Icon of Gold

by Teresa Crane

  She was watching him steadily. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, flatly.

  His mouth tightened.

  ‘Leon — you think I don’t know when you’re lying?’

  ‘I’m not lying, woman.’

  She walked quietly to him, reached for his hand and guided it to the open neck of his shirt, where the heavy icon hung.

  ‘Swear it,’ she said.

  He fingered the icon. Said nothing.

  ‘Well,’ she said very quietly after a moment, ‘I think that proves something, don’t you?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘No. I don’t. We should get ready. It’s nearly time for dinner.’ Her voice was very cool.

  He made a visible effort to calm himself. ‘I went briefly to the house,’ he said. ‘It will be ready, I think, by the spring. We will go to Greece for Easter. It is a great festival. You will enjoy it. It will make up for Christmas.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, and left him to guess to which — or even to how many — of his statements the word applied.

  *

  The New Year’s Eve ‘party’ to which Adam had invited them turned out to be a rather splendid ball held in one of the grander hotels overlooking Hyde Park. He and Nikos joined Leon and Cathy for dinner first; they were to join a party at the ball later. Cathy glanced around. ‘No Dorothy?’

  ‘Who? Oh — Dotty.’ Adam grinned, shook his head. ‘Fallen by the wayside I’m afraid. She was getting a gleam in her eye that was making me nervous.’ He winked. ‘I like the gloves.’

  Cathy laughed. ‘So do I.’

  The meal was good, and the atmosphere festive and relaxed. Neither Cathy nor Leon were sulkers, and though the differences between them remained, superficially at least they were at ease with each other. Adam was his usual extrovert self; only Nikos was quiet, though since that was his nature no one but Cathy noticed just how quiet. He sat and he listened, smiled in the right places and consumed a large quantity of wine. Nikos had come to a decision, and tonight was the night he intended to implement it. He paid no special attention to Cathy, made no great input to the conversation. His time would come and he would say what he had to say. After that, things would be in the lap of the gods, though he had no great faith in their goodwill.

  They moved into the ballroom, and found their table. A great clock, decked in silver and gold, ticked on one wall. There were silver and gold balloons in a huge net strung above the dance floor. The candlelit tables held bowls of streamers and novelties, and there were hats and masks and tiny Union Flags. People were already on the dance floor.

  ‘Champagne,’ Leon said.

  ‘Lots of it.’ Adam was wearing a cardboard top hat at a jaunty angle. ‘Ah — there they are —’ He stood, waving a hand. A large group of young people who had just entered the room steered their way through the tables towards them. There were introductions and handshakes, kisses for Adam from the girls. Cathy caught only half the names: there was a Henrietta, a Jennifer and a Phyllis, two Davids and a Quentin, after that she lost count and could not have put a name to a face anyway. They were a handsome bunch, the young men dapper in their evening suits, the girls in taffeta and lace, bright—lipped, slender-waisted, bare-shouldered in heels so high Cathy wondered how they could walk on them, let alone dance. She found herself sitting next to a girl in green whose permed blonde hair gleamed like a metal helmet in the lights and who punctuated everything she said with a trill of pretty laughter. Fortunately, since by now the noise levels were such that it was difficult to hear what anyone was saying anyway, she did not appear to require any response apart from the odd nod and smile, so Cathy obliged with nods and smiles and sipped her Champagne and found to her surprise that she was beginning really to enjoy herself. She danced with Leon, and with Adam and with a couple of the other young men. By the time the huge clock had ticked round to eleven o’clock she had drunk enough Champagne to tempt her to risk dancing with Nikos, something she had told herself sternly earlier that she would not do; but in the event he did not ask her so the decision did not have to be made. Perversely she found herself a little piqued. She caught his eye, smiled, and then wished she had not; his eyes held hers for a long disturbingly intent moment before he reached in his pocket for his cigarette case, extracted a cigarette and lit it, long lashes downswept and with not the trace of an answering smile. An odd, quarrelsome anger stirred. It was she who had cause to be put out, surely, not him. Adam’s words, that she had spent days putting from her mind, sounded suddenly and clearly in her head. ‘We went into Cambridge, we had a couple of drinks, picked up a couple of girls —’ Well, that was what young men did, wasn’t it? As she had already asked herself a million times: what business was it of hers?

  She reached for her glass and drained it, smiled charmingly at the young man who immediately refilled it for her. ‘I say - would you like to dance?’

  ‘I’d love to.’ She gave him her hand, allowed him to draw her from her seat; felt rather than saw the sudden flicker of Nikos’ eyes. Damn him. She stepped into the young man’s arms, smiling warmly into his face, and they drifted into a graceful waltz.

  The clock ticked on, the Champagne continued to flow and the glittering, elegant crowd chattered, laughed and danced their way towards 1953.

  Nikos watched the clock and sipped his Champagne.

  Cathy was dancing with Leon when the Master of Ceremonies called for quiet, a few minutes before midnight. ‘Ladies and gentlemen — I ask you to charge your glasses…’ They made their way back to the table where the rest of the party was gathering. All over the room the sound of popping Champagne corks competed with a buzz of conversation and laughter: ‘…a year that is to see the Coronation of our young Queen, God bless her, a year in which this great country of ours will celebrate the dawn of a new Elizabethan era —’

  Adam winked at his mother. ‘What a load of –’ he stopped himself in time, grinned ‘— baloney.’

  She slapped his arm lightly. ‘Ssh!’

  The room had fallen quiet. The clock’s hands moved together. From a radio on the stage Big Ben’s chimes struck the hour.

  Pandemonium broke loose. Amidst the cheers streamers popped, toy trumpets and whistles were blown, the great net released its silver and gold balloons on to the crowd below. Leon reached for Cathy, kissed her. ‘Polla Kronia, my Kati. Happy New Year.’

  ‘And to you.’ She put an arm about his neck, hugged him for a moment, then was pulled away by Adam.

  ‘Happy New Year, mother dear —’ Everyone was kissing, calling greetings. A young man whose name Cathy did not know kissed her soundly. ‘Happy New Year —’ The band had struck up the Conga. An excited, laughing line was forming on the dance floor.

  Cathy felt a touch on her arm. She turned. Nikos bent to her, kissed her not as others had, but long and softly, and with an aching hunger that almost stopped her heart. ‘I love you,’ he said, his mouth close to her ear, the words for her alone in the noisy celebrations around them. ‘I love you more than I have ever loved anyone or anything in my life before.’ Startled she tried to pull away from him, to look into his face, but for a moment he held her fast. ‘Don’t say anything. Please. I don’t want you to say anything. I don’t want you to answer. I just want you to believe me; I just want you to know. I love you. I’ll always love you.’ He let her go then, and as he did so someone caught her hand, swung her away from him. The Conga line was weaving past. ‘Aye, aye, Conga, Aye, aye Conga —’ Cathy found herself, her hands on Adam’s narrow waist, being led around tables, up on to the stage, down again, out of one door, along a corridor, and then, to cheers from the onlookers, back through another, the line coiling around the dancefloor, breaking into two, turning back on itself.

  ‘I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone or anything in my life before.’

  She ought to be horrified. She ought to be angry. She was neither.

  ‘I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anyon
e or anything in my life before.’

  It did not occur to her to doubt what he had said. On the contrary; with a certainty that was absolute she knew it to be true. It had been there for her to see, to sense, since the first time she had touched him. She glanced to where he sat, his long, dark fingers curled loosely about the stem of his glass, unsmiling, openly watching her; and her heart turned over. More than anything she wanted to go to him, to hold him, to ease the misery in his eyes. To tell him — to tell him what?

  The band was playing faster and faster, the line was breaking into small, wildly jigging groups. Balloons were being batted from hand to hand, or popped beneath stamping feet.

  The answer came directly on the heels of the question. To tell him, ‘Yes, I love you, too.’ To tell him, ‘Don’t worry. It ‘s all right. As long as we don’t do anything about it, it’s all right. Our secret. We don’t have to share it with anyone but each other.’

  The music had stopped at last, people were trooping back to the tables. Above the clock on the wall the figures ‘1953’ had been unveiled, glittering in red, white and blue.

  He was her husband’s son, and young enough to be her own.

  He was beautiful, and he loved her.

  It dawned on her suddenly that, bizarre as the situation was, what she felt, predominantly, however inappropriate it might be, was happiness. Pure happiness. And for this one moment she could not bring herself to crush or deny it. Tomorrow she could be shocked, at herself and at Nikos. Tomorrow she could be stern and practical. Tomorrow she would certainly see the chasm that yawned at their feet and step back from it.

  For tonight, just for tonight, she wanted to hold safe this fragile, almost painful happiness that his words had kindled. And she wanted him to know of it. He at least, surely, deserved that. She could not bear to hurt him; to reject him out of hand would be sheer cruelty. There was tomorrow for that. It could surely do no harm to talk to him, just once, to acknowledge his feelings and her own, and then, gently, to abrogate them. ‘It’s all right,’ she told herself again. ‘As long as we don’t do anything about it.’ And knew in her soul as she thought it what a flawed assertion it was.

  The crooner was back on stage; the band swung into a dreamy popular waltz. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ trumpeted the Master of Ceremonies, ‘a Ladies’ Excuse Me — take your partners please —’

  Cathy held out a hand. ‘Nikos? You haven’t danced with me all evening.’

  He held her carefully and in silence at first. Then: ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’ve shocked you. Embarrassed you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I just had to tell you, that’s all. I had to. And I thought — here — with everyone around us —’ he hesitated. ‘Do you want me to go away? I could go back to America. Or perhaps to Greece. Pa’s talking of opening an office there —’

  ‘No,’ she said again. She tilted her head to look at him. ‘Nikos. Look at me.’

  Reluctantly his eyes met hers.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, softly, ‘Nikos, it’s all right. No one can help feelings; it’s what we do about them that matters. We aren’t doing anything wrong. And we won’t. You know we won’t. So it’s all right.’

  The golden eyes had widened. He missed a step, stumbled a little, regained his balance. ‘We?’ he asked.

  She allowed herself, just for a moment, to study his face, to watch the gleam of understanding become a flash of joy.

  ‘We?’ he asked again. ‘You mean —‘ he paused and then continued, carefully ‘— you mean you understand what I feel for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And —’ he could not bring himself to ask the agonising question he wanted to ask ‘— you aren’t angry with me?’

  ‘Of course I’m not.’ The dance floor was crowded; they could barely move.

  He had relaxed, drawing her to him. He laid his cheek against her hair. ‘Cathy, I love you.’

  ‘Ssh!’ Gently reproving she squeezed his hand.

  They danced in silence for a long time. Cathy closed her eyes, mesmerised by the feel of his body against hers, the touch of his hand, the sense, the smell of him. The words he had spoken were folded and tucked safely into her memory; a memento, wrapped in tissue and stored away from prying eyes, a private pledge to be treasured, but never, never to be claimed. They must never do this again, of course. Certainly not. But just for now — it could surely do no harm?

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She recognised the trilling laughter of the girl in green. ‘Excuse me — may I?’ The girl was tiny, barely to Nikos’ shoulder. She smiled up into his face.

  ‘Of course.’ Cathy extricated herself from Nikos’ arms. His hand clung to hers for the smallest of moments before she turned from them and wormed her way through the throng back to the table, where her husband waited.

  She and Nikos had no chance for private conversation after that, yet oddly enough it did not seem to matter. Their glances touched occasionally, they exchanged pleasantries in the course of general conversation, but the dark undercurrent that ran between them and for the moment at least bewitched them both was too deep for anyone else to sense or divine. When the party broke up a couple of hours later she kissed him goodbye quite naturally. Only as they were leaving, when Leon, well into his cups, clapped a huge arm about her shoulders saying, ‘Come, Kati. Home with your husband. We must start this New Year the way we mean to continue —’ did she discern a flicker of something in the lucent green-gold eyes as Nikos looked from her to his father that momentarily disturbed her, that woke her, so to speak, from the dream into which his declaration of love had lured her.

  Suddenly her head cleared. For Christ’s sake! What had she done? What had she said? What had she inferred?

  ‘Tomorrow, my boy,’ Leon was saying, ‘you sleep as late as you wish. On Friday Kati goes home and you and I start work again.’ He clasped his son’s hand. ‘We have much to do. Happy New Year to you, Nikos. Pray it will be a good one for Kotsikas and Son!’

  Nikos said nothing.

  Leon made love to her that night, swiftly and with passion, and then as swiftly fell asleep beside her.

  Only then, staring sleepless into the darkness as he snored gently beside her, and remembering that sudden, dark flash of anger on Nikos’ face as he had looked at his father, did she truly realise what she might have done.

  *

  On the day after New Year’s Day Cathy ran away, as fast as a ticket to Suffolk could take her. She had neither seen nor spoken to Nikos since the ball. She was torn between longing to see him and a desire never to get near him again. She needed to go home. She saw Leon off to the office, packed her bags and ordered a taxi. She arrived at Liverpool Street station at five minutes to ten.

  Nikos was waiting for her.

  He stood by the barrier, scanning the faces of the thinning crowds; too late she saw him, he was already coming towards her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  ‘Nikos!’

  ‘I had to see you. I had to.’

  ‘How did you know which train I was catching? You didn’t — you didn’t ask your father?’

  ‘Of course not. I simply came first thing, and waited. I’d have waited all day if needs be.’

  ‘Leon’s expecting you at the office.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What will you tell him?’

  He shrugged.

  They stood in helpless silence. Around them the station bustled; a whistle screeched, a train belched steam and the couplings clanked as it pulled away.

  ‘I want to come and see you,’ he said.

  ‘No!’ She was panic-stricken. ‘Nikos, no! You know you mustn’t.’ She walked past him, fast, towards the barrier. ‘I have to go. The train leaves in five minutes.’

  ‘Don’t go. Catch the next one. Talk to me.’

  ‘No. I can’t. Nikos — please!’ She showed her ticket. Nikos produced a platform ticket and passed throug
h the barrier with her, hurrying beside her as she walked along the platform.

  ‘You said ”we”,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ She struggled to open a door. He reached past her, turned the heavy handle, stood back for her to enter the carriage. An elderly woman sat in a corner seat, reading a newspaper. Nikos took Cathy’s bag, put it up on the luggage rack, let the leather window strap slip before he stepped back down on to the platform and shut the door.

  ‘You said “we”,’ he said again, through the open window. His face was drawn. He looked very tired and very young. ‘On New Year’s Eve. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘I want to come and see you. I have to talk to you.’

  She reached to touch the hand that rested on the window.

  ‘You mustn’t. My dear, you know you mustn’t.’

  The woman in the corner was watching them, an avid glint of interest in her eyes.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘No.’ She was stubborn.

  ‘I’ll come anyway. You can’t hide from me for ever.’

  ‘I’m not hiding —’

  ‘What are you doing then? Do you know? Do you understand what you’re doing to me?’

  She was silent.

  Someone ran past, jumped into the next door carriage. As the door slammed a whistle blew.

  ‘I love you,’ Nikos said. ‘I mean it. And I won’t let you go. I can’t. I will come. In a week or so. And then, if you don’t want to see me you can send me away. But I will come.’

  The train was moving. He lifted her fingers to his lips then stepped back. She stared straight ahead. A poster depicting an impossibly pretty mother with two impossibly rosy children invited her to visit Clacton for fresh air and fun. The mirror above it was cracked. The woman in the corner rustled her newspaper, her eyes flickering to Cathy’s face and away.

  Cathy leaned back and closed her eyes. Home; she needed to go home.