The Moonspinners (14 page)

I laughed. ‘Well, that's what we came for. Is it warm enough to swim yet? I asked Georgi, but he has a different sort of built-in thermostat from me, and I don't know if I can take his word for it.'

‘Well, heavens, don't take mine, I've not tried it, and I don't suppose I ever shall, not being just a child of Nature. I wouldn't risk the harbour, it's dirty, but there are bound to be plenty places where it's safe. You'd better ask Stratos; he'll know if there are currents and things. Your cousin'll go with you, I suppose?'

‘Oh, she'll probably sit on the shore and watch – though it wasn't safety I was thinking about; there won't be any currents here that could matter. No, Frances isn't a swimmer, she's mainly interested in the flowers. She's a rock garden expert, and works in a big nursery, and she always takes a busman's holiday somewhere where she can see the plants in their natural homes. She's tired of Switzerland and the Tyrol, so, when I told her what I'd seen last spring over here, she just had to come.' I turned away from the window, adding casually: ‘Once she sees the place, I probably shan't be allowed time off for swimming. I'll have to spend the whole time tramping the mountainside with her, hunting for flowers to photograph.'

‘Flowers?' said Tony, almost as if it were a foreign word he had never heard before. ‘Ah, well, I'm sure there are plenty of nice ones around. Now, I'll have to be getting down to the kitchen. Your cousin's room is next door – that one, there. There's only the two in this end of the place, so you'll be lovely and private. That's a bathroom there, no less, and that door goes through to the other side of the house. Now, if there's anything you want, just ask. We don't rise to bells yet, but you don't need to come down; just hang out of the door and yell. I'm never far away. I hear most that goes on.'

‘Thanks,' I said, a little hollowly.

‘Cheerio for now,' said Tony amiably. His slight figure skated gracefully away down the stairway.

I shut my door, and sat down on the bed. The shadows of the vine moved and curtseyed on the wall. As if they were my own confused and drifting thoughts, I found that I had pressed my hands to my eyes, to shut them out.

Already, from the fragments I had gleaned, one thing showed whole and clear. If the murder which Mark had witnessed had had any connection with Agios Georgios, and if his impression of the Englishness of the fourth man had been correct, then either Tony, or the mysterious ‘Englishman' from the sea – whom Tony had denied – must have been present. There were no other candidates. And, in either case, Tony was involved. The thing could be, in fact, centred on this hotel.

I found a wry humour in wondering just what Mark would have said, had he known that he was packing me off, with prudent haste, from the perimeter of the affair into its very centre. He had wanted me safely out of it, and had made this abundantly clear, even to the point of rudeness; and I – who had taken my own responsibilities for long enough – had resented bitterly a rejection that had seemed to imply a sexual superiority. If I had been a man, would Mark have acted in the same way? I thought not.

But at least emotion no longer clouded my judgement. Sitting here quietly, now, seeing things from the outside, I could appreciate his point of view. He wanted to see me safe – and he wanted his own feet clear. Well, fair enough. In the last few minutes, I had realized (even at the risk of conceding him a little of that sexual superiority) that I wanted both those things, quite fervently, myself.

I took my hands from my eyes, and there were the patterned shadows again, quiet now, beautiful, fixed.

Well, it was possible. It was perfectly possible to do as Mark had wished; clear out, forget, pretend it had never happened. It was obvious that no suspicion of any sort could attach itself to me. I had arrived as expected, having successfully dropped the dangerous twenty-four hours out of my life. All I had to do was forget such information as came my way, ask no more questions, and – how had it gone? – ‘get on with that holiday of yours, that Lambis interrupted'.

And meanwhile, Colin Langley, aged fifteen?

I bit my lip, and snapped back the lid of the suitcase.

8

She shall guess, and ask in vain . . .

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES
:
Song of the Stygian Naiades

There was a woman in the bathroom, just finishing with a cloth and pail. When I appeared, towel on arm, she seemed flustered, and began picking up her tools with nervous haste.

‘It's all right,' I said, ‘I'm not in a hurry. I can wait till you've finished.'

But she had already risen, stiffly, to her feet. I saw then that she was not old, as her movements had led me to imagine. She was of medium height, a little shorter than I, and should have been broadly built, but she was shockingly thin, and her body seemed flattened and angular under the thick, concealing peasant clothing. Her face, too, was meant to be full and round, but you could see the skull under the skin – the temporal bone jutting above deep eye-sockets, the sharp cheekbones, and the squared corners of the jaw. She was shabbily dressed, in the inevitable black, with her dress kilted up over her hips to show the black underskirt below, and she wore a black head-covering, wrapped round to hide neck and shoulders. Under this her hair seemed thick, but the few wisps which had escaped the covering were grey. Her hands were square, and must have been stronger than they looked; they seemed to be mere bones held together by sinews and thick, blue veins.

‘You speak Greek?' Her voice was soft, but full and rich, and still young. And her eyes were beautiful, with straight black lashes as thick as thatch eaves. The lids were reddened, as if with recent weeping, but the dark eyes lit straight away with the pleased interest that every Greek takes in a stranger. ‘You are the English lady?'

‘One of them. My cousin will arrive later. This is a lovely place,
kyria
.'

She smiled. Her mouth was thinned almost to liplessness, but not unpleasantly. In repose it did not seem set, but merely showed a kind of interminable and painful patience, a striving for mindlessness. ‘As for that, it is a small village, and a poor one; but my brother says that you know this, and that many people will come, only to be tranquil.'

‘Your – brother?'

‘He is the patron.' She said this with a kind of pride. ‘Stratos Alexiakis is my brother. He was in England, in London, for many years, but last November he came home, and bought the hotel.'

‘Yes, I heard about it from Tony. It's certainly very nice, and I hope he does well.'

I hoped the conventional words had concealed my surprise. So this was Sofia. She had the appearance of the poorest peasant in a poor country – but then, I thought, if she was helping her brother start up his hotel, no doubt she would wear her oldest clothes for the rough work. It occurred to me that if she had fallen heir to Tony's cooking it hadn't – as yet – done her much good.

‘Do you live in the hotel?' I asked.

‘Oh, no,' hastily, ‘I have a house, down the road a little, on the other side of the street. The first one.'

‘The one with the fig tree? I saw it. And the oven outside.' I smiled. ‘Your garden was so lovely; you must be very proud of it. Your husband's a fisherman, is he?'

‘No. He – we have a little land up the river. We have vines and lemons and tomatoes. It is hard work.'

I remembered the cottage, spotlessly clean, with its ranked flowers beside the fig tree. I thought of the hotel floors, which she had been scrubbing. Then of the fields, which no doubt she would till. No wonder she moved as if her body hurt her. ‘Have you many children?'

Her face seemed to shut. ‘No. Alas, no. God has not seen fit.' A gesture to her breast, where a tiny silver ornament – a Greek cross, I thought – had swung loose on its chain while she was scrubbing. Encountering this, her hand closed over it quickly, an oddly protective movement, with something of fear in it. She thrust the cross quickly back into the breast of her frock, and began to gather her things together.

‘I must go. My husband will be home soon, and there is a meal to get.'

My own meal was a good one; lamb, which the Cretans call
amnos
– many of the classical terms still survive in the dialect – and green beans, and potatoes.

‘
Sautées
, my dear, in olive oil,' said Tony, who served me. ‘Butter's too scarce here, but I do assure you I made them go steady on the oil. Like them?'

‘Fine. But I like olive oil. And here, where it's so to speak fresh from the cow, it's terrific. You were right about the wine,
King Minos, sec
. I must remember that. It's dryish for a Greek wine, isn't it? – and the name is wonderfully Cretan!'

‘Bottled in Athens, dear, see?'

‘Oh, no, you shouldn't have showed me that!' I glanced up. ‘I met Mr Alexiakis' sister upstairs.'

‘Sofia? Oh yes. She helps around,' he said vaguely. ‘Now, will you have fruit for afters, or
fromage
, or what my dear friend Stratos calls “compost”?'

‘It depends rather on what that is.'

‘Between you and me, tinned fruit salad, dear. But don't worry, we'll really let ourselves go at dinner. The caique gets in today – oh, of course you know all about that.'

‘I'm not worrying, why should I? That was excellent. No,
not
an orange, thank you. May I have cheese?'

‘Sure. Here. The white one's goat and the yellow one with holes is sheep, so take your pick . . . Excuse me one moment. Speak of angels.'

He twitched the coffee percolator aside from its flame, and went out of the dining-room, across the terrace into the sunlight of the street. A woman was waiting there, not beckoning to him, or making any sign, just waiting, with the patience of the poor. I recognized her; it was Stratos' sister, Sofia.

If only one could stop doing those uncomfortable little addition-sums in one's head . . . If only there was some way to switch off the mechanism . . . But the computer ticked on, unwanted, adding it all up, fraction by fraction. Tony and the ‘Englishman'. And now, Tony and Sofia. There had been a woman there, Mark had said. Sofia and her brother . . .

I ate my cheese doggedly, trying to ignore the unwanted answers that the computer kept shoving in front of me. Much better concentrate on the cheese, and there was some wine left, and the coffee, which was to follow, smelt delicious;
café français
, no doubt Tony would call it . . . Here, the computer ticked up a fleeting memory of Mark, dirty, unshaven, hagridden, swallowing indifferent thermos coffee, and choking down dry biscuits. I stamped fiercely on the switch, expunged the memory, and turned my attention back to Tony, graceful and immaculate, standing easily in the sun, listening to Sofia.

She had put one of those flattened claws on his arm, almost as if in pleading. Her coif was drawn up now, shadowing half her face, and at that distance I could not see her expression, but her attitude was one of urgency and distress. Tony seemed to be reassuring her, and he patted the hand on his arm before he withdrew it. Then he said something cheerfully dismissive, and turned away.

As he turned, I dropped my gaze to the table, pushing my cheese plate aside. I had seen the look on Sofia's face as Tony turned and left her. It was distress, and she was weeping; but there was also, unmistakably, fear.

‘
Café français
, dear?' said Tony.

Not even the computer – aided by two cups of coffee – could have kept me awake after lunch. I carried my second cup out to the garden, and there, alone with the drowsy sound of bees, and the tranquil lapping of the sea, I slept.

It was no more than a cat-nap, a doze of half an hour or so, but it must have been deep and relaxing, for, on waking, I found that I had none of the hangover feeling that one sometimes gets from sleeping in the afternoon. I felt fresh and wide awake, and full of a sense of pleasant anticipation which resolved itself into the knowledge that Frances would soon be here. Frances, who would know just what to do . . .

I didn't pursue this thought; didn't even acknowledge it. I sat up, drank the glassful of water – tepid now – that had been served with my coffee, and dutifully set about writing a postcard to Jane, my Athens room mate. That Jane would be very surprised to get it was another of the things I didn't acknowledge; I merely told myself that I wanted a walk, and that the card would be a good excuse for a quiet little stroll down as far as the village post office. I certainly did not stop to consider why I should need the excuse, or why, indeed, I should want a walk, after the amount of exercise I had already had that day. Jane (I said to myself, writing busily) would be delighted to hear from me.

The message that was to arouse all this astonished delight ran as follows: ‘
Arrived here today; lovely and peaceful. Frances due here this afternoon. She'll be thrilled when she sees the flowers, and will spend pounds on film. Hotel seems good. Am hoping it will be warm enough to swim. Love, Nicola
.'

I wrote this artless missive very clearly, then took it into the lobby. Tony was there, sitting behind the table, with his feet up, reading
Lady Chatterley's Lover
.

‘Don't get up,' I said hastily. ‘I just wondered if you had stamps. Just one, for a local postcard; one drach.'

He swung his feet down, and fished below the table to pull open a cluttered drawer.

‘Sure. One at one drach, did you say?' The long fingers leafed through three or four sad-looking sheets of postage stamps. ‘Here we are. Only two left, you're lucky.'