Cold with fear, she went back to the villa and found Guy in the living-room. Gleefully, she cried: ‘How wonderful. But why are you here?’
She ran at him and flung her arms round him but he was unresponsive. He had been unpacking his books and had a book in his hand. He stared at it with his lower lip thrust out.
‘What’s the matter?’
He did not answer for a minute, then said: ‘They’ve closed down the School?’
‘Who? Who did it? Cookson?’
‘Cookson? Don’t be silly. The authorities did it. They didn’t realize we intended opening again. When they found we were enrolling students, they ordered an immediate closure.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh, the old fear of provoking the Germans. I suppose British cultural activities could be regarded as provocation!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she held to him but in his despondency he simply waited for her to release him. When she dropped her arms, he returned to his books.
‘What will you do?’
‘Oh,’ he reflected, then began to rouse himself: ‘I’ll find plenty to do. I’m organizing this air-force revue, for one thing. Now I can start rehearsals at once.’ As he arranged his books, he became cheerful and said: ‘Coming here wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.’
‘You think so? You really think so?’ She was relieved, for in the twilight the villa, bare, functional and very cold, had seemed worse than a mistake; it had seemed a disaster.
‘Oh yes. It’s splendid having a bathroom and kitchen, and two rooms of our own. We can give a party.’
‘Yes, we can.’
She had not intended telling Kyria Dhiamandopoulou’s dream but could not suppress it.
Guy said: ‘Surely you don’t believe her?’
‘You mean, you think she made it all up? Why should she?’
‘People will say anything to appear interesting.’
Unable to accept this, Harriet said: ‘You think there’s nothing in the world that can’t be explained in material terms?’
‘Well, don’t you?’
‘I don’t,’ she laughed at him. ‘The trouble is, you’re afraid of what you can’t understand so you say it doesn’t exist.’
As they worked together, putting their possessions straight, Harriet felt a sense of holiday and said: ‘Let’s do something tonight! Let’s go and eat at Babayannis’!’
He said: ‘Well!’ In the face of her excitement, he could not disagree at once but she saw there was an impediment. It turned out that he had arranged to go to Tatoi. Ben Phipps was driving him out and they had been invited to drinks in the Officers’ Mess.
‘We’ve got to discuss arrangements for the revue,’ he said.
Inclined, unreasonably, to blame Phipps for Guy’s engagement, she said crossly: ‘I don’t know what you see in him. He’s taken up with you simply because he’s fallen out with Cookson.’
‘Don’t you want me to have a friend?’
‘Not that friend. Surely you could find someone better. What about Alan Frewen?’
‘Alan? He’s a nice enough fellow, but he’s a hopeless reactionary.’
‘You mean he doesn’t agree with you? At least, he’s honest. He’s not a crook like Phipps.’
‘Ben is a bit of a crook, I suppose,’ Guy laughed. ‘But he’s amusing and intelligent. In a small society like this, if you’re over-critical of the people you know, you’ll soon find you don’t know anyone.’
‘Then why were you so critical of Cookson?’
‘That Fascist! Whatever you may say about Ben, he has always been a progressive. He has the right ideas.’
‘Would he go to the stake for them?’
‘Who knows? Worse men than Ben Phipps have gone to the stake for worse ideas.’
‘You think the occasion makes the man?’
‘Sometimes the man makes the occasion.’
She said bitterly: ‘I’m surprised you bothered to come home at all.’
‘You said you wanted me to help you move in.’
‘Well, don’t let me keep you now.’
Untroubled, he agreed that it was time for him to get the bus into Athens.
Late that night Harriet, tensed by the unfamiliar noiselessness outside, lay awake and listened for him.
Some time after midnight he came down the lane singing contentedly:
He had been privileged to see a squadron set out on a raid over the Dodecanese ports. Ben Phipps had gone home to write a ‘think piece’ based on this experience and Guy would show his appreciation, too, by putting on the best entertainment the Royal Air Force had ever seen.
Early next morning the Pringles were awakened by the sound of someone moving about in the villa. They found an old woman like a skeleton bird, with body bound up in a black cotton dress, head bound in a black handkerchief, setting the table for breakfast. At the sight of the Pringles, she stood grinning, her mouth open so they saw she did not possess a single tooth. She pointed to her breastbone and said: ‘Anastea.’
Guy did his best to question her in Greek. The master and mistress had forgotten to tell her they were leaving, but she was not much concerned. One employer had gone, another had come. She said that in the mornings she did the house-work and shopping; in the evening she came in to cook a meal. Guy said: ‘Let her stay. We can afford her.’ Harriet was doubtful, but said: ‘We could afford her if I got a job.’
While the Pringles conversed in their strange foreign tongue, Anastea stood with hands modestly clasped before her, confident that the great ones of the world would provide for her. When Guy nodded, she grinned again and continued her work without more ado.
16
The information office, which had once been an unimportant appendage of the Legation, now had independent status within the domain of the Military Mission. Harriet found ‘Information Office (Billiard Room)’ signposted right through the Grande Bretagne but when she came to the Billiard Room, which was at the rear of the hotel, she saw it could have been reached directly by the side entrance. There was no sound behind the Billiard Room door. She imagined Alan Frewen and Yakimov at work there, but when she opened the door she met the stare of two elderly women whom she had never seen before.
The women sat opposite each other at desks placed back to back in a greyish fog of light that fell through a ceiling-dome. There was no other light. The room, with its dark panelling, stretched away into shadow. From where Harriet stood at the door the two old corpse-white faces looked identical, but when she reached them, Harriet saw that one, who looked the elder, was bemused, while the younger had the awareness of a guardian cockatrice.
‘Yes, what is it?’ the younger demanded.
‘I’m looking for Mr Frewen.’
‘Not here.’
‘Prince Yakimov?’
‘No.’
Both women were paused in their work. The elder hung over a typewriter, her bulbous puce-purple lips wet, tremulous and agape; the brown of her eye had faded until nothing remained but a blur of sepia, lacking comprehension; but the younger sister – they could only be sisters – still had a dark, sharp gaze which she centred on Harriet’s chest.
‘When will Mr Frewen be back?’ Harriet asked.
The younger sister seemed to quiver with rage. ‘I really can’t tell you,’ she said, her quivering sending out such a dispelling force Harriet felt as though she were being thrust out of the room. The women suspected her purpose in coming to the office and would tell her nothing. Defeated, she moved away and as she did so, the elder dropped her head over her machine and began to strike the keys slowly, producing a measured thump like a passing bell.