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Roman Remains

Norm Hudson

    There’s Roman remains there. Under the crystal clear water of the village harbour. If you get up off the harbour bench and peer into the water, you might just see them. And him. Looking like a statue in the underwater palace of a Roman emperor. His body upright. Even in death struggling to surface. Hampered by the heavy block of alabaster tied to his foot.
    I’m not sorry. He wasn’t. Even after two thousand years.
    I’ve always had a long memory. I never forget a voice. A face yes. But then faces change. Over time. Don’t they? But voices. You can tell a lot about a person from their voice. That’s why I recognised his. When he spoke. But it was his words that brought it all back.
    The funny thing is I’ve always loved anything Roman. Quo Vadis, The Robe, Spartacus, Ben Hur. And holidays in Cyprus, Greece, Italy. Where I rambled over the Roman ruins, delighting in the funny familiarity of it all.
    It was only at the Colosseum in Rome I’d felt uncomfortable. Somehow sensing the despair and death of those who’d entered there and never left. I’d avoided Italy since then. But Greece. Now that was different. Greece was a safe bet.
    I still carry my umbrella with me. I always do. Even though it’s quite a weight. For protection. It takes up very little room in my handbag and I can easily lay my hands on it in an emergency. It makes a good weapon.
    Now a woman shouldn’t need a weapon, should she? Nor should a man. Everyone should be safe to walk the streets. In any country. At any time.
    Women and men are to blame for the fact they’re not.
    I took it that day. It lay low, heavy, burdensome in the bottom of my handbag like a prisoner waiting for a break, not seemingly content with the visual images I projected of swiping it through the air like a sword in my defence of some as yet unknown danger.
    I hate trips, don’t you? You know those things you book hastily online before your holiday or worse still get persuaded into at your hotel or apartment’s welcome meeting. Where you part with an astronomical amount of money to be crushed into a coach with tons of other tourists and raced round a usually unremarkable series of sites, unable to get a grasp of any of them.
    That’s why I decided to take the mini bus instead. A few forgettable faces I could deal with. I would forget them. They would forget me. Complete, comfortable anonymity. Though why I should even want that then, I’m still not sure about.
    It was a long way to our destination. Over bumpy roads that seemed to point back to an earlier epoch and played havoc with my backside. I took comfort from the fact it drowned out the deafening voices of my companions.
    Places never live up to expectations, do they? I’d heard from a couple at my hotel that the village was beautiful. They’d stayed there on a previous occasion. So I fully expected it would be better than where I was staying.
    How wrong one can be.
    The main road of the village seemed to be the only one through which half of Greece was driving. The other half Greece were swarming over the precipitously high pavement the mini bus driver deposited us on, forcing us to face the fury of the forward coming drivers on the road or thread our way through the throngs on the pavement.
    I’ve never liked crowds. It seems to bring out the worst in people. I determined, however, they wouldn’t bring out the worst in me. With that happy thought and the heat of the approaching high noon sunshine steadily melting any animosity, I wound my way over the elevated pavement, careful not to plunge off on to the roaring road below.
    Five minutes later, I’d escaped into the nearest shop, glad of the space, the calm of the empty shop and the coolness.
    The shopkeeper seemed pleased to see me. I could see why. The shop was deserted. I wandered round his wealth of Greek wares, picking up an alabaster statue of Aphrodite, partly to appease him and partly to have some souvenir of my trip.
    He was a jovial fellow.
    “What you gonna do with this, eh?” he said, waving its weight in the air then proceeding to wrap it as carefully as if he was embalming a mummy in tons of tissue paper.
    “I’ll find somewhere to put it!” I laughed.
    “It heavy,” he said. “You bury it deep.”
    He pointed to my shopping bag.
    I laid it to rest in the bottom and reluctantly left the respite of the shop,
    A beautiful purchase in a not too beautiful village, I thought. Still, it could only get better. There would be Roman ruins to look at. I thought of what the mini bus driver had said. I would search them out.
    No one else was. Everyone seemed oblivious to the fact there was a Roman palace under the waters of the harbour. And cared even less. The more immediate temptations of eating and buying beckoned. I sat down on a bench at the edge of the harbour and gazed down into the watery depths. I couldn’t see anything.
    Sometimes it’s better to keep quiet. If he had done, he would be alive now. But try telling that to anyone these days, in this era of obsession with the spoken and written word, where everyone has an opinion about everything and will spout it forth, seeking out attention for good or evil.
    “All alone now!” said a mocking voice.
    The scorn in the voice scratched away two thousand years and made me remember. A Roman arena. I, a Roman Gladiator about to die. He, the invincible. The one who was going to kill me. Whose last contemptuous words to me had been, “All alone now!”
    A two thousand year old anger assailed me. I ripped open my handbag and pulled the umbrella from the bottom of my bag and started waving at him wildly, futilely, like the sword all that time ago.
    “That’ll do you a lot of good!” he laughed, as I swiped it through the air.
    Those were the words he’d said way back then as he’d knocked the sword from my hand causing me to fall down into the dust of the arena, his sword placed pointedly at my throat.
    That was the last thing I remembered. Before I died.
    Never bully or abuse a woman. She may have been a man in a former life. And may have a strength you don’t suspect. Gathered through aeons.
    I followed him all day. He didn’t see me. In and out of everywhere that sold alcohol. He hadn’t changed. By the time the sun was sinking slowly to sleep and the light was fast fading, I found him being flung out of a tavern at the top of the village.
    Swearing and cursing, he staggered straight back the way he’d come. But he’d lost his bearings. He wandered off a side road that led to the harbour. There were few people about. All the day trippers had departed. He’d almost reached the bottom of the road. And the harbour. I grasped my umbrella tight in my hand. For ptrotection. I started to overtake him. To prove I could outwit him. Could beat him. But as I passed him, he grabbed my umbrella.
    “You!” he said. “I remember you!”
    To this day I’ve never known if his memory was as long as mine or he was just referring to our earlier encounter. But from his next words, there was no doubt in my mind.
    “This will come in useful!”
    The last words I’d heard as the blood spilled from my throat on to the dust of the arena and he’d picked up the sword I’d dropped.
    My anger knew no appeasement. I pulled Aphrodite from my bag and hit him with her. The tissue paper should have cushioned the blow and just knocked him out. But I guess Love and Beauty knew better. He wasn’t breathing.
    I dragged him behind the nearest rock and, pulling a considerable chunk of the slightly apricot alabaster loose, I apologised to it. Not to him. I placed the alabaster rock in the plastic bag along with Aphrodite and tied it to his ankle. Then, with the strength of centuries, I dragged him to the water’s edge and tipped him in.
    There’s Roman remains there. Under the crystal clear waters of the village harbour. If you get up off the harbour bench and peer into the water, you might just see them.
    But don’t speak.
    Don’t say a word.
    You never know who is listening.

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