Icon of Gold

by Teresa Crane

  Nikos could stand it no longer. The self-disgust that he had been battling welled in him like a physical sickness. ‘Adam — it’s bloody nearly ten o’clock! Cathy’ll be worried sick.’

  ‘What?’ Adam’s tousled head lifted. He blinked.

  Nikos stood up, buttoning his trousers. ‘We’ve got to go. God only knows how long it will take us to get back —’

  Irene was watching him, eyes suddenly narrowed, mouth hard. ‘You what?‘

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ he repeated, desperately. ‘Adam —’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t.‘ Irene shook her head.

  Babs wrapped her arms about Adam’s neck. ‘What’s he on about, Gorgeous?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Nikos!’ Adam’s hand slid down Babs’ naked back. ‘Don’t be such a spoilsport. We promised the girls a good time —’

  ‘That —’ Irene said, softly, her eyes still razor sharp on Nikos’, ‘— isn’t all we was promised.’

  ‘Adam!’ Nikos was struggling into his jacket. ‘Come on. We have to go.’

  ‘An’ I say no.’ Irene grabbed his arm. ‘What the ’ell do you think you’re doin‘? Playin‘ games are we? You want ter go? Then go. You ain’t nothin’ ter write ’ome about, don’t you think it. But —’ her hand came out, flat, palm up, ‘you bloody pay for what you ordered. I ain’t goin’ back out in that bleedin’ fog tonight. An’ I got a livin’ to earn like any other girl.’

  ‘Adam, for Christ’s sake —’

  Adam pushed Babs from his lap and stood up. The girl slid to the floor like a sack, sat, half-naked and blinking aggrievedly. ‘’ere —!’

  ‘Nikos —’ Adam was dishevelled but patient. ‘Don’t be such an ass. You agreed. You were as ready for it as I was -’

  ‘’e was quick enough to put ’is ’and up my skirt,’ Irene put in drily.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t changed mine.’ Adam’s voice was edged with anger now. ‘You bloody well know what we agreed.’

  Nikos gripped his arm. ‘It’s thick fog out there. It’s already nearly ten. Think of Cathy. Your mother. She’ll be frantic —’

  ‘’is mother?’ Irene was so incredulous she almost laughed. ‘Now I’ve ’eard everything! ’is bleedin’ mother?’

  Nikos was hunting through his jacket pockets. The hunt produced three crumpled notes; two pounds and a ten shilling. He proffered them to Irene.

  ‘What the ’ell is that supposed to be?’ she asked, conversationally.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s all I have.’

  ‘Well it ain’t good enough.’ She planted her hands on her narrow, bare hips.

  Nikos picked up his coat, turned to Adam. ‘I’m going. You either come or you don’t.’

  ‘And how the hell am I supposed to get home if you take the car?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sweet sake!’

  ‘Are you coming or not?’ Nikos was dogged.

  ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere,’ Irene said. She had planted herself in front of the door. ‘Not till I’ve got my money.’

  ‘An’ me,’ Babs said from the floor. She nodded slowly and drunkenly. ‘An’ me,’ she repeated.

  ‘Give it to them,’ Nikos said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The money. Give it to them. I’ll pay you back. But I’m going. Now.’

  Adam stared at him for a moment, about to speak; but whatever he saw in the other man’s face gave his angry words pause. He shrugged, reached for his jacket. ‘You crazy bastard.’ He pulled out a roll of notes, counted some out. Irene crossed the room, hand held out. He handed her the money. She curled her fingers in graphic encouragement. He peeled off another couple.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ Nikos said.

  ‘You’d fucking well better.’ Oddly enough, a sudden touch of caustic amusement overlaid the anger of the words. ‘With interest.’ He picked up his overcoat, flicked a finger to his forehead. ‘Good evening, ladies.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Irene said, pleasantly, ‘an’ good riddance.’

  ‘Where they goin’, Reen?’ Babs looked from one to the other in inebriated puzzlement. ‘Where’s Gorgeous goin’?’

  ‘’ome to mother,’ Irene said, ‘believe it or not.’

  *

  The journey was as much of a nightmare as Nikos had feared it would be. Visibility for most of the way veered from a few yards to zero. The route was unfamiliar. Trying to use the headlights simply made things worse; reflecting off the fog they simply created a wall so thick that it might have been made of solid brick They crawled along, following the kerb where there was one, which on this mostly country road was not often, and for most of the time, despite the map they carried, only vaguely aware of their exact whereabouts. For a long time, as they pulled out of the city and guessed their way almost blindly on to the main road that led across country to the coast neither of them spoke except briefly and to the point about which might be the best route to try to follow. Once fairly certain that they were on the main easterly road that would, in time, take them home Nikos tried to apologise. ‘I’m sorry. I just couldn’t stand it. It was all so — squalid.’

  Adam yawned. ‘Scrubbers always are, didn’t you know that?’ He was remarkably sanguine. Nikos sensed his grin in the dark ‘You might at least have let me have a go before you threw a fit, though.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nikos said again. His head was thumping and his eyes ached with strain as he tried to probe the wreathing fog. Hammering in his blood he could feel Cathy’s fear, her worry. For her son. Perhaps, a little for him. He had never felt so guilty - or so dirty, so utterly soiled — in his life. Time crept by, and the car crawled on. Would they never get there? He felt like a swimmer desperately needing to reach the safety of the beach and battling against an outflowing tide. Beside him Adam breathed softly and deeply. He had gone to sleep, mindless and guiltless as a child. Nikos gritted his already aching teeth and drove on into the cold and damp void of the fog.

  They reached Sandlings at two-thirty in the morning. All the lights were on, glowing dimly through the fog. Adam was unsteady on his feet, fuddled by sleep and the beginnings of a hangover. Nikos supported him as they felt their way down the track to the cottage. As Nikos pushed open the front door and pulled the heavy curtain aside Sandy erupted into his usual frenzied house-dog routine, but calmed immediately when he saw who the intruders were. The fire was dead and the room was bone-chillingly cold. Cathy was curled, fully dressed, on the sofa, her head resting awkwardly on her arm. The wireless spat and hissed atmospherics, the station having long closed down for the night.

  She woke up instantly; Nikos actually felt the split second when overwhelming relief became fury. ‘Where the hell have you two been?’

  Adam flinched a little, spread conciliatory hands. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? Sorry? Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself? I’ve been worried sick! Are you going to tell me, fog or no fog, that it’s taken you —’ she glanced at her watch ‘- getting on for ten hours to get here from Huntingdon?’

  Adam shook a fair, apologetic head. ‘No. I’m sorry. We — I — had a good day. Won a bit, you know? We stopped off in Cambridge to celebrate.’

  ‘Without a thought for me.’ Her eyes had flickered to Nikos. He lowered his own, unable to meet her anguishedly savage gaze. There was a moment’s silence. ‘I thought you were both dead,’ she said, suddenly very controlled and quiet. ‘Or at least badly injured. I thought there must have been an accident. I thought — I feared - the police would come…’ she stopped and swallowed fiercely.

  Adam huddled into his overcoat. ‘Look. I’m sorry, I really am. But here we are, and we’re fine, and can we talk about it in the morning? I’ll grovel then, I promise. We went into Cambridge, we had a couple of drinks, picked up a couple of girls —’ again those artless spread hands. ‘You know how it is. Time flies.’

  ‘When you’re enjoying yourself.’ The tone of Cathy’s vo
ice had changed entirely. Glancing at her Nikos thought he had never seen her eyes so icy cold. They were looking directly at him; once more he could not for his life hold them with his own.

  ‘And then, honestly, it has taken hours to get home. The fog’s really bad.’

  ‘So I gather from the reports on the wireless.’ Her voice, usually so warm, was still clipped and chill. ‘Well, since you’ve now deigned to turn up I suppose I can go to bed. Nikos — have you nothing to say for yourself?’

  He had not spoken since they had come through the door. He glanced at her, helpless. In the deadly cold of the room his face was flaming. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he himself could hear the total emptiness of the words.

  ‘So am I.’ For a brief, bleak instant they might have been alone. Nikos, looking into her face, thanked God devoutly that they were not.

  Adam, his fuddled brain and fired body a little revitalised by the walk from the car and the cold of the room looked from one to the other; even he, without getting near to understanding it, sensed the tense atmosphere between them.

  The moment was gone. ‘You’re not children,’ Cathy said. ‘You’re two grown men. You’ll do as you like. Just next time don’t leave me here worrying myself to death about you.’ She turned from them and stalked to the door that led to the staircase. Her hand on the knob she turned back for a moment. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she said, acidly, and left them.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Adam, not too concernedly. ‘Bloody hell — it’s cold as charity in here. Colder. Fancy a brandy?’

  Chapter Eight

  They were fog-bound for two days; even as the two young men packed their bags and left after Sunday lunch it still shrouded the heathland, blanketed the dunes and wreathed eerily through the scrubby, dripping trees. By then Cathy had, at least outwardly, recovered her equilibrium and Adam had just about got over a thumping and well-deserved hangover. On the day after their trip to the races both young men had slept until after noon. When they had finally surfaced apologies were proffered once more and this time, temper having cooled, had been received more graciously; yet a subdued Nikos was certain that whilst Cathy’s anger with her son had more or less entirely dissipated he discerned in her attitude towards himself a certain frostiness that no amount of carefully cheerful conversation could conceal. In the event he was glad to leave; by no means, from his point of view, could the visit have been termed an unmitigated success.

  ‘Be careful. The fog’s still very thick.’ Cathy accompanied them up the track to the car, hugged Adam, dropped a swift, cool kiss on Nikos’ cheek. ‘Give my love to your father,’ she added drily, ‘if you can find him.’

  Thanks for Christmas.’ Adam was eager to be off. London and its pre-New-Year diversions beckoned. ‘We’ll see you in a few days’ time, at New Year.’

  ‘Let’s wait and see. Leon might be in Australia by then for all we know. A vaguely made plan to spend New Year in London with his family would hardly be enough to hold him if something more profitable beckoned, now would it?’

  ‘He’ll be back,’ Nikos said, quietly, ‘I’m sure he will.’

  Cathy smiled a bright, unconvinced smile. ‘We’ll see. Now, off you go. And take care.’

  She watched as the black car slid into the drifting mist and disappeared, the sound of its engine dying, leaving a silence broken only by the distant fog—muffled sound of the sea. She stood for a long time, quite still, before, shoving her hands into her pockets and hunching her shoulders against the cold, she turned and walked back slowly to the quiet, empty cottage.

  *

  The telegram arrived the following day. It came whilst Cathy was taking her regular walk on the beach with the dogs; when she got back it was to find an agitated Bert waiting at the door clutching a yellow envelope. ‘Came soon after you left.’ The old man watched her with a touching anxiety as she tore it open. ‘Boy wouldn’t wait. Said if you wanted to reply you’d have to do it from the Post Office in the shop. Bad news, is it?’ Bert belonged to a generation that, having gone through two world wars, would never associate a telegram with anything else.

  Cathy scanned the scrap of paper again. ‘A matter of opinion,’ she said, tartly, then, glancing up and catching his concerned expression reached to him quickly and touched his arm reassuringly. ‘No, no. Nothing to worry about. It’s Leon. He’s back.’ She glanced back at the brief message with an acrimonious eye. ‘It seems I’m summoned to join him in London for the New Year celebrations.’

  ‘Will you go?’

  She did not reply for a moment. Then, ‘I don’t know, Bert,’ she said, ‘I really don’t know.’

  He eyed her, his genuine relief for her already giving way to his usual caustic cantankerousness. ‘You’ll go, girl,’ he said, ‘an’ yes, I’ll look after the dog for you. Just don’t expect me to spoil the little brute the way you do, tha’ss all.’

  *

  She spoke to Leon from the phone box outside the shop later on that afternoon. Yes, she would join him; but on one point she was adamant. She would not stay in Nikos’ flat.

  ‘But, Kati, why ever not?’

  ‘Because it isn’t fair on Nikos. And it wouldn’t be fair on me. We have to talk, Leon, and I don’t want to do it in front of an audience.’

  ‘Talk?’ He was all innocence.

  ‘Talk.’ The word was curt. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Ah, Kati, Kati, you aren’t still angry because I didn’t come at Christmas?’

  ‘Aren’t I? I thought perhaps I was.’

  He sighed a long-suffering sigh. She could almost see his eyes being cast to heaven in exasperation at the perversity of women. She controlled a lift of anger. ‘Book us into a hotel. Or I won’t come. I mean it.’

  ‘Of course, of course. If that’s what you want, that’s what you shall have. I promise you, koukla mou, your Leon will make it up to you. Anything you want, you shall have. I have bought you a present. To go with your dress. And for the boys, gold cuff links, with their initials —’

  ‘I gather the trip to Greece was a success?’ The words were dry.

  ‘Yes. It was.’

  ‘Well, you can tell me all about it when we see each other, can’t you? I’m really keen to know what it was that was so much more important than our Christmas together.’

  There was a sudden, small, guarded silence. ‘It was business, Kati, just business.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Listen — catch the midday train tomorrow, yes? By then I will have made all the arrangements, I promise. I will meet you at the station. And don’t forget to bring your pretty dress. Adam has invited us to a party with some of his friends on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘OK. Leon, I have to go, my money’s running out. I’ll see you tomorrow, at Liverpool Street.’

  ‘The midday train. And Kati — I’m sure you will like your present —’ the money dropped noisily into the box; Leon’s voice was cut off by the purring tone.

  Cathy eyed the buzzing receiver repressively. ‘I’m sure I will,’ she said, acidly.

  *

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said, with truth but no great enthusiasm.

  Leon, standing behind her, met her eyes in the mirror. ‘You like it?’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ she said again. The glittering pendant on its golden chain caught the light as she moved.

  ‘You’ll wear it tomorrow night?’

  ‘Of course. If you’d like me to.’ She reached to undo the catch.

  ‘Let me.’ Leon released the catch, lifted the pendant, swinging it, before putting it into Cathy’s hand. ‘You see? I thought about you.’

  Cathy tilted her head, looking up at him, unsmiling. ‘Did you? Did you really?’

  ‘But of course!’ He spread his hands in the familiar gesture. ‘Can’t you see that I did?’

  She stood up abruptly and walked to the window, stood for a moment looking out across the roofs and towers of a London that was still in the process of restoration and reconstruction after t
he devastation of the wartime blitz.

  ‘Kati?’ Leon asked quietly from behind her.

  She turned. ‘Leon, why can’t you understand? Why can’t you understand why a — a bauble like this —’ she held out her hand. The pendant glittered on her open palm ‘— can’t make up for what you did? You left without a word or a thought. You simply abandoned the plans that we had made and went off on your own. You won’t tell me where you went or what you did —’

  He sighed, patiently. ‘I told you. I was in Athens. Doing business.’

  ‘What sort of business? And why over Christmas? Why couldn’t this — business — that you’re so mysterious about have waited for a couple of days? Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ She shook her head fiercely. ‘We’ve been over and over it. You know how I feel.’

  ‘Then why don’t you try to see how I feel?’ There was a rising edge of temper in the words. ‘Do you think I wanted to spend Christmas away from you? Don’t you think that if I could have made other arrangements I would?’

  ‘I don’t know. I truly don’t know!’ Her voice was rising to match his.

  ‘Well, you bloody well should! For Christ’s sake, Kati, if you would come up and live in London with me such misunderstandings wouldn’t arise —’

  Her head came up sharply in challenge. ‘You mean that if I’d been in London you wouldn’t have gone?’

  He stood breathing heavily, said nothing.

  ‘Exactly!’ she snapped. ‘All you mean is that if I’d been here you’d have come home and expected me to pack your bag for you before you left. You still wouldn’t have told me what you were doing or why. You still wouldn’t have given a damn that our Christmas would be spoiled —’

  ‘I keep telling you, woman —’ he roared.

  ‘I know what you keep telling me. You were in Athens. Doing business. What business? And with whom?’

  He hesitated. ‘Shipping business,’ he said. ‘With an old friend. He — he’s in financial trouble. That was why I had to go so quickly.’