Decision at Delphi

by Helen Macinnes

  “Yes. Memories are always exaggerated.” His voice had hardened unexpectedly. “Either they leave you in a rosy glow or they cover you with blue murk. There’s no balance in them.”

  She said nothing at all to that. She had memories of her own, perhaps, which she did not want attacked. Her eyes looked away to the billowing curtains over the dark windows.

  “One thing is certain,” he said, easing his voice. “You know more about me, however romanticised, than I know about you. Let’s even things up, shall we? What’s your name?”

  She looked back at him, blankly. “Oh, that C. L. Hillard business? It’s protective colouring. If you want yourself accepted as a serious photographer, you have got to have something serious in the way of a name.”

  “C is for—?”

  “Cholmondely, spelled C h u m l e y.”

  “Come on, now,” he said with a grin. “Give me a name. I need it.”

  “Cecilia. Cecilia Loveday Hillard. How is that for a professional name competing with Kupheimer, Kladas, and Sean O’Malley?”

  “It’s a very pretty mouthful.” He thought over it. “I see what you mean. It really belongs to a young girl who writes poetry and wouldn’t venture to publish it.”

  “Or photographs old girls who write poetry and insist on publishing.”

  “Or takes studies of moonlight through mist.”

  “Or of bright-eyed twins hugging a flop-eared puppy which belongs to the dear old doctor next door.”

  “How would you fit the horse and buggy into that? An interesting problem in composition.”

  “The horse could be looking over the white picket fence.”

  “Oh, there’s a garden?”

  Suddenly, she wasn’t joking any more. She nodded. “With masses of roses and phlox and Sweet William. And somewhere, up at the left-hand corner of the picture, an apple tree.” Her face was serious. She could talk herself into sad thoughts, too, it seemed.

  “You know,” he said, “you made that sound rather attractive?”

  “Did I?” She had recovered.

  “I’ve an idea,” he said. “We can bribe someone to cook something early. And after dinner, we’ll go exploring around the Acropolis.”

  “But first of all, your drawings. And Steve’s photographs,” she reminded him.

  “First before first of all, you’d better tell me what to call you. It’s very disturbing to walk around with a nameless girl. Cecilia? It’s good enough for an ode to be written about it.”

  “That’s where it came from,” she said gloomily. “But please don’t quote it against me. It has been done too often.”

  “And Loveday?”

  “It’s one of those family things.”

  And a very nice tradition, too, he thought as he signed the waiter’s check and added a tip in real money. “My name is no problem. People hack it down to handling size. But I wouldn’t like to tamper with Dryden. So Cecilia it is. And I’m glad I don’t stutter.”

  She began to laugh. Then she tried to be serious to make a correct exit from the room. But the laugh kept breaking out; and, even when it was controlled at last, still shimmered in her voice. “Why don’t you just call me Jane?” she asked.

  “Who calls you that?” he asked quickly.

  “No one. I just thought of it. I’ve an essentially simple mind.”

  Jane and roses and phlox and an apple tree. “Thank heaven for that,” he said, most seriously. “But I’ll stay with Cecilia.”

  Christophorou was leaving just ahead of them. She had noticed him, too. She said, “What does he do?”

  “He’s a journalist.”

  “Newspaper or freelance?”

  “A little of either, I’d imagine.”

  She had detected something in Strang’s voice. “Don’t you like him?”

  “I have liked him a lot,” he said carefully. “What was your first impression of him?”

  “He would photograph well.” She hesitated. “Is he the same Christophorou whom you and Matt and Tom—”

  “The same.”

  “The Homeric hero—” she said delightedly.

  “Yes. You must photograph him as that.” But whether as Achilles or the wily Odysseus, might be more difficult to decide. Strang avoided the quick glance that swept his way from under dark eyelashes. “There’s Thomson,” he said, glad to find a diversion. “Nice old guy.” Tommy was talking to another scholarly type, forming a solid blot right in the middle of the exit from the room. “He’s lived so long here, he’s caught the Athenian habits. What’s a better place to talk than bang in the middle of a doorway, unless it’s in the centre of a crowded sidewalk?”

  As they squeezed past, Tommy said, “But how pleasant to see you, Strang! I was just leaving, too.” He broke away from his friend and came into the lobby with them. “Hillard,” he repeated thoughtfully, after the introduction. “I knew some Hillards once. They came from Wessex.”

  “We are completely Wyoming,” Cecilia said.

  “Ah! Horses!” said Tommy, quite enchanted. “Then you will enjoy the Parthenon frieze. I once wrote a paper on the affinity of the fifth-century Greek with your West American cowboys. They would have got on very well together, these young men. And are you staying long, Miss Hillard?”

  “Miss Hillard is a photographer,” Strang began explaining, but only partly, for Tommy was running as mettlesome as any Parthenon horse. His own affinity was with dark-blue eyes which really listened.

  “Indeed? How interesting. I used to take a great number of snapshots. You must come and see them. Perhaps tea, tomorrow? Half past four? Strang knows where I live.”

  “I don’t,” said Strang.

  “Dimocritos Street.” Tommy searched abstractedly in his pockets. “It’s easy to remember.”

  “Street of the Laughing Philosopher,” Strang said.

  Tommy found his card case at last. “Now,” he said, as he presented Strang with a neat little piece of embossed cardboard, “you will have no excuse to forget. The printed word is always so. impressive. Tomorrow, then? Splendid; splendid.” And on that up-beat note, he left, his grey tweed jacket flapping open, his fine white hair raised in a startled aura around his amiable red face.

  “Tea and snapshots,” Strang said with some misgiving, looking at Cecilia.

  “I’d like it,” she said, and pleased him. “Any man who sees a likeness between Greek horsemen and cowboys is worth visiting.”

  “Good.” And I’ll have a little talk with Tommy, he thought. Perhaps Tommy can put me in touch with George Ottway. Ottway could help the experts with Steve’s photographs, possibly. After all, Ottway had fought in the mountains along with Steve. It was an idea certainly worth exploring.

  “Tell me about Mr. Thomson,” Cecilia said. “I’m the stranger here.”

  Aren’t we all? he thought. But he told her what he knew. It didn’t take long; it was quicker, in fact, than either of the elevators. She smiled to someone, as they waited, and he turned to see who it was. But it was only Yorghis, the travel-agency man, bowing now to them both, between reassuring phrases to a bewildered tourist and his nervous wife. “So he met you at the plane,” Strang said, as they were loaded into a crowded car. “That is more than he managed to do for me.”

  “He was terribly upset about that,” she said soothingly. “Seemingly, he—” But a broadly built gentleman, breathing heavily (either a claustrophobic, or too tightly corseted, or a passionate lover en route—Strang couldn’t decide which) inserted his well-braced bulk between them. She raised her eyebrows and fell silent with a helpless shrug.

  “Evkharisto,” Strang said to the attendant as they left the elevator. The man bowed, answered, “Parakalo,” with a sudden gleam of teeth in a sombre face.

  “He’s my friend,” Strang explained as they walked down the long stretch of corridor. “He is the only one who lets me practise Greek. Everyone else is too busy practising his English on me.”

  “Evkharisto—that’s ‘thank you.’ And he
said?”

  “‘Please.’ In our language, ‘you’re welcome.’ Or, as Tommy would say, ‘not at all.’”

  “Evkharisto,” she said carefully.

  “Parakalo.”

  She laughed. “You make it seem so easy. Which it isn’t. I’m still trying to memorise the alphabet. It’s lucky for me that Perspective is so rich. Lee has hired a car and an English-speaking guide to take me around the Peloponnese. That’s my first project.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I begin there, the day after tomorrow,” she said, looking him straight in the eye. “You are planning to concentrate here first, aren’t you?”

  “I was. But I probably shan’t start any real work for another week or so. In fact, I was preparing myself to telephone Preston about that.”

  She hesitated. “What’s wrong?” she asked. Then, “Sorry.” She was annoyed with herself.

  He opened the door to his room. It was neat enough, thank heaven. “About this Peloponnese trip—I hope you’ve got a reliable guide. It isn’t Yorghis, by any chance?”

  “It might be. He is really quite a nice little man. Businesslike. I wouldn’t have any trouble with him.”

  “I’m sure you could deal with him. But businesslike? I doubt that. Unless you mean he has a knack of making extra money.” He didn’t like the idea of Yorghis, somehow. “You’d do better to travel alone, provided you have a first-rate driver. You’ll find the Greeks polite and helpful; they are a good people, on the whole. Do you know, there were hundreds and hundreds of stray British soldiers left stranded here after the German invasion, and not one of them was betrayed? The Greeks fed and hid them, and neither was easy.”

  “Then why worry about Yorghis?”

  “He is not always reliable.”

  “It wasn’t altogether his fault that he didn’t meet you at the plane. He had to go to Nauplion yesterday: some people from a yacht wanted to go sight seeing. Now that really would be a cosy way to travel around.”

  “To Nauplion and back here, in one day, in time to pick me up at the airport? He has plenty of confidence.” He began opening his brief-case for Steve’s photographs of Paestum and Sicily.

  “He must certainly know his way around the Peloponnese. You know, I think I’ll stay at Nauplion myself. It’s easy to reach Mycenae and Epidaurus from there. And it’s right on the bay where Agamemnon sailed away to Troy. You can see the mountains of Sparta just across the water, and the plains of Argos...”

  “You’re getting yourself into the mood, I see.” She would do good work, he thought. “But I am still against Yorghis.” For if he had clients at Nauplion yesterday, then the Spyridon Makres Agency hadn’t known about them; or else they would have sent someone else to meet Strang at the airport, that was certain. Yorghis couldn’t resist the job-on-the-side, evidently.

  “Oh, come,” she said, laughingly, “you won his heart. Don’t break it! He called you a ‘very nice gentleman’ several times. He really was sorry. He wouldn’t admit he had been wrong, of course; just apologised sideways by impressing on me how rich and important his client at Nauplion was. That excused everything, apparently. He wanted me to tell you that it was all unavoidable. His client was a ‘very great lady,’ and he couldn’t hurry her sight seeing. As a very nice gentleman, you see that, don’t you?”

  “He only called me that because I didn’t report him to the agency,” Strang said, unimpressed.

  “You wouldn’t have done that, would you?” She looked at him, uncertainly, almost anxiously.

  “No,” he agreed, “you can’t report a man whose shirt collar is fraying.”

  She looked at him thoughtfully. She said, holding out her hand, “Are these the photographs?”

  She spent a long time with them, examining each of them critically, while Strang watched her. She was intent, unnoticing, absorbed in Steve’s work. The impersonal C. L. Hillard, he thought, in her simple, elegant grey suit: smooth-haired, calm-faced, intelligent, competent, charming; and in complete control of any situation. But, relieved in one way as his mind was, he was glad he had met Cecilia first. Without Cecilia, C. L. Hillard would be a little overwhelming. And yet, without C. L. Hillard, Cecilia would be just a very pretty girl, enchanting for three months. But for thirty, years?

  She looked up at him. “Oh, Lord!” Cecilia said. “I’ll have my work cut out to come anywhere near this. He’s so good, he’s so very good!” She gathered the photographs together. “He ought to have finished the job,” she said regretfully. “Why didn’t he, Ken?”

  Strang opened his portfolio and drew out some of his drawings.

  “All of them,” C. L. Hillard said, coming over to the desk, “I want to see all of them, if I may.” She switched on the lights.

  He didn’t watch her, this time. He went out on to the terrace and watched, instead, the soft dusk gathering its violet-grey cloak around the city.

  She didn’t come out in five minutes, not even in ten. When she looked at drawings, she looked at drawings, he thought. Politeness? No. C. L. Hillard was too honest for that. Or perhaps she hadn’t liked them, had found them lacking, and Cecilia was standing now in an agony of indecision, not wanting to hurt him. He lit a third cigarette, and switched his thoughts to Nauplion, with its broad bay where a yacht could anchor. There must be many yachts coming there through the sight-seeing season, enough, at least, to establish acceptance among the shore dwellers. Nauplion with its view of the mountains of Sparta...

  He heard the light sound of her thin high heels on the terrace behind him. He turned around quickly. “You’re better than Steve,” she said slowly. She gave a deep sigh. “Or perhaps photography is not enough. Perhaps I ought to try to learn to draw.”

  “You think they are all right?” He watched her carefully.

  “All right?” She was honestly scandalised. “They are better than your Mayan pictures, and that’s quite something.” She stood looking at him, remembering his drawings with such delight and absolute pleasure that he could have stood there looking at -her with both delight and pleasure for the next half hour. “You really love those ancient Greeks, don’t you?” she asked softly.

  He nodded. So that had come through, had it? “They soared,” he said, “while other men were crawling in the mud.” He broke his mood with a grin. “Come on,” he said, taking her arm, “let’s find out where we’ll have dinner. And you’d better take a coat—it gets cool here at night.” He noticed the amazed look in her eyes. “Something wrong?”

  “No,” she said, conscious of the touch of his arm. “Nothing’s wrong.” She hid her own surprise. It is so wonderfully easy, to be with him, she was thinking; so simple, so natural. But why should you feel so happy, Cecilia Hillard? This won’t do at all, she told herself. She said, very crisply, “See you in the lobby. In ten minutes?”

  The problem of dinner was solved by the avuncular eye of the night porter. He had looked at the two Americans, tried to gauge them with an accuracy sharpened by years of observation, wasn’t quite sure, refused all defeat by playing safe, and recommended a restaurant that had food not too difficult for Western digestion, wine that would not be resinated, music, soft lights, and general atmosphere. “It is a tourist place, of course,” he had added, guarding his own reputation as a gourmet; but, then, who knew better than he that foreigners’ stomachs were not always as strong as their ambitions? And as the expected shadow fell over the foreigners’ brows, he brushed it away by saying, “But, of course, the tourists don’t arrive until ten o’clock.”

  “Oh, let’s risk it,” Cecilia said while they waited for a cab, as if she sensed something of Strang’s annoyance and hesitation.

  “I’d like to have known a special kind of place for your first dinner in Athens, but I honestly just don’t know,” he admitted unhappily. He felt inadequate.

  “We’ll keep the special kind of place for a night when I don’t have to eat at half past eight.” Besides, she thought, I expect I’d find any place, even a hamburger stand, exc
iting with him. Doesn’t he know that? And that was something else she liked about him.

  “Thank you for taking the blame.” Any place would be wonderful for him if he could just sit opposite this extraordinary girl. “The truth is I haven’t yet found my way around Athens.”

  “I suppose, last time you were here—” she began, but the cab arrived and carried them down and around Constitution Square. “It was different,” he said, and he looked out at the huge square, now hiding its bitter memories under spring-green trees. By way of a brightly lit thoroughfare with smart shops, they entered the older part of the city, the Plaka. Here, low houses, capped with gently sloping tiles, pressed in on twisting streets; the heavy balconies overhung the narrow sidewalks of worn and half-sunken flagstones; the lights were mellowed into a soft yellow glow. Many of the houses needed plaster to cover their cracks, paint to cover their plaster, but decay was strangely mated with vitality. The numerous food shops meant numerous kitchens cooking for numerous families gathered in the numerous small dark rooms.

  “Crowded and cosy,” Strang said, keeping his eyes well open for street names. He had a small map in his pocket, a fairly good memory for places, an adequate sense of direction, and a heavy dislike for feeling lost.

  “Romantic,” decided Cecilia. “This is the kind of place I’d like to stay. One could convert a house like that—” She looked with interest at one with a small secretive garden, only betrayed by the thick branches of a tree behind a high wall.

  “Takes a little money, though,” said the practical architect.

  “Then some money and offbeat taste has been moving in around here. There is a house already converted.”

  “Quite a good job. Windows widened to chase out tuberculosis, all the rats fumigated, plumbing added.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t really like it. Bright-pink plaster and a picture window. That’s too much conversion for me.”

  “There’s a better job across the street, all shuttered up, probably closed; but that’s nice detail over the doorway—” Strang looked back quickly at the man who had come out of the house. It had not been so closed, after all. But the man—the man was Alexander Christophorou. “Slow, slow down!” he told the driver, who obliged with a shriek of brakes as the cab skidded around a corner and then jolted to a halt. “Sorry,” he said, catching Cecilia round the shoulders to steady her. “I didn’t mean him to be so damned literal about it.” He tried to see the street name, but his view was blocked from this angle. “Just a moment,” he said, getting out of the cab. He walked quickly back to the corner to make sure. Kriton Street, it was called. He glanced along at the shuttered house, standing so quietly by itself, protected from its less-affluent but more cheerful neighbours by its high-walled garden. Alexander Christophorou had walked a little distance to a waiting car. He got in, quickly, and the car drove off.