicate. Her husband had died in Auschwitz; she had survived because she wasn’t Jewish. She cried and hugged us when we left.

  ****

  Galatea was filthy but well when we arrived in Corfu. Felix was also well and our mood upbeat, especially after we’d moved to Gouvea, on the other side of the island. Three days later there was a public holiday celebrating the unification of the seven Ionian islands, and the place was festive. Flags fluttered from windows and shops were closed. However, one grocer pestered us to come and buy. ‘But the shops are closed,’ I said.

  ‘They’re only closed for the police. For you, I am open,’ he insisted, coming round to the marina every couple of hours with his truck. ‘You order, and I will bring.’

  At the nearby restaurant a large notice assured us that ‘Prices at this restaurant are controlled by the Police’. The marina toilet had been out of order for three weeks, the temperature was in the mid 30s, and the stench was awful.

  Meanwhile, Felix, with the patience of an angel, was ticking his way down a list as long as his arm, of things he must repair, replace and install, including the new GPS we had bought in London. I shortened the shower curtain and was doing a massive amount of varnishing. I couldn’t help him with anything requiring lifting, pushing or holding steady. My neck, shoulder and arm were too painful. So I took painkillers, which helped most of the time, and ran messages instead.

  I started with the customs office, where I had to get a pink slip. When we’d pulled into Corfu the previous year, the fellow at the diesel pump alerted us to the pink slip one needed for cheaper fuel. ‘But you’re Australian, and I’m Greek-Australian, so don’t worry,’ he said. So we didn’t, and he charged us the cheaper price. But as we couldn’t rely on finding Greek-Australians on all the Greek Islands, I set off to get the pink slip. I spent three hours in the customs hall with other people who were waiting for the same thing. It was an educational experience, not at all boring. I established a sense of aggrieved camaraderie with the yachties in the queue and also gathered advice about good anchorages, how and where to get things cheaply, which restaurants to frequent or avoid — a general survival kit.

  ‘OK, all’s finished.’ Felix was delighted. ‘We’re ready for a shakedown into the bay, then we can anchor there for the night.’

  Some minutes later, as we were motoring into the bay, Felix suddenly shouted, ‘Hell, the depth meter’s not working! Leaks. Have to go back to the marina. We’ll have to get rubber sealing. Bloody radar’s not working either.’

  ‘Oh, God, when will everything come together!’

  Back at the marina I buried my head in Homer’s Odyssey. Felix spent the rest of the day fixing the problems.

  At sunset, we motored into the bay once more, and put down an anchor. Amen. I felt the breeze on my cheeks, and we took deep breaths of pure air, free of the stench of sewage. The sky was full of stars. There was a new moon, and silence. The smell of lamb and herbs bubbling in the oven filled the cabin. Perhaps Corfu was a beautiful island after all, just spoilt by motorcycles, dust, noise, annoyances, especially in summer… Ron Heikell’s Greek Waters Pilot advised us to ‘persevere until Corfu charms you’. Yes, perhaps next time.

  ‘OK. We’re off to Lakka Bay,’ Felix an
nounced.

  ‘Not so loud,’ I said. ‘The gods may hear you and something else will need repair to test your genius.’

  Lakka Bay, at the northern end of Paxos Island in the Northern Ionian Sea, is a sheltered anchorage, surrounded by green hills. It was late afternoon, and as a cool breeze swept the water, a flotilla of multicoloured windsurfers glided like butterflies and the sound of laughter from the shore drifted towards us. Smoke, and the smell of roasting meat, curled up from a taverna. Dragging a net behind him, a barefoot fisherman pulled a rowboat ashore. Two women, with scarves tied round their heads, and elbows resting on windowsills, chatted from upstairs windows.

  ‘Our first clear day. No repairs. No officials. Nothing to do.’

  ‘Celebrate. Put on Fledermaus.’

  It was peaceful when we went ashore, but the day’s heat still radiated through the soles of my sandals. Few people were outdoors. We sat on a stone balustrade and looked out at the bay. A cat brushed against my leg. I tried to pick her up, but she had other plans. More cats, in all shapes and sizes, foraged for scattered fish remains, or lay curled up in corners.

  ‘I miss a cuddly live animal.’

  ‘When British quarantine laws change, we’ll get a cat,’ Felix promised me.

  As the evening progressed, people drifted outdoors, oil lamps glowed on tables, and bouzouki music filled the taverna and reverberated outside. It was a joyful atmosphere. But when I turned to look at Felix I was shocked to see how grey and lined his face was, how sunken his eyes. I didn’t have much energy either. In the taverna we were the only foreigners, and we didn’t speak a word of Greek.

  ‘We really should have made an effort to learn the basics. It was so much easier in France and Italy,’ I said. A waiter had a few words of English and suggested a platter of mezzes. He presented us with a vast array of taramasalata, dolmades, haloumi, octopus…