Icon of Gold

by Teresa Crane

  Nikos was fighting the most contradictory turmoil of emotion it had ever been his misfortune to endure. ‘You know Adam can’t come,‘ he said. ‘We’ve already spoken about it, remember? We suggested he travelled down with us. He can’t. He’s got some all-important office party or something. He’s coming late on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘Then, I tell you what.’ Leon beamed. ‘Tomorrow Yannis and I leave for Greece, you leave for Suffolk, and our good Miss Hooper tidies up the office, files some things and then goes home for a few days. We all meet again after Christmas. Everyone is happy, yes?’

  Nikos looked desperately from one to the other. Yannis’ scarred face was blandly expressionless, as if he had been stricken suddenly deaf. ‘Pa — everyone is happy, no! I mean it. Cathy will be furious!‘

  ‘She will recover.’ Beneath the jollity was an adamantine base of solid rock.

  The inference of his father’s earlier sentence was only now seeping into Nikos‘ appalled brain. He fixed Leon with the bright golden eyes of his mother. ‘After Christmas?’ he repeated. ‘Pa — you aren’t saying you won’t be back for Christmas, are you?’

  The familiar, graceless evasiveness was in the smile and the gesture that accompanied it. ‘Of course not. At least —’ the smile again ‘- I hope not.’

  Nikos groaned and ran his hands through his hair.

  ‘I will try.’ The words were infuriatingly soothing; reassurance to a child.

  Not without difficulty, Nikos held his temper. ‘What exactly is this “business”? At least let me tell Cathy that.’

  ‘Is not possible to talk about it. Is not settled.’ Leon leaned forward, poked a spatulate finger into the air. ‘But is most important. Most vital for the company. If we lose it —’ he shrugged ‘— who knows? We fight to get established. We must be prepared to make sacrifices. Kati will understand, I tell you. Now —’ giving his son no time to reply he reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys which he tossed to Yannis, who caught them one—handed. ‘The keys to the apartment. You go now and have a bath and a rest. Nikos and I will finish here and join you later. I cook for us. Wait —’ he reached for the ouzo Nikos had bought, handed it to the other man. ‘Take it with you.’ He winked. ‘Don’t get drunk before we get home. Tonight we will have a real Greek night.’

  Yannis made his farewells and left. As the door shut behind him Nikos opened his mouth.

  ‘No!’ Leon held up a broad hand. ‘Enough. What must be done must be done. Is a pity, I know. But for now, business comes first. Later, it will be different. Tomorrow I go with Yannis, you take the car- to Suffolk to help Kati. With luck I will be back in two days and all will be well. If not, we will spend New Year together, as we planned.’ He picked up the papers they had been looking at. ‘Come. The sooner started the sooner finished. No argument, Nikos. One day you will thank me.’

  Nikos looked at him in something close to despair. ‘Yes, Pa,’ he said.

  Leon cooked moussaka, oily and dripping with cheese. The diminutive Yannis consumed it as if he had not eaten in a week, washing it down with what looked to Nikos enough retsina wine to sink a battleship. ‘You don’t change, my friend!’ Leon laughed. ‘Always you ate for two men!’ and they fell again, as they had all evening, to reminiscence.

  From the start of the war they had been in the Resistance together, fighting the occupying Axis forces in the mountains. In those dark, inspirational years they had shared adventure and hardship, desperation and the heady taste Of victory, and then the bitterly bad times that had followed what for the rest of the world had been the end of the conflict but for Greece had meant the self-inflicted wound of civil war. Both had lost loved ones in circumstances that hardly bore recollection. Now the patina of time, the need to look forward, to reconstruct, was filling in the cracks, smoothing the jagged edges of hatred, but still, sometimes, in the grim humour a savage and unforgiving thread twisted through the fabric of their conversation. Nikos, outside of the fellowship of their shared experiences and privately half absorbed with his own demons listened, and learned. The wine was followed by more ouzo. Leon sat, elbows on table, his unbuttoned shirt collar revealing a neck strong and muscular as that of a man half his age. As he reached once more for the bottle the icon on its gold chain swung and glinted in the lamplight. Nikos blinked eyes that suddenly were not focusing terribly well.

  Yannis looked at him solemnly. ‘A hero, your father, you know that?’

  ‘Pah,’ said Leon.

  ‘A hero. Saved my life.’

  ‘No more than you did mine, several times. Shut up, Yannis.’

  Nikos drew himself back from memory. ‘What happened?’

  Leon leaned his great frame back in the chair, picking at his teeth with a wooden toothpick. The golden medallion glinted again. ‘The idiot got himself captured by the Communists. They decided that perhaps they should put him up against a wall and shoot him.’ He grinned. ‘Looking back perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea; but at the time I didn’t think so. So I — changed their minds for them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘With a little help from a couple of sticks of dynamite and a machine gun. I was young and impulsive in those days.‘ The smile this time was wolfish. ‘And I had scores of my own to settle.’

  Yannis’ hand had gone to his scarred face. ‘It was some fight,’ he said, fond recollection in his voice. He put his elbow on the table, rested his chin on it and closed his eyes. Within seconds he was snoring.

  ‘Enough, old friend!’ With the callousness of long-established friendship Leon slapped him on the shoulder, jumping him awake. ‘Come. We have a busy day tomorrow.’ He hauled the smaller man to his feet, supporting him as he staggered a little. ‘We toss a coin for the bed. It will be like old times.’

  Yannis shook his head like a terrier coming out of water, blinked at Nikos, ‘You should be proud of him, boy,‘ he said. ‘He is a hero of Greece.’

  Leon punched his shoulder, ungently. ‘Shut up, man, and come and get some sleep.’

  Yannis reached for the almost empty ouzo bottle, grinned inebriatedly into Leon’s face. ‘Shame to waste it.’ Clutching it to his chest he followed Leon to the bedroom door. At the door he turned and lifted a hand to Nikos. ‘Kalinihta sas.’

  Leon smiled. ‘Good night. Sleep well.’

  ‘A hero. I mean it. Saved my life.’

  ‘Will you stop buggering about and get in here!’ A huge hand caught him by the collar and hauled him into the bedroom. Leon’s grinning face appeared around the doorjamb. ‘Goodnight, Nikos.‘

  Nikos lifted a hand.

  The door shut. He heard voices and laughter, the clatter of a glass. He put his head in his hands, staring sightlessly into his empty glass. He sat so for a very long time listening to the quiet murmur of their voices. There was a crash, more laughter, then silence.

  Fate.

  ‘Tempt not the stars, young man, thou canst not play With the severity of fate —’ Where the hell did that come from? He had an uncomfortable feeling that it had something to do with a broken heart.

  Beyond the door Yannis snored, peacefully.

  Nikos pushed back his chair, turned out the lamp and went, sleepless, to bed.

  The next morning, tired, dehydrated and with an ouzo-induced headache pounding behind his eyes, he watched as his father and Yannis climbed into the taxi that was to take them to the airport. It had turned suddenly and unseasonally warm and a heavy, soaking drizzle fell steadily. Before following Yannis into the car Leon clasped his son’s shoulders, kissed him on both cheeks. ‘Good boy. Look after Kati for me. Tell her not to fret; she will have the best present her Leon has ever bought her. Tell her that.’ A moment later the taxi pulled away from the kerb and slid into the dense London traffic, and he was gone.

  Nikos shook his head slowly. A present, for God’s sake? How could Leon know his wife so little?

  The black Austin Princess was parked a little further down the road. Five minutes after his father had lef
t for the airport and Athens, Nikos was nosing through the Knightsbridge traffic heading in the opposite direction.

  *

  The December afternoon was already darkening to an early winter dusk as he turned the car into the narrow tarmacked track that led across the heathland to the cottage. He had driven slowly, deliberately taken time out of the journey to lunch in Colchester and to do some shopping of his own. The shops were warm and crowded, decorated for the season. At last the grip of post-war austerity was loosening; there was a feeling of optimism abroad, the feeling that with the ascension of a popular young queen to the throne a new era was about to dawn. A new Elizabethan Age, well earned by a population that had at one time stood alone during those dark days of war and who since had endured the make-do-and-mend hardship of a country all but bankrupted by the conflict that had torn Europe apart for six dreadful years. Now, at last, things were changing, and in his new young queen, her handsome husband and two sturdy and attractive children the oft-quoted ‘man—in—the—street’ saw a symbol of a brave and bright future. The Coronation was still almost six months off, yet newspapers, magazines, shop displays were full of it; 1953 was to be a fresh start for the nation.

  The headlights picked up Cathy’s bicycle, propped against the leafless hedge. Nikos negotiated the sharp corner slowly and carefully; the car bumped and rocked down the uneven surface of the track, which was barely the width of the vehicle. The only place to park was near a small gap in the hedge perhaps a hundred yards from the cottages. Nikos found it, manoeuvred into it and turned off the engine, reaching into the glove box for the torch he had remembered at the last moment to bring. Wind buffeted the car. A dull light shone from the uncurtained window of Bert’s cottage, emphasising the gathering, inhospitable darkness. In the distance, above the wind, the sea crashed and roared its winter song. The smell of woodsmoke was strong on the salt air.

  Cathy, dressed as ever in practical slacks and a heavy pullover, was decorating the sitting room in preparation for the festivities. A fire burned brightly in the grate. Nikos stood for a moment amongst the wind-tossed shrubs of the garden just outside of the pool of light thrown by the window, watching her. Brightly painted home-made paper chains looped from the beams, the room was full of evergreen — holly, ivy and fir, tied with ribbons. In the far corner a small Christmas tree stood, awaiting attention. Cathy was standing on the table trying to attach a wired contraption of silver and gold to the ceiling. As he watched she gingerly lowered her arms, watching the thing suspiciously as it dangled precariously above her. She wagged her finger at it warningly, said something; it promptly fell down, draping her head and shoulders. He heard her explosion of laughter through the window. She sat on the table, swinging her legs, disentangling herself. Sandy, who had been watching her interestedly suddenly sensed the intruder, leapt to the window and broke into a frenzy of barking. Cathy turned her head sharply.

  Nikos went to the door, rapping loudly. ‘Cathy? It’s OK — it’s me — Nikos.’

  Sandy’s hysteria increased. He heard the bar being taken down, the rattle of the latch, and then there she was, silhouetted against the lamplight, looking at him in delighted disbelief. ‘Nikos? Nikos! What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow —’ her eyes went past him into the dark and windswept afternoon. ‘Is Leon with you? Oh, Sandy do shut up. And stop trying to lick poor Nikos to death! Anyone would think you hadn’t seen him for a year! Come in out of the cold, my dear.’ She stepped into Nikos’ arms and gave him a quick, hard hug, caught his hand to pull him into the warm, softly lit room. ‘I was just putting up some decorations. Christmas isn’t Christmas without decorations, is it?’ She hesitated, her hand on the door, her face questioning.

  ‘Pa isn’t with me,’ Nikos said, and then, cursing himself for a coward even as he spoke added, ‘he — sent me on ahead. To give you a hand.’

  She closed the door, held out her hands for the heavy coat that he was shrugging from his shoulders. Her face was bright with pleasure. The cottage smelled as he remembered it, of fresh bread and woodsmoke. Sandy gave one more ecstatic and gravity-defying leap and then sat panting at his feet, flagged tail wagging. Cathy took his coat into the kitchen to hang it on the back of the door, talking as she went, ‘Will he be coming with Adam tomorrow? I spoke to him yesterday — Adam, that is — he’s catching the six o’clock from Liverpool Street.’ She reappeared at the door, smiling. ‘I know it’s silly, but I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to having us all here together. I’ve managed to get an enormous chicken from the farmer up the road — well, it looked enormous running around with its feathers on, I hope it doesn’t shrink too much without them. We can go and pick it up tomorrow morning. And there’s an order to fetch from the grocer’s at Aldburgh as well. If Leon and Adam can be here by, say, half past sevenish we could perhaps have something to eat and then pop down to the village pub for a drink — they usually sing carols on Christmas Eve. I did wonder — I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to of course — but I wondered if we might even go on to the midnight service at St Peter’s? It’s silly - hypocritical, I suppose — neither Adam nor I set foot in church from one year’s end to the next, and you and Leon are both Greek Orthodox, I know, but, well, Christmas is different, isn’t it? It would be so very nice —’ She stopped. Nikos was standing, awkwardly, in the middle of the room, making no attempt to answer her nor to sit down. Cathy stood for what seemed like a very long time, studying his face. ‘Nikos?’ she asked at last, very quietly. ‘What is it?’

  He opened his mouth. Closed it again, gestured helplessly.

  ‘Leon?’ she asked, the word only barely a question.

  He nodded.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s had to go to Athens. On business.’

  ‘I see.’ She was still very quiet, apparently perfectly composed. ‘When?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘This morning,’ she repeated, and took a long, controlled breath. ‘The day before Christmas Eve.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘And did he deign to explain what this — business — might be? Or when - or indeed whether — he plans to honour us with his presence within the next week or two?’

  ‘He —’ Nikos stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ She had walked past him, was standing at the table tinkering with the decoration she had been attempting to fix to the ceiling, that Nikos could now see was a complex construction of wire, cotton and gold and silver milk bottle caps.

  ‘He said he’d try to get back.’

  ‘It’s a ten-hour flight to Athens,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  She glanced at him, ‘Ergo —’ the word was heavily sarcastic ‘— it’s a ten-hour flight back.’

  He could not meet her eyes.

  ‘In which case, even at my most optimistic, I can’t imagine that your father is likely to spend Christmas in the bosom of his family. Can you?’ The lightness of the words was belied by the fingers that systematically twisted and destroyed the glittering metal discs. ‘I’ll kill him,’ she said at last, conversationally. ‘If he ever has the gall to show his face here again I’ll kill him. Slowly.’

  ‘I said you’d say that.’

  She looked at him again. ‘Oh? And what did he say?’

  He shook his head, miserably. ‘He said you’d kill me. You know — the messenger. The bearer of bad news.’

  Her expression softened at that. ‘Oh, don’t be silly.’ She came to him, put her hands on his shoulders, leaned to him a little, affectionately. ‘It isn’t your fault.’ She let out a long breath, tamping down fury, containing and coming close to defeating bitter disappointment. ‘It’s Leon’s loss if he can’t see what’s important and what isn’t. And anyway —’ she lifted her head and smiled, with a glint of that irrepressible humour that he so loved ‘— look at it this way: at least it means that you and Adam won’t have to fight about who gets a chicken leg. It’s an ill wind that blows no goo
d at all as they say.’

  He stood rigid beneath her hands, his arms hanging gauchely at his sides. Desperately he wanted to hold her, to gather her to him, to lay his face on that unruly mop of hair. He did not move. ‘Pa said to tell you —’ he began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘— that he’d bring you back the best present you’ve ever had.’

  There was a long and dangerous silence. Then: ‘Did he now?’ Cathy said, lightly. ‘Well, that should be an experience. For one of us at least.’ She moved away from him, to the sideboard where stood bottles and glasses. Without asking she poured him a large brandy, and one for herself. Putting the glass in his hand she raised her own. ‘Absent friends,’ she said, drily.

  And present loves. At the back of his mind during the drive from London had been the thought, almost the hope, that seeing her would break the spell. All of his adult life had been spent in a sophisticated metropolis, loved and cared for by a woman of elegance and good taste who had done her level best to cut him off from what she quite openly regarded as his regrettable peasant background. Understated good looks, fastidious grooming, impeccable manners, cool self-possession; these were the things for which every self-respecting woman strove and for which any man with any pretension to culture would look. Untroubled and unconventional disregard for such self-evidently admirable qualities had had no place in Susan Costandina’s well-ordered world. Lately Nikos had more than once found himself wondering, flinching a little from the thought, what his grandmother would have made of Cathy, with her impulsive, unguarded laughter, her off-hand attitude to her appearance, her apparent inability to enter a room without immediately reducing it to casual disorder. He had seen her wrenching a comb through her tangled hair after a walk on the beach then simply giving up the unequal battle, tossing the thing to one side and winding the damp, unmanageable mass into an untidy bun with one hand whilst searching all over the kitchen for a hairclip with the other. Her clothes were tough, and warm and comfortable and in general accorded not even a token nod to the fashions of the day. Almost invariably as now, he noticed — there would be an absent-minded smudge of paint or ink on her face or her forehead. Even in London he had noticed that she never painted her practically short, square fingernails. She was of medium height and medium build. There was a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Her face, devoid of powders and creams, was almost gypsy-brown from the salt air. The only even slightly remarkable thing about her were the slanting, hazel eyes with their give-away laughter lines. She was more than twenty years older than he, though he often found himself forgetting that; she was ageless, and he loved her. Worse; as he stood, glass raised, watching her, he knew with a twist of almost physical pain that he wanted her. She was his father’s wife. In even thinking such a thing he was breaking a taboo as old as the civilisation in which he lived, and he knew it. He touched his glass to hers. ‘Absent friends.’