Anastea herself said nothing. Having made her gesture, she took the dishes and went.
This incident hastened Guy’s departure; and Alan and Harriet went for a walk. They crossed the Ilissus and strolled through the sparse little pinewood where the trees had been dwarfed and distorted by the wind from the sea. Beneath the trees, the spikes of green were already shaping themselves into the foliage of future flowers. January was nearing its end and the light on the puddles on the glossy banks of wet clay had a new brilliance. Harriet said she could smell leaves in the wind. Alan said he could smell nothing but the brewery on the Piraeus road.
Harriet was contemplating a changed attitude to life. What she needed was independence of mind. She would turn her back on emotional involvements and seek, instead, the compensating interest of work and society. Charles was as good as forgotten; but when she returned to the villa, she asked Anastea if anyone had called in her absence.
‘Kaneis, kaneis,’ Anastea replied.
And that, Harriet decided, was that.
19
Sorry about yesterday. Lunch today?
Harriet answered: No.
The military messenger was back within ten minutes. The second message read: Forgive and say yes! Again Harriet replied: No. A third message came: Dinner and explanations? Harriet scribbled across it: Impossible.
Miss Gladys Twocurry said: ‘We can’t have this young man coming in and out of here with his noisy boots. He’s upsetting my sister.’
‘It’s an essential part of my work,’ Harriet replied.
‘If it goes on,’ Miss Gladys threatened, ‘I’ll complain to Lord Pinkrose,’ but the messenger did not come back.
Miss Gladys also had a typewriter, a newer and finer machine than that provided for Miss Mabel. It stood on a billiard table and twice a week it was carried over to her desk by the Greek office boy. She used it to cut the stencil for the biweekly news-sheet, which Yakimov delivered on his bicycle. The stencil cutting, her chief employment, was treated as the most important activity in the office. The duplicator stood in a corner and when not in use was covered with a sheet. The Greek boy would uncover it and spread the ink from the tube. Then tutting, sighing, breathing loudly, Miss Gladys fitted on the stencil. This done at last, the office boy turned the handle and kept the copies neatly stacked. When twenty were ready, they were handed to Miss Mabel, who folded them and put them into envelopes. The envelopes then went to Miss Gladys, who addressed them from a list in a bold, schoolgirlish hand. When the addressed envelopes began to pile up, Yakimov would receive his call from the boy and appear ready-coated, bicycle-clips in place.
Everyone concerned treated the production and delivery of the News-Letter as a supremely exacting operation. If a query arose, it was discussed in whispers.
Yakimov, packing the letters into his satchel, would also speak in whispers; and setting out on his delivery round, he went with strained and serious face.
The last letter run off, folded, placed in an envelope, addressed and delivered, everyone was exhausted, but the most exhausted was Yakimov who, safely back in his office, would collapse into his chair and seem, like the runner Phidipides, about to die from his efforts.
Altogether some four or five hundred envelopes were sent out, some to Greeks but most to English residents in and about Athens. Harriet had been surprised to realize how many British subjects remained, and how much ground Yakimov had to cover on his bicycle. Letters, tied up in batches, were marked not only for the city centre, but for Kifissia, Phychiko, Patissia, Kalamaki, Phaleron and Piraeus.
The first time she had seen them prepared for delivery, she tried to break down Miss Gladys’s hostility by saying: ‘I never knew poor Yaki worked so hard.’
‘Poor Yaki!’ Miss Gladys caught her breath in horror. ‘Are you referring to Prince Yakimov?’
Harriet did not improve matters by laughing. She might treat Yakimov as a joke, but he was no joke for the Twocurrys. Her casual manner towards a man of title marked her for them as one who had too high an opinion of herself. Several times in the office Miss Gladys often began remarks with ‘I never presume’ or ‘I know my station’, and she saw her station increased by the fact she worked with a lord and a prince.
The Twocurrys were not alone in respecting Yakimov’s title. Several among the remaining English were delighted to have a prince drink himself senseless at their parties.
Alan told Harriet that soon after Yakimov arrived he was seen standing on the balcony of a flat where a party was in progress. Singing mournfully to himself, he displayed the organ, the secondary function of which is the relief of the bladder, and sent a crystal trajectory through the moonlight down on to the heads of people drinking coffee at an outdoor café below.
Alan told the story with tolerant affection. In Rumania, where there were too many princes, most of them poor, it would have been told with venom and indignation. His situation there had become such he would, had Guy not given him refuge, have died, as the beggars died, of starvation and cold. In those days he used to speak contemptuously of Greek cooking, yet it was here in Greece that he had regained himself and found friendship.
Harriet, who saw him often, could not imagine why she had ever disliked him. He had become not only a friend, but an old friend. They shared memories that gave them the ease of near relationship.
When Alan and Yakimov went to Zonar’s or Yannaki’s, they would take Harriet with them. ‘Do come, dear girl, we’d love to have you,’ Yakimov would say as though it were he and not Alan who dispensed hospitality.
Yakimov did not buy drinks for his companions. The habit perhaps had been lost during his days of penury, but once in a while, when the glasses were empty, he would become restless as though, given time and money enough, it might return. It never did. Alan would say: ‘How about another?’ and Yakimov would remain poised for a second, then ask in hearty relief: ‘Why not?’
Yakimov would contribute a joke, his own joke; but once conceived, it had to do long service. The joke of the moment, derived from his contact with the decoding office, was one that called for careful timing. He had to wait until a second order was given then, the waiter having come and gone, he would say with satisfaction: ‘Three corrupt groups asking for a repeat.’
When at last Alan said, ‘Need we repeat it again?’ Yakimov murmured sadly, ‘’M growing old; losing m’esprit. Poor old Yaki,’ and the joke went on as before.
Alan and Yakimov would discuss Maria Marten and the gossip of the rehearsals, and Harriet learnt more from them than she ever learnt from Guy.
It was Yakimov who mentioned that Dubedat and Toby Lush had approached Guy and asked if they might take part in the revue. Guy had made no promises and later the two found the rehearsals were proceeding without them.
‘Bit of a jolt for them,’ said Yakimov. ‘Am told Dubedat was ruffled. Trifle put out, you know. Goes round telling people if it weren’t for him that show we did in Bucharest – what was it called, dear girl? – would have been a fair foozle. Says that only his performance saved the day. Told the Major that. Bit unfair to the rest of us, don’t you think? Or wouldn’t you say so?’ Yakimov gazed anxiously at Harriet, who, assuring him that in her opinion it was his performance that carried the production to the heights, said: ‘You were Pandarus to the life.’
Much gratified, Yakimov said: ‘Had to work very hard. Guy kept me at it.’ He reflected for some minutes then a look of pique crumpled his face. ‘But what came of it? Nothing. When it was all over, your Yak was forgotten.’