‘I suppose you saw the processions? The burial of Christ and the great resurrection procession on Easter Sunday?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will they hold them this year, do you think?’
‘They may, if things are going well.’ He answered unwillingly as though she were forcing him to give her information but when her questions stopped, he said: ‘The evzones are in Albania. The processions wouldn’t be much without them. On Easter Sunday they wear their full regalia. You know – fustanella and tasselled caps and slippers with pompoms,’ he suddenly laughed. ‘The processions end up in the square … the girls on the hotel terrace had those sparkler things and they were shaking them down on the men’s skirts, trying to set them on fire …’
She smiled and put out her hand to him: ‘If they hold the processions this year, we might see them together.’
He took her hand but there was still something wrong. Staring down at the ground, he said: ‘This is only a temporary posting. I probably won’t be here at Easter. You do realize that, don’t you?’
‘No, I didn’t realize …’
She moved away from the wall. The view had become meaningless. She noticed how cold the wind was; and the sun had almost set. They began walking down the steps.
While she had contemplated a long, developing relationship, he had, she now saw, been obsessed by the knowledge that their time was short. She had had an illusion of leisurely intimacy, imagining them trapped together here, likely to share the same fate. It had all been fantasy. Whatever their fate would be, he would not share it. Guy and she might not save themselves, but they were free to try.
He was a different order of being. His function was not to preserve his own life but protect the lives of others. In this present situation, he might run no greater risk than she herself; he was not more likely to lose his life – and yet, against reason, glancing sideways in the twilight, she saw him poetic, trans-figured, like one of those sacrificial youths of the last war whose portraits had haunted her childhood. With his unmarred, ideal looks, he was not intended for life. It was not his part to survive. She was required to live but he was a romantic figure, marked down for death.
And the relationship was urgent.
It was not quite dark when they reached the bottom of the road. Lights were on in the shops but the black-out curtains had not been pulled across. They passed a small grocery-shop with empty shelves. From habit she looked in, just in case there was something for sale. She saw nothing but a jar of pickled cucumbers.
As they crossed the road to the Grande Bretagne, Charles said: ‘Will you meet me again later? We could have supper at the Corinthian.’
The request was peremptory, almost a command, but she had to resist: ‘I’m going to Guy’s rehearsal.’
‘Do you have to go?’
‘I promised him.’
‘I see.’
They had reached the main entrance of the hotel and he was about to enter without speaking again.
She said: ‘Will you come to lunch on Sunday.’
‘Where?’
‘At our house. The villa beside the Ilissus.’
‘I will if I can.’ He turned to go then paused and added more graciously: ‘I would like to come.’
‘Yes. Do.’ She spoke with enticing sweetness and he smiled and said: ‘Then of course I will.’
17
Guy’s position had not become wholly void. He had visited the Greek officials and persuaded them to return the keys of the School. As a result of his earnest and energetic appeal, they agreed that the library might remain open and the School premises be used as a club. He was now rehearsing the entertainment for the airmen at Tatoi and rehearsals were held in the Lecture Room.
Pinkrose did not object to this because he knew nothing about it. His appointment as Director of Propaganda had been confirmed. When Guy asked him to approve some action taken to restore the function of the School, Pinkrose said he was much too busy to be worried by matters of that sort. Guy could do what he liked.
Pinkrose came to the Information Office several days a week and shut himself into the room that had once been Alan’s office.
‘What does he do?’ Harriet asked.
‘He’s writing a lecture,’ Alan solemnly replied: ‘His subject is “Byron: the Poet-Champion of Greece”.’
‘When will he deliver it?’
‘That remains to be seen.’
The Tatoi entertainment was progressing. The theme song had been written by Guy himself and when he was home, which was not often, he sang it around the house until Harriet begged him to stop.
‘Was I singing?’ he would ask in apology. ‘I didn’t realize,’ and in a moment would sing again:
‘There’s fun and frolic, jokes and sketches, too.
You’ll find them all together in the R.A.F. revue.’
On the morning of Harriet’s luncheon with Charles, Guy had mentioned that the chief item of the revue, a play called Maria Marten, would be given its first run through that evening.
‘You can come and see it,’ he said. ‘You might even join the chorus.’
The invitation surprised her. In the past Guy had discouraged her from attending rehearsals. He had put her out of his production of Troilus and Cressida – a fact she had not forgiven – and when she protested, told her they could not work together. The trouble was, she did not take him seriously enough.
She said now: ‘Do you really want me to come? Don’t you find me a nonconforming reality in your world of make-believe?’
Untouched by mockery, he said: ‘The revue’s different. It’s not like a serious production. In fact, it’s just a joke. Why not come along this evening?’
‘I might.’ Remembering her past rejection, she would not commit herself, yet later in the day she said to Charles: ‘I am going to Guy’s rehearsal.’
There had, she decided, been a promise; and she set out, resolute, after supper, keeping her promise as a gesture of fidelity. When she reached the School, she could hear the rehearsal from the street. The chorus seemed to come from a hundred voices:
‘There’s fun and frolic, jokes and sketches, too.
You’ll find them all together in the R.A.F. revue.’
Looking in through the glazed doors, she saw a hundred mouths opening and shutting. Or what seemed like a hundred.
She knew perhaps ten people in Athens. Guy knew more, of course. She could not keep up with his gregariousness. Though she took it for granted, she wondered: Where did he find all these people? Peering in cautiously, she realized that among them were almost all the women who had been at Mrs Brett’s party. Confused by the number of Mrs Brett’s guests, she had not tried to separate and identify them, but for Guy each had been an individual and, individually contacted, they had come here to help him; now they were singing, whether they could sing or not.
She saw Mrs Brett bawling away. And at the piano there was – of all people! – Miss Jay.
The chorus of pretty girls – students mostly, with one or two of the younger Legation typists – stood in line down the middle of the room. Behind stood an equal number of personable young males. They produced only a part of the uproar. Everyone was required to join in while Guy, acting as conductor, was inspiring, exhorting, giving himself and demanding that everyone else give, too.
‘Come on: give!’ he shouted, refusing any sort of compromise, requiring from them all the volume, vitality and abandon of which they were capable.
The only ones exempt from duty were the cast of Maria Marten – Yakimov, Alan Frewen and Benn Phipps who sat ‘saving their voices’ in a row along the wall.