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Migratory Birds

Lisa Gray

    It was the day after the wedding. The hunting season had begun. Shooting, mainly migratory birds, had always been a tradition in Cyprus for as long as Vathoulla could remember and she’d always hated it. Like she hated all tradition. Her father Stavros Papadopolous was a man of tradition. That’s why he’d gone hunting. Vathoulla knew that when she saw the gun was gone.
    Tradition had been the reason she’d left the island of her birth as soon as she’d reached the age of eighteen and moved to London.
    Her parents hadn’t been happy.
    “Why you move to London?” said her father. “London no safe. You stay Cyprus. We get you nice husband.”
    Vathoulla sighed. Why couldn’t her father move into the twenty first century? There was more to life than marriage.
    And there had been. For two whole years. Until she met Mark.
    “He wants to marry me,” Vathoulla had told her parents over the phone.
    “Of course he wants to marry you. You wonderful girl!” her father had said. “But first I meet him. You bring him to Cyprus.”
    Vathoulla sighed. She couldn’t imagine what Mark would think of her father.
    “He’ll like him, I’m sure,” Emma, her flat-mate and best friend had said. “And your father will like Mark. What’s there to dislike about Mark?”
    Vathoulla wasn’t so sure.
    And neither was her mother.
    “Why you no marry nice Greek boy?” she said the first afternoon that Mark and Vathoulla arrived in Cyprus.
    “I no love Greek boy. I love Mark!” said Vathoulla angrily.
    And she’d told her father the same.
    He hadn’t liked it either.
    “I talk him round,” her mother had said.
    And she had. But Stavros had still insisted on Vathoulla following tradition.
    “He move in with us. You get pregnant, you get married,” he said.
    Vathoulla sighed.
    Mark hadn’t been too happy either. Till she told him about the wedding.
    “Everyone will give us envelopes of money,” she said. “Then we’ll have enough to go back to London and set up home there. Far away from my father and his traditionalist ways.”
    And so it was agreed. She and Mark had given up their well-paid jobs in London and moved into her parents’ house in Cyprus.
    Vathoulla rubbed her hand over her distended belly. Everything had gone to plan.
    The wedding had been perfect. Her mother and father had hired the local hotel for the evening reception. Emma had flown out from London. She and Mark and Emma had taken their places in the corner of the function suite in preparation for the envelope giving.
    Emma could have worn something more appropriate, thought Vathoulla as she watched Emma bend down to place the large box with the bow that would receive the envelopes behind the wedding party.
    Emma’s underwear was clearly visible from underneath the micro dress she was wearing. Mark seemed to have noticed too. He raised his eyebrows as Vathoulla caught his gaze.
    Why does she always have to be the centre of attention? thought Vathoulla angrily.
    This was her day. Hers and Mark’s.
    People were beginning to file into the function suite. One by one they passed their envelopes to Vathoulla. Almost by slight of hand Vathoulla passed the envelopes behind her to Emma who placed them in the large box with the bow on it. All evening a steady trickle of people kept arriving. Vathoulla smiled, thinking of all the money she and Mark would have to take back to London. No more Cyprus. No more tradition. She rested her hand on her belly. Her child would not be like her. Her child would not be a victim of tradition.
    “You tired. I take you home,” her mother and father had said when the trickle of guests had dried up completely.
    “Good idea.” said Mark. Emma and I will tidy up here and join you in a little while.”
    “No forget the box,” had been her father’s last words to Mark, as he pointed to the ribboned box containing all the money.
    “There’s no way I’ll forget that,” laughed Mark.
    And he hadn’t. He hadn’t forgotten Emma either. It was Vathoulla he’d forgotten.
    Vathoulla rubbed her hand over her belly. No child of hers was going to be a victim like she had been. She thought of all the money her father would bring home. Perhaps she’d buy her child a house. It was the tradition in Cyprus.
    There was something to be said for tradition, she thought.
    Her father, Stavros Papadopolous was a man of tradition. She’d known that when she saw the gun was gone. She was glad. She laid the letter in her father’s spidery handwriting down. She’d misjudged him. He had proved he could move into the twenty first century.
    After all, London was a long way to go to shoot migratory birds.

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