Read Online Under a Croatian Sun by Anthony Stancomb - Free Book Online Page A

we’re here,’ Ivana said soothingly when I eventually ran out of steam. ‘Why don’t you go and get yourself a drink and we’ll sit on the terrace and watch the sun go down while we think of other ways of thawing the neighbours out.’
    I poured myself a large gin. Such a comfort in times of trouble, gin. No wonder it was the Queen Mum’s favourite. Must have been such a help to their Royal Majesties during our national emergencies and their own family ructions.
    We sat on the terrace with our drinks looking over the bay as the light began to soften, turning the hills hazy blue and the water into a limpid pool of gold. Sometimes the combination of sunlight, sea and warm air can do something quite narcotic and sometimes it can lift you on to another level entirely – but, bythe time the sun had disappeared, we still hadn’t thought of another way of thawing out the neighbours.
    We did feel a lot better, though.

CHAPTER 8
MEDICINE MATTERS
    I n the end, it was Karmela who set us off on the right path. As there was no hospital on the island, Ivana had brought out enough medical supplies to kit out a frontline field station, and, when we eventually unpacked it, Karmela picked up a carton and glared at it. ‘Ha! Made in a German factory I see! And what do they know about our illnesses and accidents? I ask you. Now, if you ever have an accident – and here we see so many terrible accidents – Grandma Gokan will give you something much better than all these chemicals.’
    ‘Are the roads really that dangerous?’ said Ivana, her eyes widening as she no doubt imagined me upside down in a Renault 4.
    ‘No, it’s the fishing, not the roads!’ replied Karmela.
    Ivana exhaled. The life-expectancy rate on the roads of Vis was not somewhere in between Mogadishu and Helmand Province.
    ‘What with all their knives and their hooks, our fishermen have the most terrible accidents! Such dreadful wounds I’ve seen, and, as nothing ever heals in the salt water, they can turn into gangrene and we lose another of our sons.’ She crossed herself. ‘Oh yes. God might give us the sunrise every morning and the flowers in springtime, but that doesn’t seem to stop him taking our sons from us whenever he feels like it!’
    Seeing the fishermen on the quay every day, I had noticed that a surprising number of them had missing body parts. Ears, eyes, fingers, toes and sometimes whole feet were often absent; not that your average fisherman looked the picture of health even when whole. Years of being sandblasted by the elements had clearly played havoc with complexions and no one on the island seemed to be pushing skincare products too hard.
    ‘Well, as I don’t want to join the fishing fleet and end up like them,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we’ll be troubling Grandma Gokan just yet.’
    ‘Ah, but the roads can be dangerous!’ responded Karmela, as always a glass half-empty person. ‘Look at the state of our vans and our drivers! That Bozo Sanda is the worst of them. He drinks too much and drives that dreadful van of his so dangerously. They shouldn’t allow either him or his van on our roads. He’ll wipe out half our congregation one day, you mark my words! If you’re not careful, you’ll be rounding a corner one day and you’ll find that Bozo coming straight at you on the wrong side of the road.’
    I hadn’t met this Bozo yet, but several times I’d had an unnerving awareness of my mortality brought on by the antics of other island drivers. Back home, that kind of driving was largely restricted to shaven-headed people between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five in cars with spoilers and alloy hub caps, but here it was the preserve of middle-aged men lookinglike Mr Toad behind the wheel of their Skoda vans with dangerous glints in their eyes.
    ‘Several others make cures as well as Grandma Gokan,’ continued Karmela, ‘but you be very careful who you buy from. Some are getting too old and they forget which herbs are