Songs of Blue and Gold

by Deborah Lawrenson

  When they finally arrived in Corfu they stayed for three weeks with Paddy and Bridget Williams at the Villa Limoni near Perama – it was Paddy’s letters that had lured them – then struck out north to find somewhere wild and remote in which to write and paint.

  At Kalami, they found rooms to rent in a fisherman’s house. It was always known while they lived there as Prospero’s House, but he called it the White House in his first major literary success, The Gates of Paradise.

  Adie was to write ever after that he lived a peasant’s life in Corfu: he fished with the fishermen; he toiled in the olive groves; he was a picker of oranges and kumquats. If that was not strictly true (he soon made friends with the island aristocracy and caroused in convincing imitation of a leisured and wealthy expatriate in Corfu Town) this was a time of simple pleasures and sunshine.

  Photographs of the time show his blond hair bleached almost white, his beguiling grin triumphant above an octopus caught on a trident, or fish grilling on a beach fire; while Grace is almost always serene, smiling thoughtfully at the horizon from a jetty or a balcony as if she is keeping a delicious secret to herself.

  The sea was the bluest he had ever seen, shot through with veins of gold. ‘We plunge into lapis lazuli, molten by the sun,’ he wrote to his old friend Peter Commin back at the bookshop in Chelsea, ‘and emerge dripping with bright diamonds.’ He and Grace developed a passion for nude swimming. Adie was working hard, brimming with ideas; Grace was painting confident gaudy canvasses inspired by the lushness, the rocks, the cobalts and aquamarines of the Ionian. It was an idyll which neither ever forgot – nor from which he ever recovered, according to some who knew him in that ‘period of perfection’.

  And why should he not have presumed he had reached the gates of paradise? (It was typical Adie that he just hedged his bets: he was at the gates, but not quite inside . . .) He was young, lusty, fired with enthusiasm and ambition, heady with his first serious attempts at writing both poetry and prose, and perhaps most importantly, he was deeply in love with a beautiful young wife who shared his ideals.

  Part Two: Wreck of Paradise

  I

  ALONE SMALL BOAT skimmed into Kalami bay from the south. The splutter of its outboard motor grew louder. Soon it was close enough to make the two men on board visible. As they nosed towards the stone landing stage at the White House, the younger stood up with a rope and ran off the front of the craft and on to the mooring with no break in his stride. He tied the boat up, amid shouting. The other gesticulated at Melissa. She turned away. In another life she might have tossed back a choice remark. It was a moment before she realised the older man was Manolis, her temporary landlord. The men unloaded some boxes from the boat, and threw some soft bags on to the stone landing stage.

  Manolis shouted something else unintelligible, this time directed at her.

  She closed the book and walked a few steps closer. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘How is the apartment? Is OK?’

  ‘Oh . . . yes. Fine, thank you.’

  ‘You are coming to the taverna? Tonight is very good swordfish!’ He grinned engagingly.

  She couldn’t decide. What if her need for kindness had become too great, if her friends had been right, that it was too soon after the funeral to be making this trip? Perhaps it was better to remain alone, to read and sleep through the pain, until she could accept it with a degree of self-control. The last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself by a tear slipping down at a friendly smile or a glass of undrinkable retsina on the house.

  ‘Where is it?’ she asked eventually.

  He frowned then raised his hands to encompass the front of the White House. ‘Here, of course!’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes!’ shaking his head at her idiocy.

  Water slurped at the rocks between them. There was no way forward on foot.

  ‘Take the little path,’ he shouted, pointing behind. ‘Come round that way!’

  How could she not go after that?

  At the side of the house was a small paved area, where some washing still hung. A few beach toys lay abandoned in a corner, along with fishing nets and a pile of old wooden planks that seemed to suggest some renovations were under way. At the front, a short flight of stairs led up to a front door on the storey above. As she walked round she could see that to the right of this was a grey marble plaque. In Greek, then English, the engraved words announced: ‘In this house lived the famous writer Julian Adie, 1935–39.’ She could not see any lights on inside. She stood for a few minutes trying to let imagination take over, to picture him as a young man bounding up those steps, but no magic happened.

  A sign for Prospero’s Taverna beckoned her round the far corner and down towards the rocks and sea again.

  The restaurant’s vine-covered canopy had been reinforced by a covering of stout canvas, and plastic sheeting had been let down all along the sea wall to take the chill off outdoor dining. She knew from the books – Adie’s biography, as well as his own account – that this was the old terrace garden. She was actually in the place she had come to see, immediately and effortlessly. Only two tables were occupied. She began to see why Manolis was so keen to lure her in to eat.

  A young waiter with a quiff of curly hair and a loud patterned jumper gave her a choice of any table along the sea wall. She took the one furthest away in the corner, ordered a small carafe of white wine, and chose the swordfish.

  She ate listening to the waves as the night closed in and a fat moon rose. Now and then, ships passed beyond the bay, decks blazing like illuminated honeycomb. With no lights shining from the dark country opposite to provide a reference point, they might as well have been flying though the black sky.

  Apart from the waiter when he served her order, she spoke to no one. It was a relief. She did not want to be drawn into any conversation, to have to pull a curtain over the truth, nor to find herself lying to strangers. It was good to be there without having to provide explanations and justifications. Not to find herself replaying her circumstances, nor why she was here alone.

  How would you ever make idle chit-chat of it? No, my husband will not be joining me, work or no work. And my mother, who loved me and could once have explained everything, has gone for ever. When I needed to go away, this was the one place that crept into my mind, that made any sense.

  Melissa stared out into the infinite-night sea and sky. There were so many questions, and she was oddly grateful for that, for the harness they provided to contain the sadness which was of such intensity she could hardly let herself feel it.

  It was better to be on her own. Richard had been kind the past few weeks, but it had been a bad idea to agree to his suggestion of coming with her. She had changed her mind as soon as his name was on the booking form.

  All she wanted was some time alone.

  As she was leaving, the waiter took up a look-out position at the edge of the restaurant and trained a pair of binoculars on to a point on the beach. Whatever it was he could make out, he was studying it intently.

  The next morning dawned yellow and peach. Sky fire was rising behind the hills across the bay. The headlands reached out dark arms to embrace it, a miraculous stillness all around. From the narrow balcony of the Prospero Apartments, Melissa watched the sun come over the lumpy red horizon until a glittering golden path led across the water to her hand on the rail. When at last she looked away and blinked, spangled circles were imprinted on her vision like a slew of gold coins.

  Below, the village was a necklace of low buildings along the narrow shore road. To the left was an ugly hotel complex on the hillside. On that side the headland was colonised by large villas. But to the right, the steep slope up was verdant and untouched, the headland a mass of olive and cypress. There, where the green joined the blue, secured together by rock and beach, the White House was still the most prominent building. The village of the past was still embedded there despite the cruel disfigurements of modern development. It could have been much worse
– certainly, Melissa had been prepared for far worse.

  But in this craggy northern part of the island the road corkscrewed tightly down from the main highway, cutting into the side of Mount Pantokrator. There were three beach tavernas but not much else to lure the coaches of mass tourism.

  Maybe in high summer the crowds and the heat and the raucous drunken mating calls of the young would make it less than the paradise it seemed that morning, but just then she was happy and glad to be there, with no past or future thoughts, standing now on the balcony, gazing at the sea as its colours deepened into azure and cobalt. She had never seen such blue.

  Only one of the two small supermarkets was open. Even there the stock was being run down, but there was enough on the shelves for her to pick up coffee and milk, honey and yoghurt, bread and cheese, some fruit, water and a couple of bottles of wine. The honey held almonds and pistachio nuts in its sticky amber.

  According to the guidebook which she consulted over breakfast, it was possible to walk to the Shrine of St Arsenius. Julian Adie had written about it time and again, his special bathing place: a tiny chapel at the foot of the cliffs beyond the next bay. He and his wife would take the sea route, in their little cutter, but a way existed down through the trees from the cliff path.

  Melissa decided to go. She was curious. Having read the poetry and his lyrical prose descriptions, she wanted to see the places for herself, to see if anything remained that still resonated today. If she wanted to know more about Julian Adie, it was the obvious place to start.

  The air was still cool for all the brightness. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be warm enough for swimming, but she put a few books, purse, towel and swimsuit in a bag anyway. She wanted to be able to take the chance if it came.

  Few other people were out and about. An elderly woman dressed in two cardigans gave her a weary half-smile. A party of German walkers, most of them middle-aged in heavy leather boots, with telescopic steel sticks and rucksacks, were peeling off fleece sweatshirts. A teenage girl, ordered on the expedition by her parents, perhaps, lagged slightly behind, a fistful of wild flowers in her shirt pocket and trailing an air of resentment.

  Melissa couldn’t help but remember the time when she hated walking; the leg-aching boredom, while Elizabeth strode ahead, tall and narrow, hair bouncing on the resolute set of her shoulders, always seeking the wind and sun on her face.

  The door of the boat hire office was open. Inside, Manolis was at his desk handing over some paperwork to a couple in shorts. She had half-expected him to appear at the taverna the previous night, and in a way she was disappointed that he had not. It would have been a good opportunity to ask him who owned the White House now, and whether there was anyone still in the village who remembered Julian Adie first hand.

  Across the road the White House was shuttered. No sign of life there, not even at the taverna to the side. A few metres further on, the road disintegrated into a knobbly concrete path, and began to climb into olive groves. The way was pitted by brown spots, the mouldering stones of previous crops. Through silver-green trees was the sea. Under the olives the grass was studded with rocks and luxuriant drifts of tiny pink cyclamen. Despite reading the accounts of the lush beauty of this coastline, and staring again and again at the photographs Elizabeth had unearthed, nothing could have prepared her for the sheer exuberance of the reality. It was so unexpected; she had to let her eyes rest for a while as the words and pictures magically transposed into the reality at her feet.

  The path wound down into the next bay, across the headland. Between the olives on this side, as the land tumbled away, were great rolls of black netting, twisted and slumped round the gnarled trees like so many monstrous sea snakes exhausted by writhing from cold depths. It was yet another indication that the year was on the turn, and the winter harvest would soon begin.

  The beach down here was composed of grey-white stones, like the one at Kalami. A bank of prickly pear cacti grew robustly behind it, threaded here and there with wild mint which released its perfume when her feet brushed past. On the far side, an expanse of flat rock shelving into the sea looked perfect for sunbathing and swimming. A fig tree grew out of a crack where it joined the cliff wall behind. She made a mental note to return and test out her instincts. Pressing on, she followed another steep stony path up again and across fissured golden and marble-like rocks to a further cove. According to the guidebook, this was Agni.

  She struck a path across the stones as instructed by the guidebook, past several simple wooden jetties where restaurant customers could moor their boats, and then across the forecourt of the far taverna.

  Two men were arguing fiercely as she walked up. Their voices rose and they stabbed fingers at each other.

  ‘Kalimera,’ one said, smiling brightly. Melissa jumped as she realised he was speaking to her.

  ‘Kalimera,’ she returned the greeting.

  Then, as she passed, they gave each other a friendly bang on the back, and drew apart, still shouting. It was extraordinary how a normal Greek conversation always sounded like a ferocious verbal duel.

  Leaving the men behind, she went up again into more olives and holm oak, firs and cypresses, the blue of the sea always to her left. Somewhere along here would be the footpath down to the shrine.

  Twenty minutes later and breathing fast, she realised she must have gone too far. The path was now high above the sea and too close to the main coast road. The book described a fork off down to the left, a precipitous drop down but negotiable with care. She should have bought a map, of course, and not relied on a few vague paragraphs in a tourist guide.

  She started back in the direction she’d come, feeling hot and a little frustrated. Clearly she was close but hadn’t quite found it. For the first time since her arrival she wished she wasn’t on her own. If she’d had someone with her they might have put their heads together and worked it out.

  What looked as though it might be the path turned out to be a false trail. The cliff had no stone edifice at its foot. Back on the marked way, a couple in their late fifties stopped to let her past.

  ‘Morning,’ said the man. Even had he not spoken, there was no doubt that they were British, in their faintly absurd leisure clothes and sandals. He had a boyish face that was running to beefiness, and an impressive thatch of wiry grey hair. His companion was as slight as he was broad and tall.

  ‘Morning,’ Melissa nodded. It’s always a tricky moment when you run into your compatriots abroad. She was about to trudge on through, head down, when she noticed they did have a map. Swallowing her pride, not about asking for directions but for consorting with her own kind, she said, hearing the words come out stiltedly, ‘Excuse me, you don’t know whether I’m on the right track for the St Arsenius shrine, do you?’

  They looked blank. Clearly it meant nothing to them.

  ‘A shrine?’ said the woman. ‘We haven’t seen a shrine, have we?’

  ‘Is it marked on the map?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t have one. I don’t suppose I could have a quick look at yours, could I?’

  But there was nothing marked. Melissa thanked them and set off even faster than before.

  That afternoon, she went back to the flat rock with the wild fig tree at the edge of the second bay. Hardly anyone was there, and it was perfection. Over the sloping stone moss unrolled like a soft carpet into the sea. The water was clear and surprisingly warm. She swam, lay in the sun, and read, and simply looked all around. By the time she returned to the apartment, she was relaxed and more content than she had felt in a long while.

  She should have known it wouldn’t last.

  Every hour seemed to make her eyes open wider, her senses more acute. Each time she walked the tiny main road, effectively barely more than a lane, she noticed more: the powerful scent of jasmine escaping over a wall; bright globes in orange and lemon trees; the violet trumpets of morning glory winding through wire fencing; and everywhere the ancient gnarled olive tree, each composites of several intertwi
ning trunks, some so holed and intricately braided you could see right through them.

  From the balcony of her apartment, she watched the sun set. The mountains across the water, in a reverse of the morning’s display, burned red and peach, then pink to purple. Isolated wisps of cloud made brushstrokes of black on the evening canvas.

  She decided to try dinner at one of the two tavernas on the beach.

  The air was warmer than the previous night, and the proprietor of Thomas’s Place had planted a line of his green wooden tables outside drawn-back curtains of heavy-duty plastic sheeting. Here too they were squeezing out a last few weeks of business before autumn closed in.

  Inside, candles were already lit, and willow baskets served as light fittings hung by their handles from the rush ceiling. The atmosphere was cosy. It was also more crowded than Prospero’s Taverna. A young slight waiter with a sparse, possibly experimental moustache, showed her to a corner table. She was hungry, having not eaten since breakfast. The waiter recommended a local dish of prawns and feta cheese, so she ordered that and made a greedy assault on the bread basket.

  Mesmerised by the waves playing on the beach, the hushing sounds of water on stone, she was trying to imagine Elizabeth here. When had she come to Corfu – when Melissa was too young to remember, or before she was born? It must have been at the same time as Julian Adie visited. So logically, if she could take a list of the dates he was here from his biography, she might be able to narrow down the possibilities. Always providing the biography was detailed enough, or indeed accurate.