‘It’s done,’ Jak told me a few minutes later. ‘Mergim can arrange a job for you in Athens.’
‘Really? Oh Jak, that’s so exciting! I can’t wait.’
‘In fact, there are a few jobs you can choose from,’ he said. ‘We can decide when we get there. Then we can get an apartment …’
I couldn’t believe we were really going to go to Athens! It would be like stepping out of the past into a future that would be different in almost every respect. The next morning, Jak packed a suitcase with his own things and with the clothes he had bought for me after almost everything I owned had gone back to England with Mum. Then we got a taxi to the coach station, where we sat together drinking coffee and waiting to get on the bus that would take us to our new life.
The journey to Athens took several hours. Jak’s cousin had said he would pick us up from the coach station. But he phoned while we were en route and said he had some business to tie up and that Jak should get a taxi to his apartment, where he would meet us.
Mergim lived in the centre of the city, in a large apartment that seemed to be full of members of his family, who all fussed over me when Jak introduced me to them. Although none of them could speak English, it was clear that most of them had opinions about me that they were discussing with each other. I was nervous and found their attention a bit overwhelming. So, after a while, I asked Jak if we could go out somewhere to have a coffee.
Mergim came with us to a café in a square near the apartment. He and Jak seemed to have a lot to talk about, but they didn’t leave me out of the conversation entirely, and every so often Jak translated for me. ‘My cousin thinks you are very beautiful,’ he said at one point. ‘And that I am very lucky to have you. I told him that he is right.’ I could feel myself blushing with pride. In just a few short months, I had gone from being a bullied, miserable, truant schoolgirl to being on the verge of starting a new life in Greece with someone who loved me. I thought I had every reason to feel happy and optimistic. When I look back on it now though, I think the day I arrived in Athens was one of the saddest of my life.
After we had drunk our coffee, Mergim made a phone call. ‘He’s phoning about a job for you,’ Jak told me.
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know yet. But I don’t think it’s far from here.’
We left the café a few minutes later and walked to a bar where the short, black-haired man who was standing outside the door greeted Mergim and Jak with a handshake. The three men talked for a few minutes, then Jak turned to me and said, ‘It looks like you’re going to get the job.’
‘Aren’t I too young to work in a bar?’ I asked him. ‘I was expecting it to be a café. Don’t you have to be 18 to work somewhere like this?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Jak assured me. ‘He knows how old you are, but you look old enough, so it’s okay. Don’t worry.’
It seemed like an odd way to conduct a job interview; but as I had never had one before, I didn’t have any experience to judge it by. And at least the man hadn’t taken one look at me and said ‘No’.
We went inside and Jak ordered drinks – whisky for himself and Mergim and a coke for me. It was still quite early in the evening and the only other people in the bar were four men and two semi-naked girls pole-dancing on a small wooden stage in the centre of the room. None of them seemed to be taking much notice of each other.
We must have been sitting there for about half an hour when a man came and joined us. He spoke very good English and after he had ordered another round of drinks, he introduced himself to me as the manager of the bar. Then he asked me some questions, including, oddly I thought, ‘Do you like dancing?’
‘Yes,’ I told him, remembering almost wistfully for a moment the dance routines my friend and I used to make up and practise in her garden when we were young. ‘But I’ve never danced like … that.’ I glanced at the two topless girls and felt the heat of a blush suffusing my cheeks.
‘Oh, it’s easy,’ the manager said. ‘And don’t worry, you won’t have to do what they’re doing. You’ll just do some basic stuff.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘basic stuff’. In any case, there was no way I would dance almost naked in a bar. Even the prospect of doing it fully clothed made me feel sick with embarrassed anxiety.
‘Well, the job’s yours if you want it,’ the manager told me. ‘I’ll leave the three of you to talk it over.’
‘I would be much too nervous to dance in front of people,’ I told Jak as soon as the man had gone.
‘You’re going to be brilliant at it,’ Jak said, as if it was already a done deal. ‘There’s no need for you to be nervous: they’ll show you exactly what to do. You’ll be fine. You’re so beautiful.’
I knew what pole-dancing was, of course. I didn’t think it was ‘wrong’ in any way, just weird, and I didn’t for one moment link it to sex. Sometimes, I wonder how anyone of almost 15 years old could have been as naïve as I was. I could be stubborn when I had decided I wanted to do something – which was why I had clashed with Mum so often before we left England. In reality, though, I had no self-confidence. And as there was no way I was going to start arguing with Jak and Mergim and then have to tell the manager of the bar that I wasn’t going to take the job, I agreed.
‘You won’t have to do it for long,’ Jak said quietly. ‘The money’s so good we’ll have enough for my mum’s operation in no time.’
Suddenly I felt like a hero and I knew everything really was going to be okay.
The next morning, Jak took me back to the bar and left me there with the two girls – one Russian, the other African – who were going to teach me to dance in a way that was very different from the dancing I used to do with my friend in her garden back in England! Both girls seemed very confident, although I wondered later if they had been acting, the way I was going to learn to do.
I danced that evening in a dimly lit corner of the bar dressed in an outfit that was really little more than fancy underwear, but that at least covered my boobs. After just a few minutes, another girl took my place. So, although the whole thing was hugely embarrassing, it was mercifully brief and not nearly as bad as it could have been.
The next day, when Jak dropped me at the bar again, the manager said he needed to talk to me. I followed him through a door behind the bar and into a small office, where I stood twisting my fingers nervously as he told me, ‘I had complaints about you from customers last night. They pay to see girls dancing topless and if they don’t get what they’ve paid for, I risk being prosecuted for false advertising. You’re going to have to dance like the other girls tonight.’
Whether or not what he said was actually true, I felt immediately guilty, as though I had done something wilfully and selfishly wrong. Then I imagined standing on the stage exposing my very flat chest to a roomful of men and I burst into tears.
‘I can’t do it,’ I snivelled. ‘And in any case, my boyfriend wouldn’t want me to.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll speak to him. He’ll be fine with it, I know he will.’ He patted my shoulder as if he thought I would be reassured by what he was saying. It was clear that our discussion was now over and I left the room feeling as though I had just been lured into a trap. I was pretty sure Jak wouldn’t want me to dance topless in a bar; my overriding concern, however, was the thought of how incredibly humiliating it would be for me.
It turned out that I was wrong about Jak. When I saw him in the bar later that day, he had already spoken to the manager and said that he was okay with the idea of my dancing semi-naked in front of a room full of drunken, lecherous men.
‘It