Manolis number one was a different figure altogether to Manousis. Short and stocky, muscular and black bearded, at first glance one thought, hey I’d hate to tangle with this one, as he swaggered about punching the air, punching the palm of his hand. He didn’t actually go so far as shadow boxing and you realised it was a bit of an act when you saw the grin and twinkle in his eye and realised he was a bit of a joker as well as being what the Greeks call a palakari. We can’t really think of what the English equivalent would be for palakari but maybe the closest definition would be “hero”. His wife, Roula, a little brown hen with thick ankles, losing her hair and a voice like a corncrake - actually I don’t believe I’ve ever seen or heard a corncrake, I just liked that expression - fussed over him like a real mother hen with her chicks. She fetched and carried and to start with, carefully laid out a cloth on top of his locker on which she placed an icon of Madonna and child which looked strangely out of place surrounded by water bottles and fruit juice cartons. Another embroidered cloth was placed on the lower shelf to hold the special goodies she had brought and his pillow supplied with a pretty floral pillowslip. Roula was another chatterbox and I don’t think Manolis heard half of what she said. He would give me a look which meant, what can you do? She slept on the bed with him and hospital beds are not all that wide but it’s something couples do. I gathered he was in for an angiogram but after two days he was suddenly discharged so we had more air punching, much shaking of hands, smiles from Roula and off they went, home to Rethymno. Douglas slept on the middle bed for a couple of nights before moving to his shared room in the hostel.
Manousis meanwhile had made friends, or found an admirer rather, with a visitor from next door, a small rather clown like figure we never saw without his flat cap so that is what we called him, flat cap. He was looking after his sour-faced wife but obviously couldn’t or didn’t intend sharing her bed which meant he would have been sleeping on a chair. So Manousis at two in the morning invited him to take the bed vacated by both Manolis and Douglas. He didn’t stretch out for long though because less than an hour later, nurses arrived with clean linen, chivvied him off, made up the bed and Manolis number two was wheeled in and hooked up to his drip and the oxygen. There’s nothing to say about Manolis number two that I haven’t already said.
The first day I was there a cheery lady came around with a set of steps and took down all the curtains, never to be seen again except laundered, folded, and lying in a storeroom so there was no privacy in the ward for any intimate bodily function. At one point independent Manolis got shakily out of bed, lifted a bottle in a plastic carrier bag and stood facing my bed to urinate. I dutifully closed my eyes but couldn’t resist a peek to see how he was doing. He kept everything well and truly hidden inside the plastic bag. At one point in the night a doctor arrived at his bedside, turned him on his side and, liberally covering his gloved hand with lubricating jelly, shoved two fingers fairly forcibly up uncomplaining Manolis’s bum before covering him up again.. Why, do you suppose, as nothing else seemed to take place?
And talking of doctors, I have to mention young Doctor Kostas who seemed to be here, there and everywhere, at everyone’s beck and call at all hours of the day and night. One night he responded to a call form Manousis at about midnight, having been seen around all day, and nine o’clock the following morning there he was again.
‘Kostas,’ as he passed my bed, ‘don’t you ever go home?’
‘No.’
A couple of minutes later on his way back (to Manousis’ bed of course) ‘Kostas, do you have a home to go to?’
‘No.’
A short while later he stopped by to say he was leaving for two weeks holiday and then, rather shyly I thought, informed me he was getting married. He was quite chuffed at my enthusiastic congratulations. Chris and Douglas had suggested we give him a copy of NO OFFICIAL UMBRELLA and he was even more chuffed about that. He went straight down to the desk to log on the internet and find out all about me, coming back to the ward with the print-outs. ‘Is that you? Is that you?’
Yep – that’s me. Phone numbers were exchanged. I wonder if we will ever use them.