Icon of Gold

by Teresa Crane

  ‘That isn’t fair!’

  He watched her steadily, his young face hard. ‘Nothing’s fair in this life. If I’ve learned anything I’ve learned that.’

  ‘Nikos!’

  ‘Tell Pa I had to go, will you? I’ve got a meeting this afternoon.’ He pushed his chair from the table and stood up. ‘I wish I had never set eyes on you,’ he said, very quietly.

  A knife in the heart, she thought strangely detachedly, could not have hurt more. For a long time after he had left she sat quite still, her face calm, her eyes distant. The situation was intolerable. Every nerve she possessed screamed at her to get away. But how, and to where? Sandlings was out of the question, no matter how she yearned for it; Adam and Leon between them would make sure of that. But since the trip to the Greek house with Leon the thought had begun to take root in her mind; now there was somewhere else. Sunlight and clear skies. The hum of bees on the mountainside. A place where no one knew her, and she knew no one. Peace.

  ‘I have ordered the baclavas.’ Leon’s voice made her jump. ‘Where is Nikos?’

  ‘He had to go. He said he had a meeting. Leon — I wanted to talk to you about something —’

  ‘Hm? We have retsina with the baclavas.’ Leon lifted a hand.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. I’d like to go to Greece. Back to the house. Now — as soon as possible. There’s so much to do, and I’d like to get the house painted and at least a part of the garden planted before the heat of the summer —’ She stopped as Leon’s great, expansive smile was turned upon her.

  ‘You really want that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took her hand. ‘Then we have Champagne with the baclavas,’ he said, softly. ‘I have waited a very long time for this. Give me a couple of days to organise things. I will send for Yannis. He will take care of you until I can join you at Easter.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Kati — you’re sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  *

  Cathy liked Yannis Vasilios from the moment she met him. He was waiting for her as she stepped off the ferry that had brought her from the mainland, his scarred face wreathed in a wide smile. ‘Kiria Kotsikas! Welcome! You have had a good journey?’

  She greeted him, shook his hand, winced a little. ‘Tiring,’ she admitted, laughing.

  ‘But yes. Come.’ He picked up her case. ‘I take you home. Everything is ready for you.’

  To her surprise everything was indeed ready for her. She had steeled herself to find a house still full of workmen and their attendant mess; instead it was obvious from the moment they walked through the door that the place, though still in its raw state and far from being truly homely, was neat as a pin. A mouthwatering smell drifted from the kitchen upstairs. Yannis called from the verandah. ‘Anna? Anna!’

  A girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen came running down the stairs, stopped, hands folded, and smiled shyly. She was dressed in the full skirt, white blouse and colourful scarf of the village girls. Her black hair was smoothed to a neat coil on her neck.

  ‘This is Anna. She is to look after you. She’s a good girl.’

  Cathy held out a hand. ‘Kalispera sas,’ she said, carefully.

  The child did not take her hand but bobbed a little curtsey and to Cathy’s surprise replied in heavily accented English, ‘Good afternoon, Madam.’

  ‘She is a good girl who speaks English,’ Yannis said with his broad smile. ‘She learns with Father Vangelis, the local priest. He tells me she is his most promising pupil.’

  Cathy smiled. ‘Perhaps you’ll help me with my Greek? I’m ashamed not to have learned more.’

  The girl blushed a little, gestured with her hand towards the house. ‘If you would like, I have cooked for you.’

  Yannis, it seemed, had organised everything, and organised it well. Anna came to the house at seven in the morning and left at six in the evening; initially she was dismayed that Cathy would not hear of her sleeping in the kitchen at night, as had first been planned, but gently and firmly Cathy insisted. As much as anything she had come to Greece to be alone, to restore her own peace of mind, and not even Anna’s silent, smiling presence could be tolerated all the time. Embarrassingly it was some days before Cathy discovered that Anna was cooking for her food that, due to the strict observance of the Lenten fast, she would not dream of eating herself. Yannis had also ensured that the decorating materials had been purchased and stored in an outhouse.

  Four men from the village came each day — or at least almost each day, which was testament to Yannis’ powers of persuasion — to help her; she was amused at their mild consternation when she insisted on working alongside them. The bright blues and greens she had chosen for the doors and shutters, the subtler washes of lemon and terracotta for the walls, transformed the interior, whilst a coat of whitewash on the outside walls and on the Shepherd’s Hut gleamed in the sunshine and shone from the shadows of the little grove. It was a little under two weeks to the start of Holy Week, when Leon would come to join her.

  The women of the village were already deep in the preparations for the greatest feast of the Orthodox calendar. The mornings and the evenings were cool, the days bright and sunny. The sunsets, seen from the now finished terrace, were spectacular. Cathy picked flowers on the mountainside, explored the paths and fast-running streams, went occasionally to the village shopping with Anna or with Yannis — who was lodging in the local taverna, an arrangement that Cathy just occasionally thought might be a little too convenient. She knew she was the object of great curiosity; the Foreign Woman, the outsider, and for the moment judged it best to remain aloof. Like the village women themselves she was always polite, and always ready with a greeting, but for now she was happier not to trespass on others’ privacy, and not to have them trespass upon hers. She was aware that this was a very different society than the one to which she was used; too much damage could be done by misunderstandings and misconceptions. There would be time later to explore this new world of hers.

  She began to sketch again, building up a small portfolio, mostly of the flora and fauna of the mountains. She even began to toy with the idea of a studio — the Shepherd’s Hut, she realised, would be perfect; separate from the house, wonderfully quiet and with a view down the valley towards the sea that could only be described as inspirational. A little surprisingly, however, Yannis did not greet this idea with his usual unreserved enthusiasm for anything she suggested, not being certain, he explained apologetically, whether Leon already had other plans for the little building. Cathy shrugged and acquiesced. She was sure she could persuade Leon when he came to join her.

  A few days before Leon was due to arrive Yannis escorted her on the boat to Athens. Despite her determination that the house should be furnished in traditional style — to which end she had commissioned work from a skilled carpenter in Karystos — there were some things unavailable on the island.

  She needed, too, to talk to Leon, to ask him to bring with him some personal possessions, and the best place to do that, given the cheerful and relentless unreliability of the telephone system, was from his office in the city. The trip was a delight, a pleasant two or three hours across waters so unlike that other sea with which she was familiar they might have been those of a lake. Shimmering in the sunlight and as blue as the lucently clear sky, there was no affinity here at all with those long, grey, spume-topped rollers that crashed incessantly upon the shingle beaches of Suffolk. The waters lapped gently in tiny golden coves and at the feet of bird-haven cliffs. The boat chugged steadily on, carving a way through the glassy sea, her wake spreading wide and unbroken behind her. They never once lost sight of land; always, on either side, sometimes close, sometimes distant and misted, the mountains rose, mysterious and shadowed in the sunlight. They passed the occasional fishing village climbing the hillside behind a small natural harbour, its houses freshly whitewashed for the spring. Often Cathy saw little groups of fishing boats, working together, the crafts bobbing like cor
ks as the larger vessel passed them. The breeze in her face was very soft and carried with it the scent of flowers from the mountainsides.

  Athens was hot, and very crowded. Four years after the end of a bitter civil war it gave the impression of a city still not quite at peace with itself. Yet despite this and despite the all-too-obvious signs of recent conflict that still marked the streets and buildings the urge to trade and commerce had quickly reasserted itself. Cathy had little difficulty in finding the fabrics and household effects she had come to buy, albeit at a price. The telephone call to Leon had been booked for three that afternoon; it was, inevitably, delayed, and when it did come through the line was terrible.

  ‘Yannis — he’s looking after you?’

  ‘Wonderfully.’ Despite herself Cathy could not resist the urge to shout. ‘Everything’s going very well. Leon — can you manage to ship the gramophone and records that I wanted?’

  The reply was inaudible, fading into the crackling background. Cathy strained her ears in frustration. Then the sound surged again. ‘— next Tuesday. We will take the afternoon boat to Karystos —’

  ‘We?’ Cathy’s heart had begun to thud, slowly and painfully. ‘Leon? Leon — who’s we?’

  The line was breaking up entirely, Leon’s heavily accented voice was distorted. Cathy heard Adam’s name, and Nikos’. Had Leon said ‘fortunately’ or ‘unfortunately’? ‘Leon!’ she was gripping the heavy telephone so tightly her fingers ached. ‘I can’t hear you! Who did you say was coming with you?’

  More atmospherics. Then ‘- Tuesday. The afternoon boat —’ The line was dead.

  Very precisely she replaced the handset.

  ‘Is OK?’ Yannis had materialised beside her, smiling his crooked, piratical smile.

  ‘Yes. fine. He’ll be here on Tuesday. He’s taking the afternoon boat.’

  ‘Good. We will go down to the harbour and meet him, yes?’

  ‘Yes. A good idea.’ Not him. Them. Who? Who was coming with him? Not Nikos, surely? It couldn’t be Nikos.

  *

  She was thinking the same thing — had been thinking it for all these past, tense days — as she sat beneath a perfumed flowering tree outside a taverna sipping ouzo and watching the small ferry approach the shore the following Tuesday. There was the usual crowd awaiting its arrival; relatives and friends meeting their loved ones, idle onlookers, people with bundles of every shape and size taking the return trip to the city, small, barelegged children who shrieked and dashed about, their bare feet silent in the dust. There were shouts, greetings and laughter from ship to shore. A rope was tossed, casually caught, wound around a capstan; the gangplank was lowered.

  And there they were, as somehow she had known they would be: Leon and Nikos, both still in their city suits, both carrying cases. Nikos’ eyes rested upon her over the heads of the crowd, and the discipline, the self-control, the hard-won peace of the past couple of weeks were wiped out in a single moment. Her heart all but stopped. And in a terror that was bizarrely mixed with happiness she knew that nothing had changed. Worse; that no matter how she tried to lie to herself, she was fiercely — joyously! — glad they had not. Whatever his reasons for coming, whatever the pain his presence might bring, she was so happy to see him she could have wept for it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The stuffy little room was so dark, the air so thick with smoke that beyond the light that hung low above the card table the silent, intently watchful figures that had gathered about the players were like shadows in a pit. Adam hardly noticed them. He felt the familiar anticipatory frisson of excitement as he reached for the cards. His heartbeat lifted, the adrenaline sharpening his brain, churning in his stomach. One more. That was all he needed; just one more good one. The pile of chips in front of him had grown steadily. Only one other man at the table had had as good a run: a middle-aged, stocky man, snappily dressed, his thick, swarthy fingers heavy with gold, a soft felt fedora pushed to the back of his sleek black head. Adam held the hand for a superstitious moment, face down, as he drew on his cigarette. Never hurry the cards. Schooling his face he turned them, fanned them out very slowly in his long fingers.

  An eight. Another. And another. His heart flickered in his chest; eyes downcast he forced himself to calm, slid the other two cards out; kept his expression carefully blank. In a long night of good luck, this was the best yet.

  Piles of chips were being stacked in the centre of the table. Cards were pushed over to the dealer; the man’s big, raw-boned hands were deft as he collected them, dealt out others. Fedora, Adam noted, exchanged three cards. That was a good sign. A long-faced man with a Southern drawl who picked at his teeth with a sharpened match as he spoke said, ‘I guess I’ll stick with what I’ve got.’ That wasn’t.

  ‘One,’ Adam said, sliding a card face down across the table. It didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter.

  Fedora pushed a small pile of chips into the centre of the table. ‘A thousand,’ he said, equably. The minimum bet.

  ‘See your thousand. Raise you another.’

  It went on, the tempo quiet at first. Early on a hand folded, the cards tossed face down on to the table. ‘Too damn’ strong for me,’ said a big, red-faced man, his accent pure downtown New York. Fedora was leaning back in his chair, his face mask-like as he surveyed his hand from beneath lowered lids. The players waited, watching him. For the most fleeting of moments he appeared to hesitate and then with the faintest of shrugs he picked up a stack of counters and set them neatly beside the growing piles. five thousand dollars.

  Adam tucked his cigarette between his lips, half closing his eyes against the smoke. Matched the bet, and raised again. ‘Six.’

  Black eyes flickered to him and away. Fedora tilted his chair on to its back two legs.

  ‘I’m out.’ A few minutes later another man pushed his chair back and stretched, yawning. There were great sweat-patches on his shirt,‘ under his lifted arms.

  ‘Me too.’ The dealer tossed his cards on to the table.

  The match-chewer, impassive, raised again. The flat, coloured counters, smooth and dull with handling, piled higher under the light.

  Another round, and the stakes even higher. Excitement was singing in Adam’s brain, stinging in his blood. This was the big one. ‘Ten,’ he said, calmly.

  ‘Shit.’ The word was mild. The match-chewer tossed his cards back to the dealer. ‘I’m done.’

  Fedora leaned forward, slid first one pile and then another very precisely into the centre of the table. ‘Your ten,’ he said, softly. ‘And I raise you —’ he paused, ‘twenty-five.’

  The room was very quiet. Someone let out an audible breath. Adam glanced down at the diminishing pile in front of him. He had already staked most of his evening’s winnings. For a fraction of a second his confidence wavered. Blue smoke wreathed in the harsh light of the bare bulb. Black eyes held his, expressionless. To hell with it. No one ever got rich without taking risks. He counted the chips into a pile, pushed them forward. ‘I’ll match you,’ he said, ‘but it looks as if I’m out of the readies. You’ll take an IOU?’

  Five long and nervewracking minutes later Fedora counted out the last of his stake, dumped it on to the pile on the table, that had long since slithered into an untidy heap. ‘Time to call it a night. I’ll see you.’

  Adam was sweating. There was a fortune on that table. A bloody fortune. Very precisely, one by one, he snapped his cards on to the table. A king. And four eights.

  For the space of a couple of breaths Fedora looked at the cards thoughtfully. Then, very gently, he fanned out his own and laid them on the table. A murmur ran round the room. ‘Lucky bastard,’ someone said, in grudging admiration. ‘Fucking lucky bastard.’

  Surprisingly soft-looking and well-manicured fingers riffled across the cards. ‘A royal flush. In spades.’ Fedora’s full lips curved to a smile. He pushed the hat further to the back of his head. ‘Hard luck, old boy.’ The mimicking of Adam’s English accent was mocking. ‘Mine, I
think.’ The stubby dark hands reached for and cupped around the pile, pulling it towards him. Gently he extracted several scraps of paper from the slithering counters. Held them up. ‘You’ll honour these, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’ Adam felt as if he were choking. Bile rose in his throat, tainted his mouth. The only hand that could have beaten him. The only sodding hand! ‘If you’ll excuse me?’ Blindly he turned and pushed his way through the dozen or so onlookers that stood between him and the door.

  He did not see the flickering glance that passed between Fedora and the dealer.

  He just made it to the foul-smelling toilet before he was spectacularly and gut-wrenchingly sick.

  *

  ‘Why did you come?’ Cathy asked, very quietly.

  Nikos kept his narrowed eyes on the distant glitter of the sea. ‘I had no choice.’

  Despite herself she felt a small twist of pain. It had not been the answer she had looked for. ‘You mean Leon?’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted her, very calmly. Still he would not look at her. ‘No, not Pa. I could have made an excuse. You. I had to see you.’ At last he turned his head a little, to glance at her. ‘However much it hurt. However much I wished I could hate you. I discovered, after you left, that I didn’t. I hadn’t realised, I truly hadn’t, how much I loved you. When you left -’ He turned his veiled gaze to the sea again, shrugged a little. ‘I hadn’t realised,’ he said again, ‘how terrible it is to be in one place when your heart is in another. Terrible, and empty.’

  Cathy sat quite still, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, trying to control the warm and joyful tide that was lifting within her, melting the chill barrier she had so carefully constructed about her heart and her soul. A terrace or so beneath them her husband, in shirtsleeves, was helping to move a large rock. His voice and those of the workmen echoed up to them. Leon’s lusty laughter bellowed, and birds flew from the trees. ‘I tried,’ Nikos’ quiet voice continued beside her. ‘I truly did. I tried to hate you. Tried not to want you. Tried not to love you. But I couldn’t. In the end I had to admit it; I would rather accept the pain of being near you than the agony the bereavement — of being apart.’