by Ann Turner
‘Excuse me?’ A willowy young girl carrying a sketchbook and pencils came and crouched at my feet. ‘I think I may have seen your husband. About half an hour ago, a tall man with dark hair and a beard, very fit?’
‘Yes, that’s him,’ I nodded eagerly.
‘He left with a woman.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged. ‘I am an art student. I play observational games to pass the time and because my lecturer suggests this is the way to capturing life. Through memory. Your husband is a handsome Englishman?’
‘Australian. He could look English, but why would he be with a woman?’
The girl gave me a sympathetic look.
‘What was he wearing?’ I countered, not believing she had the right person. She shrugged.
The attendant returned with a bottle of water. ‘Drink this,’ she said, as the art student spoke briskly in Greek, referring to me as a poor cow whose husband had abandoned her. I was pleased the attendant whose name tag read ‘Eleni’ berated her for having a vivid imagination.
I gulped the ice-cold liquid and reeled as it bit into me.
‘Perhaps your husband is outside?’ said Eleni. ‘There’s a little cafe to one side of the forecourt.’ She led me away, both of us glaring at the student, who muttered in Greek. I caught the words ‘old fool’ and hoped she was wrong.
The sun blazed white, viciously hot, as we walked towards an area of tables beneath umbrellas where waiters skimmed about with trays of beer and nuts.
‘Can you see him?’ Eleni asked hopefully.
I scrutinised the customers. Stephen was not among them. We walked back to the museum without talking.
‘May I use your phone?’ I leaned against the front desk.
‘We’re not allowed,’ Eleni replied unhappily, dark eyes genuinely sorry.
‘Is there a public phone?’ It occurred to me I had no money but in the current economic climate even asking to borrow a euro might be a pressure.
Eleni gave me directions to a phone a few streets away. Before I left, I checked the museum one last time. Stephen was nowhere.
As I reached the orange phone hanging in a plastic booth my stomach was a tangle of nerves. I picked up the receiver, planning to call James in Australia reverse charge to ask him to contact the hotel and check if Stephen was there. But there was no dial tone; the phone was out of order. Cursing, I made my way on foot. It would be a scorching forty-five minutes of brisk walking amid stinking, roaring traffic.
At Syntagma Square the demonstration was still in full swing. There was a palpable tension like the calm before a storm – any minute the crowd was going to erupt. I kept walking, then broke into a run. I felt naked and at risk without Stephen. My ribs, which I’d thought had healed, started to hurt.
At the hotel I raced upstairs and bashed on our door, tearing through plans of what I would do if he didn’t answer. And then suddenly, there he was.
Stephen took me in his arms and hugged tight. ‘I’m so sorry. I lost you. Then I thought you’d come back here. When you weren’t in the room I was going to go back but then I thought you couldn’t possibly still be there. If you didn’t turn up soon I was about to call the police.’
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ I chanted, relief surging through me.
Stephen kissed me long and deep. I could smell the sharp odour of perspiration, something he never had. The scent of fear.
‘You didn’t meet anyone there?’ I asked vulnerably.
‘Of course not,’ he replied, clearly perplexed by the question.
‘A young girl thought she’d seen you with someone.’
‘Those attendants,’ he said. ‘None of them were any help when I was looking for you.’
‘You spoke to them?’
‘I left a message saying I was heading back to the hotel. They promised they’d give it to you if you came asking.’
‘Clearly not the ones I talked to,’ I sighed.
Stephen shut the door and led me out to the balcony, where he fixed a stiff gin and tonic and passed it across as I gazed at the Acropolis, trying to stop my hands from shaking. The high marble siding was plunged in shadow.
Later as footlights blazed, lighting the Parthenon an ethereal grey, we ordered room service and sat under a star-filled sky eating fresh swordfish and drinking vast quantities of sweet white wine, content in each other’s company, floating above the troubled streets below.
13
Stephen sat with his coffee, reading the International New York Times between two huge pots of blazing red geraniums, the Acropolis glowing yellow in the morning sun. I pecked him on the cheek, feeling the soft bristles of his beard, inhaling his citrus aftershave, fragrant in the Greek air.
‘So, we’ll meet for lunch?’
‘Enjoy your shopping,’ he replied. ‘Do your best to help the economy.’
‘You’ll be okay?’
‘With this view?’
I ambled through the tiny cobbled streets of Plaka, past a makeshift market of the unemployed selling tack, looking for something to purchase among the toilet paper, tissues and cheap souvenirs. Finally I bought a cheery red apple from a stall laden with fruit outside Monastiraki station and bit into its hard, white flesh, trying to quell my apprehension about the forthcoming meeting.
The bank had double security doors and I was stuck momentarily between them, fighting claustrophobia. My punctual arrival was met by the news the manager was running late and had yet to arrive for the day. In Greek a young assistant brightly informed me to come back later. I tried to get a specific time but she couldn’t oblige.
An hour later I was back, now expecting the moment in no-man’s-land trapped between the thick security glass.
‘I’m sorry, he’s still not here.’ This time, the assistant spoke in English with an American accent.
She led the way into a small cramped room lined with timber filing cabinets and sat down beside me at a large desk, empty but for an old computer. She chatted about her studies at Harvard in Boston. Back in Athens, she could find no work in finance other than as a lowly assistant, and she felt grateful even for that. She hadn’t worked at the bank long, so I couldn’t ask her anything about who set up the accounts that bore my signature.
I was getting edgy about running late for Stephen when finally, two hours after the allotted time, the manager strode in and sat down opposite me. Strong and wiry with a swirl of dark hair, he swiftly dispatched the assistant for coffee, lit a cigarette in spite of the no-smoking sign and spoke pleasantly about his recent visit to Australia. As soon as was polite, I asked him about the Athens 2 and 3 accounts.
‘But it was you who set them up, no?’ He inhaled slowly on his cigarette. ‘You’re the signatory and have sole access. Madam, I think perhaps I don’t understand your question?’
‘Could I see the paperwork I filled out?’
I knew they would have needed my passport to activate the accounts and was desperate to see how this could have been furnished, or whose image was beside my name and supposed signature.
His eyes clouded with suspicion and the smoke-filled room seemed even smaller, its drab grey chairs and walls hemming us in.
‘I’ve been in a car accident and have lapses in memory. My therapist suggested I try to piece things together,’ I said rapidly in Greek, hoping it would lend greater authenticity.
It sounded weak but the bank manager nodded sagely and tapped another cigarette from his packet. He leaned across and offered one to me, which I declined with good humour as the assistant came back with two tiny white china cups. I drank the sweet coffee in a single gulp, which pleased the manager, who swiftly ordered more.
‘Professor, we have a problem,’ said the manager calmly. ‘I must request the papers from archives. This will take time. I will need you to fill in, please, this form?’ He rose and went to a filing cabinet, where he spent several minutes flicking through until he found the required piece of paper. He sighed, sitting do
wn again wearily, as though this was sapping all his energy. ‘In these times, with our austerity measures, it is hard asking people for extra work because we do not pay them. How long are you here in Athens?’
‘We leave tomorrow for Crete.’
His thick black eyebrows rose and met in the middle. ‘This paperwork may take months to obtain.’ He shrugged and stretched his lean torso over the back of his timber chair like a balancing act. Being used to Greek bureaucracy, I was frustrated but not surprised. I burrowed through my handbag and made a show of pulling out my wallet. He watched with patient interest. I took out a wad of euros and placed them on his desk. He smiled, full lips moist with delight as he held out both hands, palms towards me in a gesture of pushing away. He shook his head and made clicking sounds with his tongue.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said finally. The money sat on the desk between us, untouched. ‘Come this afternoon at two p.m. sharp.’
I bit back a smile at his sudden punctuality.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said formally in Greek as I stood, leaving the cash on the desk. ‘You are a good man.’
‘My wife doesn’t think so,’ he replied with a grin as he showed me to the door.
• • •
Stephen was sitting, waiting, at the taverna beneath the plane tree. ‘Where’s your shopping?’ he asked, surprised.
‘I couldn’t find anything that fitted. Never mind.’ I sat down and hungrily attacked the Greek salad that was set in front of me, biting into the juicy fetta cheese and savouring the sweet tomatoes.
‘It would appear that I’ve been far more successful, my dear.’ With a flourish, Stephen produced a tiny velvet box that he flipped open and passed across. A gold ring gleamed out furnished with a large ruby flanked by two sapphires.
‘It’s the most beautiful creation,’ I lied, except for the creation part. The gems were fake – the ruby was heat-treated and infused with glass that hung in suspended globules as I turned the ring this way and that in the light. The ‘sapphires’ were just bits of blue glass.
‘I fell in love with the sapphires,’ Stephen said. ‘They’re the colour of the Greek sky.’
His attachment to the ring was so genuine, the antithesis of the cynicism the shopkeeper had peddled.
‘Aren’t you going to put it on?’ Stephen leaned forward.
With pomp, I slipped it on the middle finger of my right hand.
‘That looks great. It really suits, doesn’t it?’ His face blazed with pride.
‘This makes up for that small diamond wedding ring,’ I joked. ‘I can finally say I’m happily married.’ Leaning across our food, I kissed him full on the lips. ‘Thank you.’
I held his face between my hands, trying to avoid looking at the fake gemstones, gazing into his shining eyes instead.
‘It was worth every cent,’ he said and I was appalled. How much had he paid? I would have to wear it everywhere and I dreaded what my colleagues would say; most would spot instantly the vileness of the ring’s charade.
But this piece of jewellery implied something far more complex, revealing as it did Stephen’s love – as well as one of the reasons Greece was in a mess.
‘Shall we go back to the hotel?’ Stephen asked meaningfully and I glanced at my watch. ‘We’ve got all day!’ he laughed.
My mind fluttered. It was the first time he’d suggested such intimacy since the night of the comet. That seemed like years ago and I desperately wanted to race straight back to our room and tumble into bed with him.
‘I ran into a friend this morning and promised I’d have a coffee at two o’clock.’
Stephen didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘Can’t you change it?’
‘I would if I had her number. You could come if you like?’ I held my breath.
‘No, it’s all right. Come home quickly afterwards, though?’
‘You bet.’ I meant it.
• • •
For the third time I entered the first glass door and waited impatiently for the second door to buzz open. Anticipation was making me perspire and my lunch was sitting uneasily in my stomach.
The assistant greeted me cheerfully and announced the manager was waiting. I followed her to the same cramped room and tried not to choke in the smoke that reeked by this time of day. The manager stood, his demeanour stiff and unwelcoming.
‘Sit down,’ he said. There was no offer of coffee and the assistant, surprised, took her leave with a hesitant smile.
‘So, these are popular accounts?’ His voice was heavy with cynicism.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Another person has come today after you, wanting to know all sorts of things about these accounts.’
‘But how can they? My business is confidential, surely?’
‘Perhaps,’ he shrugged, ‘depending who that person is.’
‘What do you mean?’ Fear made my voice rise and I tried in vain to keep calm.
‘A person of some authority might have a claim to see the accounts,’ he replied archly. ‘Someone official.’
‘I don’t see why. I’ve done nothing wrong.’
He shrugged again, a sly smile lifting the corners of his lips. ‘My duty is to the bank and the bank’s duty is to our customers and to the law.’
He watched me with the stillness of a cat waiting for its prey to move.
‘Are you trying to accuse me of something?’ I asked forcefully.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘But if you have done something wrong, then you would know this in your heart. It is not for me to judge; that I will leave to others. However, I cannot help you carry out something that might be unlawful.’
‘I’m the signatory and I want to see how those accounts were set up.’
‘Professor, I cannot help.’ He stood abruptly and almost shooed me to the door, like a man herding geese.
My heart was racing and my legs were moving as if I were walking in quicksand.
‘Did you get the paperwork I requested?’ I turned and looked him in the eye. That I paid you for handsomely, I felt like saying but didn’t.
‘That is not something I can discuss.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Regulations,’ he shot back.
‘Then I’ll be making a complaint higher up.’ I prayed this might make him re-think his strategy.
‘Do so,’ he replied, too calmly.
‘And I wonder what they’ll think about your taking a bribe,’ I said in Greek.
He laughed loudly. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Good day, Professor.’
He shook my hand roughly and pushed me out into the main area of the bank, where the assistant was watching with alarm.
‘She knows her way out,’ he spat. ‘Come, I need you.’
Casting an apologetic glance my way, the assistant disappeared into the smoky den and the manager shut the door with a bang.
I walked through the bank avoiding the gaze of the tellers, who had picked up the tension. Between the main doors I had a sudden wave of panic as I waited for the second one to open. Perhaps they might not let me out, trap me there like an insect behind glass until the police arrived to arrest me for fraud.
After what seemed an eternity the green light above the door lit up and I was free to stumble out onto the street. For a moment I was caught up amid a Japanese tourist group thronging the footpath and as I was swept along I had the uneasy sense that I was being watched. Was it the person who had come after me asking about the accounts? Were they police?
I turned but could only see Japanese tourists on either side, hemming me in. By the time I managed to extricate myself the narrow street was empty.
The entire way back to the hotel I couldn’t shake the sensation that someone was following. But no matter where I looked, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The walkway was frequented by Orthodox priests in ornate purple and golden robes. I felt I’d slipped back centuries, but certainly none of these learned men walking purposefully could be my stalk
er.
I breathed more freely as I reached the expansive marble foyer of the hotel and took the lift, but then I considered that something sinister might already be waiting in the hotel room. I had given the bank manager the details of where I was staying.
I slotted the keycard in the lock, trying to decide what I might do if police were inside.
‘What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Stephen greeted me warmly, wearing only a white towelling robe with the crest of the hotel emblazoned on it.
I glanced back over my shoulder into the long passage and saw the fire-exit door swinging shut behind an unseen person. I wanted to run in pursuit but Stephen was already reaching his arms around me, drawing me into the warmth and attention of his body.
I accepted Stephen’s amorous advances but couldn’t stop worrying. Was I under investigation in Athens? It was the only plausible explanation for what had happened at the bank today. Would the university have enlisted the help of the Greek police? It seemed far-fetched for the sort of money I’d seen in the accounts. Was it worse? How deep did the fraud go?
I’d never faked arousal before with Stephen, in twenty-five years of marriage, but now I found myself being drawn deeper, inextricably, into a tissue of lies.
14
My ring’s fake gemstones sparkled merrily as they caught the light beaming through the windows of the clean, modern plane to Crete. Stephen was wearing loose shorts and a T-shirt, thoroughly in holiday mode. After yesterday, his toned leg touching mine didn’t go unnoticed. He was incredibly sexy, virile and generous.
Why couldn’t I tell him my problem? Now we were physically close again, the mistrust I’d felt at home was fading. I started to plan how I’d break the news of the alleged serious misconduct charge, suddenly eager for his help.
The deep blue Aegean stretched seductively around a spattering of fabled islands that glided beneath us. I was in my own Odyssey. Who had been at the bank?
‘Already?’ Stephen’s face clouded with surprise as the seatbelt sign lit up and the announcement to prepare for arrival rang through the cabin. ‘We’ve only just taken off.’ He quickly folded his newspaper and stowed it away. I was preoccupied with what lay ahead – I was about to meet up with friends, and needed to ask a favour of one in particular.