The boy ran ahead impatiently as they crossed the iron bridge over a dried-up stream bed coming down from the mountain.
‘He is Nikolaos,’ said Eleni proudly, ‘The other one is Petros. He is already with Alexandros. I can’t keep them away from his place.’
It seemed unlikely that two boys would be that fascinated by the growing of herbs, but Melissa fell into step with her. They bore left by an olive tree so twisted and gnarled it could have been hundreds of years old, and took a dusty track upwards.
‘It’s the animals,’ said Eleni, walking at a pace. ‘Alexandros always has so many he is looking after, and Petros loves animals,’ Eleni went on. ‘Now he’s saying that he wants to be a doctor for animals when he is older. That would be many years of study, but a good job, yes?’
‘Very good.’
‘He says Alexandros will teach him! He doesn’t quite realise . . .’
Melissa wondered what awaited them at the top of the path, remembering the day before with the Kiotzas family. An eccentric old shepherd, or perhaps an old-style hippy with views on alternative lifestyles. She wondered whether he had been here long enough to remember Julian and Grace, whether there would be any chance of asking him, with Eleni translating.
They approached the house through olive trees, some with the familiar black nets curled against them, others with small hammocks of brighter colours. The land was terraced, but the top two strips of land had been made into what looked like crowded vegetable gardens. Despite the luxuriant growth, there was a sense of rigid order, and many plants were tagged with small white labels.
The substantial two-storey stone house was divided into two parts, each differently configured. It looked like a great domino balanced on its side. At a blue-painted door which was open on to a patio, Eleni listened, then put her head inside.
‘Alexandros?’
All was quiet.
She put her baskets down by the patio wall where pots of pink and red geraniums were still blooming. ‘Come, we will find them.’
Leading the way, Eleni pointed out a great pitted millstone propped against the side of the house. ‘This was once used to press the olives on this farm.’
‘Is Alexandros a farmer?’
‘No, he is a . . . a history man.’
Melissa didn’t have a chance to ask what she meant because at that moment Eleni pointed at three figures lying face down in the scrubby grass, three dark heads together. Nikolaos was one of them, another was an older boy she presumed was Petros, and the third was a man with a magnifying glass.
Eleni put a finger to her lips.
The man was handing the instrument to the younger boy when he became aware of visitors. ‘Ah!’ he said, looking up. Then, in excellent English, ‘We may be having a . . . er, breakthrough!’ before murmuring something in Greek to the boys who were still rapt in whatever it was they were studying on the ground. ‘Nikolaos told me you were coming up.’
He sat back on his knees and then stood up, unwinding a tall spare frame as Eleni made the introductions. Patches of dusty earth clung to his shirt. ‘This is Melissa,’ said Eleni, ‘and here is Alexandros.’
They shook hands formally.
Alexandros held her gaze, steadily but shyly, with dark brown eyes. Deep laughter lines scored his face, but his expression was earnest now, the smile polite rather than wide.
‘Melissa – a . . . Greek name,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ For some reason she felt awkward, wrong-footed by imagination which had made him a grey-haired sage.
‘Melitta is another form, I think. And it is the name of a herb, too, the lemon balm.’
‘Melissa for memory,’ added Eleni.
‘I thought that was rosemary,’ said Melissa.
‘That is a stimulant version. Melissa can be used when the body and mind need to be calmed. It is supposed to have, ah, sedative qualities, so can be used as a cure for . . . er, nervous tension, insomnia, that kind of thing,’ said Alexandros, hesitantly but warming to his theme. ‘It would free the mind in certain circumstances, perhaps . . . um, allowing memories to surface where they had been suppressed . . .’
‘Funnily enough, that’s—’ she began, then stopped herself.
‘What?’ prompted Alexandros.
Melissa shook her head. ‘What are you doing there?’ she said instead, nodding over to the boys. ‘It looks interesting.’
Alexandros visibly relaxed.
‘Ah, well, yes, it is. We are working on trying to find some . . . er, organic solution to the olive fly problem, to detect a smell or a parasite that will keep the flies from laying their eggs. In the same way that it’s well known that marigolds will keep slugs away from vegetables due to their very powerful and particular scent, or that certain lice . . . er, recoil at the smell of geranium oil, I have been trying to find a herb or plant essence that will deter this pest, or even attract a fly-eating predator. And thanks to the herbs that Eleni is growing here—’
‘For the aromatherapy,’ she interjected.
‘—we find we have plenty of variety to experiment. As a matter of fact,’ he frowned in concentration, ‘the . . . ah, citronella component of the lemon balm might well be a valuable addition that we haven’t tried as yet . . . This morning we have been painting some leaves with a distillation of pelargonium and bitter orange, and several species of insect have turned away in disgust!’
He laughed, and began to brush the crumbs of earth from his chest, as if he had only just realised he was dirty. His enthusiasm made him suddenly ageless despite the silvery glints in his black-brown hair, a mop long enough to curl with a wildness that implied there was more to him than seriousness under the nervy exterior.
He and Eleni exchanged a few words in Greek.
‘I am going to cut my plants now,’ she said, producing a pair of secateurs from a skirt pocket. ‘Beautiful plants – thanks to the ladybirds and moths Alexandros has lured into them to eat the aphids. And of course, they are never treated with chemicals.’
They followed her round to the gardens at the front.
‘You speak incredibly good English,’ Melissa said to Alexandros.
‘I, ah, spent a few years studying in London.’
‘I see.’
‘Also, I love to read in English. But mostly, I travel a lot for my job. Quite often my work is done in English too.’ She was about to ask him more, but he turned the subject away from himself. ‘We are having . . . um . . . real problems here with the olive harvest,’ he began, waving his arms to indicate a state of generality.
‘Chemical spraying has been . . . er, banned by the European Union – it was always sprayed from planes to control the olive fly. It lays its eggs in the developing olive which is then consumed by the growing grub, thus destroying the fruit. If more than one per cent of olives in a grove are infested, then the olives cannot be used as table olives, and if more than ten per cent are gone, then the crop cannot be made into olive oil.’
‘Why did they ban it?’
‘The chemical that was used is also a . . . um, mosquito deterrent, which has recently been banned in the USA. Personally, I feel there must be a better solution than that one anyway. We have to find a new one, at least, or the farmers, and the families who have always cultivated these groves, will simply think it is not worth their efforts – it is back-breaking work to tend and harvest a good crop of olives, and to nurture the trees. They simply will not do it any more. As it is there is little enough money in these tiny groves.’
‘Would it matter, if they just left the trees?’
‘It matters in that they might feel that they would get a better return by selling their groves for building development. That is something hardly anybody in the village wants and neither, I think, do the tourists.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ she said.
‘There are various scientific studies around the world that I have been following that might have an application here. It is a question of understanding th
e climate, and the land and vegetation. It’s a delicate balance. But there is a method which I am quietly rather hopeful will prove useful here, involving a parasitic wasp . . . the wasp larva will live inside the fly larva and hatch out of the pupa after killing it. I must say that early signs are more than encouraging . . .’
His voice trailed off. ‘Sorry, I must be . . . er, boring you with all this.’
‘No. Not at all.’ She meant it. His intelligent melodious voice was easy to listen to when he found a topic he was comfortable with.
But he suddenly seemed embarrassed. ‘It has been nice to meet you,’ he said abruptly.
He held out his hand, and they shook again. Then he loped across the patio and into the house without another word.
Feeling as if she had been summarily dismissed, Melissa wandered over to where Eleni was filling her baskets, and sat on the wall to wait. The sea was Indian sapphire between the trees, but incongruously, a warm breeze was wafting winter scents of wood smoke over the hill. In the olive groves on the headland she had already seen farmers pruning, cutting the branches for winter fuel. Now they were burning the dead twigs and leaves. One of the old olive stumps on a lower terrace was alight; red flames flickered inside the lacy trunk like a Halloween lantern.
It was peaceful in this warm garden with autumn coming: the late grapes puckering on the vines, shrubs bolting after the early rains. Eleni went about her business rustling and clipping. It made Melissa think of the garden she would have loved to have made in England. She closed her eyes and pushed that aside.
So she thought about Alexandros instead, and the disconcerting extent to which her imagination had pulled her in the wrong direction, had made her expect a much older man. For all the old-fashioned manners, he was probably in his late thirties, maybe early forties. He wore a wedding ring and Melissa wondered idly what his wife was like, where she was this Saturday morning.
‘You like Alexandros!’
Melissa started round, caught off guard.
Eleni had come up silently. ‘Yes?’
She had meant it as a question, or so Melissa took it.
‘He is very nice – seems a very interesting man,’ she replied.
The difference between Alexandros in reality and the image which had immediately sprung into her mind was a timely reminder not to jump to conclusions. It was one thing to make a mistake that could be so easily rectified but quite another when there was no way of proving how much about a person was fact and how much conjecture. She would have to draw on all the professional detachment she possessed if she was to draw a picture of Julian Adie and her mother with any accuracy.
Eleni pulled at bunches of leaves so they were not so tightly packed in the baskets. Then she looked up.
‘He is sad too,’ she said simply.
It took a while for Melissa to realise she was talking about Alexandros. Unsure how to react to that, she kept quiet.
But Eleni did not elaborate, and perhaps she had not intended any comparative judgement of her in any case. Melissa was just too raw, and over-sensitive.
Instead, Eleni shouted into the trees – an angry-sounding tirade which was most likely nothing more than a parting shot to let her sons know she was leaving and when they should come home for lunch – and they set off back down towards the village road. Melissa took one of the sweet-smelling baskets and listened as Eleni told her which herbs she had picked and what she intended to do with them.
‘Come to the beauty shop tomorrow morning,’ said Eleni. ‘I will show you.’
That afternoon Melissa lost herself in the water at the flat rock where the fig tree grew. She cleared her mind of everything but the present and the sea-silk against her skin. Wavelets unfurled on her shoulders from a mazarine sea and delicate plumes of smoke rose from the headland to make signals across the bay.
IV
FOR THE FIRST morning since she had arrived in Kalami, the weather had closed in. The water in the bay was black, ruffled by a near-horizontal wind into a sheet of crepe. The yellow buoys that normally bobbed calmly by the White House were drowning in long pipeline waves that gathered strength as they neared the shore. Against the rocky headland cliffs the swell splashed in great white plumes. Any lingering heat had gone. Melissa stared out of the balcony door for a long time.
Clouds scowled across the water as she left the apartment. Out in the open she could see a massed invasion of cumulonimbus thunderheads, tumbling ponderously down from Mount Pantokrator. It was mid-morning but the resort had the air of a stormy winter evening.
Eleni’s directions took her into the village centre, down by the side of the largest of the two small supermarkets, to a hairdresser’s salon under a sign reading Filoxenia. A light was on inside but the salon was empty and the door was locked.
She rang the bell.
Eleni was wearing a professional white starched tunic and trousers, her exuberant hair tamed into a tight bun at the back of her neck.
‘You didn’t give me an exact time – is now all right?’ asked Melissa.
‘Of course. Any time is all right.’
Melissa wondered how that could be. Eleni was usually so busy, constantly working whether at home, at her business or in the gardens. She showed Melissa to a side room, explaining how lucky she had been to be able to rent this room after a beauty therapist had left the previous year. It was important for the business to be central and easy to find, and reciprocal recommendations between her and Lia the hairdresser were helping.
‘What kind of treatment would you like?’ She handed over a laminated list in English. ‘Rejuvenating? Relaxing and calming? Detox? Somehow I think not the after-sun soothing today . . .!’
‘I think I need all of them!’
Eleni laughed. ‘In that case . . . I think for you I will suggest the lavender with a tiny amount of geranium oil and bergamot . . . with perhaps a touch . . .’ she put her head on one side with a smile to assess her client’s reaction, ‘ . . . of melissa to make it very special.’
‘Sounds lovely.’
For an hour, Melissa was soothed and pummelled, surrounded by sensuous scents. Eleni left her cocooned in a warm white towel. She drifted for a while.
‘Is good?’ Eleni asked when she came back.
‘Very. That was wonderful.’
‘Get up slowly. There is a cup of mint tea for you in the salon.’
When Melissa went through, there were two cups on the tray.
‘No other ladies today so we can sit in here,’ said Eleni, already perched in the reception area. She looked grimly towards the window and dark skies.
‘Not a day for perfect hair,’ Melissa agreed.
‘Your husband is not coming?’
‘No.’
‘He always works very hard?’
‘Yes.’
They sipped tea.
‘Is this your mint too?’
Eleni nodded.
Melissa seized her chance both to change the subject and try to learn some more. She wondered about Alexandros. The history man, Eleni had said. Did that mean that he might be the one person who could help? And how could she contrive to see him again?
‘From Alexandros’s garden?’
‘Yes. He has the gift, he really does. Everything he plants grows good. The herbs, the vegetables! He has the best vegetable garden in the village, thanks to his strange ideas.’
‘He’s very impressive, but quite shy . . . isn’t he?’
She looked at Melissa oddly. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Well, I mean . . . obviously I don’t know him at all, but . . . the other day, the way he was talking to us one moment, and then he suddenly went into himself and walked away.’
‘Did he?’
Melissa hesitated. Had she completely misjudged the situation, not only here in the salon but what happened with Alexandros too?
Eleni’s face was hard to read.
‘No, he is not shy,’ she said eventually.
Her mind ran th
rough the obvious possibilities. ‘Oh. I hope I didn’t do or say something to offend him?’
‘No . . . not at all.’
‘What then?’
Eleni sighed.
‘Is there something wrong?’ asked Melissa cack-handedly, before she could stop herself. She had already become too used to rifling through the pockets of other people’s lives. Perhaps it could become a habit, commonly known as nosiness, or worse.
She thought Eleni was going to tell her, too. She opened her mouth, but then looked away. ‘It’s not for me to say.’
They sipped in silence for a few moments.
‘I’ve been trying to find the St Arsenius shrine – the path down, I mean. I’ve managed to see it from one of Manolis’s boats.’
‘I know.’
Of course she did.
‘Does anyone still go inside it?’
‘Sometimes. Not very often.’
‘Is it locked, or –?’
‘Alexandros goes soon, to take oil for the saint,’ she said, making out a bill. ‘Now the autumn storms are starting. His father and his grandfather always did it, and now it is his turn.’
Melissa ignored all the questions that raised and asked directly. ‘Do you think he might let me go with him?’
A pause. ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps not.’
She stood up and went over to the desk and fetched a flimsy white paper from a small ledger. Melissa paid the thirty euros they had agreed. It was a slightly awkward parting. Melissa had the distinct feeling she saw a gleam in Eleni’s eye that said she was well aware of what she had wanted all along. In her over-sensitive state, it was enough to send Melissa’s spirits plummeting.
Then, as Eleni was opening the door, she said, ‘I can ask him. Just . . . don’t expect. Do you have a telephone, a mobile?’
Melissa gave her the number.
She spent the rest of the day reading on the sofa in the apartment, her legs under a blanket she found in a wardrobe. The ache of loneliness and hurt whenever she thought about her mother and Richard had not subsided, but she was managing to push it a little further away. It helped to have other people, other lives, none of them perfect, to occupy her thoughts. It really did.
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