CONVERSATIONS WITH LOUISE 4…

After our friends left on 12 May we had to pack in a hurry because we were leaving for Brussels on Sunday 14 May well before sunrise, to catch the first flight to Athens. We had just one day to throw things into our luggage and it was fine by me because I didn’t have any clothes to start off with. What on earth do you wear in this demi-saison with its shy intimations of summer? It’s cold in the morning and I shiver and reach for a warm cardigan and it’s not enough and I pull a jacket over and say…`I’m nice and comfortable now,’… and grumble…` Is summer ever going to come?’…Then I do a bit of brisk walking and the sun comes out and I raise my face to it for a bit of a toast in the luxurious warmth and…`Wow this jacket’s too warm!’…I struggle out of it, perspiring in the process…then the cardigan gets oppressive and I become aggressive and I tear it off as well and I’m in a short-sleeved top and a cool wind rushes in and blows my arms and neck and I say …`Ahhhhh!’…feeling so very refreshed and relieved. The sun then decides to hide behind a cloud and I start shivering all over again… So it’s really the worst season to pack. For Yiannis , his moves are practised and swift…a couple of shirts and trousers and a jacket. And when I said I had nothing to wear and didn’t know what to pack, he suggested we share a suitcase…NO WAY JOSÉ!!!!… because we had done so in the past and at the hotel he would ask every now and then…where’s my this and where’s my that… so I would much prefer to tote an empty bag. So what did I pack? Nothing really…just a couple of mismatched stuff to throw on and pull off, the very same items I wore when our friends were here, and presents for Louise.

Before we got to the apartment I kept airing my fears that Louise hadn’t seen us since December and wouldn’t recognize us…` What if she cringes back in fear when she sees us…two oldies popping out of nowhere?’…Then we stepped into the flat and Annie came out with Louise in her arms…Wow! She was all grown up, fifteen months and sitting straight in her mother’s arms. I looked at her and she looked straight into my eyes, beamed the widest smile ever and stretched out her arms. I’m not sure whether she recognized me or that she simply was comfortable with older ladies because the carers at the crèche were in that oldish age bracket or… was it because I had this indulgent grandmother aura about me…a real pushover that would do her every bidding. She didn’t go to Yiannis  because I suspect it was because of his hairy upper lip accessory.

So the next few days I was the baby carrier. The minute we stepped into the flat she would totter towards me and pull up her arms and point to the wide glass window that looked out into the street. She was fascinated by the pedestrians that hurried up and down, some pushing prams and others with children skipping alongside them or just simply being dragged along. Then there was this lady who pulled up just below us ( we were on the second floor ) and as I held Louise on the window ledge, she bent to have a good look as the woman pulled a box out of the boot and walked away. Louise craned her neck, trying to follow the woman and Yiannis watching in the background said with a chuckle…` she’s a little Miss ladthiko ( nosy parker ).’ Little Miss nosy parker then pressed her chubby little cheek against the window pane to snatch a last glimpse of the disappearing woman. When that diversion was over, she decided to give the glass a good lick. I went…`No! No! Don’t do that!’…And in the background her mother drawled out…`Don’t worry about that. At the crèche, she and her friends have licked clean everything, even the metal rails.’

After executing her orders till my arms ached, I decided to put her down. She plopped down, threw herself back, flung her arms and legs about and screamed blue murder. I was terrified into submission and quickly picked her up again and she turned off the drama. I could see the unspoken accusations in the parents’ eyes…`You’re going to spoil her…undo the discipline we’d been drumming into her.’ Miss drama queen also threw a tantrum when she didn’t like her food. According to her mother, she likes anything with red sauce…Italian, Greek or mild Indian curries…I wonder if it’s the genes. So when her father tried to feed her with a greenish-looking goo with mushy peas and chicken, she spat it out and screamed. He wedged her in the corner of the sofa and tried some kind of force-feeding but she brought the whole house down and he promptly put her to bed and closed the door behind him. She started shrieking and her mother went into the kitchen and took out some of the chicken biryani rice we had ordered the night before, gave it a quick whisk and mixed it with some of the green goo. Then she told Yiannis to bring out Miss wailer. He was only too willing  because his heart ached for his precious grandchild. He had forgotten that he had done exactly the same thing to Annie when she was about Louise’s age and his parents used to cry out from their balcony which faced our bedroom window…`But she’s only a baby!’…Anyway Louise didn’t expect him to rescue her. She was stunned into silence… and then gave him that…`I suppose you’ll do’ look… and put her arms up and he grabbed the opportunity to bond with her. She came out and swallowed one breathless spoonful after another of the reinvented mush with whiffs of spice and licked the bowl clean.

At age fifteen months, Louise had gone way beyond her initial verbal articulations. `Ada ada’ was replaced with shrieky syllables of different decibels and intonations which translated into a range of emotions. She would spurt out delight when she could bury her fingers into Miss catty’s thick pelt and give it a good squeeze…at one point she even managed to say `atty’ to our extreme delight. When I presented her with Mindy, this huge stuffed cat I carried in my half empty suitcase all the way from Chania, she grabbed hold of it, muttered sounds of disapproval and flung it away. When her mother was cooking pasta with bolognese sauce, she went…`mumumumumum’… and I shouted out enthusiastically…`Hey Annie she’s calling you!’…`No she’s not,’…said Annie still stirring the sauce without turning around…`She wants what I’m cooking.’…and she gobbled up a whole bowl of it.   

Before we left, the pecking order was well established. Her mother came first, then her father and then it was me, the carrier, and last of all came Yiannis, the carrier-of-last-resort, when no one else was available. All she needed to do was stick up her arms and he’d do her bidding, feeling exceptionally honoured. Once I saw her parents giving us the looks because we were thoroughly spoiling her and I mentioned it to Yiannis and he just shrugged it off and said…`They can always unspoil her when we leave.’ What people of short memories we are…we had accused his parents of the very same thing and now we were unapologetically breaking all the rules.

Well now summer is finally here and Louise is due in a few weeks’ time with her parents for the summer holidays. Yiannis has already put in some strawberries in troughs and he’s thinking about an inflatable pool etc and I’m wondering what to cook for her…I’ll make an effort to go beyond chicken curry. So I’ll be closing for the holidays and I wish you all a carefree summer and those in my homeland…go on enjoying the sunny weather and tropical breezes!

Cheers!