Beneath the Cypress Tree

by Margaret Pemberton

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was Christmas Eve, and in the little house in Archanes that, with great persistence, she had persuaded Christos they should move into, Ella was making Christopsomo bread. As she did so she was thinking of her mum, dad and granddad, and of what Christmas preparations would now be taking place in the little house in Wilsden. She knew from her mother’s letters that her father had begun keeping hens and was fairly sure one of them would be on the Tetley Christmas dinner table tomorrow. Tonight, as the village children came door-to-door singing carols, her mother would be at a carol service in Wilsden’s small Methodist church. When she had been living at home, Ella and her mother had always gone to the carol service together, while her dad and granddad had taken the opportunity of having a Christmas drink in the Ling Bob. On Christmas morning everyone in the house would be up early, exchanging presents.

  Presents would not be being exchanged tomorrow morning in Cretan villages, where it was traditional to exchange them on the sixth of December, St Nicholas’s Day. Another Christmas tradition she had always loved – Christmas trees – also played no part in a Cretan Christmas, but Christos had brought in a few small branches of evergreen laurel to give their home a festive feel.

  Her dough had risen and she added sugar to it, and then a teaspoon each of cinnamon, coriander, crushed cloves and mahlepi, a Greek spice with a distinctive, fruity taste. As she did so, she was overcome by an intense wave of homesickness. When she had first come to Crete she had been worried at how little homesickness she had felt, and when she had married Christos she had felt herself to be almost as Cretan as she was English.

  Since war had been declared, all that had changed. Now she felt British to the bone and her thoughts were continually with her mum, dad and granddad – and, if her grandad’s old mare Bessie had still been alive, they would have been with her as well. They were certainly with Sam. Was he still practising as a doctor in Scooby, or was he now in the army, serving in a medical corps? Her mother hadn’t known, but in a letter sent before war had broken out, she had written that Sam had visited them and that he’d had a young lady with him. In pencil on thin airmail paper she had written:

  Her name is Jenny and it’s quite clear she thinks the world of Sam. I suppose he’ll marry her and she’ll have the life we thought you would have. I don’t truly think I’ll ever get over the disappointment, Ella, but it’s a comfort to us that Kate lives so near to you.

  Kate didn’t live near her, in the sense her mother meant, but as it made her mother happy to think they were practically next-door neighbours, Ella hadn’t corrected the misunderstanding.

  She began kneading the dough again. It was three months and three weeks since war had been declared and since then, although tension ran high, not a lot had happened. It was beginning to be called the ‘Phoney War’. No blitzkrieg had been unleashed on Britain, as had been expected, and although a British Expeditionary Force of four divisions had been despatched to France, they hadn’t as yet engaged with the enemy. It’s a bit of a rum do, lass, her granddad had written as a postscript to one of her mother’s letters, but yon bugger Hitler will show his hand soon, and then we’ll nab him!

  On Crete, life was going on as normal. As usual when it was winter, excavation work had finished until the spring. Lewis was back from Cairo and, although based at the Villa Ariadne, he spent most of his time in other parts of the island, meeting local leaders; getting to know who could be depended on, if the worst should happen, and who couldn’t.

  Kate had moved in with Kostas and Eleni. It wasn’t something she could have done if Nikoleta had still been living at home, but when Kit had left for England without her – and made it clear he wouldn’t be sending for her – Nikoleta had said she never wanted to see another Englishman ever again, and that she was going to live and work in Athens and find herself a wealthy Greek husband. ‘Or even a Turkish husband!’ she’d stormed as she’d packed her suitcase. ‘Even a Turk would be an improvement on Englishmen and Scotsmen!’

  With the dough now ready for its second prove, Ella covered it with a cloth. Leaving it in a warm place, she poured herself a glass of wine and, putting a jacket around her shoulders, went outside to sit beneath the cypress tree. Christos had been away for a couple of nights with Lewis, but as it was Christmas Eve he would be back later in the day. She didn’t know where they had gone or who they had been seeing and, unless he told her when he returned home, she wouldn’t ask. She didn’t like being reminded of clandestine preparations being taken in case of an enemy invasion.

  Her thoughts flicked back to Kate. At one time it had always been Daphne’s recklessness that had caused her concern. That Kate, usually so sensible and level-headed, should now be causing her similar concern was something she had never anticipated, but how could she have foreseen Lewis making a clean break with Nikoleta, and Kate and Lewis becoming lovers? Lewis had never paid Kate any romantic attention previously. The first year they had all been working together he’d barely spoken to her, unless it was about something work-related.

  ‘It isn’t as if you’re in London, Kate,’ Ella had said, when she’d first realized how full-on Kate and Lewis’s relationship was. ‘There isn’t a Marie Stopes clinic you can pop into to be fitted for a Dutch cap. There won’t be a woman on the island who has even heard of a Dutch cap.’

  Kate had been unnervingly unperturbed. ‘There’s no need to worry about my becoming pregnant,’ she’d said, raising her face to the sun, eyes closed. ‘Lewis has told me not to worry. He won’t let it happen.’

  ‘Millions of women have been told that and have then fallen pregnant. Are you an intelligent woman or are you not? How can you run such a risk?’

  Ella had received no answer, and another thought had struck her. ‘Have you reason to believe he’ll marry you, if you do? Has he spoken of marriage?’

  ‘No.’ Kate had opened her eyes and looked towards her. ‘He hasn’t had any need to, Ella. It’s something both of us are taking for granted.’

  ‘You may be taking it for granted,’ she’d said, her exasperation boundless. ‘I doubt very much if he is! I think Lewis likes his freedom too much ever to want to marry – look how he backed out of marrying Nikoleta when it became obvious he was expected to.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Ella,’ Kate had said patiently. ‘For Lewis, romance wasn’t what his relationship with Nikoleta was about. He sought her out, wanted to be with her, because she reminded him of his sister – and before you make the kind of remark you’ll regret, let me explain.’

  It was then that Kate had told her of the sailing accident in the Hebrides, and of how Lewis’s parents and Sophie, his sister, had drowned.

  ‘Lewis wasn’t on board,’ Kate had said, ‘and wishes he had been. He feels if he had been, he might have been able to save them. He has no other family, apart from a great-aunt and a godfather who lives in South Africa. Nikoleta was seventeen when he met her, the same age Sophie was when she died – and she’s Sophie’s double. For Lewis, being with Nikoleta was like being with Sophie again. In the beginning, romance didn’t come into it.’

  ‘And later?’ she’d prompted, and Kate had said, ‘Yes, a little. From the beginning, and even though Lewis had told her about Sophie, romance was what Nikoleta had always thought they had. Eventually, of course, there was romance. He’s only human and, with a girl who looks like Nikoleta, how could there not have been? But it was never a full-on love affair, as ours is. Her likeness to Sophie made that impossible for him.’

  It was a conversation that had explained a lot about Lewis, but it hadn’t stopped Ella worrying about what the outcome would be, if Kate should fall pregnant.

  Ella took another sip of wine, reflecting on the irony of worrying about Kate becoming pregnant, when her other worry was that she didn’t seem able to become pregnant. Christos, of course, seemed to think it a slight on his manhood that they still weren’t parents, or even prospective parents. In one of her letters, her mother had told
Ella that it was far too soon to begin worrying about it, and that worrying would make conceiving even less likely.

  She was trying to take her mother’s advice, but Christos’s mercurial temperament wasn’t a great help. Lately he had begun questioning any time she spent in ordinary friendly conversation with Adonis. When the dig had come to an end for the winter, Adonis hadn’t returned to his home on the mainland. Instead he had moved into lodgings in Heraklion and taken a job in one of the bars lining the harbour.

  In his free time he sometimes cycled out to Knossos and helped with the sorting of sherds in the Villa Ariadne’s workroom. All the members of the team, with the possible exception of Pericles who kept himself to himself, were like family, and laughing and joking with Adonis was second nature to Ella. Now, and ridiculously in her eyes, Christos had taken exception to it. ‘Now that you are married, it isn’t proper for you to laugh and joke with a young man who is a bachelor,’ he had said. At first she had thought he was teasing her, but he wasn’t. She had no intention of altering the innocent, friendly way she had always interacted with Adonis, and had told Christos so. It had led to a row of spectacular proportions, which had, in turn, led to a reconciliation of such equally spectacular proportions that as they had lain in sweat-sheened exhaustion amidst a tangle of sheets, the row had seemed positively worthwhile.

  It was always the same. No matter how he might exasperate her, she was never exasperated with him for long. She couldn’t be, for he was incapable of sulking, or of holding a grudge, and even when she was determined not to laugh, Christos would make her laugh and then they would be in each other’s arms again and his mouth would be hot and sweet on hers, and whatever it was that had exasperated her would be forgotten.

  Judging that her Christopsomo dough would now be ready to bake, she went back into the house, divided the dough into four round pieces, placed a halved walnut in the centre of each and sprinkled them with sesame seeds. She’d just closed the door of her wood-burning stove when Christos burst into the house.

  Joyfully she ran into his arms. Holding her tightly, he lifted her off her feet, whirling her round and round. When at last he set her back on her feet – and after he had kissed her until she was breathless – he pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said, handing her it. He shrugged himself out of his shabby jacket. ‘It came care of the Villa Ariadne. Lewis gave me it.’

  She looked down at it, puzzled. Her mother’s letters were always sent to the cafeneion, which acted as Archanes’s post office. Post addressed to her any differently was a rarity.

  And then she recognized Sam’s handwriting – and saw that the letter had been opened.

  Shock went through her like an electric current.

  ‘You’ve opened it!’ She stared at him in disbelief. ‘It was addressed to me and you opened it. I can’t believe you’d do such a thing.’

  He looked at her in genuine perplexity. ‘You are my wife. and so of course I opened it. What else would you expect of me? And there is nothing of importance in the letter. The Yorkshire doctor writes only to say that he has married. Of what interest is that to you? I do not know why he would trouble to tell you. And I am behaving very well, Ella. I am behaving as Lewis and the Squire have told me to behave. I am not blaming you and giving you a beating, that you should receive such a letter. I am behaving like an English gentleman.’ His eyebrows pulled together suddenly. ‘But I would not behave thus, if the fellow was on Crete. If he was on Crete, I would take my hunting rifle and I would kill him for his impertinence – and not one single Cretan would blame me.’

  On an island famed for feuds and lawlessness and where, especially in mountain villages, vendettas and honour killings still took place, Ella could well believe it.

  She struggled for self-control. It was Christmas Eve. They were about to spend their first Christmas together as a married couple. They could not have a row. They absolutely could not. By opening her letter, Christos had only behaved as the majority of other Cretan men would have behaved. And in not entering the house in a furious temper over it, he was behaving better than any Cretan man she knew would have behaved. Allowances had to be made for their very different cultures, upbringings and expectations.

  Not for the first time, though, she was finding it harder than she’d once thought she would, to make those allowances. With great effort she steadied her breathing, knowing what the wisest course of action now was.

  ‘You’re right.’ She handed him the letter back, without even looking down at it. ‘I don’t know why Sam would trouble to tell me, either. Do you want to know what I’ve been baking while you’ve been away?’

  Highly pleased at her reaction to the letter, Christos screwed it into a ball and tossed it into the heat of the oven.

  Averting her eyes from its destruction, Ella said, ‘I’ve made a walnut spice cake, sesame baklava, melomakarona biscuits, English mince pies, Yorkshire parkin—’

  ‘And Christopsomo bread?’

  ‘Of course. That is what is baking now.’

  He shot her the impish, face-splitting grin she’d never been able to resist. ‘Then there’s nothing more for you to do.’ He held her close so that she could feel his erection. ‘All that is left is for us to go to bed.’

  Although she was as ablaze with desire as he was, she couldn’t resist saying teasingly, ‘At two o’clock in the afternoon?’

  ‘Of course at two o’clock in the afternoon. I’ve been away two nights!’ Carrying her in his arms, he strode purposefully towards the alcove that was their bedroom, saying, his honey-brown eyes dark with heat, ‘We have a lot of time to make up for, sweetheart – and we have a Christmas baby to conceive!’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  APRIL 1940

  It was the first week of April, and Cairo was suffering from the khamaseen, the hot, dry wind that blew in from the south, carrying with it suffocating quantities of sand and dust from the deserts. ‘How long does this hell go on for?’ Daphne asked Adjo, her head housekeeper, after having had to make a run from her car to the house through choking dust.

  Adjo, imperturbable in an ankle-length royal-blue galabiyeh, said, ‘In Arabic khamaseen means “fifty”, my lady. Once the khamaseen comes – and it comes nearly always in April – it continues for over fifty days.’

  Daphne, who treated her staff in Cairo with the same easy familiarity she had always treated her staff in England, gave a shriek of horror and then said flatly, ‘If what you are telling me is the truth, Adjo, I shall never survive it.’

  ‘Apologies, my lady.’ There was affectionate amusement in Adjo’s eyes. ‘What I should have said is that it continues on and off for fifty days.’

  ‘Indeed you should!’ Daphne’s relief was vast.

  ‘Lord Hertford is home, my lady.’

  Daphne blinked and looked down at her watch. ‘But it isn’t even lunchtime! Where is he? His study or the drawing room?’

  ‘The bedroom.’ The amusement in Adjo’s eyes had been replaced by slightly anxious curiosity. ‘Barak is packing a suitcase for him.’

  Barak was the houseboy who acted as Sholto’s valet.

  As a diplomat’s wife, Daphne was accustomed to Sholto often leaving at short notice for weekend conferences and meetings, but there had been no suitcase-packing since their posting to Cairo.

  Full of curiosity, she ran up the stairs to the enormous bedroom that looked out over the garden towards the shimmering olive-green river.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, grateful for the rotating paddles of two large ceiling fans, ‘because if it’s out of the country, I’m coming as well. Adjo says it could be the end of May before the khamaseen comes to an end. I need every break from it that I can get.’

  Sholto shot her a regretful smile. ‘I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment, Daphs. I’ve been summoned on a five-day turn-around trip to London. It obviously means a posting elsewhere – and hopefully further promotion.’ His a
ttention flicked back to Barak. ‘Not the grey linen suit, Barak. April in England can be freezing.’

  ‘Freezing sounds wonderful to me. Raincoats, umbrellas, gloves. Air you can breathe. Bluebell woods and primroses in hedgerows. I can’t wait.’

  ‘You’re going to have to.’ He slid his zipped silver-backed hairbrush and clothes-brush set into the open suitcase.

  He might as well not have spoken. Daphne was already making plans. Five days would give her time to look up a couple of old friends. She might even fit in seeing Gone with the Wind. It had just opened in London and apparently everyone was raving about it. Five days wouldn’t be a long break, but it would be a change of scene. Cairo social life was lively enough, but as far as Daphne was concerned, the city also had more than its fair share of drawbacks – chief of which was the pitiful sight of overloaded donkeys, beggars covered in sores and children with flies crawling around their eyes and mouths.

  ‘When are you leaving?’ she asked, wondering if she would also be able to fit in a quick visit to Ella’s parents in Yorkshire, and perhaps even a fleeting visit to Kate’s parents in Kent.

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘Then I’d better get a move on, although I won’t need much. Not for five days.’

  Sholto signalled to Barak that he had finished with his services and, as Barak left the room, said exasperatedly, ‘This trip is work, Daphne. Not a pleasure jaunt. And Britain is at war, remember?’

  ‘She may be at war, but at the moment – apart from at sea – nothing much is happening. There have been no air raids as yet, and I don’t see why Hitler should begin them now, just to spite me.’

  ‘And Caspian?’

  ‘Caspian will be as safe as houses with his nanny. I dare say that when I come back, he won’t have realized I’ve been away.’

  ‘The answer is still no.’ He snapped his suitcase shut. ‘How the devil would I account for your presence on a Royal Air Force flying-boat?’