Alan Frewen was waiting for them in the common-room. He hurried towards them, his dog at his heels, his manner stimulated by the day’s events, saying: ‘I’m glad you’re early, I may get called back, but probably not. At the moment the Information Service is little more than a joke, but if the Greeks make any sort of a stand, then we’ll have to pull up our socks.’
‘Can the Greeks make a stand?’ Guy asked. ‘Have they anything to make a stand with?’
‘Not much, but they have valour; and that’s kept them going through worse times than these.’
While Alan talked, Harriet glanced about her. Agitated by the fact she was in Gracey’s ambiance, she wanted to see the other occupants of the vast room who, seated on the faded armchairs and sofas, gave a sense of being intimately unrelated in the manner of people who exist together and live apart. The room itself had been bleached like the garden, by the fervour of the light. Even the books in the pitch-pine bookcases were all one colour, and the busts that looked down from the bookcase tops were filmed with dust and as sallow as the rest. She made a move towards one of them but Alan stopped her, saying: ‘All locked. We are in the Academy, but not of it. The students left their materiel behind but we, of course, must not touch.’
He led them out to the terrace where seats and deck-chairs, blanched like everything else, were splintering in the sun. Stone steps led down to a garden where nothing remained of the flower-beds but a tangle of dry sticks. The lawn beyond, brick-baked and cracked in the kiln of summer, was an acre of clay tufted over with pinkish grass. The tennis courts were screened behind olives, pines and citrus trees. The wind that played over the terrace was full of a gummy scent, unique and provocative, that came from the pines, and from the foliage that had dried and fallen into powder.
‘That is the smell of Greece,’ Harriet said.
Alan Frewen nodded slowly: ‘I suppose it is.’
‘Can we have tea out here?’
‘I am afraid it is not allowed. Miss Dunne – who decides things here – says it makes too much work for the girls. The girls say they don’t mind, but Miss Dunne says “No”.’ A bell rang and they went inside and sat near the french windows. A plate of cakes came in with Alan’s tea-tray and he said: ‘I’m glad you’re here to help me eat these. When I heard the last boat had gone, I was afraid you might be on it.’
‘The last boat? Do you mean the boat that was going on Saturday?’
‘Yes. There won’t be another. The Egyptians won’t risk their ships, and who can blame them? The boat went this morning and the shipping clerks closed the office and went with her. I’m told that a few wide-awake people managed to get on board, though I don’t know who could have warned them.’
Guy said: ‘Surely there are Greek boats?’
‘No. Anyway, not for civilians. Greece is on a war-time basis now.’
‘And no air-service?’
‘There never was an air-service to Egypt.’
Looking at Guy, Harriet laughed and said: ‘Freedom is the recognition of necessity.’
‘What about Salonika?’ Guy persisted. ‘There must be a train to Istanbul?’
‘That’s a war zone, or soon will be. Anyway, there’s an order out: foreigners are not allowed to leave Athens. You might be refused an exeat to Salonika.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Anything’s likely here during an emergency. Greek officials are very suspicious.’
‘So we can’t get away? In fact, no one can get away?’
‘There may be an evacuation boat of some sort. The Legation think they ought to send away the English women with children. I don’t know. Nothing’s been arranged yet. If Mrs Pringle wants to go, I could probably get her a passage.’
Harriet said: ‘I’m staying here, if I can.’
‘That’s the spirit. Anyway, what’s this talk of trains to Istanbul? I thought you both wanted to stay?’
‘It’s Mrs Brett’s stories. Guy doesn’t like the idea of working for Gracey now.’
‘Oh!’ Alan Frewen rubbed the toe of his shoe up and down the dog’s spine and smiled in apparent pain as the dog stretched in pleasure. He reflected for some moments, then said: ‘Mrs B.’s obsessional. She’s always telling stories about the Cookson set. I think Brett was treated meanly, but he was an old fuddy-duddy; quite incapable of running the School. All the work was done by the two lecturers, who liked him. They left when Gracey took over, as I think you know.’
Harriet said: ‘What about the business of the memorial party?’
‘It was unkind, but she provoked it. She has been inexcusably rude to Cookson at different times. She practically accused him of murdering her husband. She’s a bit hysterical. You saw it yourself.’
‘If you’d been here, would you have gone to Cookson’s party?’
Frewen raised his eyebrows slightly at Harriet’s question, but smiled again: ‘I might, you know. It would have been a difficult choice. Cookson’s parties are rather grand.’
Guy said with conviction: ‘I am sure you would not have gone. No decent person would treat a lonely, ageing woman in that way.’
Frewen’s smile faded. He gave Guy a long, quizzical look, but before he could say anything a middle-aged woman in shorts, tennis racquet under arm, came in through the french windows. Lumpish, bespectacled, with untidy fox-red hair, she was hot and damp and breathing heavily. She acknowledged one or two of the men with sidelong grimaces, then, catching sight of the strangers, she rolled up her eyes in appalled self-consciousness and sped from the room.
‘Who?’ Harriet whispered.
‘That’s Miss Dunne, the terrible sportsgirl.’
‘Is she at the Legation? What does she do?’
‘Oh, something so very hush-hush, I’m told she’s led to it blindfolded. But I wouldn’t know, and I wouldn’t dare to ask. She’s the genuine thing, sent out by the Foreign Office. Most of us are only temporary, so she’s a cut above the rest.’
Harriet said under her breath: ‘Pinkrose.’ Guy looked up quickly. They watched as Pinkrose came across the room with a cake carton in his hand. He sat down, placed the carton very carefully on his table and opened it. When his tea arrived, he took out three ornamental cakes, disposed them on a plate and studied them. He chose one, transferred it to a smaller plate, then, on reflection, returned it to the big plate and studied the three again.
Harriet asked Alan Frewen: ‘Do you know him?’
‘Indeed I do. He’s by way of being a colleague of mine.’
‘You mean he’s found a job already?’
‘Yes, though job is no name to call it by. He got into the Information Office somehow. I gave him a desk in the News Room and he potters about. That enables him to live here. He told them at the Legation he couldn’t afford an hotel.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘I’m not. He could have gone back to England. There was a ship going from Alex round the Cape, but he wouldn’t risk it. He said he had a delicate constitution and would be less of a burden to others in a comfortable climate.’
‘He may be regretting that now.’
‘If he is, it’s not affecting his appetite.’
After tea they strolled with the dog about the garden and coming back through the lemon trees that shaded the drive, Alan said diffidently: ‘I mentioned to Gracey that you would be here this afternoon. He suggested you might go and see him about six. Of course, if you don’t want to, I can make your excuses.’
Guy grew red and after a moment said: ‘This is very kind of you.’
‘Oh, no. I made the merest mention, I assure you. It was his idea.’