‘And when will that be? What’s being done to bring Greece into line with more advanced countries? I mean, of course, industrially advanced countries?’
‘Nothing, I hope.’ Alan spoke with a tartness that surprised both Guy and Harriet. ‘Greece is all right as it is. Metaxas is not personally ambitious. He’s a sort of paternal despot, like the despots of the classical world; and, all things considered, I think he’s doing very well.’
Guy, assessing and criticizing Alan’s limitations, said: ‘You prefer the peasants to remain in picturesque poverty, I suppose?’
‘I prefer that they remain as they are: courteous, generous, honourable and courageous. Athens is not what it was, I admit. There used to be a time when any stranger in the city was treated as a guest. As more and more strangers came here, naturally that couldn’t go on; yet something remains. The great tradition of philoxenia – of friendship towards a stranger – still exists in the country and on the islands. It exists here, in a little café like this!’ Alan’s voice sank with emotion; he had to pause a moment before he could say:
‘A noble people! Why should anyone wish to change them?’
Guy nodded appreciatively. ‘A noble people, yes. They deserve something better than subsistence at starvation level.’
‘Man does not live by bread alone. You young radicals want to turn the world into a mass-producing factory, and you expect to do it overnight. You make no allowance for the fact different countries are at different stages of development.’
‘It’s not only a question of development, but a question of freedom; especially freedom of thought. There are political prisoners in Greece. Isn’t that true?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. There may be, but if people are intent on making a nuisance of themselves, then prison is the best place for them.’
‘They’re intent on improving the conditions of their fellow men.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Alan, with the asperity of a docile man attacked through his ideals. He took his dark glasses out and sat fingering them.
Seeing that his hands were trembling, Harriet said: ‘Darling, let’s talk of something else,’ but Guy was absorbed in his own subject. As he spoke at length of good schools, clinics, ante-natal care, child-welfare centres, collective farms and industries communally owned, Alan’s face grew more and more sombre. At last he broke in, protesting:
‘You come from an industrial area. You can only see progress in terms of industry. Greece has never been an industrial country and I hope it never will be.’
‘Can Greece support its people without industry?’
Without attempting to answer, Alan said: ‘I love Greece. I love the Greeks. I do not want to see any change here.’
‘You speak like a tourist. A country must support its populace.’
‘It does support them. No one dies of starvation.’
‘How do you know? Starvation can be a slow process. How many Greeks have to emigrate each year?’
There was a sense of deadlock at the table. Alan put his glasses down, stared at them, then gave a laugh. ‘You’ll have to have a talk with Ben Phipps,’ he said. ‘I think you’d see eye to eye.’
‘Really?’ Harriet asked in surprise.
‘Oh, yes. Ben prides himself on being a progressive.’
‘Surely Cookson wouldn’t approve of that?’
‘He’s not taken seriously at Phaleron. It’s fashionable to be left wing these days, as you know. Phipps is accepted as a sort of court jester. He can believe what he likes so long as he doesn’t try to change anything.’
‘I’d like to meet him again,’ Guy said.
‘I think it can be arranged.’
‘Let’s have another bottle.’
Alan had lost possibility for Guy, but unaware of this, he looked like a boy let out of school and returned to the beauties of Greece, talking at length about his travels on the main-land and to the islands. Guy, sitting back out of the conversation, attended with a smiling interest, viewing him no more seriously than Cookson viewed Phipps.
When they left, the proprietor took their hands and held to them as though he could scarcely bear to be left alone again in the empty silence that had once been alive with music and dancing youths.
There was little traffic outside and no hope of a taxi. Alan, walking ahead, led them through the narrow streets to the Plaka Square which they reached as the air-raid warning sounded. Police regulations required everyone to go under cover during an alert, but the raids, that came every day, were over the Piraeus, and Athenians avoided the regulation if they could. Alan suggested they should sit on the chairs outside the café in the square. They could hurry inside if the police appeared.
The moon, that shone fitfully through drifting cloud, touched the old houses and trees, and the plaque that said Byron had lived somewhere near. The strands of the pepper trees in the central garden moved like seaweed in the wind. It was too cold now to sit out after dark, but the outdoor chill was preferable to the hot, smoky air behind the curtain of the little café.
The café owner, hearing voices outside, looked through the curtains and asked if they would like coffee. Alan explained that they were only waiting for the raid to end. The owner said they might wait a long time and he invited them to take coffee as his guests. The coffee, hot and sweet, came in little cups, and the waiter left the curtain open slightly as a gesture of welcome while someone with a concertina inside began to play ‘Tipperary’ in their honour. They drank down their coffee and ordered some more. The moon disappeared behind cloud and there was darkness except for the crack of light between the café curtains.
Alan said: ‘“They are daring beyond their power and they risk beyond reason and they never lose hope in suffering.”’
‘Thucydides?’ asked Guy. Alan nodded and Harriet begged him: ‘Repeat some of your translations of Cavafy.’
He reflected for a while then began: ‘Why are we waiting, gathered in the market place? It’s the barbarians who are coming today …’ He stopped. ‘It is a long poem; too long.’
‘We have nothing to do but listen,’ said Harriet, and she suddenly realized how happy she was here with Guy, come out of his seclusion to be a companion of this freedom that, having neither past nor future, was a lacuna in time; a gift of leisure that need only be accepted and enjoyed.
Alan was about to start his recitation again when the all clear sounded. ‘Another time,’ he said. ‘Now I must go back and feed my poor Diocletian.’
7
Alan had asked Harriet if she would join him again when he went to the greens and, being told there was a visitor in the hall, she said to Guy: ‘Won’t you come, too?’
Guy, restored to all his old desire for contact with life, said: ‘I’d like to come,’ but running down the stairs, he stopped and whispered: ‘I don’t want to see him.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s Toby Lush again.’
Guy’s expression, injured and apprehensive, roused her to fury. ‘I’ll deal with him,’ she said. ‘You stay there.’
Toby, in his leather-bound jacket, with his wrack of moustache and hair in eyes, looked like some harmless old sheep-dog. He grinned at Harriet as though he had come on a pleasing errand and seemed startled by her tone when she asked:
‘What do you want?’
‘The old lad. Is he about?’
‘No.’
‘When can I see him? It’s urgent.’
‘You can’t see him. You can leave a message.’
‘No. Have orders to see Guy in person.’
‘He refuses to see you. If you have anything to say, you can say it to me.’