Seascape

by Anne Weale

  After selecting what she needed, she put the rest back in the bag. As she rose from the bed, she noticed the dress Kate was wearing.

  ‘Where did you find that?’ Before Kate could answer, she suggested two nationwide chains selling inexpensive fashions to budget shoppers.

  ‘It’s French,’ Kate said briefly. Perhaps she was being hypersensitive, but it seemed to her that everything Juliet said was tinged with condescension. ‘I bought it from a supermarket on a trip we did in July.’

  She didn’t add that she had remade the hem, changed the buttons and hunted out a better belt from the days when she could afford expensive accessories.

  Juliet was still in her bathrobe, a mannishly cut white silk affair with navy piping and her monogram on the pocket. Catching sight of the clock on the night table, she said, ‘Lordy! Is that the time? I’m going to be late. I haven’t begun my face yet.’

  After she had gone, Kate looked at herself in the mirror and wondered why looking ‘capable’ should sound tantamount to ‘dull’. Was that how she looked?

  How else do you want to look?

  Ravishing...stunning...a total knockout.

  Really? What’s brought this on? You’ve never wanted to be a knockout before.

  I didn’t know Xan before.

  Ah, so it’s Xan who’s causing all these foolish new feelings. If you don’t take care, you’ll find yourself falling for him. You’d better watch your step, Kate. Men like Xan spell nothing but trouble for women like you. Juliet can handle him. He won’t break Juliet’s heart.

  Xan came down to dinner in a shirt of deep violet linen and pale dove-grey cotton trousers. Kate took a snap of him talking to Joyce and Heather, both wearing floral silk frocks with beads and earrings carefully chosen to pick up a colour in their dresses.

  ‘Are you keen on photography, Kate?’ Oliver asked, as she closed the shutter after quickly taking a second shot, a close-up of Xan’s dark head inclined towards the pepper-and-salt perms of the two women.

  ‘Not seriously. I don’t develop and print my own films or anything like that. But after my first Palette trip, I had the idea of making a record of who was there and where we went. My first attempt was rather amateurish, but the next one was better and the third one I had colour-copied and everyone in that group wanted one as a memento. Would you like to subscribe to my souvenir brochure of our Cretan adventure?’ she asked, smiling to show she was only half-serious.

  ‘By all means. It’s a good idea.’ His expression clouded momentarily. Instinct told her he was remembering photographs taken of his wife on previous trips.

  Juliet was the last to appear, her drawings in a black portfolio under her arm. Tonight she was wearing black silk palazzo pants and a white silk turtle-necked jersey top with a bold silver necklace, probably Turkish, and a pair of large silver hoops swinging from her ears.

  ‘Settle down, please, everyone.’ With his height and his distinctive voice, Xan had no problem commanding attention. ‘Tonight I’m going to change the way we handle the critique. I noticed last night that not everyone had a good view of the painting under discussion. So tonight I’ve brought down my easel and I’ll ask you to come up in turn and explain what you were trying to achieve and the problems you had. Then I’ll say my piece and others can chip in if they want to. Who’ll volunteer to be first?’

  ‘I will, if you like,’ said Juliet, unfastening her portfolio and flicking through its contents. ‘I did several sketches this morning as notes for a proper painting when I get home. While I was doing this one, I was asked if I would sell it by one of the tourists who was wandering about.’

  The easel being ready, with a somewhat theatrical flourish she turned the selected sheet of paper face forward and set it in position.

  ‘Like Xan in the painting he showed us last night, I wanted to catch the feeling of somnolent heat.’

  In the pause while it was being studied, Kate took another photograph. When the flash made Loretta jump, she said, ‘Sorry if that startled you. It made a good shot for our records.’

  ‘How much did the tourist offer you?’ Kelly’s mother asked Juliet.

  ‘The equivalent of fifty pounds.’

  ‘You missed your chance, love,’ one of the men said jovially. ‘You could have taken us out for a night on the town.’

  Juliet disdained to answer. ‘Did I pull it off, Xan, d’you think?’

  ‘I would say so, yes—very successfully. Wouldn’t you?’ His glance round the group evoked a buzz of agreement. ‘One of the most common faults when people start using water-colour is not allowing for the fact that the paint always dries much lighter than it looks when it’s wet. Here Juliet’s laid on a good strong wash of apricot yellow...’

  Kate listened to but didn’t take in the rest of his comments. Her mind was focused not on the painting but on the lean brown hand moving from the shapes of the lemons, half hidden by foliage, to the curves of a large clay pithos, a traditional container for oil or grain, which Juliet had painted in the lower left corner.

  Vaguely aware that Xan was talking about the beauty of its shape and its relevance to the composition, Kate was admiring the articulation of his fingers, the well-scrubbed nails and the strong wrist leading the eye to a sinewy forearm.

  When Juliet’s painting was replaced by Heather’s, Kate forced herself to concentrate on the picture rather than the tutor. He did not, she noticed, dismiss the work of the less talented members with a few cursory comments. They got as good value for their money as the more promising members.

  But this was only their third evening here. The course had scarcely begun. By the end of the week would his role have started to pall? Would signs of impatience and boredom begin to show?

  The more she was drawn to him, the more Kate was repelled and baffled by his inexplicable cruelty in turning his back on his grandmother. She could think of no reason to justify his living in luxury in London while, not far away, the woman who had brought him up and encouraged his artistic gifts made a precarious living and desperately needed his love and support in her old age.

  Juliet, when the work of the members she dismissed as ‘daubers’ was placed on the easel, visibly switched off, Kate noticed. She even rolled her eyes and gave an audible sigh when it was Loretta’s turn to show her painting and Kate had to admit it was strongly reminiscent of a 1930s embroidery transfer.

  But when Oliver put up his oil painting and Xan said, ‘Notice how much reflected warmth and colour Oliver has worked into the shade cast by the lemon tree,’ Juliet’s interest revived and she joined in the discussion.

  Ten minutes before the time of their evening meal, Xan said, ‘Have we seen everyone’s? No, we haven’t seen your angel, Kate. I hope you brought it down.’ To the others, he added, ‘I’ve prevailed on Kate to join in our working sessions when her other duties permit. Did all of you notice the angel at the top of some stairs at the side of the church?’

  Reluctantly, she stepped forward. “This drawing owes more to Xan’s preliminary outlines and his finishing touches than to my non-existent skill,’ she said.

  ‘You chose an ambitious subject for your first attempt ... and didn’t make a bad stab at it. Speaking of suitable subjects, several of you were over-ambitious. Until you have a good deal of technical facility, it’s best to stick to very simple subjects. Looking round the monastery, I found something I thought very paintable but which the rest of you missed, or perhaps didn’t find appealing.’

  He opened his own portfolio and placed in front of the angel a small watercolour. Near the edge of the paper he had written, ‘A Monk’s Washing, Agia Triada’ and the date and his name.

  From a line strung between a hedge and a pillar hung a pair of striped socks, some long johns and a old-fashioned vest. Above, casting its silhouette across the white undergarments, was a long spray of crimson bougainvillaea. Below lay sunlit flagstones, here and there barred with deep shadows from the hedge.

  What struck Kate about the paint
ing—apart from its technical skill which made even Juliet’s and Oliver’s work look less than good than it had a short time earlier—was the humour and humanity of the picture.

  She found it impossible to reconcile his ability to paint this touching insight into the lives of the monks with his indifference to his grandmother’s health. Not once had he asked for news from the nursing home.

  On the fourth day Kate woke up to find the sky overcast and the sea grey. Beyond the shelter of the harbour wall, the surface was choppy.

  At breakfast Xan announced a change of plan. Because rain was forecast, instead of going into the country to paint in a small village, they would spend the morning on the pool deck where he would demonstrate sky-painting.

  ‘How not to make clouds look like floating dumplings,’ he added, with a smile round the table.

  Most of the group took the change in the weather philosophically, but two people looked put out and complained that they hadn’t been warned the climate was unreliable. As only the night before they had been griping about the heat, Kate responded with brisk cheerfulness.

  “I expect the sun will reappear before long. Our guidelines did suggest you should bring a light waterproof.’

  By next morning the clouds had passed on and the group split up. Eight people, including Kelly and her mother, were eager to see the famous Gorge of Samaria on the southern side of the island. But others thought it sounded too touristy for their liking and opted for a shorter excursion along the coast west of Chaniá.

  As the Samaria contingent was going in the bus with Manolis, Kate had arranged a one-day car rental. The car would take only five people in comfort but, if Xan drove, she and another person—preferably Oliver—could travel by bus.

  Her reasons for asking him to accompany her were that Juliet, being tall, would need the legroom given by the front passenger seat, and Oliver wouldn’t be fazed if the bus turned out to be crowded and rather uncomfortable.

  Having telephoned him in his room to check that he was agreeable, she announced these arrangements at breakfast, which had been put forward to seven because the other party had a long drive to the starting point of the gorge walk.

  As she explained what was happening, she wondered if Xan would disapprove of her choosing Oliver as her companion. She still felt that his warning about the possibility of the older man finding her attractive was without foundation. Had Juliet been a less flamboyant personality, Oliver might have taken to her. But she wasn’t his type, and neither were Heather or Joyce. Although both those two, Kate suspected, would have liked to be singled out for special attention from him.

  ‘Where did you find that useful pack?’ she asked him, on the way to the bus station.

  Oliver was striding along with a rucksack incorporating a folding stool strapped to his shoulders.

  ‘I mail-ordered it from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.’

  ‘Are you a bird-watcher?’

  ‘I was before I took up painting.’

  He took her lightly by the arm before they crossed a main road, but released his hold as soon as they reached the opposite pavement. She felt sure it was only an automatic courtesy. He would have done the same had he been walking with Loretta or Kelly’s mother.

  The bus station was crowded with people including an elderly man in the traditional Cretan dress of baggy trousers, long boots and a black headcloth fringed with bobbles. He was sitting on a bench, fingering a string of fat orange worry beads.

  ‘Why the bobbles, I wonder?’ said Kate.

  Oliver gave her one of his rare and unexpectedly boyish grins. ‘Perhaps they’re the Cretan equivalent of the corks round the brim of an Australian drover’s hat.’

  It was he who bought the tickets and found out which bus was theirs. Kate stood back and let him take charge. She was enjoying the feeling of not being at anyone’s beck and call for a while. As groups went, so far this one had given her no serious problems. Yet somehow she was finding the trip more of a strain than the expeditions to France. Was that because of Xan’s presence?

  Their bus turned out not to be crowded. As they waited for it to depart, Oliver said, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if the other lot come back exhausted. They’ll be walking downhill but, from what I hear, it’s quite strenuous.’

  ‘I gave Kelly’s mother some plasters to put in her bag in case anyone had a blister,’ said Kate. ‘Maybe I should have gone with them. But I’m not awfully keen on visiting famous sights with crowds of other people. I hope they can cope on their own if anything worse than a blister happens.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it will,’ said Oliver. ‘Although personally I wouldn’t do even an easy mountain walk in sandals or ordinary trainers. Boots with some ankle support are the safest footwear.’

  After a pause, he added, ‘I might come back to Crete in the spring for a walking holiday. Last night Kyria Drakakis was telling me about the so-called dew men. I’d like to see them.’

  ‘Who are they?’ asked Kate, as the bus started off.

  ‘They’re a procession of armed men sometimes seen in late May, just before sunrise, at the ruins of a fourteenth-century castle called Frangokástello. The local people think they’re the unredeemed souls of the dead. Because they always appear in the damp early morning air, they’re called Drosoulítes, meaning men of the dew.’

  ‘Do you believe in the occult, Oliver?’ she asked, in surprise.

  He seemed too rational to believe in anything supernatural. But sometimes, after losing someone they loved, even normally down-to-earth people clutched at evidence of life after death.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he said firmly. ‘And the dew men aren’t ghosts. They’ve been investigated by scientists whose conclusion was that they’re a mirage from North Africa. The coast of Libya is only a couple of hundred miles south of Crete, you know.’

  ‘How fascinating. Are the dew men seen every year?’

  ‘Not unless the conditions are right. The sea has to be calm, the humidity at a certain level. Even then the procession is only visible for ten minutes.’

  The journey passed swiftly and pleasantly. Behind his initial reserve, Oliver had a keen sense of humour and, if pressed, a fund of interesting experiences. While in the Army he had spent several years in Belize in Central America, a part of the world she had always wanted to visit.

  At the village where they were meeting the others, he led the way off the bus and, having stepped down, offered his hand to her.

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him, thinking how lovely it would have been to grow up under the wing of a man like this.

  The others were waiting in a café only a few yards from where the bus stopped. As she and Oliver crossed the street to join them, the expression on Xan’s face reminded Kate of his warning in the sea the day before yesterday.

  Obviously he had observed Oliver handing her down. But surely he didn’t attach any significance to that, Kate thought vexedly. He himself had offered his hand to some of the older women when they were alighting from the coach at the monastery. That she was too young to need helping off buses was immaterial. Oliver would automatically offer his hand to any female.

  ‘How was the bus trip?’ asked Juliet, as the circle round the table was enlarged to include two more chairs for the newcomers.

  ‘We enjoyed it, didn’t we, Kate?’ said Oliver, smiling at her. ‘There were a lot of sketchable types at the bus station.’ He showed them his drawing, done before the bus moved off, of the old man in Cretan dress.

  The day went well. After painting in the village, the others joined Kate at the nearby beach where she and the woman who ran the beach bar had been managing to chat in a mixture of broken English, rudimentary Greek and a lot of sign language.

  They were the only people there and the woman was pleased to have seven customers so late in the season. She kept an eye on their belongings while they swam. Then she fed them with an unexpectedly delicious moussaka cooked in a makeshift kitchen at the back of the bar
, next door to the lavatories.

  ‘Loretta would not approve,’ said Oliver.

  ‘She may have the last laugh when we all go down with Cretan tummy,’ said Xan.

  ‘Let’s ask for a bottle of tsikoudla,’ Juliet suggested. ‘That should knock out most known germs.’

  It was a convivial meal, the other three who were with them being more entertaining companions than the Samaria contingent.

  When it was time to go home, Xan said, ‘If you wouldn’t mind driving back, Oliver, I’d like to see the views you saw from the bus.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Juliet.

  In the event it was Kate who drove because, after the other two had set off to catch the bus, she realised that Oliver wouldn’t be covered by the insurance.

  Under the influence of sun, sea air and perhaps the lingering effects of a vinous lunch, the three in the back all dozed off on the way home. Neither Oliver nor Kate felt sleepy but they didn’t talk as they had on the outward journey. Oliver seemed preoccupied, perhaps with thoughts of his wife and the lonely interval before dinner when, on other trips, they would have discussed the day’s activities or perhaps made love.

  Although she thought Xan’s warning was absurd, she had to admit that Oliver didn’t give the impression of being a man whose virility was in decline. It must be very painful for someone long accustomed to a loving partnership to have celibacy forced on them, she thought sympathetically.

  It was hard enough to live without love if you had never been married or had any long-term relationships. Her only and one serious love-affair had not left an aching gap in her life. The only pain had come from her disillusionment, leaving her wondering if her definition of love was unrealistic.

  There were some tired and cooked-lobster faces round the table at dinner that night. And some sore feet beneath it. For in spite of Kate’s advice, not everyone had taken adequate precautions against sunburn, dehydration and blisters.