A strange thing happened to a man from Thessaloniki. He arrived home one evening, dog-tired and desperate for a beer, to find his flat completely empty. The furniture was gone; his books, the photographs, gone. The place looked as if it had been ransacked, or emptied in preparation for a sale or demolition. He went into the kitchen, which was still in one piece. On the table there was a note: gone out, back later. He took out his phone, went out onto the balcony and called his wife. She answered on the second attempt. ‘Where are you?’ he said, ‘what the fuck happened to the flat?’ ‘Calm down,’ she said, ‘I’m just getting back now. My mother turned up, she has ulcers again and is complaining non-stop. You might want to hang back for a couple of hours.’ The man heard the sound of the latch in the background, though he couldn’t make out if the door was opening or closing. ‘You’re here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘At our flat?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘It’s empty!’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The flat in Thessaloniki, it’s been robbed!’ The man heard his mother-in-law wittering away in the background: all he could make out was ‘coffee…cream cake…bastard!’ And then his wife: ‘What are you talking about? I’ve never been to Thessaloniki in my life and have no plans to go there either. As I say, it might be worth you hanging back for a couple of hours…’ The line went dead. The man returned to the kitchen. The note was gone. But there was a packet of salt and vinegar crisps on the table, alongside an ice cold beer with a slice of lemon. He sat on the kitchen floor and leaned back against the cupboard. As he sipped the beer, he thought about his childhood dog, Rocco, who once ripped a man’s trousers off down by the port, mistaking them for his favourite blanket.
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