The Winter Folly

by Taylor, Lulu

  At last she saw a painted sign above an arched doorway that read Hotel Joannis, so she went through the arch and into a small courtyard where a large wooden door stood open. Inside, a young dark-haired woman in a bright red dress stood behind a desk. ‘Hello,’ she said with a bright smile in perfect English. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I have a room booked. Delilah Stirling.’

  The woman checked a computer screen on the desk. ‘Yes, Mrs Stirling. We have your room ready. Please follow me.’

  The room was exactly what she had wanted: quiet and comfortable, with a large bed and a bathroom. A shuttered window looked out over the courtyard below. Before the woman left, Delilah said, ‘I’m looking for an address here,’ and showed her what she’d carefully written out from the letter.

  The woman examined it and frowned. ‘Villa Artemis. I don’t know it. I don’t think it’s in the village itself. It may be just outside – some of the larger villas are. You should ask at the post office in the morning – you will find out there.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll do that.’

  She was one more step closer to finding Alexandra. She would look in earnest the next day.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Delilah slept deeply and woke to a cool and almost complete darkness that, for a moment, gave her a shot of panic.

  Where am I?

  Then she remembered in a rush the whole of her journey the day before. She was in Greece, alone, in a tiny hotel in a small village in the shadow of a great monastery. Last night she had dined alone in the courtyard below and then gone to bed. And today she was going to find a dead woman.

  She showered and went downstairs to the dining room where the Greek buffet breakfast was being served. Other guests sat at the tables, poring over guidebooks or concentrating on their food. Delilah helped herself to coffee, fruit and yoghurt and found a table where she could eat undisturbed but another couple soon took the table directly next to her, their plates loaded with the cold meats and cheeses that were put out for German tourists.

  She felt stares upon her, and it was not long before the woman leaned over towards Delilah and said in an American twang, ‘Hi, are you all on your own? Do you need some company?’

  Delilah looked up and smiled politely. ‘You’re very kind but I’m fine, thank you.’

  The woman was dressed in wide green shorts that fell just past her knees and a black T-shirt, her face open and friendly with large brown eyes. ‘Well, I do envy you. I get too lonely if I travel alone! I don’t have the spirit for it.’ She smiled and said in a firm way, ‘I’m Teddie and this is my husband Paul.’

  Paul had a lined, tanned face with a thick bristling grey moustache and he wore tinted glasses. He nodded at Delilah and grunted a greeting through a mouthful of sausage.

  Teddie spread butter over a piece of crispbread and added a layer of cream cheese as she said, ‘We’ve been to quite a few of the islands now but I like this one a lot so far. It’s a little off the beaten track, you know what I mean? It feels like people live here; I don’t just mean they run hotels and bars and stuff, but like there are normal lives going on as well. Maybe it helps that it’s such a religious place.’

  ‘Is it?’ Delilah realised that she knew very little about the island.

  Teddie nodded, spreading a dark smear of jam over her cream cheese. She whispered, ‘Haven’t you noticed all the nuns?’ and glanced around conspiratorially, as though there were gangs of nuns in that very room, although Delilah hadn’t noticed any.

  ‘I did see a few on the ferry,’ she replied, and took a sip of her black coffee.

  ‘Yep. It’s easier to spot them than the monks – it’s the wimples. They’re here because of the Book of Revelation.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. St John stayed in a cave here and that’s where he received the vision of the Apocalypse. That’s why it’s kind of a special place and why they’ve got that great monastery looming above us. Plenty of them come on a pilgrimage here to see the cave and get the thrill of being right where that vision happened.’

  ‘I see,’ Delilah said, interested. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  Teddie crunched into her crispbread and ate a mouthful before replying. ‘We’re not that religious, are we, Paul?’

  Her husband grunted again.

  ‘But I like the history of it. We’re going to take a tour of the monastery today. I reckon it’s going to be the coolest place on the island in a few hours. The sun here is something else. You don’t want to be out in the village without sunglasses – I’m telling you, the glare of all these white houses is enough to strike you blind. Are you here to see the sights? You should come with us if you are. You might enjoy it.’

  Delilah warmed to Teddie despite her initial desire to be left alone. She remembered that her mission today was to find the Villa Artemis but as the minute approached she felt more like putting it off. ‘All right,’ she said, almost to her own surprise. ‘I’d be happy to come along.’

  They walked up the steep road from Chora to the vast fortress above them. Although it wasn’t long past nine, the sun was beating down and Delilah was glad of her hat and dark glasses. On Teddie’s advice she had changed into a long skirt and made sure her shoulders were covered so that they would not be turned away on the grounds of indecency.

  ‘Will you look at that?’ Teddie breathed, gazing upwards. Her husband strode along silently at her side, a small rucksack strapped firmly to his back. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

  Delilah looked up. The monastery seemed to loom ever larger above them and she wondered just how big it would be by the time they reached it. Would she stand like a midget against its vast doors? Was it really the home of giants rather than men? ‘It’s huge,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘Cos we’re so close to Turkey here, I guess,’ Teddie said. ‘Gotta protect your church and people when the marauders come, huh?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Delilah said. She thought of the fort at home and how its purpose had once been to shield and defend, a place to shut oneself in and others out. This was much the same but on a larger scale. Here they could have enclosed the entire population of the island behind those walls to keep them safe.

  They reached the entrance with its heavily reinforced wooden door, and went through into the courtyard beyond. It was paved irregularly with a mixture of cobbles and stones and in the centre was a round covered structure that looked like a well. All around them were arched colonnades and entrances to rooms and chapels.

  Delilah heard a voice from behind her, a soft female voice with a pure English accent. It said, ‘There are ten chapels here because the Greek Orthodox Church does not allow more than one sacrament at each altar per day. So in order to carry out all the offices of the religious day, many altars are needed.’

  Instantly alert, Delilah looked over her shoulder to see where the voice was coming from but the speaker was obscured from sight by a crowd around her. There was the murmur of another voice raised in question and the same light, mellifluous tone replied, ‘No. It looks like a well but in fact it’s a jar, a container of holy water. Now, shall we go inside? We’ll visit the main chapel first and you’ll see the wall paintings of the miracles of St John the Divine.’

  The group moved off and Delilah caught a glimpse of a woman in a white dress and a blue headscarf before the throng of people blocked her line of sight.

  ‘Shall we join a guided tour?’ Teddie was asking, flicking through her guidebook while Paul stood silently beside them, staring at some distant point.

  ‘One has just gone into the main chapel,’ Delilah said. She felt drawn by the voice she had heard. Was it usual for a guide to have an accent like that? Were there many well-bred English women on the island and acting as guides? Don’t get carried away, she told herself, you’re hardly likely to walk straight into her first thing.

  ‘We don’t want a tour that’s already started,’ Teddie said. She gestured to a group assembling by the fortified door. �
�There’s one over there that’s about to get going. We’ll join them, shall we?’

  ‘All right,’ Delilah said, looking back towards the main chapel. Surely the groups would overlap at some point. She felt as though she could still hear that voice ringing in her ears and strained to hear it again, but the interior of the chapel had absorbed it entirely.

  She tried to concentrate on the tour and on the marvels that the guide pointed out as they made their way round the monastery. She stared at the lavish Byzantine mosaics, the frescoes, the icons and the altars of the chapels, and heard of the relics kept there and the holy men buried within the walls, but her attention was always on a distant group of people as she tried to catch that voice again. It wasn’t until they had made a tour of the entire monastery and emerged back into the main courtyard that she heard it, but this time it was not speaking English.

  The musical lilt floated over the still air and Delilah turned to see the woman in the white dress, now free of her tour group, standing with her back to her across the courtyard. She was speaking to a man in a long dark robe with a flowing grey beard and a black hat on his head. An orthodox priest, probably.

  If I can just get around to see her, Delilah thought, I’ll be able to tell from her face, I’m sure of it.

  ‘Say.’ Teddie’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘Do you want to go to the museum here? It costs six euros but it’s got old manuscripts and vestments and treasures and stuff. I think it might be worth seeing. Paul’s keen. Shall we go and take a look?’

  Delilah found it hard to believe that Paul was keen as he’d not yet expressed an opinion on anything and even now was staring into the far distance as usual. He hadn’t looked even vaguely interested on their entire tour. ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I might just wander around for a while.’

  ‘It’s getting hot,’ Teddie remarked. ‘You don’t really wanna stay out in this, do you? It’ll be cool inside. Besides, they’re closing soon until this afternoon. It’s your last chance.’

  ‘No . . . no.’ She was distracted by movement and saw the woman and the bearded man move off together, heading for a different part of the monastery. ‘You go, really. I’ll see you back at the hotel later.’

  ‘Okay.’ Teddie shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want.’ She put her guidebook into her back pocket where it bulged hugely. ‘Come on, Paul. We’re gonna eat down in the harbour tonight if you want to join us.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ Delilah said. ‘Shall we talk later? Bye for now.’ She turned and craned her neck to see where the guide had gone. A flash of white told her that the woman had disappeared through a doorway towards the older part of the monastery. She walked quickly after her, leaving Teddie and Paul, and keeping her eye fixed on where she had seen her disappear. At the doorway, she made to go inside but a man stepped forward from the gloom within to stop her. He was also in a long dark robe, holding up one hand and speaking in Greek.

  ‘Sorry,’ Delilah said, with a smile that she hoped was suitably charming. ‘I’m English. May I come inside?’

  ‘You cannot enter,’ the man said in strongly accented English. ‘This is the library. You must have permission to come in.’

  ‘I’d love to see the books,’ she said in a wheedling tone. ‘Can I just have a little peek? I’ve come all the way from England.’ She took a quick few steps past him.

  ‘You must be a scholar,’ the man said sternly. ‘Scholars only.’

  She knew that she didn’t look in the least like a scholar in her cotton skirt, hat and sunglasses, a guide to the monastery in her hand. She sighed. ‘Please?’

  He shook his head and pointed to the door. ‘You must go out.’

  Turning away, she moved slowly to the exit, knowing she could not persuade him. Despite her lingering there was no further sign of the woman and she was forced to return to the brightness of the courtyard, annoyed at her stupidity in not making her move earlier. By being tentative, she had now lost her only chance to get a good look at the guide’s face.

  But, she told herself, if that is Alexandra then it’s only a matter of time before I see her again.

  She left the monastery, glad to be on her own, and returned to Chora by a different path. This time she could see down the island to the splendid views of the dazzling blue harbour peppered with boats. She caught up with the tail end of a group of sightseers that led her to another small whitewashed monastery that she learned was the one built over the Cave of the Apocalypse. There was no reason to miss the opportunity, so she went inside with the others and found herself in a low underground chamber richly decorated with painted icons that glowed with layers of gilt. On the small wooden chairs, people sat praying and contemplating the holy spot, but she stayed only long enough to absorb the striking decoration and the curious warmth inside before she continued on the path back down to Chora.

  She arrived as the sultriest part of the day began, and the village felt as though it was tucking itself away inside the cool stone walls to rest from the heat until the worst was past. In the hotel, it was so quiet she couldn’t find anyone to ask about the whereabouts of the post office but she decided that it was probably closed anyway, so she went to the courtyard restaurant for bread, cheese and olives before returning to her room to sleep. It seemed the wisest course with the overpowering heat outside. She lay awake for a while, still amazed that she was so close to Alexandra, perhaps had even heard her voice, and feeling as though she was on the brink of meeting a character from a story who had turned out to be real. The effect of the heat and the morning walk took its course, and she slept. When she woke, it was after three o’clock and the temperature had subsided a little. After shaking off the doziness and refreshing herself with a long drink of cold water, Delilah headed out to find the post office, which was just a few streets away, in one of the pretty cobbled squares lined with shops, many selling art, pottery and icons. It was a small dark shop that also sold postcards and tourist mementoes and she picked up a few cards showing the monastery and the cave. A woman waited to take her money behind the counter. Delilah said, ‘Excuse me – can you tell me where to find this address?’ and held out the piece of paper.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the woman said, after scrutinising it for a moment. ‘I draw you map.’ Taking a pen and using the square as the starting point, she drew a simple and very clear diagram of how to the reach the villa.

  Delilah sat outside a cafe in the square staring at the map. The villa was not far away. A short walk from the heart of the village and she would be there. Now that she was so close, she almost struggled to remember why she had come. Her life, her world, even John himself, seemed remarkably far away, all of it almost like a dream, while her reality was the warmth of this market square, the iced water in front of her, the shot of bold colour against the white stone where flowers bloomed.

  Does that mean, she wondered, that it’s easy to forget?

  She had imagined Alex as a woman struggling to erase her memories but perhaps they had simply faded away as soon as her old life was out of sight. Would she, Delilah, be any different if her life suddenly became this blue and white idyll, a slow and lazy existence on a holy island that seemed closer to the eleventh century than this one?

  Perhaps it wouldn’t be so easy to storm into someone else’s life and demand answers to questions she barely understood. It could be outrageous arrogance to act as though she could force a family’s past out and into a new and better future. She remembered Grey’s warning about thinking she could make everything right for everyone.

  I probably do, she thought. What if it all goes seriously wrong?

  She had a glimpse of a future where John was disgusted with her actions at tracking down his mother, and their life together came to an end in a morass of accusations, justifications and fury. It would be terrible, heartbreaking.

  But then she imagined returning to her morose husband and the monthly rollercoaster of hope and despair – if they even managed to have sex at all – and the certain knowled
ge that he was pulling ever further away from her, leaving her to cope with life in the house alone. Her plans for the future would never be realised. She could never hope to change or tame the silence inside. She’d be surrounded by all its sadness and mystery again.

  That future was just as heartbreaking, in its way. She wouldn’t be able to stand it. A sudden glimpse of Ben flashed into her mind. She knew that if she went back to that life, she would surely be unable to stop herself turning to him for comfort.

  She stood up, determined on her course. She would get the answers that waited her at the Villa Artemis. It was the only way.

  She went back to the hotel and managed to avoid Teddie and Paul. Another night she would have liked to have gone down to the harbour to find one of the restaurants strung with lights, to have sat at a table overlooking the harbour and eaten grilled fish and drunk the local wine. But she would be leaving tomorrow night and had to seize her chance while she could.

  It was early evening when she left the hotel with the map held tightly in her hand. She could sense the island coming back to life after the heat of the day. The buzzing of mopeds sounded like a race of giant bees had awakened, and lights were already glowing out over the square and courtyards, the candles on the tables lit in readiness for the sun-reddened tourists looking for their evening meal.

  The route led out of the village on one of the narrow roads that widened once it was beyond the confines of the walls. She walked up it, observing the scraggy eucalyptus trees and straggly heather that seemed to cover the rocky ground. Every now and then she passed large villas that faced out over the bay, some with many terraces and surrounded by rich foliage, some with silver reflections from unseen swimming pools glittering on the white walls. Evidently rich people came here to spend their leisure time. She felt obscurely disappointed. She hadn’t expected Alexandra to be living in luxury. What kind of penitential exile was that? But then the map showed that she should turn back on herself, following another narrower path up the hill, back towards the monastery, the western side that looked away from the town, and she saw that she was heading towards some smaller houses tucked away at its base, like infant creatures nestling into the warmth of their mother’s belly.