Gilbert is out walking his two irish terrier bitches along one of their habitual routes east along from the petrol station on a road parallel to the ethnic road and perhaps 200 meters from the beach the wind is blowing in from the sea cold and gusty bringing sharp needles of rain now and then but none of them is bothered as they amble along keeping one eye on distant mount ida or psiloritis which translates as the highest mountain which now, in January, is covered in snow that looks for all the world like icing sugar that sparkles now and then as the sun gleams out of the short lived gaps in the cloud.Nora stops to take a shit and as they await her pleasure Florence stands on her hind legs against the plegma fence to their right where she has glimpsed a form moving in the muddy rough ploughed waterlogged field where wild greens and thistles grow but Gilbert does not know this and he watches Nora instead who finishes and shows ready to move on but he leans forward and produces a plastic bag to scoop up the stools. He straightens up only to find both bitches looking into the muddy field shoulder to shoulder against the plegma fence that now leans perilously under their combined weight and concentration. They are silent but rapt and Gilbert follows their joint gaze to the eastern edge of the field where he finally perceives a dark form moving slowly laboriously through this the deepest mud in the field and it is a large field with standing water in several large patches. It is, he determines, a short man with a plastic bag in his hand and a plastic bag on his head. Gilbert can see the one in his left hand flapping in the wind as the man struggles his bandy legged way through the mud stooping and rising now and then.Gilbert calls the dogs down from the fence but continues to stand and scrutinize the figure attempting to figure out what this man who is clearly a local is actually doing. until finally he pulls the dogs close and they move together toward the end of the field where the figure continues his stoop and rise routine like some bizarre dance now and then pulling one foot free from the sucking mud before he can move on. As they close the distance and the figure becomes clearer the man looks toward them and straighten up completely for the first time since they have been watching him. His face is dark, he wears massive silver grey moustaches and long silver grey hair escapes his improvised plastic bag of a hat. The plastic bag on his head bears the logo of the local supermarket while the one in his hand is blank and bulges a little and at that moment Gilbert looks quickly at the man’s other hand. He is holding a bunch of flowers, wild narcissi that Gilbert now sees are sparsely distributed throughout the field but that grow profusely at the field margins where the water is deepest, where the mud is thickest. The man is picking flowers, wild flowers, the first flowers of the year. The man has seen Gilbert and the dogs and nods almost imperceptibly. Gilbert nods back and moves off with the dogs in his embarrassment at having been caught spying the man and his gathering.

 

As he draws level with and then passes the man he nods again but the man is stooping to pick another flower and does not see him. The girls tug him forward as Florence lunges into a hedgerow and puts up a flock of gold crests that flutter skim and chatter as they go and having found nothing she rejoins them on the path and they drive on toward a bend in the track where a German owned house sits behind a wall and fence opposite a piece of waste ground that is often used for fly tipping but today is clear. The dogs ignore the empty waste ground and the three take the bend before turning through 180 degrees and starting their way back to the pickup with Psiloritis at their backs now and the snow capped White mountains in front of them picking up the pace and veering toward the hedgerow they put up another flock of gold crests from the chaste tree to their left where Gilbert sees once more the old man, his flowers collected and bagged, who is making his way toward the entrance to the mud filled field. The man has discarded his plastic bag hat and Gilbert can see the long silver mane and the broad bushy moustaches moving in the wind. The man is wearing a black wooden jacket, black twill trousers and traditional Cretan boots that are covered in thick red brown mud that almost reaches their tops. Cretan boots are hand made and with proper care and maintenance will last a lifetime. A man will buy only two pairs in his adult life: a work pair that will sometimes require resoling and heeling, usually by the same man who made them originally or his son, and a dress pair that he will polish to a gloss so high that they reflect the light and which are worn to weddings, funerals and baptisms and in which he will one day be buried. The man leaves the field, cuts across the track disappears into the hedgerow and emerges into an unofficial lay-by on the main road where he nods briefly in Gilbert's direction, gets into a hire car and drives off toward Rethymnon. Surprised at how swiftly the man moves Gilbert watches and wonders about his story and makes a mental note to ask Mixaili at the cafe about him later in the afternoon.   And so they push on, the girls more interested now in striding out than sniffing and the heavens reward them by parting the cloud and allowing a bright yellow sun to warm their backs until they reach the bridge over the river where they halt and stay silent looking down into the clear water as they always do on this route looking at the flow as it caresses the weeds thick as ropes and waving in the current dark bottle green like a mermaid’s tresses the very river that runs past their olive grove before finishing up here only 2 or 3 hundred meters from the sea itself and hurrying towards its destination.. Tiny fish play in the weed beds and a light breeze ripples the trees on the bank though they have no leaves  at this time of year and the only noise is the odd clack as the stems of bamboo clatter into one another that and a strange bird sound not quite a song that pricks all of their ears to hyper vigilance and then it happens and Gilbert's face melts as a king fisher darts out of the trees and swoops on a dragonfly that he has failed to notice. How very apt, a kingfisher, and the halcyon days, those days when the wind drops to allow the kingfisher to nest on the quiet seas, yet to materialise but the dogs take no notice or do not notice and they are on again heading toward the pickup taking Gilbert with them on their jaunty way.  

 

There are no other customers so Gilbert and Mixaili are sitting out in the bright winter sun which despite a coolish breeze coming in from the sea is warming them gently. Gilbert's frappe sits on the bamboo table opposite Mixaili’s frappucino and an old zinc ashtray sits beside the frappe a lighted tailor made cigarette balanced on the edge. Mixaili has started smoking again. Gilbert puts his battered red tin on the table and proceeds to extract a roll-up,lean across and pick up Mixaili’s matches and light it. Gilbert hates to see people smoke alone. 

 

“Oh him,” says Mixaili “that’s Phillipos he comes every year at about this time just in time for the first wild flowers around the time of the festival of the three holy hierarchs, twenty seventh of January, he comes to pick flowers for his wife Stella.” 

 

“Oh how sweet, where does he come from is it far?”

 

"Phillipos is from Macedonia as his name would indicate but the real Macedonia, our Macedonia, not Skopje or FYROM but from the Greek Macedonia, historic Macedonia, home of Phillip and Alexandros. He works in Thessaloniki now but he used to live here in Vamos many years ago. One of his sons still lives there in the family house but Phillpos went back to Macedonia after his wife Stella died and every year he comes to lay wild flowers on her grave in Dramia. He must be quite old now, he seemed old when I was a young boy at school.”

 

"So his wife is dead, was she from Dramia then, her family?”

 

“Well. not exactly. Her family village is Askifou but they have been there since Ottoman times and back then Dramia was the winter village for Askifou. When the snow came most of the villagers would bring their family and livestock down to Dramia. Lots of mountain villages had winter villages where they sat out the worst of the winter with their animals. So, when Stella died there was no room in the cemetery in Askifou and she was buried instead in the family plot in Dramia. To be fair it was a very hard winter when she died so maybe they couldn’t have dug a grave in Askifou even if there had been room.”

 

"So even though they were living in Vamos she was buried in Dramia? But if she was from Askifou and he was from Macedonia how did they ever meet in the first place?” 

 

“Old people here are always buried in their family village. It’s the way it’s always been, tradition. In the old days very few people ever left the village anyway but Stella’s parents did. She met Phillipos in Belgium. Her parents went over in the 1940s but Phillipos went as a young man to work in the mines in the 1950s and that’s where they met and when the family came back Phillipos and Stella went to live in Vamos for his job and for the school. He became a stonemason, a good one, one of only a handful who today can cut a proper Cretan arch. It’s all done by Albanians now.”

 

Mixaili’s cigarette has burnt out and he stubs it in the zinc ashtray and lights another. Gilbert lights another too and drinks from his frappe and tops it up with water from the other glass and stirs it with the straw. They both gaze out into the distance, both looking at the weak sun glinting on the the dwindling snow atop the White Mountains.

 

“There’s not enough snow on the mountains this winter. We need more rain. It’s been too dry. There’ll be water shortages this summer what with the new hotels and all.” 

 

“What winter? We’ve not had a winter, really. There’s a new laundry opening too, that’ll take a lot of water and where’s it to come from with no snow on the mountains? They’ll drain the lake if things go on like this. Just to wash the tourists’ sheets.”

 

“And to fill the ex-pats pools. Let’s not forget those damned swimming pools that are seldom swum in. So, does Phillipos stay with his son when he visits the grave?”

 

“Oh no he has nothing to do with any of his family anymore: not since Stella died. Nobody knows why. They must have argued but apparently he has not spoken a word to either of his sons to this day. He still has use of a house in Dramia, it's broken down now and leaks, and he hires a car and he stays until the first narcissi bloom. Those flooded fields down along the track to the mechanic’s house usually bloom first: where you saw him. Some years he is here for a week or two some years it is just a few days, it all depends on the flowers and when they bloom. He never uses the cafeneion in Dramia and speaks to no-one it’s as if he hates everybody here, blames them for her death. He is constantly disappointed, constantly sad. He comes in here sometimes but he never speaks to anybody, just drinks a raki and a Greek coffee and leaves.”

 

“And nobody knows what he argued with his family about? How strange. I thought village people knew everything about everybody here.”

 

Mixaili laughs and wags his finger at Gilbert “Mostly they do but even here there are still some secrets. Even in the villages.”  

 

“Do you think he is only sad, only disappointed here in Crete? Maybe he is happy back in Macedonia. Maybe it is only the remembering of Stella that saddens him, the season and the occasion. He seemed quietly content when I saw him in the fields collecting the flowers. Like a man at peace with the world. It never occurred to me that he was collecting them for a grave, for a dead wife.”

 

“You could be right, few people are sad all the time, angry yes, but sad no, and those who are are usually put on medication. Emotions are seldom simple or even singular we know that, we are a complicated people emotionally.”

 

“Complicated and volcanic, as I well know, not complicated and constipated like us Brits. Anyway shall we have a little raki together and then I really must get back to feed the dogs. They’ll be wondering if I’ve left home."

 

“Constipated? I don’t know that one, what does it mean?”

 

Gilbert laughs this time, “Well that’s unusual, your English vocabulary is very comprehensive, your English is so good I sometimes forget that it isn’t your native tongue. Not being able to shit, that’s constipated, not being able to let go in this case. What about those rakis before I go? “