Aphrodite's Island (3 page)

‘On Sunday, when I come for my lesson with your father.’

‘I’ll find some way to give you a note. When can you be free again?’

He shook his head, frowning. ‘I don’t know. Things are getting difficult. You know there is going to be a General Strike
tomorrow
? That means trouble. I’ll get a message to you somehow.’

We looked at each other and suddenly I felt empty and
hopeless
. He put his arms round me and kissed me on the forehead.

‘We’ll find a way. Don’t look so sad. Things will work out, somehow.’

I nestled against him. ‘Yes, of course they will.’

The Girls’ and Boys’ Sixth Forms at the Gymnasium have formed a joint committee to organize protests against the British occupation and when the General Strike was announced they made it clear that we were all expected to join the demonstrations. On the day after my date with Stephen we all walked out of our normal lessons to attend a meeting to discuss tactics. The teachers are too intimidated to protest. There is a feeling that anyone who is not wholeheartedly in favour of action is a traitor.

I realized this at the meeting, when I tried to find an excuse not to join in. I said I didn’t think my parents would allow it but all the others immediately turned on me.

‘Of course you must be there!’

‘You’re not chicken, are you?’

One of the boys said, ‘I know your brother Iannis. He’s with us all the way. I’ll talk to him, if you like. He’ll persuade your parents.’

I saw that I had fallen into a trap. My father and brothers were already suspicious because of my outburst the other evening. I couldn’t afford to make things worse. Also, I was not sure if the boy who had spoken was a sworn member of EOKA or not. Either way, Iannis would not be happy about him poking his nose into our affairs. I muttered something about talking my parents round myself and promised that I would be at the demo.

When the day came, we gathered outside the school and marched towards the government offices. Penelope and I had made a banner demanding ‘ENOSIS OR DEATH’ and we each carried one of the poles that supported it. Although it was the
end of October, the Mesaoria was still parched and Nicosia was like an oven. By the time we reached the street leading to the square where the offices were situated, we had joined up with several other processions and with so many people packed into the narrow confines between the buildings I began to feel I was suffocating. When we got near the square, the whole procession came to a halt and word was passed back to us that soldiers were blocking the end of the street. The crowd began to get angry. Craning on tiptoe, I could just make out the ranks of British soldiers in battledress and behind them two or three armoured cars. For the first time I felt angry too. What right had these people to treat us like enemies in our own country, to prevent us from walking the streets of our own capital city? Boys at the front of the demonstration began yelling insults at the troops and the chant of
‘Enosis!’
filled the street and echoed off the walls. Soon the first missiles were thrown and small groups of soldiers charged into the crowd and dragged the throwers back behind their lines. That made the mood of the crowd even uglier.

I was chanting and shouting with the rest, carried away by the heat and frustration at not being able to move. Then a girl on my left grabbed my arm.

‘Look up there! On the rooftop!’

I looked up. Three soldiers stood on the flat roof just parallel to where we were. One carried a rifle, one a camera and the third, an officer, was scanning the crowd through a pair of field glasses.

‘They’re spying on us! Taking pictures!’ my companion shouted in my ear.

I dropped my head and tried to duck behind her shoulder. My stomach was tying itself in knots. The officer with the field glasses was Stephen. Had he recognized me? What would he think? Would he see me now as an enemy, as I had begun to see the other British soldiers? I tried to edge away towards the side of the street, where I would be out of his line of vision, but Penelope held fast to her end of the banner and would not move. More demonstrators were pressing in at the far end of the street
and the crowd was becoming so dense that any movement was almost impossible anyway. I could only keep my head down and hope that he would not spot me among the crowd.

Something was happening at the front of the demonstration. The soldiers had started to move forward, pushing our front ranks back. The people behind me were still trying to force their way forward and suddenly I was very much afraid. I could not move in either direction and the crush was so great that I could hardly breathe. A surge of bodies ripped the banner out of my hands and it went down, to be trampled under a dozen feet. I was terrified that I might lose my balance and suffer the same fate. In my panic I looked up at the rooftop where Stephen stood. He was not looking in my direction but talking into a walkie-talkie radio.

A moment later a voice came over a loudhailer.

‘Do not try to move forward. The road ahead of you is blocked. If you do not give way some of your people may get hurt. I repeat, move back! Disperse quietly and go to your homes. There is nothing you can do here.’

The appeal was met with a new bout of chanting and insults but the pressure eased a little. Looking around me, I saw a narrow alleyway just behind and to my left. A few people were already slipping quietly away down it. I squirmed and shoved my way through the crowd until I reached it. The relief of being out of the crush of bodies and into the comparative coolness of the alley made me feel light-headed. I followed the others towards the road at the far end, with very little idea of where I intended to go next, and just as I reached the junction a jeep pulled up across the end of the alley. Two soldiers jumped out and came towards me.

One of them took me by the arm and when I struggled he said cheerfully, ‘No need to panic, miss. Our officer wants a word, that’s all. We’re not going to harm you.’

They marched me to the jeep and pushed me up into the
passenger
seat. Stephen sat behind the wheel.

He said, ‘OK, lads. Get back up on the roof and keep an eye on what’s going on. I’ll join you in a minute.’

The two men turned and ran back down the road, their boots clattering on the paving stones. I gazed straight ahead of me and tried not to let him see that I was shaking.

He said, ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thank God! I was terrified you were going to get hurt. It’s lucky I was able to see what was going on and warn the officer in charge. The last thing we need is a death or a serious injury.’

I glanced sideways at him. ‘It was you who made them stop shoving us?’

‘I radioed the CO and told him what was happening.’

‘Thank you.’ My voice was tight and my throat ached.

He put his hand over mine. ‘Ariadne, darling, why couldn’t you stay away? Did you have to get involved?’

I pulled my hand away. ‘Why can’t you people stay out of the way? We only want to make our feelings known. It’s our city, after all.’

‘You know why. Remember what happened to the British Institute? We couldn’t let the government offices be burnt to the ground, could we?’

‘Why not? It’s not our government. Why should we be
governed
by some British aristocrat who doesn’t know anything about our country?’

‘Darling, Sir John Harding is not a British aristocrat. He’s a career soldier and he knows this island and loves it. I’m sure he only wants what is best for all of you.’

‘Don’t call me darling! Your soldiers have just nearly crushed me to death.’

‘I’m sorry. You know I would never have wanted this to happen.’ His voice was anguished. ‘Ariadne, please! Don’t let this come between us. I have to carry out my orders. You know that.’

People were still coming down the alley and they gazed at us curiously as they passed. I moved to get out.

‘I can’t be seen sitting here with you.’

He restrained me with a hand on my wrist. ‘It’s all right.
Tell anyone who asks that I had you brought in for questioning because I thought you were one of the ringleaders. That’s what I told my men.’

I looked at him properly for the first time and felt the usual quiver in my stomach, as if I had just stepped into thin air.

He said, ‘I love you! We mustn’t let this make any difference. Please!’

I knew he was right. Whatever happened between our people, nothing could alter the way we felt about each other.

I said, ‘Shall I see you on Sunday?’

‘Yes, of course. But I want to see you alone. When?’

‘When can you get away?’

‘Any day. I’ll find an excuse, somehow.’

‘Tuesday, then. About four o’clock.’ A plan was beginning to shape itself in my mind.

‘Where?’

‘I’ll give you a map on Sunday. Bring some papers with you and put them where I can knock them off.’

‘I understand.’ His smile wiped away the last traces of my anger. ‘Thank you, my darling girl.’

I started to get out of the jeep. He said, ‘Won’t you let me drive you out of the city? I could drop you somewhere you could get a bus back to Ayios Epiktetos.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ve got to find the others. If this is going to work, they have to think I’m committed to the cause. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. I’ll see you on Sunday.’

I crouched on the sandy floor of the cave and peered out between the branches of the fallen pine tree that almost hid the entrance. My brothers and I had found the place years ago, when I was still young enough to be allowed to roam the hills with the boys. It had been our secret hiding place for a long time – a pirates’ cave, a spaceship, an outlaws’ hide-out – until Iannis and Demetrios grew out of make-believe and exchanged their toy pistols for real guns and I was told it was time I began to behave like a young lady. I
had almost forgotten it existed until the day of the demonstration.

The pine tree had blown down in some long-ago storm but had clung to the rocky slope with enough roots to keep it alive, so that the sunlight filtered in through green branches and scented the air with resin. Where I sat the cave-mouth was fairly wide and we had thought at first that it was no more than a sheltered overhang in the side of the rock face. When we looked closer we discovered that further back there was a narrow passage leading into the hillside. Iannis and Demetrios had wanted to explore it but the sunlight did not penetrate beyond the opening and within a few yards they found themselves in total darkness. We often talked about making torches out of the pine branches and going deeper but we never had – at least not to my knowledge. Iannis tried to tell us that he had gone in once alone and that after a short distance the passage opened out into a huge cave, but he spoilt the story by adding that the cave was full of gold bars and jewels left by pirates long ago and now guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. Even then, young as I was, I knew there were no such creatures. Just the same, when I arrived that afternoon I had taken the precaution of throwing a few small rocks into the dark opening, just in case some less than mythological serpent had taken up residence there.

I had given my parents the impression that the events at the demonstration had fired me with patriotic resolve. As far as they knew, I was even now attending a meeting to plan further action. I craned forward, watching the narrow path that slanted up the steep slope through the trees. It was just after four. Surely, I told myself, Stephen could not have misunderstood my directions. My plan had worked perfectly. He had left his books and papers on the arm of his chair and when I passed to collect his coffee cup it had been easy to knock them to the floor, and easy as I knelt to collect them to slip the map I had drawn in among them. He must know his way around well enough to recognize the landmarks. I had even marked the tree at the beginning of the narrow path, as I had promised in my note, by hanging an old Coca-Cola can from one of the branches.

A rock clattered down the slope, dislodged by somebody’s foot. A moment later I saw him, moving cautiously, one hand on the revolver at his hip. For an instant I felt afraid. Could he really think I was luring him into an ambush? Then he stooped on the far side of the screen of branches, trying to peer into the darker space beyond.

‘Ariadne?’

I caught my breath. ‘I’m here!’

He pushed the branches apart and scrambled through. There was no need for words. We went straight into each other’s arms. His kisses burned my mouth. I could feel the sun-heat of his body and smell his sweat. The rest of the universe vanished.

At length he lifted his head and looked down into my face. ‘Ariadne, what do you want – from me?’ I frowned, unsure what he was asking. Did he think I was spying for the terrorists – or looking for money? He went on, ‘You know, if things were
different
I would be coming to speak to your father, to ask for your hand in marriage. But you tell me that is impossible as things stand. I would take you away from here and marry you anyway, if I could. But neither of us is a free agent. I have to serve out my two years’ National Service and you will not come of age for longer than that. If I thought that at the end of that time we could marry, I would wait – if that is what you want. I know long engagements are normal here. But I can’t do it like this. Not if we are going to meet secretly, alone. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. Do you know what I am saying?’

I knew. I had little experience of men except for dark hints from my mother but I was not completely naive. I had thought of little else since I slipped the map into his papers and I had come to my decision. My heart was thumping so hard that it seemed to shake my whole body.

‘I understand. I can’t help what my father thinks – and three years is too long to wait.’

‘You’re sure? You’ve thought about this?’

I reached my arms round his neck. ‘I’m sure.’

I had heard fearsome stories of the pain and embarrassment of a bride’s first night, whispered in the twilight by friends who had heard it from older sisters and cousins. It was nothing like that. Already every nerve in my body was pricking with desire, so that when his hand slipped inside my blouse and found my breast the nipple was already as hard as an almond and when he eased the blouse off and unfastened my bra I was proud that my breasts were full and firm enough to please him. He undid my skirt and I lifted myself so that he could pull it down and my knickers came with it. I kept my eyes closed but the knowledge that he was looking at my naked body sent a thrill of ecstasy through me. There was a moment of awkwardness when he drew back and I was aware of him fumbling with something but I understood what he was doing. Then he slipped his hand between my legs and my body took control so that all conscious thought ceased. When the pain came it was sharp but brief and I felt it as a kind of triumph. Sensing the urgency of his desire and hearing him pant and groan with pleasure as he came, I was suddenly flooded with a sense of power, of what it meant to be a woman.