The Beads of Nemesis

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “I was going to have half yours. Didn’t you have any lunch?”

  “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. You should have told me before.” She smiled. “You’re too late now, it’s all gone!” “I’ll make do with my lager.” He paused. “Why did you buy the dress, Morag?”

  She licked her spoon thoughtfully, and then took a sip of the ice-cold water which had actually come with Pericles’ beer but which she didn’t think he was going to drink himself. “No particular reason,” she said.

  “Shall I tell you what I think?” He picked up the parcel that held her dress. “I think you plan to dazzle someone-” She retained her composure with an effort. “I plan to dazzle all of you!” she said quickly.

  “No one in particular!” Pericles looked into the parcel, fingering the

  cloth of gold. “Dazzle is the word!” “Yes.” Her enthusiasm for the dress rekindled. “Don’t you think it’s beautiful? It cost every penny I had, but I can’t regret it! I won’t regret it.”

  He pushed the parcel across the table to her. “When are you going to wear it?”

  “I don’t know. I thought perhaps Dora would give a party for us, after the summer when most people start coming back to Athens.” She looked up at him again. “Not a big party - just friends and relations ?” “You mean my friends and relations?”

  “Mine are all still in England,” she reminded him, yet instinctively thinking of Delia. “Besides, they came to our wedding. I thought now that we’re married, you’d want to introduce me to your friends. I didn’t

  mean to take too much for granted.”

  “No, you don’t ask much, do you? Why not, Morag? If you want a party, why don’t you insist on one?”

  She pulled her dress towards her, deliberately avoiding his eyes. “You might not like it.”

  “And that matters?”

  She nodded, taking another sip from his glass of water. “I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.”

  A smile creased his face. “Why not?”

  “I never know what you’re thinking.”

  “Just as well,” he commented.

  She gave him a quick look. “I don’t see why,” she began. “It would be much easier if I knew what you wanted. I always seem to guess wrong!”

  He laughed. “All right,” he said, “I’ll tell you exactly what I was thinking. I was wondering what you’d do if I drove you up into the hills and made love to you. Would you like that, karthia mou ?”

  She pressed the dress to her bosom. “You-you wouldn’t!” Pericles rose to his feet with a nonchalant ease that she could only envy. “You are my wife!” he reminded her. He picked up the bill from the table and put

  down a few coins to pay it. “Are you coming, Morag?” “Pericles, you haven’t said if I may have some money?”

  A gust of laughter broke from him. “There is a difficulty,” he told her. “If I open a bank account for you, you’d have to write out your cheques in Greek. Will you settle for a joint account?”

  “Oh, but I only want a few pounds a month.”

  “Okay, I’ll give you cash and you can let me know if you need any more.” He took the parcel out of her arms. “I’ll throw in this for good measure. How’s that?”

  She gave him a cautious smile. “It was terribly expensive.” “I knew that as soon as I saw the label!” he said. He lowered his voice to an intimate murmur. “If I pay for it, don’t you think you might tell me why you bought it?” Morag preceded him out of the cafe, glad of the opportunity to turn her back on him and thus avoid the mocking brilliance of his glance. “It was an impulse,” she lied.

  He shook his head at her. “You’re a bad fibber, Morag. One day I’ll have the truth from you, the whole truth!”

  She gave him a quick look. “But -”

  “I know,” he said. “I said I wouldn’t rush you! But don’t take too long, pedki, in finding the words, or I may decide to do without them before we come to terms. I don’t think you’ll hold out against me for long!” He put her into the car and handed her the parcel. “You shall have your party. I’ll speak to my mother about it. You’re right about that too. I should introduce my wife to my friends.” He bent his head and kissed her on the cheek. “It’ll give you a chance to get used to the idea too,” he added meaningfully. “No Greek waits for long on the convenience of a woman - and remember, I am half Greek!”

  As if she were likely to forget it! It was part of his attraction for her, that she also knew! She cursed her own cowardice that had stopped her taking up his offer to drive her up into the hills for the afternoon. How wonderful it would have been! If she shut her eyes she could almost smell the thyme that scented the barren slopes behind the coast, and the pine-trees if one happened on a clump of them, and even the inevitable goats, their bells sounding as they scampered over the rocky outcrops that littered the brown-grey background of the Apollon Coast.

  The children were home before them. “Where have you been?” they demanded of their father, suspicious that they had been left out of some treat.

  “I wanted Morag to myself for a while,” he answered. “We don’t get enough time to ourselves.”

  Peggy smiled up at him in a peculiarly feminine way. “We’ve hardly seen you at all either, Daddy. And I particularly want to talk to you about something.” She took his hand in hers. “Can I talk to you now?” Kimon watched his sister and father disappear down the path towards the sea with a slight frown. “Did you get into trouble?” he asked Morag.

  “Whatever for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just thought you might have bought it from Daddy. He used to hate it when Mummy went out with Takis - he doesn’t like him, you know. They used to row like anything about it, but Mummy wouldn’t pay any attention. She said we weren’t in Greece often enough for it to matter.”

  Morag swallowed, a little shocked that Kimon should have been allowed to see so much of his parents’ differences.

  “No, I don’t think he does like Takis,” she agreed out loud. “But I explained about his giving us a lift into Athens— ”

  Kimon gave her a cheeky look. “Are you scared of Daddy? You looked it when he took you away!”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Not even a little bit? Did you tell him that Takis helped you choose your new dress? I’ll bet you didn’t!”

  “Then you bet wrong! He already knew that Takis had followed me to the shop.” She flushed a little and smiled too. “Your father likes my dress, if you want to know. He’s going to give it to me for a present!” “Phew!” said Kimon with dawning respect. “You must have spun him a yarn! Takis said he’d more likely beat you!”

  Morag made a little gesture of distaste. “He shouldn’t talk to you like that. I think Pericles is right. I don’t like him very much either.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Kimon agreed calmly. “Most people like him, though, especially girls, because he never seems to do any work and he has lots of money. That’s why Mummy liked him. She said he was good fun, but I think he’s a creep! Only he does buy us a lot of ice-cream too!” Morag merely looked at him and Kimon made a face at her. “Peggy likes him,” he went on hastily, “because he tells her she’s pretty, and she likes that.”

  Not for the first time, Morag thought how much shrewder Kimon was than his sister. She was glad to have won the liking and affection of them both, but it was Kimon’s respect she wanted because she felt it was worth more than Peggy’s. Peggy was too easy to bribe with pretty words and pretty things.

  She looked down at the sea, to where she could see Pericles and Peggy standing below her, and she tried not to mind that he had only chosen her so that she could look after his children.

  “So we are to have a party,” Dora said. “Pericles says that it’s your idea that we should introduce you to our friends.” Her eyes lit with mocking laughter. “I hope you know what you’re about! Pericles is not a party man by nature!”

  “It won’t do him any harm for once,” Morag ans
wered calmly.

  “No, but I’m surprised he agreed to it all the same. He didn’t give in to Susan so easily! Why should he indulge you?”

  Morag, determined not to mind whatever her mother-in- law should say, merely smiled. “He wants to see me in my new dress,” she explained. “He gave it to me,” she added.

  “So I heard,” Dora said dryly.

  Morag wondered what else she had heard and who could have told her. Takis? She wouldn’t put it past him, for if he didn’t get his own way, he liked to make trouble, rather as Peggy did sometimes, only Peggy did it far less now she was happier in herself, and Peggy was only ten years old.

  “Why don’t you show some of your paintings at the party?” she said to give her mother-in-law’s thoughts another direction.

  “Oh, I couldn’t!” Dora said immediately.

  “Why not?” Morag insisted. “I want to see them, and so does everyone else. I’m going to suggest it to Pericles, because I want Peggy to show some of hers too, but only if you think she’s any good. She thrives on praise!”

  Dora was not pleased. “How should I know if her stuff is any good? I don’t know about my own any longer. I’ve got used to the idea that women have better things to do with their time than paint.”

  “I think you know,” Megan said simply.

  “And what do you know about it?”

  Morag bit her lip. “Not very much. But Perry does! That’s why I’m hoping he’ll persuade you. It would be so good for Peggy to be taken seriously by people outside her immediate family.”

  “I suppose you think it would be good for me too!” Dora said with increasing irritation. “Well, you’ll have to do better than that to persuade me!”

  Morag managed a smile. “I have another reason,” she admitted, “but I don’t think you’ll like it very much!” Dora’s look was one of enquiry. “You’re a surprising person, Morag. Would you go on with this if Pericles didn’t like the idea?”

  Morag wished that she could say she would. “No,” she said.

  “I thought not,” Dora congratulated herself. “Then I shall have a word with Pericles too. I think he’s more likely to listen to me, don’t you?”

  Morag did, but she was not going to admit it. “Dora, please do this for me!”

  Dora made a great play of rearranging her hair. “Are you asking for yourself?” She pulled her hair forward with a grimace. “Well, girl, what is

  this other reason I won’t like?”

  Morag came forward and began to scoop up the old woman’s hair on

  to the top of her head, her fingers light and very gentle. “I want to see the

  picture you’ve done of me,” she said.

  “And how do you know about that?” Dora sounded so cross that

  Morag’s spirits sank.

  “The children told me about it. Please let me see it, Dora! Nobody

  every painted me before - not even at school!”

  “Then you are asking for yourself!”

  Morag finished doing her mother-in-law’s hair. “I suppose I am.”

  “And it has nothing to do with Peggy’s welfare? I thought not! But I should have thought you’d want to see it in private first, not at a party!” She turned round to look at Morag better. “You’re a fool! Don’t you see that if everyone is busy looking at my paintings, they won’t be looking at you? Wear your dress, my dear, and be the belle of the ball for once! Wasn’t that your first idea?”

  Morag flushed. She couldn’t deny that it had occurred to her that if Pericles should see others looking at her with appreciation he might take a second look himself.

  “I wanted to show off Peggy too,” she whispered.

  Dora dismissed such nonsense with an earthy sniff. “My dear, I find it very irritating that you’ll never admit to having a selfish bone in your body! All right, we’ve established that you want the triumph of having Pericles at your feet and so you bought the dress. What made you change your mind?”

  Morag gazed at her in silence. Surely she hadn’t been as brazen as that? “Not at my feet!” she gasped.

  “Have I got the expression wrong?” Dora demanded. Morag shook her head. “Not that it matters! Are you afraid that Pericles will guess why you bought the dress?”

  “N-no,” Morag stammered.

  “Then what is all this about the paintings?”

  “I’m not much good at parties either!” Morag said. “And I don’t speak Greek. I don’t see how I’m going to shine at this party at all!”

  “Then of course we shall show my paintings - and Peggy’s too! Why on earth didn’t you say so before?” Dora stood up and hugged Morag to her. “I didn’t mean to say it now, but Pericles has had so much

  unhappiness, and a little bit of it was my fault. Now I want him to be happy with you and I will help you all I can, but you must help yourself a little too!” She cast Morag a look of mock despair. “You must fight for what you want, not hide behind the rest of us! How can Pericles notice you if you run away and hide?” “He knows I’ll give him anything he wants from me,” said Morag.

  Her mother-in-law looked more than a little exasperated. “Do you think he didn’t have that with Susan? She was a perfect wife in many ways. In every way, except that she had no need of Pericles himself, and he knew it. This time, I had so hoped it would be different for him!”

  Morag struggled to find the words that would reassure her, but as usual she was struck dumb when it came to what she wanted for herself. “I don’t know how - ” she began.

  “Then you’d better find a way!” Dora snapped at her. She saw the tears in Morag’s eyes and her expression relented a little. “Oh, come and see the portrait I’ve painted of you! When you’ve seen it, you may not want it to become public property. I can always put my others on show and keep this one as a wedding present for you and Pericles.” She led the way down the corridor from her room into which she had called Morag a few minutes before, to the small room at the other end that she had turned into a studio for herself. Morag had not been inside the room before and she stood now in the doorway, staring at the array of canvases that met her eye. How quickly Dora must work to have completed so many pictures so quickly! But then she saw her own features looking back at her and, fascinated, she studied the portrait of herself with a rising feeling of excitement.

  Her mother-in-law had done the original drawing before she had married Pericles. She was sitting on the rough-hewn steps that led down to the sea and was wearing her oldest pair of jeans, a T-shirt that was none too clean, and the shell necklace that Perry had given her. The Beads of Nemesis, she called them to herself. They were a talisman, assuring her of the goddess’s protection, and she would keep them all her days. But she had not thought before that Pericles might need her too, to compensate him for a marriage that had been less than perfect.

  She took a step closer to the portrait. Apart from the casualness of her clothes, her hair was far from tidy and she had her hands clasped lightly about her knees. But it was the expression on her face that

  revealed exactly what she had been looking at when Dora had seen her. The desire in her eyes was a naked thing that made her embarrassed to look at it, and her lips were damp as if she had just licked them, as if she couldn’t wait for Pericles to turn round and kiss her. For there was no doubt that Pericles was standing just outside the canvas and that he too, could see how much she wanted him.

  “Has Pericles seen it?” she asked, her voice husky and not very well under control.

  Dora studied the picture in a critical silence. She seemed to have forgotten all about the real Morag beside her.

  “What did you say?” she asked at last.

  “Has - has Pericles seen it?”

  Dora grinned suddenly. “He’d be a fool if he hasn’t! Oh, you mean the picture? No, not yet. I did it while you were both in England from a drawing I made of you the first day you were here. Do you want him to see it?”

  “I don’t know.”

>   How could she want him to see it? It said far more than the words he had said he wanted from her!

  Dora gave her a sardonic look. “Well, you have from now until the night of the party in which to make up your mind! ”

  Morag took a last look at the painting. “I have made up my mind!”

  She took a deep breath, hoping that she would somehow find the

  courage to go through with it. “I’d like it to be shown with the others.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The gold dress was everything that Morag had hoped. When she had seen the children into their best clothes, and had helped Dora to dress her hair as she often did nowadays, she went to her own room and sank into the luxury of a hot bath, appreciating it all the more because it wasn’t often that she was able to talk the maid into firing the boiler sufficiently for the water to be anything more than tepid when it came reluctantly out of the tap into the elaborately fitted bath. Pericles said hot water wasn’t necessary in the summer in Greece. It was a theory that had surprised Morag, for she wouldn’t have thought that her husband was the kind of man to believe in cold showers, or anything that wasn’t the last word in comfort. But then she had to admit that she still knew

  very little about Pericles Holmes, let alone about his personal habits.

  She went about her preparations for the party with an orderliness that would have amused her if she had not been keeping such a tight rein on her thoughts and emotions lest she turned tail and ran away long before any of the guests had arrived. It wasn’t often that she paid much attention to her appearance, but tonight was different. Tonight, she had to build a brilliant shell between herself and her new family. It had been her own wish that Dora should show Pericles the portrait of herself for the first time in public, but she had determined that her real self would be as far removed from the vulnerable girl in the painting as it was possible for her to be.

  Indeed, whenever she thought of her painted image her heart turned over with fright. How could she have looked at Pericles like that? He was bound to recognise the urgency of her need for him written clear in her eyes, and what would she do then? No matter what he said, she couldn't confess how often she had longed for him to take her in his arms and kiss her as he had kissed her that once before. Was that what he wanted her to put into words? Her cheeks flamed at the thought. Surely not! Surely he would know how impossible it was for her to ask - suggest -make him aware that her whole being cried out for him with an urgency that had first shocked her and, even now, made her wonder if he wouldn’t despise her if he ever guessed how she felt about him. She had always pictured herself as being won and giving herself to some man in response to his need for her. She had never imagined that she might have to ask, or worse still to plead, with any man to make love to her. Yet it didn’t look as though Pericles was ever going to make her his wife in fact as well as in name. He had said he wanted all the words, but if he were kind at all, he would surely accept the naked invitation his mother had caught on her face when she had been looking at him and thinking herself unobserved.