I thought, then, of the legend I had told Mark, the story of the moonspinners that had been intended to send him to sleep, and to bring me comfort. I looked again at Sofia, a black-clad Cretan woman, spinning in the hot afternoon. An alien, a suspect, an incomprehensible native of this hard, hot country, whose rules I didn’t know. Somebody to be questioned.
I walked forward and put my hand on the gate, and she looked up and saw me.
The first reaction was pleasure, of that I was sure. Her face split into a smile, and the dark eyes lighted. Then, though she did not move her head, I got the impression that she had cast a quick glance into the cottage behind her.
I pushed open the gate. ‘May I come in and talk to you?’ I knew that such a direct query, though perhaps not good manners, could not, by the rules of island hospitality, be refused.
‘Of course.’ But I thought she looked uneasy.
‘Your husband has gone?’
She watched me with what could have been nervousness, though the deft, accustomed movements helped her to an appearance of ease, as a cigarette will sometimes help in a more sophisticated situation. Her glance went to the small fire of twigs outside, where a pot still simmered. ‘He did not come.’ Then, making as if to rise: ‘Be pleased to sit down.’
‘Thank you – oh, please don’t stop your spinning, I love to watch it.’ I entered the tiny yard, and, obedient to her gesture, sat on the bench near the door, under the fig tree. I began to praise her spinning, admiring the smoothness of the wool, and fingering the piece of woven cloth she showed me, until soon she had forgotten her shyness, and put down her work to fetch more of her weaving and embroidery to show me. Without being asked, I left my seat, and followed her indoors.
The cottage had two rooms, with no door between them, merely an oblong gap in the wall. The living-room, opening straight off the yard, was scrupulously neat, and very poor. The floor was of earth, beaten as hard as a stone, with a drab, balding rug covering half of it. There was a small fireplace in one corner, unused at this time of year, and across the back of the room ran a wide ledge, three feet from the floor, which served apparently as a bed-place, and was covered with a single blanket patterned in red and green. The walls had not yet been freshly white-washed, and were still grimed with winter’s smoke. Here and there, high up in the plastered walls, were niches which held ornaments, cheap and bright, and faded photographs. There was one in a place of honour, a child – a boy – of perhaps six; behind this was a fuzzy print, much enlarged, of a young man in what looked like irregular battle dress. He was handsome in a rather glossy and assured way. The boy was very like him, but stood shyly. The husband, I supposed, and a lost child? I looked for the family ikon, but could see none, and remembered what Tony had told me.
‘My little boy,’ said Sofia, behind me. She had come out of the inner room with an armful of cloths. She betrayed neither resentment nor surprise that I should have followed her into the house. She was looking sadly at the picture, with – you would have sworn – no other thought in mind. ‘He died, thespoinís, at seven years old. One day he was well, and at school, and playing. The next – pff – dead. And it was the will of God that there should be no more.’
‘I’m sorry. And this is your husband?’
‘Yes, that is my husband. See, this cushion that I have made last year . . .
She began to lay the things out in the sunlight near the door. I bent over them, but turning, so that I could see into the inner room.
This was darkened, with shutters drawn against the sun. It was merely a small oblong box of a room, with a double bed, a wooden chair, and a table by the window covered with a pink cloth with bobbles on. Every corner of the house seemed open to the view . . .
She was putting up her work again.
‘And now, if you will sit in here, where it is cool, I will get you a glass of the peppermint drink which I make myself.’
I hesitated, feeling ashamed. I had not wanted to take her meagre hospitality, but, since I had asked myself into her house, I had forced her to offer it. There was nothing to do but thank her, and sit down.
She reached to a shelf near the door where, behind a faded curtain of that same red and green, stood a stock (how pitifully scanty a stock) of food. She took down a small bottle and glass.
‘Sofia?’
It was a man’s voice calling from outside. I had heard – but without attending – the footsteps coming rapidly down the track from the bridge. They had paused at the gate.
Sofia, near the door, turned quickly, glass in hand. The man was still beyond my range of vision, and he could not have seen me.
‘All is well,’ he said shortly. ‘And as for Josef – what is the matter?’
This, as Sofia made some little hushing gesture, indicating that she was not alone. ‘Someone is with you?’ he asked sharply.
‘It is the English lady from the hotel, and—’
‘The English lady?’ The swifty spoken Greek was almost explosive. ‘Have you no more sense than to invite her in to show off your work, when at any minute Josef—?’
‘It is all right to speak Greek in front of her,’ said Sofia. ‘She understands it perfectly.’
I heard his breath go in, as if he had shut his mouth hard on whatever he had been going to say. The latch clicked.
I stepped forward. The newcomer had swung open the gate and we met in the sunlit doorway.
He was a powerful looking man in the late forties, broadly built and swarthy, with the gloss of good living on his skin. His face was square, going to fat a little, with high cheekbones and the inevitable moustache; a typically Greek face, which could have been the one I had last seen under the red head-dress, but I didn’t think it was. In any case, he was not wearing Cretan dress. He had obviously been working, and wore shabby grey trousers covered with dust, and a khaki shirt, with a scarlet kerchief knotted at the neck. A brown linen jacket hung from his shoulders. This last garment looked expensive, and bore, almost visibly, the label of a Knightsbridge ‘sports’ department. My interest focused and sharpened. This must be my host, Stratos Alexiakis.
‘This is my brother,’ said Sofia.
I was already giving him my nicest smile, and my hand. ‘How do you do? I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have taken Kyria Sofia’s time, when her husband is expected home for his meal. But I was walking through the village, and your sister was the only person I knew, so I invited myself in. I’ll go now.’
‘No, no, indeed!’ He had retained my hand, and now led me, almost forcibly, to the seat under the fig tree. ‘I am sorry, I would never have spoken so, if I had realized you understood me! But my sister’s husband is not a man for company, and I thought if he came home to find her gossiping—’ a grin and a shrug – ‘well, you know how it is if a man is hungry, and a meal not ready. No, no, please sit down! What would my sister think of me if I drive her guest away? You must taste her peppermint drink; it is the best in the village.’
Sofia, her face expressionless, handed me the glass. There was nothing to show that either of them was relieved at the way I had interpreted his remarks. I tasted the drink, and praised it lavishly, while Stratos leaned one powerful shoulder against the door jamb, and watched me benignly. Sofia, standing stiffly in the doorway, watched him.
‘He is late,’ she said. The statement sounded tentative, like a question, as if Stratos might have known the reason why.
He shrugged, and grinned. ‘Perhaps, for once, he is working.’
‘He did not – help you in the field?’
‘No.’
He turned back to me, speaking in English.
‘You’re comfortable at my hotel?’ His English was excellent, but still, after twenty years, hadn’t lost the accent.
‘Very, thank you, and I love my room. You’ve got a good place here, Mr Alexiakis.’
‘It is very quiet. But you told me on the telephone that this is what you want.’
‘Oh, yes. I live in Athens, you see, and it
gets a bit crowded and noisy towards summer. I was longing to get away somewhere, where the tourist crowds didn’t go . . .’
I talked easily on, explaining yet again about my own and Frances’ reasons for choosing Agios Georgios. I didn’t even try to conceal from myself, now, that I wanted to establish a very good reason for the time I intended to spend exploring the mountain and shore round about. A movie camera, I thought, as I talked on and on about film (of which I know nothing), is an excellent excuse for a lot of unholy curiosity . . .
‘And the boat,’ I finished, ‘will pick us up on Monday, if all goes well. The party’s going on to Rhodes from here, and I’ll join them for a couple of days, then I must go back to Athens. They’ll go on to the Dodecanese, then my cousin’ll come to stay with me in Athens, on her way home.’
‘It sounds very nice.’ I could see him chalking up the score; a party, a boat, a private tour; money. ‘So you work in Athens? That accounts for your excellent Greek. You make mistakes, of course, but you are very fluent, and it is easy to understand what you mean. Do you find that you follow all you hear, as well?’
‘Oh, no, not really.’ I wondered, as I spoke, how often tact and truth go hand in hand. ‘I mean, I couldn’t translate word for word, though I get the gist of speech pretty well, except when people talk fast, or with too much of a regional accent. Oh, thank you,’ to Sofia, who had taken my empty glass. ‘No, no more. It was lovely.’
Stratos was smiling. ‘You’ve done very well, all the same. You’d be surprised how many English people stay over here for quite some time, and never trouble to learn more than a word or two. What is your work in Athens?’
‘I’m a rather unimportant junior secretary at the British Embassy.’
This was chalked up, too, and with a shock: I saw it.
‘What does she say?’ This, almost in a whisper, from Sofia.
He turned his head, translating carelessly: ‘She works at the British Embassy.’
‘Oh!’ It was a tiny exclamation as the glass slipped to the ground, and broke.
‘Oh dear!’ I exclaimed. ‘What a shame! Let me help!’
I knelt down, in spite of her protests, and began to pick up the fragments. Luckily the glass was thick and coarse, and the pieces were large.
Stratos said, without stirring: ‘Don’t worry, Sofia, I’ll give you another.’ Then, with a touch of impatience: ‘No, no, throw the pieces away, girl, it’ll never mend. I’ll send Tony across with a new glass for you, a better one than this rubbish.’
I handed Sofia the pieces I had collected, and stood up. ‘Well, I’ve enjoyed myself very much, but, in case your husband does come home soon, kyria, and doesn’t appreciate a crowd, I think I’ll go. In any case, my cousin should be arriving any minute now.’
I repeated my thanks for the drink, and Sofia smiled and nodded and bobbed, while giving the impression that she hardly heard what I was saying; then I went out of the gate, with Stratos beside me.
He walked with his hands dug deep into his pockets, and his shoulders hunched under the expensive jacket. He was scowling at the ground so ferociously that I began to wonder uneasily what he might say. His first words showed, disarmingly enough, that he was deeply chagrined that I had seen the threadbare poverty of his sister’s home.
‘She won’t let me help her.’ He spoke abruptly, as if I should have known what he was talking about. ‘I’ve come home with money, enough to buy all she needs, but all she will take is a little payment for work in the hotel. Scrubbing work. My sister!’
‘People are proud sometimes.’
‘Proud! Yes, I suppose it’s that. It’s all she has had for twenty years, after all, her pride. Would you believe it, when we were children, my father had his own caique, and when his uncle died, we inherited land, the land up at the head of the plateau, where it is sheltered, the best in Agios Georgios! Then my mother died, and my father had ill health, and the land was all there was for my sister’s dowry. I went to England, and I worked. Oh, yes, I worked!’ His teeth showed. ‘But I have something to show for those years, while she – every drach she has, she makes herself. Why, even the fields—’
He broke off, and straightened his shoulders. ‘Forgive me, I should not throw my family troubles at you like that! Perhaps I needed a European ear to pour them into – did you know that a great many Greeks regard themselves as living east of Europe?’
‘That’s absurd, when you think what Europe owes them.’
‘I dare say.’ He laughed. ‘Perhaps I should have said an urban and civilized ear. We’re a long way from London, are we not – even from Athens? Here, life is simple, and hard, especially for women. I had forgotten, in the time I have been away. One forgets that these women accept it . . . And if one of them is fool enough to marry a Mussulman, who uses his religion as an excuse for . . .’ His shoulders lifted, and he laughed again. ‘Well, Miss Ferris, and so you’re going to hunt flowers and take movies while you’re here?’
‘Frances will, and I dare say I’ll tag along. Does the Eros belong to you, Mr Alexiakis?’
‘The Eros? Yes, did you see her, then? How did you guess?’
‘There was a boy working on her, that I’d seen up at the hotel. Not that that meant anything, but I just wondered. I rather wanted to ask . . .’ I hesitated.
‘You would like to go out, is that it?’
‘I’d love it. I’d always wanted to see this coast from the sea. Some children told me there was a good chance of seeing dolphins; there’s a bay a short distance to the west, they said, with rocks running out deep, and sometimes dolphins even come in among the swimmers.’
His laugh was hearty, even a little too hearty. ‘I know the place. So that old legend still goes on! There hasn’t been a dolphin seen there since the time of Pliny! I ought to know, I fish that way quite often. Not that I go out much with the caique, that’s Alkis’ job; I’m not used to hard work of that kind any more. But the caique was going cheap, so I bought her; I like a lot of irons in the fire, and some day, when business gets keen, I shall make money with visitors. Meanwhile, I get my fish cheap, and soon, I think, we shall be able to bring our own supplies from Chania.’
We were in front of the hotel now. He stopped.
‘But of course you may go out with Alkis, any time. You must go eastwards, the coast is better, and some way along there is a ruin of an old harbour, and if you walk a little way, there is an old church, if these things interest you?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course they do.’
‘Tomorrow, then?’
‘I – well, no, that is, perhaps my cousin’ll have some ideas . . . I mean, she’s just been cruising, after all, and I expect she’ll want a day or so ashore. Later, I – I’d love it. You . . . don’t use the caique yourself, you said?’
‘Not often. I have little time at present. I only fish for sport, and for that I have a small boat.’
‘Oh, yes, that little boat beside the hotel? The orange one? You mean you go light-fishing, with those huge lamps?’
‘That’s right, with a spear.’ Again that grin, friendly, slightly deprecating, claiming – but not offensively – a common bond of knowledge unshared by the villagers. ‘Nice and primitive, eh? But terrific sport – like all primitive pastimes. I used to be very good at it when I was a young man, but one gets a little out of practice in twenty years.’
‘I watched the light-fishers once, in the bay at Paros. It was fascinating, but one couldn’t see much from the shore. Just the lights bobbing, and the man lying with the glass, peering down, and sometimes you could see the one with the spear, striking.’
‘Do you want to come out with me?’
‘I’d love to!’ The words were out, genuinely, thoughtlessly, before it came back to me, with a kick of recollection, that – until I knew a great deal more about him – I quite definitely was not prepared to spend a night with Stratos Alexiakis in a small boat, or anywhere else.
‘Well,’ he was beginning, while my mind spun
uselessly, like a gramophone with a broken spring, when Tony came running down the steps to meet us, as lightly as something out of the chorus of The Sleeping Beauty.
‘There you are, my dears, you’ve met. Stratos, that wretched get from Chania wants twelve drachs each for the wine, he says he won’t send it else. Dire, isn’t it? He’s on the blower now, could you cope? Did you have a nice walk, dear? Find the post office? Marvellous, isn’t it? But you must be flaked. Let me bring you a lemon pressé, eh? Guaranteed straight off our very own tree. Oh, look, isn’t that the caique, just come in? And someone coming up from the harbour as ever was, with Georgi carrying her case. How that child always manages to be in the way of making a couple of drachs . . . Just like our Stratos here, madly lucky. It is your cousin? Now, isn’t that just ducky? By the time Miss Scorby’s unpacked it’ll be just nice time for tea.’
10
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart
Strike for the Cretan isle: and here thou art!
KEATS: Lamia
‘Well,’ said Frances, ‘it’s very nice to be here. And the tea is excellent. I suppose Little Lord Fauntleroy makes it himself?’
‘Hush, for goodness’ sake, he’ll hear you! He says if you want him, you only have to yell, he’s always around. What’s more, he’s rather sweet. I’ve fallen for him.’
‘I never yet met the male you didn’t fall for,’ said Frances. ‘I’d begin to think you were ill, if you weren’t somewhere along the course of a love affair. I’ve even learned to know the stages. Well, well, this is really very pleasant, isn’t it?’
We were sitting in the hotel ‘garden’, in the shade of the vine. There was nobody about. Behind us, an open door gave on the empty lobby. Tony was back in the bar: faintly, round the end of the house, came the sound of talk from the café tables on the street.
The sun was slanting rapidly westward. There was a little ripple now, running across the pale silk of the sea, and the breeze stirred the sleepy scent from the carnations in the winejars. In full sunlight, at the edge of the gravel, stood a big pot of lilies.