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.Since he was a young child, he had been fascinated by the monuments of ancient Egypt and wanted to see for himself the desert landscape filled with the ruins of empires.The student teacher, encouraging the youth, had asked him to imagine what steps would be needed in order to make his dream possible.On a late autumn evening, the sun having gone down and the afternoon abruptly cold from an icy southern wind, Colin told me that all he remembered was feeling overwhelmingly trapped by the teacher’s question, that he could not ever see himself travelling, flying, walking through strange places, taking photos as mementos.He told me this as an adult, wrapped in an ill-fitting brown cardigan to protect himself from the wind, looking out onto a garden which his hands had sown and nurtured.He told me that he could remember neither the punch nor any of the violence that followed—that all he did remember was the young student teacher’s bleeding face and his own foot sore from the savagery of his kicking.They called the police and as his mother was not home, they kept him in a police cell until late in the night when she arrived, breathless and drunk, and slapped him once, twice around the head.When they arrived home, the man who his mother was seeing at the time, an old bastard called Nick, had packed all of Colin’s clothes into a bag.Colin’s mother had started screaming but Nick hit her and told her to choose.Nick or Colin.Colin made the choice for his mother.He left, and that night walked into the city where he slept on a bench outside the old Wesley Church in Lonsdale Street.Nick didn’t stay around for much longer and Colin eventually moved back home.But he never returned to school.His mother wanted him to stay on: he was smart, he could read anything, he was fucking smart.Stay at school, Col.But he found an apprenticeship and started paying his way.Steve Ringo had also taught him this.You’ve got to pay your way.Colin shivered in the evening chill.I have been paying my way ever since.As he told me this story, I looked at the line of tall beanstalks he had planted.When the night got too cold, I asked him to pick some of the beans and he came into the kitchen with a small wooden bowl filled to the brim with the deep purple beans.I cooked him beans in vinegar and olive oil, I had cheese and bread ready.I cooked him a meal my mother had taught me.—It’s true, I laughed along with Takis, the cows are well fed in Australia.It was evening when I reached Karpenissi.The yellow moon hung low over the town and people were drinking and laughing in the square.Young men on motor scooters circled around and there was music blaring from all the taverns lining the square.Techno competed with popular Greek tunes and I walked through this cacophony searching for a room.I found a small hotel with a view of the mountains and paid for a night.I laid my head on the pillow intending to rest only for a moment, and then go back into the night and explore the town.But I fell immediately asleep and fell into dreams: dreams of motor scooters and pretty boys smoking cigarettes; dreams of old men and old women, looking at me as if I was dead, looking through me.In the morning, the first thing I did after splashing my face with water was to walk down to the nearest kiosk and put a call through to Colin.The answering machine kicked in but Colin picked up halfway through my message.He told me he had been working in the garden.I could see him, weeding, digging, creating.—Not working today?—I’m working all weekend.Harry’s got lots of jobs on.I fell silent.I was thinking about my credit card bill from Athens.I vowed to myself I would find a fulltime job when I returned to Melbourne.It was not fair his supporting the both of us, supporting my photography while I got paid a shit wage to push videos and DVDs across a counter two or three shifts a week.I had to get a real job, put my fair share in; I would do it over any of Colin’s protesting.You’ve got to pay your way.—Are you alright?—Yeah.I’m in Karpenissi.—What’s it like?—I’ve just got here.I’ll tell you next time I ring.—When are you planning on coming back? I could hear the hope in his voice.—Not sure.Another month?He went silent.—Three weeks, then.—Don’t promise me anything.You never fucking keep them anyway.—I love you.—Then just come back quickly.—I better get going.He asked me to wait and he put down the phone.The young woman in the kiosk was looking at me.She lit up a cigarette and yawned.—Your cousin Giulia rang me.—Bullshit.—Nah.She rang me up last night.She’s in Athens and wants to get in contact with you.You got a pen?I motioned to the young woman for a pen and she sullenly handed me one.I took down the number, wrote it on the inside flap of my cigarette packet.—I love you, I told him again.His voice softened.—Come back soon, baby.I miss you so much.This is too hard.I walked the town that day.This place, this small town high in the mountains, was where I came from.It was to this town that my mother had come down from the village for celebration and for dances; this is where she had first tasted ice-cream and bananas and oranges.They were so rare, she once told me.I was a child, lying next to her in bed, and she was in a silky heroin daze.I was wearing blue and white checked pyjamas and I was asking her about Greece.On drugs, she would answer.Fruit was so rare.But I remember my father took me to Karpenissi one morning, we had walked since dawn, and I saw an old man with a stick of bananas over his shoulder.I didn’t ask for one, I knew they were expensive, but my Dad saw my hunger and he bought me one.He let me eat it all myself, did not even take a bite.Recalling her father, her face had become sad and old.She kissed me goodnight, grumbled that I did not know how lucky I was to be in a place where everyone ate bananas and peaches, apricots and oranges.I held my camera tight in my hands and willed myself to see Greece, her home, through her eyes.I took photographs of shopfronts, bakeries and butcher shops.I took photos of the old wooden walls of the town, of the new concrete apartments.I took photographs of the surrounding peaks and of young children playing soccer in side streets.I took photographs of a drunk old man, his teeth all gone, his eyes bruised [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]