by Simon Mawer
‘Just into town, thank you,’ repeated Dee, and there was something in her manner that told Stavros that they would be going no further, at least not today.
That was her first real expedition on her own. She, who was happy enough walking by herself on the moors above her home town, was thrilled with the excitement of being on her own amid the racket of a Mediterranean port, walking beneath palm trees on the seafront, sitting outside a café on a rickety iron chair to drink Turkish coffee and eat drippingly sweet kadeif, witness to the noise and anarchy of the town. Edward was flying that morning, and she looked up, squinting against the brilliant sun while a Meteor jet, glinting silver, traced a fine line of white through the sky above the Akrotiri peninsula. Was that him? She imagined him there in the cockpit, his face hidden behind the rubber oxygen mask that smelled the same as condoms, his gloved hand holding the control column with a kind of delicacy while he pulled it back into his belly and sent the jet soaring towards those faint brush-strokes of cirrus cloud that were all the eastern Mediterranean could manage. ‘That’s my husband,’ she wanted to call out to someone. ‘There, flying high above us all.’
Later she went and found Marjorie Onslow, at work at her SSAFA canteen near the harbour. ‘I’ve escaped,’ Dee confessed. ‘Come out on my own.’
Marjorie was delighted to see her. ‘Jolly good thing too. If you like you can always give me a hand here.’
*
That afternoon, after Paula had come back from school, Binty picked them both up and they went swimming at Lady’s Mile. There were some other women there, camped among the paraphernalia of the beach – deckchairs, umbrellas, rugs and mats. ‘What on earth do you do all on your own, Dee?’ she was asked. ‘You must come out with us more often.’
She smiled at them apologetically. She didn’t drive, she explained. And she rather liked being on her own in Limassol. She felt closer to the spirit of the island.
‘Limassol?’ There was a collective shiver of disgust. ‘Ghastly place. Now Kyrenia’s all right, and Nicosia’s tolerable. But Limassol! Anyway, you’ll soon be in married quarters, won’t you?’
She supposed so. There was discussion about these, debate about whether one could live in Berengaria village where the Paxtons were, or whether it was better to hold out for something in the military base itself, on the cliffs above the village of Episkopi. Within the base there were various suburbs – Gibraltar, Kensington, Paramali. Paramali was the ideal, a kind of royal court, where the senior officers’ houses circled around the mansion of the C-in-C like planets orbiting the sun. But Edward was only a wing commander and would be lucky to get a house there.
The conversation shifted to other matters. She listened to talk of the behaviour of the Cypriot leaders who didn’t know what was good for them, and the young hoodlums who were quite happy to grab a pistol and shoot an innocent civilian in the back, of the British politicians and the Governor who was a good chap, being a soldier. He’d sort it all out.
Someone mentioned the EOKA leader, Grivas. The name brought a thrill that was almost sexual, as though he were a rapist on the prowl. The previous year a photograph of him had been published in the newspapers – a snapshot of a mustachioed rogue sitting on a tree stump in a woodland clearing with his merry men around him. He was known as Dighenis after a legendary hero: it was like calling an Englishman Robin Hood. ‘They’ll get him,’ the women said. ‘He’s a diabetic, needs a constant supply of insulin. So they’ll get him that way.’ Was this true? A strange banality, to find your enemy through his medical prescription.
The young children ran about in the sand and splashed in the shallows while the women called to them to be careful. Talk drifted easily away from politics, to families and schools. Those who had children at Lancing College and Charterhouse were admired, those who could afford only lesser places were pitied. One family had their children at Eton; but they did not come swimming with this group.
‘Where’s Tom?’ the women asked her. On the seesaw of social acceptability the faint hints of Yorkshire in Dee’s voice brought her down, but Tom’s preparatory school in Oxford raised her up. She thought of him languishing in the ink-stained shadows, estranged from home and parents, being bullied, perhaps. The thought made her eyes sting. And then came a different, more dreadful thought: that perhaps he didn’t miss his family, that he was growing up and away already, callused by separation to a hard indifference.
That evening she spoke to Edward about swimming at Lady’s Mile, but she didn’t mention her morning expedition into town. It was her experience alone and not a thing to share. And perhaps he might forbid her to do such a foolish thing, and then she would be obliged not to, whereas now, with the matter not even mentioned, no one could gainsay her. She was not a solitary person, but her situation had made her so and to her surprise she enjoyed the new experience.
Geoffrey Crozier came by. He arrived shortly before lunch one day, after the maid had gone, when Paula was at school and Dee was pottering about the house; later she speculated that perhaps he had been watching the house to make sure that this was so. But she was not displeased at the visit. He made her laugh when they met up at parties, and Edward liked him well enough. They’d even gone on an expedition to a monastery with him – a place called Stavrovouni, which, Geoffrey explained, meant the Mount of the Cross – although she and Paula had not been allowed to enter the building itself. ‘The poor old priests would get over-excited at the sight of you,’ Geoffrey said. ‘They’d come over all faint.’ He’d taken Edward into the strange and scented shadows and explained about how the services were conducted and how the incense was made and how they painted icons and how the monks never washed because they considered dirt to be a gift of God. That was the thing about Geoffrey, there was always a ridiculous joke lurking just beneath the surface of one of his solemn dissertations. He was fun, aslant from the military world that she found herself living in. So she was not displeased when she peered round the front door and saw him standing there on the veranda. She was not displeased, but she was faintly embarrassed by being caught off guard. She was wearing shorts. She only ever wore them around the house and somehow she felt almost undressed when confronted by him, dressed as he was in a lightweight suit and holding a panama hat across his front. ‘Geoffrey, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘Do you think I shouldn’t be?’ He stepped into the cool shadows of the hallway. ‘Gawd, do you think Edward would be suspicious if I he knew I was visiting the little woman behind his back?’ He made to pick up the phone. ‘Tell you what, I’ll give him a ring. Edward, I’ll say, I’m here alone with your little wife. Is that OK?’
She grabbed his hand to stop him. ‘Don’t be idiotic.’
‘Ah, so there is reason for him to feel aggrieved?’ He grinned at her discomfiture. ‘Don’t worry, love, your secret is safe with me.’
She laughed her moment of panic away, tossing her head and leading him through into the sitting room. ‘I’m certainly not your love,’ she called over her shoulder as she went. She knew he was watching her legs as she walked. She was barefoot, her soles cool on the tiles. She didn’t know whether she should go and change. ‘What can I get you? A nice cup of tea?’
His cry of repugnance delighted her. ‘Isn’t it a bit late for that? Breakfast’s over long ago, and anyway I only drink coffee. But now it’s midday, more or less, so gin, I think. Pink for preference.’
‘I don’t even know how to do pink gin,’ she said, and so, as though he were letting her into a great secret, he showed her, swirling Angostura Bitters round a glass in a solemn ritual. ‘This is the blood,’ he said, raising the glass to catch the light. Then he poured the gin, and handed the glass to her. ‘And this is the Holy Spirit.’
‘Don’t be blasphemous.’ She took the glass and sipped the liquid with care. ‘But it’s practically neat!’
He nodded sagely. ‘Like so many fine things, the secret is in the “practically”.’
Out on the veranda �
�� ‘See? We’re out in the open. No secrets to hide’ – she wondered what to talk about. She was aware of her bare legs, and his eyes on them. Her shorts were cutting into her. She shifted to make herself more comfortable, and thought that she must seem awkward, fidgeting self-consciously under his gaze. ‘I found one of your poems,’ she said. ‘In the Times. “Swimming to Ithaca”.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘Who’s Penelope? How did it go? “But when I came ashore at Ithaca/It was Penelope who surprised me.” Is that Guppy?’
‘Guppy?’ He gave a hoot of amusement. ‘Grief, no. Guppy’s only ever had limericks written about her. There once was a lady – I’m not really sure about the “lady” bit but that’s what you say in limericks – There once was a lady called Guppy/Who suffered severe cynanthruppy—’
‘What on earth’s that?’
‘Cynanthropy? Psychiatric condition: you think you’re a dog. Don’t you learn nothing at school these days? She tried a relation/With a randy Alsatian/But settled for a fuck with a puppy.’
‘Geoffrey!’ Dee stood up uncertainly, disconcerted by his smile and his gaze and the shocking obscenity that he had uttered. ‘What horrid language.’
He looked genuinely contrite. ‘Have I offended you? I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. When the Muse calls …’
She felt absurdly prim standing there, schoolmarmish and slightly ridiculous. ‘I think I must go and change,’ she said, and retreated to the bedroom. There she stood in the middle of the room, looking at her figure in the mirror on the wardrobe. Her legs. Was it true, what Damien had said? She shivered, despite the heat. She could imagine Geoffrey sitting there on the veranda, laughing inwardly at her fright. In something like panic she took a cotton frock out of the wardrobe and pulled it over her head, struggled with the zip at the back, and then looked around as though for some kind of alibi. The newspaper was there on the bedside table, folded to Geoffrey’s poem. She picked it up and, still barefoot, went out to confront her guest.
He looked relieved at her reappearance. ‘God, I’m sorry to shock you. I thought—’
She tossed the newspaper on to his lap. ‘There’s the poem. Tell me about it; tell me about your proper poetry.’
‘My poetry? It’s nothing. Just a sideline.’
‘But you do it.’ She was happier now, cooler, her body moving freely beneath the loose cotton.
‘It doesn’t sit very well with my work, does it?’ he said.
‘What is your work?’
‘I’ve told you. Banking. The Levant Investment Bank, Limassol branch.’
‘But what do you do?’
‘Read miles and miles of tickertape,’ he said airily. ‘Buy and sell shares in unlikely enterprises in the Lebanon, that kind of thing.’
‘And where did you learn your Greek?’
‘What is this, an interrogation?’
‘Just a question. No one speaks the language here, none of the British. Except you. I’ve been here a few weeks and already I know as much as most people – pos íste? and sto kaló and that kind of thing. Why are you so different?’
‘Classics at school, my dear, and then at university.’
She couldn’t suppress her surprise. ‘Classics?’
‘Does it shock you? You don’t think of Geoffrey as a man of refined eddication, do you?’
‘Well, it does seem a little surprising. And what happened then?’
He laughed and drained his drink. ‘This is an interrogation! I must be going. I can’t spend the whole day being interrogated by a pretty woman, even though that might be more to my taste than sitting at the teleprinter receiving abusive messages from head office.’
‘But you haven’t answered my question.’
‘Don’t you know you should never ask about a man’s past? He may be forced to tell the truth. After university I went to Greece. I wanted to turn my ancient Greek into demotic or something. Worked for the British Council, and then I got caught there in the war and had a bit of trouble getting out.’ He waved the newspaper at her. ‘I’ll give you a copy of my slim volume.’
‘Slim volume? You mean there’s a book? You’ve had your poems published?’
He looked gratified. ‘Most certainly I have. Foreword by Larry Durrell. Published by Faber & Faber, greeted with indifference, died of neglect.’
‘Who’s Larry Durrell?’
‘Another poet fellow. Left the island only last year. I must show you where he lived. It’s in the north. A very beautiful place’
‘How wonderful, to be published.’
‘Not once you are. Once you have been published you crave real recognition – sales, fame, the adulation of beautiful women. What did Oscar say? The only thing worse than being famous is not being famous.’
‘I think it was “being talked about”.’
‘I’m sure it was. Anyone can quote accurately; quoting inaccurately takes skill. That sounds like Oscar as well, doesn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘No, it’s me. Now, how am I going to get a copy of my deathless poetry to you? Why don’t you come to dinner? Next Wednesday? Will that be OK? Don’t dress up. Come in shorts if you like.’
Geoffrey lived in Limassol, in an old Levantine house in the centre of town: there was a vaguely ogival arch to the windows, an arabesque ornateness about the exterior decoration, columns that might have come from a mosque. Geoffrey himself opened the ponderous door. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said. ‘Welcome to my ’umble abode.’
The house wasn’t humble, and it certainly wasn’t ‘’umble’. The rooms were high-ceilinged and white and almost cool. There were rugs on the floor and the sly gleam of brass in shadowy corners. Hanging on one wall was a Turkish carpet that glowed red and cream in the half light, almost as though it were illuminated from within. ‘Hereke,’ Geoffrey said as Dee paused to admire it. She put out her hand, and found the touch as soft and cool as skin.
‘Is it silk?’
‘Certainly it’s silk. Worth a couple of hundred quid. Fancy making an offer?’
Worth seemed a very vulgar consideration when confronted with such a treasure. She looked round, feeling foolish, overwhelmed by the place and conscious of the poverty of their own home, the sense of impermanence that she had when she was there. ‘It’s wonderful. You never said anything about where you live. I imagined – I’ve no idea what I imagined. Gosh, some of these things must be priceless.’
Geoffrey laughed. ‘Funny, isn’t it – the difference between priceless and worthless? Has it ever struck you?’
She didn’t know how to answer. The puzzle seemed too difficult, like a crossword clue you couldn’t solve. He led them through from one room to the next, where there were sofas and armchairs and more carpets on the floor. Doors were open on to the garden. ‘However did you find this place, Geoffrey?’ she asked. ‘How old is it? How long have you had it?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know much about houses. I just live here.’
‘What do you mean, you just live here?’
He looked at her with that smile – self-mocking, mocking of other people, mocking of everything: ‘Actually that was another quote. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I rent the place. None of this is mine. The owner’s a businessman in Istanbul. Runs a chain of brothels.’
‘He must be a pimp with very good taste,’ Edward said. He had picked up a framed photograph. It was the only piece that seemed out of place in the whole room – a monochrome photograph in a frame of chrome-trimmed Bakelite. ‘Is this one of his, Geoff?’ He showed it to Dee. It was a portrait of a young woman, her face turned profile to the camera. She was looking down, past her bare left shoulder, towards something on the floor. Or perhaps she was merely averting her grave gaze from the photographer. Her features were sculptured out of shadows and light, the line of her neck moulded into a long, fine arabesque. Dee fancied that her skin would feel just like the Hereke carpet hanging on the wall – cool and silken.
‘That’s Guppy.
It’s by Bill Brandt.’
There was a hiatus, like a slight, embarrassed cough. ‘That’s Guppy?’ Edward returned the picture to its place. ‘My God, no wonder you’re keeping her secret.’
‘Who’s Bill Brandt?’ Dee asked.
‘Photographer fella. One of her friends.’ He pronounced the word with elaborate care, as though ‘friend’ meant something quite unusual. Edward grinned. Dee frowned. Don’t, she mouthed at him from behind Geoffrey’s back. It’s not fair. But Edward ignored her. ‘Well come on, old fellow, you can’t hide her away for ever. Especially if she looks like that. Isn’t she coming out to meet us all?’
‘Maybe,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Maybe.’ But it was unclear exactly what he was referring to, her coming out or his hiding her away for ever. ‘She doesn’t like travelling, can’t bear it in fact. Now, let me get you both a drink. What will you have? Dee has quite taken to pink gin …’
The other guests turned up shortly afterwards, a Greek Cypriot lawyer and his wife and an under-secretary or something from Government House. They ate at the table out in the garden. Dinner was cooked by a Greek woman who smiled and bobbed in the background, and it was served by a young man who was, so Dee presumed, the woman’s son. There were peppers and aubergines, and things done with yoghurt and tahina. The conversation was fitful, partly fuelled by their host’s laughter, partly halted by an elaborate discourse on politics and economics from the lawyer. While crickets trilled among the vegetation, the question of enosis arose, and EOKA. There was talk of the emergency, of nationalism and terrorism. The name of Grivas darted through the shadows of the discourse. Old Grievous, Geoffrey called him. ‘Of course, terrorism pays,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen that clearly enough in Palestine and India. Why do we try to pretend that it doesn’t?’
‘Why do you call it terrorism?’ asked the lawyer. ‘Why not call it a struggle for national identity?’