‘You weren’t sure? It could be someone else?’
‘I do know other people.’
‘Of course,’ he agreed but his serious, speculative expression seemed critical of the fact. She laughed and his manner changed. He seemed to laugh at himself, and asked: ‘Where shall we go? Zonar’s?’
She said: ‘Yes,’ but she did not want to go to Zonar’s. It was the restaurant where Alan ate at mid-day, usually taking Yakimov with him. Ben Phipps also went there. Because of Charles’s good-looks and the current of understanding between them, she knew their friendship could be misunderstood. There was disloyalty to Guy in inviting such misunderstanding. But this was not easy to explain. Also, Guy had said he cared nothing for the suspicions of others, so why should she hesitate and shift and evade, and have guilt imposed upon her?
When Zonar’s came into view, it was Charles who hesitated: ‘Do you want to go there?’ he said. ‘We’ll probably run into people we know. Let’s go to the Xenia! The food’s still tolerable there.’
‘Yes, I’d like to see the Xenia.’
No one known to Guy ever went there. Harriet was stimulated by the thought of this expensive restaurant and when she found it dingy, the walls decorated in shades of brown with peacocks and women in ancient Egyptian poses, and hung with lamps of Lalique glass, she was disappointed.
The tables not already taken were reserved and Charles had to wait while the Head Waiter, unwilling to turn away an English officer, consulted his list and decided what could be done for them. In the end an extra table was set up close to the curtain that separated the restaurant from the famous Xenia confiserie where Major Cookson had bought his very small cakes.
Harriet said: ‘This place is a relic of the ’twenties.’
‘The wine is good,’ Charles said defensively.
Most of those present were businessmen but there were some officers, Greeks on leave or Englishmen from the Mission. The atmosphere was dull and though the wine was, as Charles said, good, the food, which imitated French food, seemed to Harriet much worse than the taverna stews.
To avoid Charles’s fixed regard, Harriet watched the comings and goings on the other side of the coffee-coloured chiffon curtains. The people who entered the shop, some furtively, some with nonchalance or aggressive rapidity, chose cakes which were handed to them on a plate with a little fork. However chosen, the cakes would be devoured with the greed of chronic deprivation. Harriet, brought to a state of nervous nausea by Charles’s proximity, had no appetite herself and she began to wonder what she was doing, fomenting a situation that reduced her to such a state.
She sat with a hand on the table and, feeling a touch, found Charles had stretched out his little finger and was pulling his fingernail along the edge of her palm.
‘Tell me why you were crying yesterday.’
‘I don’t know. Not for any reason, really. I suppose I was frightened.’
‘Of the raid? You know Athens hasn’t been bombed.’
‘The guns startled me.’
He gave his laugh, the laugh of a swindled man, that she now began to see was characteristic of him. He would not even pretend to accept her explanation. Her original dislike was roused again and she began to wish herself away. Once away, she would see no more of him.
An apathetic sense of failure came down between them. Charles looked sullen. She felt he was reproaching her for attracting him, then telling him nothing. He fixed her with his cold light-coloured eyes and asked: ‘How long have you been married?’
‘We married just before the war. Guy was home on leave.’
‘Had you known one another long?’
‘Only a few weeks.’
‘You married in haste?’
The questions were asked mockingly, almost derisively, and she gave her answers with the intention of annoying him: ‘Not really. I felt I had known him all my life.’
‘But did you? Did you know him?’
‘Yes, in a way.’
‘But not in every way?’
Knowing he was taking revenge for her refusal to confide in him, she felt her own power and answered composedly: ‘Not in every way. There are always things to be discovered about every human being.’
‘But you still think him wonderful?’
‘Yes. Too wonderful, perhaps. He imagines he can do everything for everyone.’
‘But not for you?’
‘He sees me as part of himself. He feels he does not need to do things for me.’
‘Are you satisfied with that state of affairs?’
People waiting for tables were queuing on the other side of the curtain and this gave her excuse to say: ‘Don’t you think we should go?’
‘You’ve hardly eaten anything.’
‘I’m not very hungry.’
Outside, in the bright, brief light of afternoon, with two hours of freedom before them, Charles asked: ‘What would you like to do now?’
The question was a testing-point and, from his tone, she saw he expected her to refer the question back to him. She said casually: ‘I’ve never been to the Lycabettos church. Let’s go up there.’
‘If you want to.’
He did not hide his resentment. Though he turned towards the hill, he made no pretence of interest in the excursion. She felt the distance between them and a bleak relief in not caring. The relationship would go no further.
She asked him about the possibility of a German attack. He gave an offhand answer: a German attack was ‘on the cards’. It had been from the first.
She said: ‘There is a rumour that the Germans are piling up armaments on the frontier.’
‘That rumour’s always going round.’
‘If there is no attack, what do you think will happen? Can the Greeks win?’
‘I don’t know. I doubt it. Greek ammunition is running out. They say present supplies won’t last two months.’
‘But surely we can send them ammunition?’
‘It would be no use. The Greek firearms were bought from Krupps. Our ammunition doesn’t fit.’
‘Can’t we send both guns and ammunition?’
He answered with laconic grimaces, speaking, she knew, out of an inner grimness, conceding her nothing: ‘We haven’t the guns to send. In Cairo our own men are wandering about doing nothing because we have no arms to give them. But even if we had all the rifles in the world, there’d still be the problem of transport.’
‘We can’t spare the ships?’
‘Our losses have been pretty heavy, you know!’
She gave him a sidelong glance and saw him sternly detached from her. She wondered if he were trying to frighten her and said appealingly: ‘Things can’t be as bad as that? Are you suggesting we might even lose the war?’
He gave his ironical laugh: ‘Oh, I imagine we’ll pull through somehow. We always do.’
The climb was a long one. The road ended at the terrace where the Patersons had their flat. Above that the path was rough. By the time they reached the church the sun was only just above the horizon and the whitewashed walls were tawny with the winter sunset. A chilly wind swept across the courtyard of the church. The place was deserted except for a boy who sold lemonade, and he was packing up his stall. Charles stood with an unforthcoming patience while Harriet leant against the wall and looked over the great sea of houses that ran into shadow against the new green of Hymettos. She turned and asked Charles if he had been before to the church.
He stared away from her. She thought he would not reply, but after a moment he said he had been here at Easter when the Greeks made it a place of pilgrimage, carrying candles that could be seen from the distance like two lines of light, one passing up, the other down, the hill.