The Unquiet Mind (The Greek Village Collection Book 8) Read Online Free Page A

she and Baba seemed quite happy to sleep on a similar bed in the main room. But he was at an age when a room separate from her and Baba would give them all space and at that age, he felt the need for some privacy, too.
    So he had begun. A few stones here and a boulder or two there, the walls began to grow, until, on returning from grazing the goats one day, he found his baba had topped the wall with wire fencing and herded all the pregnant sheep into the half-built room, its walls now tall enough that they could not jump out.
    After the ewes gave birth, the lambs took over, and after that the kids, by which time the sight of livestock in the half-built room had become familiar and Yanni had the feeling that his separate dwelling would never be finished.
    The following year, the ‘house-pen,’ as it was by then referred to, was whitewashed, even along the top where the next row of stone would have been laid, and Yanni let go of the idea that it might one day be a room of his own. Sophia had left the island by then and he lost, well, what was it, a spark, energy, hope? Besides, the animals must come first. Their welfare determined his life, just as they had determined the days he could attend school in the brief years it was available to him. It had to be that way. It was their livelihood.
    He walks round the end of the house-pen, one eye checking the distended bellies of the ewes. The scoop for the barrel sits on its lid. The wide-bellied sheep bleat with anticipation. Inside the pen, dividing walls have been erected. Some of the animals are bullies who leave the others hungry. Yanni gives some grain to these large animals first, adding a calcium mix, before repeating the process for the others, the wide bellies gently pushing each other out of the way.
    His mama rounds the corner of the house, bottle in hand, and she lifts one of the newborn lambs out of a separate corral and tucks it under her arm. This starts a frenzy of bleating from it and from the two that remain in the pen. These are the rejects, unwanted by their mamas. They were pushed away when they tried to suckle and had to be rescued before they starved.
    He and his mama walk together, with no need for talk, to the house front. She smells of onions. Sitting with the lamb on her knee, its little hooves dig holes in her woolly skirt as it nuzzles and pushes the bottle she holds. In no time, the bottle is nearly empty and its actions grow stronger until it is sucking air. She pulls the empty container away and the lamb’s bleats fill with panic until she lifts it and gently takes it back and puts it into the pen with the others. They head butt each other and jump on the spot for a moment before she takes out the next and repeats the process.
    Yanni knows that in a day or two, more will be born and soon after that, it will be time to make yoghurt. The thought is pleasing. Bread and yoghurt for breakfast. It reminds him that he must bring up more flour to make bread. The sack they have will soon be empty and he must fix the crack where his mother says heat is leaking from the domed bread oven that leans against the house wall nearest the well. Unless his baba has fixed it already. He goes to look at it.
    His mother finishes with the lambs and returns, wiping her hands on her apron, which is already dirty from this morning’s chores. It will be washed and hung on the line by the time he comes back for lunch and a sleep at mesimeri .
    Yanni smiles at her and heads towards his donkey.
    ‘You okay, son?’ she asks. He nods. ‘Going down?’ He nods again. ‘Can you get your father a coil of fence wire whilst you are in town? And we need more coffee. We only have Nescafé left.’
    Yanni feels no need to answer. He would bring the town to her if she asked, but is glad that she would never ask. The mass of people is as unnerving to her as it is to him, and he cannot remember the last time she went down there, not her or his baba.
    The wood and leather saddle creaks as