A Pat on his Back (2 Chapters)

The full story, over 50,000 words, of our move from England to Cyprus and the crazy Roller-Coaster that followed is now available on both Amazon Kindle and Kobo.

…It was a small crump to the back of my vehicle and I barely felt the jolt, but it was enough for me to realise the car behind hadn’t stopped in time. I was furious and got out the driver’s seat to vent my anger.

‘Taxi! Taxi!” The driver of the other car shouted as he vacated his own vehicle.

“What the hell do I want a taxi for?” I asked, very loudly. “You hit me you dope. Look at my car.”

“Taxi! Taxi!” The man wailed, clearly concerned that I needed some other form of transport.

“I said I don’t need a taxi!” I shouted, loudly.

“I saw it, I saw the accident.”

I turned to see who the owner of the new voice was. A young Cypriot man was standing, smiling at me. He was obviously a student as he was loaded down with books. Either that or he needed to use the books to reach the top shelves at the supermarket because he was a diminutive five feet tall. But it was his broad grin and the amused twinkle in his eyes that caught my attention.

“Something amusing you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Do enlighten me. I could do with a laugh,” I said, pointing to the minor damage on my car.

“You English go all over the world and you never expect to use or try to use the local languages. And then when the unexpected happens,” he indicated my car’s damaged rear end, “you are angry when someone shows concern.” He nodded once toward the man who had asked me if I wanted a taxi.

“Shows concern? I fail to see how asking me if I want a taxi is going to help. This damage will cost me money. You can bet the insurance won’t pay out.”

“He was asking you if you are ok.”

I furrowed my brow and cocked my head to one side. “What?”

“He was speaking to you in Greek. We speak Greek here in Cyprus.”

“I know that.”

“He said, daxi. Which is the shortening of Endaxi, which in English means OK. He was asking you if you were ok, in Greek. Daxi? Daxi?”

The young man’s smile never faltered and I had to smile back. I tuned to Mr Taxi and held out my hand. He took it with a quizzical look. “Daxi,” I said. “It’s ok. Thank you.”

He smiled, the young man smiled and I smiled. The United Nations couldn’t have done a better job than this young man. I was being stupid and a fool. I turned back to the young man and shook his hand as well.

“What’s the Greek for idiot?” I asked...

Prologue

Freezing cold and dark, there was no other way of describing the conditions outside my front door. It was a Monday morning and I was commencing my weekly work run of two hours to South Yorkshire. I lived in the North East of England and worked away in South Yorkshire, a round trip distance of almost two hundred miles.

It wasn’t so much the distance or time I objected to, it was the traffic. Part of my journey took me on the M1 from the north of Leeds down to Rotherham and it was pretty dense almost bumper to bumper driving at high speeds. White van man and silver Ford rep-man seemed to rule the motorways and at times it was a little dicey to say the least. But I was always pretty upbeat, until my aging Nissan Primera started to play up… which in cold weather it did from time-to-time.