by Teresa Crane
‘I thought I might take a little holiday. A week. Perhaps a little longer. Would you like that?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ She was hardly listening. Nikos, here, for three — perhaps four? — days. The world seemed suddenly warm and bright.
‘Good. So I’ll see you next week.’
They said their goodbyes. Cathy replaced the handset and stared out of the grubby window into the hot, bustling streets of Athens. The gods were smiling again. Nikos was coming.
*
She was climbing the precipitous path from the village to the house when she saw the boat in the distance, chugging across the glittering bay like a tiny toy across a gleaming pond. She stopped in the shade of an olive tree beside the running stream that here followed the track of the path and watched as the little vessel drew closer, and disappeared behind the mountains and into the harbour. Nikos was coming. If all had gone well he would be here within the hour. Hot and breathless from her climb she sat on a rock and bent to splash cool water on to her face and neck. A small tortoise plodded its way across the stony path at her feet and she smiled. ‘Hello, little fellow.’ She straightened her back and sat for a moment, elbows on knees, looking out across the valley and regaining her breath. The path here was very steep, zig-zagging through the rocks and the olive groves out of sight both of the village and of the house above. It was very quiet, and utterly peaceful. From a distant hillside came the melodious sound of bells as a herd of goats grazed. The air was warm and heavy with the heady scents of the mountains. It was a perfect day; the sky a vivid cobalt blue, brilliant with sunshine. The distant sea sparkled and danced in the diamond light.
Nikos was coming.
Cathy stood, slung her bag back on to her shoulder, and set off up the last quarter-mile of scrambling ascent to the house.
*
‘For you, Anna.’ Nikos handed the girl a wooden cigar-box, smiling. ‘A young friend of mine doesn’t need them any more.’
Blushing deeply, Anna took the box and opened it; gasped with pleasure. ‘ Oh — Kirios Nikos! For me?’
‘For you.’ He watched as she touched with a gentle finger the rolls of brightly coloured silken ribbon that were tucked into the box.
The eyes that lifted to his were brilliant with thanks and as adoring as a puppy’s. ‘Thank you! Oh, thank you. They’re beautiful!’
‘Well, you’ve certainly made that young lady very happy,’ Cathy said later, smiling a little after Anna had said her goodnights, and more effusive thanks, before taking her booty home.
‘It seemed a shame to throw them away. Such things are still hard to come by. The daughter of a friend of mine has decided she’s too grown up for plaits and to her father’s despair has had them cut off. As I say, it seemed a pity to waste such pretty things, and I thought of Anna, that’s all.’
‘And a very kind thought it was too. Would you like a drink while I’m finishing off supper?’
‘That would be nice.‘
‘Wine? Ouzo?’
‘Wine please.’
Cathy filled his glass. ‘Have you seen much of Leon?’
‘Not over the past couple of days. He’s been off on one of those mysterious trips of his.’
‘He’s all right?‘
‘He seems fine.’
She filled another glass. ‘Food won’t be long. I’ve got time to have a glass with you before I do anything else.’
They sat in silence, bathed in the glow of yet another spectacular sunset. ‘We’re so lucky,’ Cathy said, ‘that the house is on the west-facing side of the valley. I’d much rather have sunsets than sunrises.’
‘Yes.’ He was not watching the glories of the sky, he was watching her, his mouth crooked in a small smile, his eyes narrowed lazily on hers. He reached a hand across the table, palm up, and curled his fingers a little.
She nibbled her lip, her own eyes alight with love and mischief. ‘Supper,’ she said.
‘Damn supper.’
Still she teased him. His long fingers moved, invitingly.
‘I haven’t finished my wine.’
‘Bring it with you. Bring the bottle. Bring two bottles.’
‘Good God! My mother warned me about men like you. You’re trying to get me tiddly so you can take advantage of me! What kind of a girl do you think I am?’
‘The kind of girl that’s going to come to bed with me now, and make love, and then have supper and then make love again. That kind of girl.‘
Cathy stood, moved round the table to him. ‘Got it in one,’ she said. ‘Nobody loves a smart arse, you know.’
He caught her hand, drew her down to kiss him. ‘You do.’
‘Yes. I do.’
He picked up the wine bottle and led the way downstairs. The bedroom was coolly shadowed. The shutters, half closed, let in a single, blindingly brilliant shaft of fading sunlight that dazzled the eyes. Nikos put bottle and glasses on the small table by the bed, slipped off his jacket and turned. Cathy’s fingers were at the buttons of her skirt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Come here. I want to undress you.’
She moved through the bar of light to him. He unbuttoned her blouse, slipped it from her shoulders, bent to kiss the curve of her neck. She raised her arms, pressing her breasts against him, her fingers loosening his tie, undoing the top button of his shirt.
His hands moved gently on her lifted breasts. She let her head fall back, closing her eyes, savouring every moment, every touch.
There was the faintest of movements in the shadows by the opened door. Nikos lifted his head sharply. The dagger of light from the window, blood red now, dazzled him for a moment.
A dark bulk loomed in the doorway. ‘Well,’ said Leon, his harsh voice savagely and perilously quiet. ‘It seems that after all I owe Yannis an apology.’
Chapter Seventeen
For the briefest of moments the shocked silence was absolute.
‘Nothing to say?’ Leon enquired, still softly. ‘No protests? No denials? Well —’ his smile was contemptuous ‘— perhaps not. Not in the circumstances.’
‘Leon —’ began Cathy.
‘Quiet, woman. Cover yourself.’ Leon’s intent, unblinking gaze was fixed upon Nikos. He still had not raised his voice. ‘Perhaps I should have left my interruption for a few moments longer? Would the entertainment have been worth such restraint?’
Nikos’ olive skin had paled to ivory. His head was up, the bones of his face braced and stark.
‘Lost your voice, boy?’ Leon asked. In contrast to the softness of the words his huge, threatening hands were clenching and unclenching very slowly at his sides.
Nikos stepped towards him, out of the shadows, away from Cathy. ‘No, Pa. I haven’t lost my voice.’
‘Your wits then?’ His father thrust his great head forward like a bull. ‘Your sense of honour? You’ve lost them?’
‘Pa, listen. Please. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I love you. You know it. But I love Cathy more. And she loves —’
He was not allowed to finish. Leon’s massive hand caught him, flatly, across the cheek and sent him spinning across the room to crash painfully into the table.
‘Leon! No! Please —’
Leon ignored Cathy’s cry. In two quick, surprisingly agile steps he was beside Nikos and had hauled him to his feet by the front of his shirt. He slapped him again, very hard. Nikos’ head rocked. Blood sprang brightly upon his cheekbone. He made no attempt to defend himself. Leon raised his hand again.
‘No!’ Cathy launched herself across the room and caught his arm, clinging to it. ‘Stop it!’
He shook her off as if she had been a kitten. The next blow took Nikos almost off his feet and he staggered, and went down on one knee, putting a hand to his bloodied mouth.
Again Cathy tried to stop Leon, and again was sent reeling. Leon stood over his son, hands fisted at his sides. ‘Get up. At least fight like a man.’
Dizzily Nikos got to his feet, stood swaying. ‘I won’t fight you, Pa. Not like this.’
Leon stepped back, breathing hard. Cathy, shaking and sick with terror, stepped between them. ‘Leon — please listen — it isn’t Nikos’ fault —’
‘Get out of the way. I’ll deal with you later.’
‘No! You’ll listen to me now — you must!’
At last his eyes rested fully upon her, and she flinched at what she saw in them. He caught her wrist in a brutal grip. ‘I said get out of the way.’ The words were unnervingly quiet. With no effort he threw her from him, on to the bed, turned again. ‘Up, boy.’
‘Leon, what good will it do to hurt him any more?’ Tears were running down Cathy’s face.
Once again Nikos staggered to his feet. ‘Pa —’
Leon seized him by the hair, straining his head back viciously. ‘Don’t “Pa” me!’ The words were a snarl. With his free hand he reached to his own throat and lifted the gold icon from the folds of his shirt, dangling it before Nikos’ eyes. ‘Once you would have had this. I have always carried it in trust for you. A token of your mother’s love. Of the woman who died in this very yard, protecting us. You spit on her memory!‘
‘No!’
‘You spit on my fatherhood. On your family. You are not my son — do you hear? You are no longer my son! You are nothing! A dog, who copulates!’ Every word he accentuated with a shake of the hand that was twisted into the thick black hair.
Nikos gasped in pain. Cathy scrambled from the bed and stood frozen, watching. For a moment the pair were still. The icon spun, gently and lazily between them. ‘Leon, listen to me,’ Cathy spoke very rapidly, ‘the fault is mine. Mine. Not Nikos’. He’s a boy. I-’ she was shaking uncontrollably ‘—I led him on.’
‘No!’ Somehow Nikos found the strength to break his father’s grip. He spun to face her, swaying. Blood drenched the front of his shirt, his right eye was almost closed. He put the back of his hand to his mouth to wipe it, shook his head a little. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t lie. I can’t bear it if you lie.’
‘I’m not lying.’ Cathy was keeping her eyes steady on Leon’s, willing him to believe her. ‘I’m not. From the start it was my fault. I was lonely. I was angry with you. Nikos was —’ she stopped, unable to go on.
‘Nikos was my son!’ Leon came slowly towards her, face and eyes darkly venomous. ‘Nikos was my son! Whore!’
She flinched at that but said nothing.
Nikos launched himself at his father, fists flailing. ‘Stop it! Leave her alone!’
With a roar Leon turned on him. In a moment the boy was on his knees again, panting, winded, his arms crossed over his stomach, a fresh cut opened on his brow.
‘Leon, enough!’ Cathy said.
He turned his head to look at her. ‘Enough, you say? Enough? He should be dead. He has betrayed me.’
‘No,’ she said, steadily, ‘I have betrayed you. Nikos is a boy. And a not very experienced one.’ She lifted her head, setting her jaw, refusing to look into the dawning disbelief in the young face that turned sharply to hers. ‘He believed me,’ she said quietly, ‘when I told him I loved him. Why should you blame him for that?’
‘Cathy, no!’ Nikos’ voice was full of pain.
‘I told you, the fault is mine,’ Cathy continued steadily. ‘And has been from the start.’ She knew the risk she was taking; fear was pulsing in her blood and turning her stomach to water. Leon was watching her with murderously fierce, narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve punished him enough. Let him go.’
Nikos shook his head, winced. ‘I won’t go.’
Cathy schooled her face to look at him. ‘Yes you will. It’s over, Nikos. Over.’
‘No!’
‘Get up.’ Leon hooked his hand into Nikos’ shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. ‘Listen to what she’s saying. The voice of Eve.’ He glanced at Cathy, contempt in his face. ‘You‘ve been had, boy. We both have.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Nikos said, flatly, to Cathy.
In some odd dispassionate corner of her mind Cathy found herself registering the fact that the pain in her heart was physical, an agony that constricted the flow of blood and stopped the breath. ‘Believe me,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’ She glanced back at Leon. ‘Let him go,‘ she said again. ‘He’s guilty of nothing but stupidity.’
Leon raised his voice. ‘Yannis!’
‘Cathy, stop this,’ Nikos said. ‘You love me. You know you do. You can’t send me away. You can’t! Not again!’
She managed, somehow, to face calmly his hurt and bewildered gaze. His young, damaged face was smudged with blood and bruises. ‘I am sending you away. And –’ she hesitated only for a moment before aiming very carefully the final blow ‘— I don’t love you, Nikos. Not the way you wanted me to. There is a difference between love and infatuation. The one lasts, can sustain any blow. The other can’t. You have to go. My place is here.’
There was movement at the door, and Yannis slipped into the room. Cathy cast him one bleak glance; he returned it, coolly expressionless.
‘Yannis,’ Leon said. ‘Get this puppy out of here. Take him to the boat. Make sure he’s on it when it leaves. And — Yannis - drop a word in the ear of Captain Makris — tell him to spread it — the young bastard’s not to be allowed back. Not under any circumstances. I’ll have the guts — and the boat - of anyone who brings him.’
‘I won’t go,’ Nikos said, stubbornly desperate.
‘You’ll go,’ his father said quietly. ‘Or, by Christ, I’ll finish what I started.’
Cathy turned her back on all of them, folding her arms tightly across her breast. ‘Cathy?’ Nikos asked, despairingly.
‘Go,’ she said.
There was a long moment of silence, followed by movement. Then quiet fell again. Cathy could sense the presence behind her, menacing. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ Leon said at last, very softly, ‘when the temptation to cut out your deceitful heart has eased at least a little.’
She heard the door close, heard the turning of the key in the lock. The sun had at last sunk behind the distant horizon, and the blood-red glow in the sky was dying.
*
He came in the middle of the night, after she had at last fallen into a fitful nightmare of sleep, involuntary sobs still shaking her. He had been drinking. She sensed rather than saw him in the darkness; so long and so hard had she wept she could barely focus her eyes, and her head ached as if it would split. Leon struck a match, unsteadily set it to the wick of the lamp, loomed above her for a moment before with a swift movement reaching to strip the light bedcover from the bed. Cathy sat up, scrambling away from him, curling her legs beneath her, pushing herself back against the wooden headboard, her heart hammering in her throat. With a shaking hand she clutched at the neck of the shirt that was her only covering.
‘So,’ his voice rasped in the silence, ‘you bare your body to my son and you try to hide it from me.’
She was incapable of speech; sheer, primitive fear locked her tongue. She stared at him with unblinking eyes.
‘Nothing to say?’ He was unbuckling his leather belt, slipping it from the loops that held it; with a terrible fascination she watched as he wound the buckled end around his hand and swung it, threateningly, across his shoulder. He was breathing heavily. ‘No pleas, no apologies? No excuses?’
She pressed her back harder against the headboard.
‘Speak, will you!’
Still she said nothing. She saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped the belt, and tensed herself against the first blow, turning her head a little, unable for all her efforts to prevent herself from flinching.
‘You are a whore. A harlot. You have betrayed me, shamed my name. You have dishonoured me. I should kill you. No one would blame me.’
Tense and trembling she looked back into his face. The grim gleam of tears in the fierce, dark eyes all but broke her. ‘Leon — please - don’t cry
—’
‘Cry?’ He bent his head to her, thrust his face into hers. ‘Cry, whore? These tears should be blood! You hear me? Blood!’
Cathy bowed her head and covered her face with her hands.
‘Beg for your life, woman.’ His voice, close to her ear, cracked and dropped to a whisper. ‘Beg for it!’
Numbly she shook her head, gasped as he buried his hand in her hair and dragged her head back, forcing her to look at him. The tears were running down his unshaven face, channelled into the deep grooves about his mouth. The smell of ouzo was strong enough to make her gag. With a sudden, violent movement he flung her from him, stood swaying above her. ‘You’ve — shamed — me,’ he growled, and lifted his arm. The heavy belt swished through the air; Cathy gasped as it struck the bed an inch from her face. Leon bent close, thrust his face in hers. ‘God damn you, woman,’ he said, very clearly, ‘God damn you for a squalid whore. You’ve stolen my honour and my son. Look for punishment, for it will come.’ Then he left her, crashing the door behind him and turning the key in the lock. Cathy heard his heavy tread on the stone steps, heard him stumble and regain his balance. Shaking and exhausted she was beyond tears. The lamp guttered. Shadows leapt about her. Lying where he had left her, she stared into them in despair.
*
Cathy kept to her room for the next twenty—four hours, pleading a sickness that was not entirely feigned. The trauma had taken its toll of her, both physically and mentally, and the misery of guilt and remorse was merciless. Anna tutted and fussed about her, bringing trays that left the room as laden as they had entered it. ‘You must eat, Kiria,’ the girl scolded, ‘or you will not get well. The festival is nearly here. Your son is coming. What will he think, to find his poor Mama has fallen sick?’
Adam. Dear God — Adam was coming. She had forgotten it. She laid back on her pillow, her forearm across her aching eyes, letting Anna chatter on. Nikos. Where was Nikos? What would he do? Where would he go? He had the money his grandmother had left him, and still had friends in America. Often he had asked her to go there with him. One thing was certain. She would never see him again. She fought tiredly against the tears that brought. Had he believed the things she had said that she had said to save him? She feared so. Always he had hovered on the edges of disbelief — of distrust.