Secrets of Santorini

by Patricia Wilson

  I do not relish this ritual, but the ceremony introduces the girls into the second trimester of life and the pain they will experience in womanhood. The first trimester is childhood and the third, matriarch.

  ‘How many more?’ I ask my handmaid, Eurydice.

  ‘This is the last one, your highness.’

  Relieved, I smile at the veiled figure led into the sacrificial room. Her foot, white and soft, tells me she is a noble girl. The maiden quickly sits on the stool before me and offers her heel eagerly. I prick through her pale skin with the sacred tool and allow her blood to fall into the sacrificial dish. After a moment, the flow stops and I turn back the young woman’s veil. Shocked to recognise the maiden before me, I draw in a sharp breath.

  ‘Oia, my child, when did this happen?’

  ‘This morning, my Queen. I am happy to become a woman today. I promise to do all you bid and make you proud of me.’

  ‘I’ll always be proud of you, precious child.’

  ‘Forgive me, dearest Queen, the handmaidens would not shave my head like the others. They say my hair is consecrated.’

  ‘Your hair will never be cut, Oia; it’s a symbol of the fire in the mountain.’ I stroke the girl’s vibrant mane. ‘It’s also a reminder of your father, our most noble King. Wear your hair with pride, Oia, it is unique in our world. Come, let us offer Poseidon the maidens’ blood together.’

  We walk in unison, Oia limping slightly. Handmaidens slide back the oak screens that divide the sacrificial room from the antechamber. The young women, their families and the kings wait to observe the offering.

  Together we tip the blood over the horns of consecration on the ornately painted altar.

  I hold out my arms and call the entreaty:

  ‘Accept our gift of maidens’ blood,

  Save us now from fire and flood.

  Rest quiet in your sea of blue,

  Poseidon, we beseech you!’

  The rooms are silent. After several moments, I bring my hands together with a clap and the crowd celebrates.

  *

  The Cretan dawn gathered strength. In my cheap guestroom, I drifted into the borderland of wakefulness and wanted nothing more than to be at Tommy’s side. I hurried to the hospital and crept into my husband’s room. My darling slept soundly and there was nothing to do but wait.

  Should I tell him about Splotskey and the dragonfly necklace? That it paid for his operation and saved his life? Probably not. Better that he stayed calm and concentrated on getting well again. I would explain everything to him eventually, although I knew he would be furious. We had never kept secrets from each other. The necklace had gone to some nameless person, and they had covered the costs that I could not. Tommy was recovering now; nothing else mattered.

  I studied my husband’s face as he slept. He appeared old, drawn, and tired. I remembered my own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Years of working under the Mediterranean sun, and the dusty atmosphere of the dig, had weathered us both. With a baby on the way, we needed to take better care of ourselves.

  Tommy’s lids fluttered, he opened his eyes, and stared at me.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh . . . like I’ve been steamrollered.’ He groaned and reached for my hand. ‘Can I sit up, do you think?’

  I shook my head. ‘Best stay still until the nurse comes. They tell me the operation went perfectly. Indeed, you’ll be home in a week.’ I struggled with my emotions. ‘You gave me a right scare, you great fool. Don’t ever do that again.’

  ‘Poor thing. Sorry about that, darling girl.’ He had a look of total defeat about him and I wanted to gather him up in my arms and give him strength.

  ‘Never mind the sorry, just get yourself mended, Tommy McGuire. You have an enormous task ahead of you and you’ll need to be a hundred per cent fit.’

  ‘And what would it be, this enormous thing you’ve got lined up? If it’s decorating, it’ll have to wait a while.’ Although he winced, and talking was clearly an effort, there was humour in his voice. I slipped the monitor peg off his finger and held his hand against my stomach.

  ‘We’re going to have a baby,’ I said. ‘You’re going to be a father, Tommy.’

  His eyes widened. He stared at my face, then my belly. His mouth fell open but, clearly, he couldn’t speak.

  Moments later, a nurse rushed in and stared at us grinning at each other. ‘Please, you no take this off your finger. The machine told me your heart is not beating!’

  We started laughing, Tommy grimacing at the same time. The nurse was not amused.

  ‘Stop it, Bridget,’ Tommy said, placing a hand against his chest. ‘It hurts when I laugh!’

  CHAPTER 10

  IRINI

  Santorini, present day.

  I STARED AT MY MOTHER in the hospital bed. Her badly bruised face and the dark circles around her eyes shocked me.

  My sadness to see her like this was beyond tears. It weighed deep and heavy, crushing my chest, consuming all thoughts and words, to leave me desolate and alone. Not being able to gather her up and hold her against me was unbearable torture, as if my heart had been ripped out of my body. I don’t know how long I remained in that state of utter depression, but eventually the pain lifted enough for me to speak.

  ‘Hello, Mam,’ I whispered and touched her cheek. There was no reaction, yet her skin felt normal, neither too hot or cold. ‘The nurses said you might be able to hear me, and that it’s good to talk.’

  Words seemed to abandon me for a while. It was difficult to know what to say but once I got going, I told her about Jason, our broken engagement, my father in the home, my journey to Santorini, and even the car crash. I poured out my soul, and with it came relief. All my life I’d wanted to be able to talk without tension, and explain my feelings, but not at this price. My cheeks itched with the drying salt of tears that I hadn’t realised were shed.

  I had no notion of how much time had passed when a nurse entered and suggested I return the next day. She gave me my mother’s rucksack, telling me one of the workers from the archaeological site brought it in after the accident. Inside the bag, I found a set of keys and wondered if I would be able to find the house as easily.

  ‘Excuse me, I nearly forget,’ the nurse said as I was leaving. ‘The man that works with Mrs Bridget gave me this and said you must call him.’

  I glanced at the number scrawled on a slip of paper and pulled out my phone.

  The nurse said, ‘Is not allowed to use the mobile in here.’

  I went back to my mother and touched her hand. ‘I’ll say a prayer for you tonight, Mam, and I’ll be back in the morning. I love you so much.’

  On the hospital forecourt, where the flowerbeds were sparsely planted, I phoned the number.

  *

  Aaron was a chunky guy in his late forties. He gave me a wide, friendly smile and I liked him immediately. He took me to my mother’s house, which was situated amongst the higgle-piggle of houses on the edge of town. Childhood memories returned as I caught sight of the low wall around the patio – my mother sweeping me up and then crying. I walked over and looked down. The sheer drop to the rocks on the edge of the caldera made my head spin.

  The breathtaking view from the patio was exactly as I re-membered it. Cubist houses, mostly dazzling white, but a few painted pink, yellow, orange, and blue. Urns that overflowed with geraniums, bougainvillea, and lilies provided more startling splashes of colour. A windmill had enormous sails that almost reached the ground. A brilliant-blue domed church stood alongside a fairy-tale bell tower with intricate plasterwork. Men hauled trollies stacked high with bottled water towards expensive tavernas. Boutique hotels, stark white with turquoise infinity pools, were moulded into the steep cliff face like melting fondant. Scooters whizzed along narrow streets, and donkeys lugged tourists up endless steps. The sun was so bright, everything shimmered.

  Two director’s chairs and a tin table painted deep yellow stood on the patio. A terracotta ur
n, next to the door, held a wilted plant that hung, fawn and forlorn, over the sides. Soil was scattered on the patio around it.

  ‘Damn cats,’ Aaron muttered, surveying the mess.

  I unlocked the royal-blue door and went inside. The room was smaller than I remembered, but neat and tidy, apart from stacks of books and magazines on almost every flat surface. Aaron followed me in, flicked the light switch, tried the gas burner, and ran the tap.

  ‘Everything seems to be working. Will you be okay? I can stay if you want.’ He grinned cheekily.

  ‘I’ll be fine, thanks. You’ve been wonderful and all.’ I smiled, but in the back of my mind, I wondered how well my parents really knew him.

  ‘Oh, one more thing.’ He rummaged through the cupboards over the sink, found a packet of kebab sticks, and took them outside. ‘This will stop the cats using your urn as a toilet,’ he said, poking the sticks into the compost so it resembled a bed of nails. ‘That should do it. Good luck then. Keep my phone number in case you need anything. And will you let us know if there’s any change with Bridget?’ Our eyes met, then he looked away quickly.

  ‘I will indeed. Thank you.’ I wanted him to go, needed to be alone in my parents’ house. ‘Oh, I don’t suppose you know the Wi-Fi password, Aaron?’

  ‘Of course: it’s your name and date of birth.’

  *

  I slept fitfully. The house, quiet on account of it being built into the cliff, had an atmosphere about it – as if waiting for my mother to come home. At dawn, I threw open the front door and let some air into the stuffy room. Hungry, restless, and lost, all at the same time, I looked around and took stock.

  In the corner, a desk was piled high with archaeology literature, books, and open mail. I wondered about utility bills. Perhaps a neighbour could help me translate. Only a smattering of Greek remained from my childhood days.

  I sat for a while, taking in the small house that had been my parents’ home for decades. I tried to imagine them living there, going about their daily lives. Once again, I questioned why they didn’t share those lives with me, their only child.

  Perhaps my mother had an affair, and Tommy was not my real father. I wondered if he set an ultimatum to my mother: me or him, and she chose him. Or could I have been adopted and then they changed their mind, deciding they didn’t want a child? Despite my random thoughts, I felt there was more, something deeper that I longed to understand.

  I knew I could settle in the house and would feel comfortable living there. The little house had an air of contentment about it, as if the walls themselves had soaked up decades of my parents’ love for each other.

  I wondered what happened to that love? Perhaps they had left it behind with the island.

  I started sorting paperwork on the desk into three piles – mail, notes, and circulars – but then, restless to get to the hospital, I bunged the mail into my bag along with a pile of notebooks from a shelf above the small TV. Santorini’s main hospital was a fifteen-minute walk away.

  Once outside the town, the dusty landscape stretched out, desert-like. Low stone walls marked boundaries, and the scattered buildings, mostly tourist accommodation, were painted white. Spindly eucalyptus trees occasionally lined the road, as did an abandoned fridge and a smashed TV. A hill on the horizon towards the south was spattered with white houses and, on the summit, a church dome and bell tower stood stark against the deep-blue sky.

  I tugged my baseball cap low and marched past a vineyard. No endless rows of vines supported by trellises here. Dusty basins were hollowed out of the earth, each one containing a vine wrapped around itself like a twiggy bird’s nest stuck to the ground. Remarkable that they produced enough grapes for a thriving wine industry.

  The easy walk, slightly downhill, took me away from the town. A tiled pavement with great, square holes, which I guessed was for lampposts, appeared nearer the hospital. I passed through automatic glass doors, glad to get out of the sun. Although the air-conditioning was delicious, my heart thudded as I approached the enquiries desk.

  The receptionist read my anxiety. ‘No change, miss,’ she said before I had a chance to speak. ‘Just go through.’

  *

  Although I spoke quietly, my voice seemed loud in the silent room.

  ‘Hello, Mam. It’s me, Irini. How are you today? I hope you’re not in pain.’ She lay perfectly still. I took a breath. ‘I love you, Mam. I should have told you sooner, but I took it for granted that you knew. Please, please try and get better.’

  I sat for a while, watching her face. ‘I’ve brought some things to sort through while I’m here.’ My mother was completely motionless. Disappointed to realise the Spielberg Happy Ever After was not about to happen, I dragged the notebooks and letters from my bag.

  ‘No point in looking at the mail – I don’t understand a word. Mostly bills, I think. I also found this pile of exercise books and thought they looked interesting.’ I opened a blue one that appeared to be the oldest. Book of Dreams was scrolled and ornately decorated on the front cover. A handwritten letter and an envelope of photographs slid out and hit the floor.

  Suddenly, I was a child again, clumsy and reckless. I scooped everything up before I was told off. After placing most of it on the bedside locker, I sat down and opened the photographer’s envelope.

  ‘Oh, Mam, look at these. Pictures of your wedding day!’ Each photo had two wallet-size prints attached. ‘You looked so pretty, and see Dad – I understand why you fell in love with him. What a handsome man.’ I sifted through the pictures. ‘There’s another couple standing with you, in the next one. They look Greek.’ I studied the short and dumpy strangers, who contrasted with my tall, slim parents. ‘I guess they were witnesses.’

  I wondered if she could hear me. She looked so tired and ill now, yet I could see she had been beautiful in her younger days. Odd that I had never thought of my mother as beautiful before.

  ‘I guess you were in your early twenties when you married, Mam.’ I stopped for a moment to think about this, asking myself whether I had been mature enough to marry at that age. ‘Quinlan told me you married shortly after you left Dublin for Santorini. Such a shame you didn’t continue your education, but I guess marrying your professor meant you never stopped learning.’ The thought made me smile. ‘You must have loved him with a passion, Mam.’

  I wondered what happened. These thoughts led me to think of Jason and my own wedding. Would I have given up everything to marry him? At the time, I thought I would, but discovering cow-faced Calla in his arms had changed everything.

  I would never have known about their affair, but I was pulling pints in the Raglan Road after school to earn a little extra cash for my wedding when someone complained about a pong in the loo. I went in and opened the little window without turning the light on. I could hear the pair of them, murmuring and giggling, and making plans around the back of the pub. I swear, if I’d had a brick, I would have hurled it through that window and hoped it split Jason’s feckin head open!

  I had a horrible feeling I was the last to know, but my broken heart would heal, and although I might be left with scars, the pain was sure to disappear eventually.

  My mother’s letters were tied together with a length of pink baby ribbon. Suspecting they were love letters from their time at the university, I hesitated. Did I have the right to read my mother’s personal correspondence?

  ‘I’ve got your letters here and I can’t decide whether I should read them or not. I don’t want to invade your privacy but, on the other hand, if there’s a small chance you can hear me it might make your poor old brain wake up.’

  I sat for a while, thinking about it. If her brain doesn’t wake up, they will turn the machine off. I had watched enough TV hospital dramas to know what the papers were about, the ones the receptionist asked me to sign. I do not want them to shut down the life-support system. Not yet. Not until I am quite positive my mother will never wake again. How can they imply she is brain-dead and, in the next breath, say
she might be able to hear me? It didn’t make sense.

  A heavy silence descended upon the room. I stared at the monitor that bleeped with every heartbeat, and after an unknown length of time I dragged my eyes away. After waiting for my anxiety to settle down, I unfolded the first letter and glanced at the bottom. The signature was my father’s.

  Dearest Bridget,

  This is the most difficult letter I have ever had to write, but I have decided it is better for you to hear my news this way, rather than from student gossip.

  I’m leaving the university and going to excavate on the Greek island of Santorini. Bridget, I hope when you’ve finished your studies, you’ll come and join me. I know this news will break your heart, and I wish I could be there to kiss the tears from your cheeks. Please forgive me.

  The terrible thing is: there is no hope for us together when I am your tutor and you are my student. We always knew if our relationship came to the attention of the faculty, I would have no choice but to resign my post immediately.

  I love you, Bridget, more than I believe you know, and I will love you until the day I die. I don’t want to keep that love a secret. My heart is heavy to leave you in this way, but your future is at a critical point. Achieve your degree! When you have, we will be free to explore our theory, search for Atlantis, and spend the rest of our lives together.

  My darling Bridget, I hope you understand and forgive me for the hurt you will be feeling right at this moment, but please believe me, it’s for the best. I will contact you again when I have an address in Greece.

  All my love, from your soulmate, lover, and fellow archaeologist,

  Tommy XXX

  By the end of the letter, the pain in my throat was so severe, my voice trembled.

  ‘How sad, Mam. You must have been devastated. What a sacrifice Dad made so that you could stay at university.’

  I thought about him, the old man in a care home. Doddery, forgetful, and mostly silent. I could not remember the last time I saw him smile. At that moment, I wanted to be with him, give him a hug, tell him I was proud to be his daughter.