‘You see, Charles loved me.’
‘Do you think I don’t love you?’
‘You love everyone.’
‘That doesn’t make me love you less.’
‘I think it does.’
It was not his nature to argue. He always expected understanding, and perhaps expected too much. He said simply: ‘We must go. They’re expecting us for supper at the Academy. If there’s a raid, we could get caught here again for a couple of hours.’
She went back with him to collect their possessions and lock up the villa. She had lost hope of finding the cat, but she did not feel that their talk had changed anything.
29
The Pringles were given the room which had belonged to Gracey. There was no sign that anyone else had lived in it since he left.
Harriet looked out on the twilit garden where, from the dead tangle of old leaves, the new acanthus was rising and uncurling, and the lucca throwing up a spike of buds. The garden smell, dry and resinous, that she had described as the smell of Greece, was overhung with the fresh, sweet scent of the lemon trees.
The room was bare but here, in touch with their protectors, the Pringles felt they were safe. Her despondency lifting, Harriet said: ‘I like this, don’t you?’
‘I certainly do.’ Guy began to unpack and arrange his books on top of the chest-of-drawers, taking trouble as though they might be here for a long time.
The house, secluded in its garden, seemed a place safe from the racket of war, but this impression was dispelled when they reached the dining-room. Alan had not come in to supper. Pinkrose, though he had kept on his room at the Academy, spent most of his time at Phaleron. The other inmates were talking in a subdued way but came to a stop at the entry of the outsiders. Harriet felt their retreat into discretion, but the atmosphere carried an imprint of consternation.
Guy, who wanted to associate himself with the life of the place, reminded Miss Dunne that he would like to join her at tennis.
She said: ‘I’ll give it thought,’ making it evident that she had more important things on her mind.
When Guy began suggesting days and times, she twitched her shoulders impatiently but could not keep from blushing.
They were served with goat’s cheese and a salad of some sort of green-stuff that roused a mild interest. Tennant went so far as to say: ‘This is a new one on me!’
Guy suggested that it might be samphire and quoted: ‘Halfe way down Hangs one that gathers Samphire; dreadful Trade.’ Tennant smiled, but it was clear to Guy that this was no place for badinage.
Supper over, he was eager to get down to the centre of the town and find his companions. In the Academy garden the evening was milky with the rising moon. Harriet wanted to stay out of doors and Guy followed her reluctantly into the Plaka where she walked quickly, driven still by a sense of search and conscious of having nothing she might find. She led the way towards the Acropolis.
The sky was brilliantly clear. As they climbed upwards, the Parthenon became visible, one side still caught in the pink of sunset, the other silvered by the full moon. As the sunset faded, the marble became luminous like alabaster lit from within and the Plaka shone with a supernatural pallor.
The Athenians remembered the threatened raid, knowing that some such shimmering, verdant night as this would be the night for destruction. Moving darkly in dark doorways, watching out at the passing strangers, people seemed expectant and distrustful.
Guy, who did not know the area, was afraid they would get lost in the dark. Harriet, beginning to tire, was willing to go back.
Tandy had left Zonar’s. It was warm enough to sit out after dark and they found him with the others on the upper terrace of the Corinthian. They were seated round a table by the balustrade, uneasy like everyone else in a city that, salt-white and ebony, was defined for slaughter. And they were uneasy for another reason.
Ben Phipps, who had his own sources, said the British troops were already in retreat.
‘If the Florina Gap’s evacuated, then Greece is wide open.’
‘You think the Germans are on their way down here?’ asked Tandy.
‘It’s likely. Almost certain, though there’s nothing definite. I’m inclined to blame the Greek command. Papagos agreed to bring the Greek troops out of Albania and reinforce the frontier. He didn’t do it. He said if they had to renounce their gains, the morale of the men would collapse. I don’t believe that. I know the Greeks. Whatever happened, they would defend their own country. And now what’s the result? The Greek army’s probably done for. One half’s cut off in Albania, and the other half’s lost in Thrace.’
They sat for a long time in silence, contemplating the possibility of defeat.
‘Still,’ said Guy, trying to dispel the gloom, ‘we’re not beaten yet.’
Phipps gave a snort of derisive laughter, but after a pause said: ‘Well, perhaps not. The British aren’t easily beaten, after all. And we’re bound to hold on to Greece. It gives us a foothold in Europe. We just can’t afford to lose it. We’re an incompetent lot, but if we have to do a thing, we usually do it.’
‘If we hold,’ Alan said, ‘we could regain everything.’
Ben agreed: ‘There have been miracles before.’
Miracles offered more hope than reason and Yakimov, his eyes wide and lustrous in the moonlight, nodded earnestly. ‘We must have faith,’ he said.
‘Good God!’ Tandy stirred with disgust. ‘Surely things aren’t as bad as that!’
‘Of course not,’ Alan Frewen said.
There was silence, then Guy asked: ‘What news of Belgrade?’
‘It’s off the air,’ Ben told him. ‘Not a good sign. Rumour says the Germans reached the suburbs two days ago.’
‘Is that fact?’
‘It’s rumour, and rumours these days have a nasty habit of becoming fact.’
‘Then David Boyd must have left. He’s sure to come tonight. The train’s almost due.’ Guy looked at his watch, preparing to start for the station, and Ben Phipps held his arm.
‘You don’t imagine there’ll be another train, do you? The Germans will have cut the line south of Belgrade. If your friend’s stuck, he’ll make for the coast. He might get a boat down from Split or Dubrovnik.’
‘Is it likely?’
‘It’s possible.’
Ben Phipps, bored with Guy’s anxiety for his missing friend, threw his head back and stared at the moon. His face blank, his glasses white in the moonlight, he said mockingly: ‘Don’t worry. Even if Boyd isn’t a diplomat, he’ll be covered with angels’ wings. If he’s caught, the F.O.’ll bail him out. There’s always something prepared for those chaps. Here they’ve got a yacht standing by. That’ll take everyone of importance.’
‘And the rest of us?’ Tandy asked.
Ben Phipps looked him up and down with a critical and caustic smile. ‘What have you got to worry about? You can walk on the water, can’t you?’
Tandy though he laughed with the others, had a remote and calculating expression in his little eyes. He had declared his policy for survival. He did not stay anywhere too long, but here he was in a cul-de-sac. What would he do now?
As no one could answer this question, they turned their backs on a situation that was likely to defeat even Tandy, and began to talk of other things. Ben Phipps said Dubedat and Toby Lush spent their time standing in food queues. He had seen them in different shopping districts, buying up tinned foods that were too expensive for most people.
‘They’ll pay anything for anything,’ he said. ‘A bad sign if the Major’s running short. How about Pinkers? How’s he facing up to the emergency?’
‘Splendidly,’ said Alan. ‘He’s got only one worry: who should he get to translate his lecture into Greek? He wants it published in both languages. He keeps saying: “I must have a scholar. Only a scholar will do,” and every day he trots in with a new suggestion. When this problem is settled (if it ever is!) we will have to decide who should print the work, then a distributor must be found …’