Olive island

by Kay Thorpe

  `No,' she said steadily, and stood up. 'You can tell him I've gone with Spiros when he gets back.'

  The battered Renault was waiting as promised beside the stone wall outside the wrought iron gates of the palace grounds. Ignoring the calls of the small group of youths lounging nearby, Nicky went over and opened the rear door.

  `Take me back to the Xenia, Spiros,' she said. `Alone?' He twisted his head to look at her. 'But the others . .

  `They're coming on later.' She was peering out of the window towards the gates and the long steep drive beyond. 'Please hurry !'

  , 'As the despoinis wishes.' From the sound of his voice he was smiling. 'We go.'

  They did. Like the wind — if a very gusty one. Down through the town, cutting across the centre instead of taking the longer way round by the sea wall. Along the Avramiou and up past the old port on to the broad highway which every Corfiot still honoured as the onetime racecourse of the British Protectorate. There were other cars on the road, both behind and in front. Occasionally, Nicky twisted to look out through the rear window at the following lights, but it was impossible to make out any details of the vehicles. She felt a bit like Cinderella rushing home from the ball.

  Even Spiros was forced to slow a little when they took to the mountains in total darkness. The moon was down behind the summit, and the trees reared blackly to either hand. The headlights were weak and penetrated only a few yards, silvering the undergrowth and making eyes of the knotty holes covering the trunks of the olives. The villages were asleep, silent silhouettes against the backcloth of the night sky. Nicky imagined the people in their beds, cursing the peace-shattering swell and ebb of the passing car, telling themselves that all sane folk were indoors at such an hour, not tearing through the countryside disturbing others.

  When they came to a halt just behind the point where the road began to curve downwards again, she did not immediately recognize the place, then her eyes fell upon the huge olive outlined in the farthest reaches of the headlights, and her heart missed a beat.

  `What's the matter?' she asked, as Spiros cut the engine. 'Is something wrong with the car?' Idiotic question, she thought. There would always be some-

  thing wrong with this car !

  'Nothing is wrong.' He was looking back at her, teeth flashing against the olive of his skin . 'We are here. Me and you . . . alone.'

  Nicky stared at him in startled disbelief, and wanted suddenly to laugh. When would she learn !

  'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm afraid I gave you the wrong impression. I want to go back to the Xenia. Straight back.'

  His smile grew broader. 'You wish me to make the move first, yes? That is as it should be. We will get out of the car and walk beneath the trees for a little while, and perhaps we will talk. I have wished for this time ever since the day when I first drove you over the mountains.'

  'Half-way over the mountains,' she reminded him slyly, and saw his smile falter for a moment before returning full blast.

  `Ah, but that was then and this is now, and there is no one here but me and you.'

  'And a donkey.' Nicky just could not begin to take her predicament seriously. 'Over there by the olive. Do they leave them out all the time?'

  Spiros looked bewildered. What did a donkey have to do with things? 'Yes,' he said, 'in the summer. Why are you English always so concerned with the animals?'

  'Because they're dumb, of course.' She was listening to the faint drone of an engine climbing the pass. 'They can't talk back.'

  Understanding dawned in his face, and he grinned. 'You are — how do you say it? — putting me on?'"

  'Off, if possible,' she murmured, wondering what it

  took. 'Are you going to drive on, Spiros?'

  'That is not what you want me to do.'

  'All right.' She took a steadying breath, opened her door and slid out on to the grass. Before he could do likewise she grasped the handle and held it. 'Do you hear that engine?' she asked urgently. 'That is Kyrios Alexandros. Do you want him to find you here with me?'

  A flicker of uncertainty ran over his features, stayed for a brief second and vanished again. 'This is more of your fun?'

  'Is it?' She pushed even harder against the door. 'Listen to the sound. Can't you recognize a Citroen when you hear it. Listen, Spiros !'

  He did, and this time the uncertainty did more than flicker. 'There are others who drive a Citroen,' he said without conviction. 'This does not need to be him.'

  'It is. Take my word for it.'

  He eyed her for a long moment while the sound grew ever closer, and suddenly made up his mind. `Get back in the car and we will go on.'

  'No.' She stood back. 'You go on. I'll wait.'

  'But . . .' He was completely uncomprehending. 'But what if it is not Kyrios Alexandros?'

  What if? Nicky considered the possibility, and decided that the risk was too small to be taken into account. The glass slipper would have been picked up.

  The other vehicle was coming over the lip of the rise, its lights blindingly on full beam. Spiros gave her one last confused glance, started the engine and went racketing back on to the road, leaving her caught in the spotlight as the other car slowed to a halt.

  She stood quite still until she saw the door swing and

  Nikos start to get out. Then she picked up her skirts, turned on her heel and sped in among the trees at a point where there was a path of sorts winding back up the mountainside. She could hear him coming after her, fast, gaining on her easily until he could reach out and grasp her and pull her round towards him. There was a moon to see by now. She looked laughingly into the leaping eyes, felt his fingers digging the tender flesh above her elbows.

  `What took you so long?' she said.

  Next moment she was pinned up against his chest and he was kissing her with a bruising force which refused to recognize that such a thing as moderation might exist. When he did allow her to breathe again she leaned against him with pounding heart, said weakly, 'Oh, Nikos !'

  `Oh, Nikos,' he mocked. 'Is this all you have to say to me after I have chased you half-way across the island?'

  `No,' she admitted, and ran her hands up beneath the lapels of his jacket as she looked up at him. 'I love you. There, does that save your philotimos?'

  He laughed softly as he took her hands and pressed his lips to her fingers. 'What do you know of philolimos?'

  `It's pride, isn't it? Self-esteem? That which you lost when you failed to establish your supreme authority over all things female.' She had never quite imagined herself ever getting around to actually teasing Nikos, and yet here she was doing it. 'Will it suffice, or shall I put my head under your foot? I think that's what women in some places do to acknowledge their lord and master,' she added consideringly. ,

  Nikos leaned against an olive and pulled her to him. He was laughing. 'You are prepared to do this? Prepared to obey me?'

  `Of course,' she said demurely, and gasped as his arms tightened painfully about her, holding her helpless.

  `You are a liar,' he said. 'There is something in you which will never completely submit, and I would have it no other way. Not . ..' and a smile touched his eyes with humour . . . 'that I shall stop trying, As for philotimos, there is rather more to it than you have understood. It is purely a Greek concept which means . . He paused, shook his head. `No, it is too complex. We have all of our lives to discuss such matters. For now.. .'

  Sometime later she said softly, 'When you said all of our lives, Nikos, you did mean you wanted to marry me, didn't you?'

  `What else might I have meant?' he demanded, and she smiled.

  `Well, you didn't actually say it, and it occurred to me that I could be taking a lot for granted.'

  `It is a habit of yours,' he agreed. 'But not in this.' His voice roughened. 'I love you, ylikia. I want you to share with me my name and my bed, aid to bear me my sons. I knew all this at the moment when we met up here on the mountain. I saw a slender English girl with stormy blue eyes and hair the colour
of ripe corn, and I wanted her with everything that was in me. Too much time already has been wasted.'

  `I've barely been here a month,' she protested. 'We still hardly know one another.'

  `What has that to do with it? There is all the time in

  the world for getting to know each other after we are married. We shall go together to England to visit your parents and arrange matters so that they may return here with us for the wedding. In three weeks' time you will be my yineka. I can wait no longer than that.'

  Yineka. My wife; my woman. Nicky caught at her lower lip, said huskily, 'I'm afraid you'll have to. I can't just up and leave my job right in the middle of the season like that. I must finish it out.'

  There was a lengthy silence, then he put her far enough away from him to look into her face. 'That is not until October. You would be content to wait until then?'

  'No,' she said. 'Not content, just reconciled.' Her own eyes did not waver. 'I'd marry you tomorrow if I could. Believe me, Nikos, Please.'

  He was very still for what seemed like an eternity, then his mouth relaxed and his shoulders lifted ruefully. 'It appears then that I must be patient for several more weeks than I had allowed for. It will not be easy.'

  'But a Greek does not take advantage of the girl he is to marry,' she reminded him softly, and he smiled.

  'No Greek girl would tempt her betrothed in the way you will. She would not consider it a kindness. If you tantalize me too much I shall beat you instead.' He put his lips to her forehead and gently to each closed eye, feathered them down her cheek and came at last to her mouth. Then he put her firmly from him. 'It is time to go. Tonight I must take you back to the Xenia, but in the morning I shall fetch you to the villa no matter what other claims on your time may arise. My mother will be overjoyed to have both her sons betrothed at the

  same time. She has often complained that Dino and I do nothing together any more.'

  Walking back to the car, Nicky said slowly, `I'm still not sure that I understand about Dino and Marguerite. He told me that she had come over to the island to be approved as your future bride.'

  'That,' he answered, 'is what he was meant to think. It aroused his interest from the beginning, and once he had seen our cousin he was determined that I should not have her.'

  'You mean you deliberately planned that he should marry her?'

  'Yes.' He sounded as if it were a perfectly understandable thing to do. 'Marriage is what Dino needs to steady him. They will stay here on Kerkyra for a little while after the wedding, and then they are to return to the mainland where Dino will become a prosperous family man under the guidance of my uncle.'

  Nicky wasn't quite clear on the subject yet. 'But Marguerite told Dino that she was in love with you only two days after her arrival here.'

  'She did?' He looked startled and then amused. 'Then she had him assessed even better than I had thought. A spur to his jealousy.'

  She glanced at him swiftly. 'Is that why you let me think it was you she was going to many?'

  `ls that what I did?' he asked maddeningly, opening the car door for her. 'And were you jealous of my cousin, pedhi?'

  'No,' she said gravely, I pitied her. Poor girl, I

  thought, marrying that tyrant. Who would wish for such a fate !'

  'You had better,' he returned equably. 'Because

  there is no way of changing it now. You are mine, Nicolette. For always.'

  She watched him moving round the front of the car, saw him outlined for one sharp moment against a clear patch of horizon, this proud, arrogant Greek who had won her heart. For always, she thought, would only just be long enough.