Aphrodite's Island (7 page)

‘Cressida,’ I reply automatically. My brain seems to have gone into freefall. I have sat here, on that step, squeezing open the ripe figs, digging out the pulpy flesh with its crunchy seeds with my fingers. The green, earthy smell of the fruit comes back to me so strongly that I feel a sudden wave of nausea. I ate so many figs that my stomach was upset for days! Mother said … Mother was sitting at the table, shelling peas into a green plastic colander. Her hair was not mousy. In this light it was a complex, interwoven mass of amber and gold, hanging in a loose braid over one shoulder. I said …

My host’s voice jerks me back to the present. ‘I’m sorry. What did you say? I was just …. This place brings back so many memories.’

‘Not to worry!’ He smiles at me cheerfully. ‘I can quite
understand
that. I said, you must have been very small when you lived here.’

I stare at him. ‘You know when we left? I mean, otherwise …’

‘’74, wasn’t it? Must have been.’

A tall woman with a rope of grey hair wound precariously on top of her head comes up from a lower terrace, carrying a trug full of cucumbers and tomatoes. The little man jumps up.

‘Meg, this is Cressida Allenby. Cressida, this is my wife, Meg. Oh, just a minute! I’m being stupid. I haven’t even introduced myself. My name’s Oswald Wentworth. Please call me Os, everyone does.’

‘How do you do?’ I say automatically. The sight of this tiny man beside his tall, large-boned wife makes me think of a Jack Russell terrier beside an Old English Sheepdog.

Mrs Wentworth is saying, ‘Allenby? Did your people own this
place when it was a pub?’

‘Yes, yes, we’ve already established that,’ her husband breaks in. ‘Where’s that box? Do you remember where we put it?’

‘Yes, I remember quite well.’ His wife has a grave serenity that contrasts with his excitability and reinforces the doggy image. ‘I’ll go and find it.’ She smiles at me. ‘Would you like a drink? I’m going to bring some lemonade for us, anyway. But perhaps you would rather have a beer?’

‘Lemonade would be lovely, thank you.’

‘Good. Do sit down and make yourself at home. I shall be back in a minute.’

As we seat ourselves again, Os Wentworth says, ‘It’s such a pleasure to hear an English voice! We don’t get many visitors these days.’

‘Did you know my parents?’

‘No, sorry. Never met them. Heard them spoken of, but never actually ran across them. We were living in Nicosia then. We bought this place when I retired six years ago – bought it from the Johnsons, who bought it from your parents when everything calmed down after the invasion – sorry, “peace operation”. We wanted to be sure that it had always been in English hands, pre ’74, you see. Dodgy business buying anything expropriated from the Greeks. If we ever get a settlement they might come and demand it back – with some justification, I suppose. And recently the chances of a settlement seem to be rather better.’

I feel lost and stupid. ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘You don’t?’ He looks surprised. Then, ‘No, of course, why should you? It’s all ancient history to you. Very much part of everyday life to us here, I’m afraid.’

His wife calls from the house, ‘Os, can you come and carry this, please? I can’t manage the tray and the box.’

He jumps up with a murmured ‘Excuse me a minute’ and scampers into the house, to return a moment later carrying a tray with a jug and glasses. Meg follows him bearing a rather battered
and discoloured cardboard box, which she places on the table in front of me.

‘We found this when we moved in, in the little box room that Os now uses as a study. I suppose the Johnsons put it in there out of the way, in case anyone came for it. We didn’t know how to contact you – or your parents, rather – so we just tucked it in the bottom of a cupboard.’

I look inside the box. There is an A4-size notebook with faded maroon board covers and a sheaf of papers that appear to have been torn from a loose-leaf pad. I open the book and glance at the first page.

‘It’s my mother’s writing!’ I scan the opening lines. ‘It seems to be some kind of journal. I had no idea she ever kept one.’

‘Well, they were exciting times, in a way. Perhaps she felt she wanted to keep a record of what was going on,’ Meg Wentworth replies, in her calm, easy voice. ‘Then, I suppose, in all the panic of getting out, these got left behind.’

‘Panic?’ I query. ‘I’m sorry, I feel I should know, but I don’t. What happened?’

‘That was when the Turks invaded. This strip along the north coast was a war zone for several days and all the ex-pats were evacuated. It was chaotic at the time. I’m not surprised things got left behind. You don’t remember anything about it?’

‘No, I don’t think so. At least … vaguely. But I’ve always thought it was just a bad dream.’

Meg leans over and pats my hand. ‘I’m not surprised. It was a nightmare for all of us.’

‘Were you evacuated too?’

Os chuckles. ‘No, not us! We stuck it out. We’ve been here right through the whole lot, haven’t we, Meg? Right from ’55.’

‘’55?’ The date sparks a recollection. ‘That was when my father was stationed here, in the army.’

‘Ah well, then you’ll know all about it,’ Os says.

‘No, he never spoke of his time here – as far as I can recall. What happened?’

‘The Greek-speaking population wanted independence from Britain and to be governed from Athens. What they called
enosis
– union with the motherland. There was a very active terrorist organization that went by the name of EOKA –
Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston
. Your father was probably sent out here to fight them.’

‘So was it still going on in 1974, when we came back here?’

‘We had a quieter spell after independence but then it all started up again, with EOKA B, as they called themselves. Of course, the Turkish minority didn’t want to be ruled by Athens. It was when the Greeks looked like going ahead with
enosis
despite them that the mainland Turks invaded.’

‘And the island has been divided ever since?’

‘Sadly, yes.’

‘Why did you stay, if there was so much trouble?’

‘It was my job. I worked in the Governor’s Office until independence. When that came we didn’t fancy going home. We’d made a life here, and come to love the place in spite of everything. I got a job with the British Consulate and we stayed on. Then, when retirement came, we bought this place. We’ve always wanted to be here on the north coast, even though it did mean crossing the border.’

‘Anyway,’ Meg says, ‘your parents decided to go home. Where are they now?’

‘I’m afraid they’re both dead.’

‘Oh no! Oh, I am sorry!’

‘But your father got out all right, didn’t he?’ Os says. ‘I mean, I remember there was a problem of some sort. That’s why the name was familiar. We had some dealings with your mother at the Consulate. He was missing, wasn’t he – just before the invasion?’

‘Was he?’ I stare at him. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘Well, of course, you wouldn’t remember anything about it. But I’m sure there was something … We even had troops out looking for him. But anyway, he did get out, when the evacuation came?’

‘Well, yes, he must have done. I remember him coming back
to England with us. At least, I remember him
in
England, when I started school.’

‘How did he die?’ Meg asks gently.

‘I don’t know. I was only six years old. I just remember my mother telling me that he was never coming back. He travelled a lot, you know, as a foreign correspondent. Journalism was his proper job, not running a pub.’ I don’t want to talk about this so I turn to the box in front of me. ‘Thank you so much for keeping this all these years. I shall really enjoy reading my mother’s journal.’ I pick up the sheaf of loose papers again. ‘I don’t know what these are. They seem to be written in Greek.’

‘May I see?’ Os reaches out a hand and I pass him the yellowing pages. ‘Yes, it’s Greek script all right.’

‘It’s odd. I’m pretty sure my mother couldn’t even speak Greek. Let alone write it.’

Os hands back the papers. ‘Look, I don’t think I should pry into these. I’ve just glanced at the first one and it’s pretty obviously a love letter.’

‘A love letter? Who to – and who from?’

‘I couldn’t say. The first one just begins “my only beloved”. There isn’t a name.’

‘You understand Greek?’

‘Yes. It was part of my job to translate documents.’

I free the first few sheets from the sheaf and turn them over. Were they letters addressed to my mother? If so, who from? Then I look at the bottom of the page.

‘There’s a signature here.
Stephen!
They’re from my father. But why would he write in Greek?’

I look from Os to his wife. Both return my gaze with widened eyes and lifted eyebrows. Their expressions say as clearly as words,
it’s none of our business
. I finish my drink and shuffle the papers together.

‘Look, I really must be going. Thank you so much for the drink, and for these.’

‘Won’t you stay for some lunch?’ Meg asks. ‘It’s only a salad,
but you’re most welcome.’

Suddenly I want very much to be alone, to think. ‘It’s very kind of you but I can’t stay. I promised to meet someone.’ The lie comes easily.

‘Well, come and see us again while you’re on the island. How long are you staying?’ Os gets to his feet and begins to shepherd me back towards the front door.

‘Just ten days. Thank you. I’d like that.’

‘Perhaps you’d like to look round the house, see if it brings back memories,’ Meg suggests.

‘Yes, I would, another time. Thanks again.’

They escort me to the car and wave me off, calling, ‘Don’t forget. You’re welcome any time.’

I head downhill towards the sea, but I have only gone a few hundred yards when I become aware of a sudden trickle of fluid from my nose. I put the backs of my fingers to my nostrils and they come away with a bright smear of blood. Hastily, I pull the car in to the side of the road and scrabble in my bag for a tissue. There is only one, and that so worn and crumpled as to be almost useless. Clasping it to my nose, I scramble out of the car. After the air-conditioned interior, the heat almost takes my breath away. A few yards further along an ancient fig tree leans over the wall of an abandoned garden. I stumble into the shade and bend over, supporting myself with one hand on the wall. Heavy drops of blood splash onto the ground and are swallowed up almost immediately by the parched soil. I feel dizzy. I pinch my nostrils to staunch the flow and sink to the ground. At that moment I feel the tremor of a distant explosion.

I open my eyes. The air is still and the only sound is the rasping of cicadas in the long grass. I am soaked with sweat and there are bloodstains down the front of my shirt. I struggle unsteadily to my feet and get into the car. All I can think of is an urgent desire to get back to the cool security of the hotel.

Back in my room I shower and change my clothes. Then I sit down in front of the dressing table and study my reflection in the mirror. What happened back there under the fig tree? Did I doze off and dream the explosion and the boy with the angel face? Did I pass out – faint at the sight of my own blood? Surely not. I, Cressida Allenby, who can party all weekend and still arrive for work bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday, ready to inspire even 4WZ with an interest in
Macbeth
or the poetry of Wilfred Owen. Behaving like a Victorian lady with an attack of the vapours? What was that all about?

I examine my face. My mother’s doctor said I looked washed out. It’s true. I am pale. Pasty, Mother would have called it. There are blue shadows under my eyes. I run my fingers along my jawline, aware for the first time of a softening and loosening of the flesh – the first faint signs of inevitable deliquescence and decay. Twenty-eight. In just over a year I shall be thirty. Already there is a faint tracery of lines at the corners of my eyes. At my age my mother was married, with a child. Well, so what? That was expected for her generation. But being unmarried is one thing. It is altogether different being single, unattached, unspoken for. For a moment Paul’s face floats into my memory, but I close my mind to it. It is over; finished.

I open the box the Wentworths gave me and take out my
mother
’s journal. As I open it the same faint odour of damp and decay that the photographs have comes to my nostrils, and with it the ghost of
Je Reviens
. Or is that my imagination? I turn a page or two, then close the book and put it back in the box. I can’t face it
now. What I need is some lunch and perhaps a swim.

It seems the tour party has not returned, so I eat lunch on the terrace in solitary splendour. Afterwards, I change into my swimming costume, lather my limbs with sun cream and stretch out on a lounger by the pool. Sometime later I come to with a headache and an uncomfortable feeling that my legs have been too long in the sun. There is movement and voices nearby and I see that the other guests have returned and are settling themselves around the pool. A couple nearby smile and nod in a friendly manner but I don’t feel inclined to chat, so I smile back and get up and dive into the pool.

I have always thought of myself as a strong swimmer and I have made a habit of going to the local baths at least once a week. I set out to swim twenty lengths, an easy target, but by the time I have accomplished five my legs feel heavy and my heart is thumping. Is it really possible to lose condition to such an extent in a few short weeks? I press on grimly for another three but finally have to give in. Even the effort of hauling myself out of the water makes my head swim and for a moment I have to double over at the side of the pool.

‘Miss Allenby? Are you all right?’

I straighten up as quickly as I can. Karim Mezeli is standing beside me. His hand is outstretched as if to take me by the arm, but as I look at him he apparently thinks better of it. Instead he says, ‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’

I force a smile. ‘No, really, I’m fine. Thank you. Just a bit too much sun, I expect.’

He nods gravely. He is casually dressed in a polo shirt and jeans but there is something formal and restrained in his manner. ‘You must be careful. English people so often fail to understand how powerful the sun is here. It can be dangerous, especially for someone as fair as you.’

‘Yes, I’ll be more sensible from now on. I think I must have fallen asleep.’

There is a pause, and I sense that we are both trying to find a
way of prolonging the conversation. Embarrassed, I turn away and sit down on the sun-lounger. He says, ‘Well, I’ll leave you to …’

‘I hope your visit this morning was a success.’ The words come out before I have time to analyze my reasons.

He turns to look at me again. ‘Yes, it was, thank you.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘To the temple of Aphrodite at Vounos. What is left is mainly Roman in origin, but it is built on the site of a much older temple.’ He pauses. ‘You’re not interested in history?’

‘Well, I’ve never been very keen on ruins and, well, you know, trenches with bits of pottery in them.’

He laughs, his teeth very white against his tan. ‘Perhaps that’s because you don’t know what they stand for – the stories they could tell us.’

‘Ah, stories!’ I find myself smiling back at him. ‘Now there you have caught my interest. I love stories.’ I realize that he is still standing, looking down at me, and add, on an impulse, ‘Won’t you sit down? That is, if you have time.’

He seems to hesitate for a moment, then he draws a chair closer and seats himself. ‘As it happens, I have the afternoons off. Perhaps I could order some tea for both of us?’

What am I doing?
I ask myself. Aloud I say ‘Why not? Tea sounds great.’

Mezeli beckons to a waiter and orders tea, then turns back to me. ‘You’re here alone?’

A warning bell goes off at the back of my mind. ‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘Only that it’s unusual. People usually come either as couples or in a party.’

‘Yes, well – I just felt like having some time to myself. I’ve been – rather busy lately.’
Why am I telling him all this?

‘Work?’

‘Partly.’

‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a teacher.’

‘Oh, what do you teach?’

I can’t resist this. ‘The classical answer to that is “children”.’

He acknowledges the barb with a smile. ‘I’ll rephrase the question. What is your subject?’

‘English.’

‘That explains the interest in stories. Where do you work?

‘London.’

‘Ah! The hectic metropolitan life.’

The waiter returns with a tray. ‘Your tea, Dr Mezeli.’

I look up, startled. ‘
Doctor?
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize …’

He grins. ‘Oh, not a real doctor. Just a Ph.D.’

I am embarrassed. I had assumed that he was just a local tour guide. To hide my confusion I turn my attention to the tea. As I pour, something occurs to me. ‘You know my name. How?’

He lifts his dark brows. ‘It’s not difficult. I looked in the hotel register. All the other guests belong to the tour group.’

I keep my eyes on my cup. So, he was sufficiently interested to look me up. I feel a stir of gratification and take myself instantly to task.
This is exactly the sort of thing you came here to avoid!

‘What made you choose to come here, particularly?’ he asks.

I am not sure where to begin – or if I want to begin at all. ‘It’s a long story.’

He looks away. ‘Then I mustn’t pry.’

‘No!’ Suddenly I feel I am being ungracious. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just – well, I don’t want to bore you.’ He does not respond and to break the silence I say, ‘You speak very good English.’

‘I should. I studied for six years in Newcastle.’

‘Newcastle! That must have been a bit of a shock after Cyprus.’

‘I loved every minute of it. They were the happiest years of my life.’

‘But you came back to live here.’

His face grows serious again. ‘I was born here. It is my home. There was work to be done here.’

‘Well, I’m sure if I had to choose between all this,’ indicating the view across the harbour, ‘and the River Tyne I’d choose to live here.’

‘Would you?’ He looks at me quizzically. ‘I wonder. So, what did make you decide to come here?’

‘An old photograph I came across. You see, we used to live here once, when I was very small. I’d almost forgotten until I saw the photo. My mother and father ran a small bar in a village called Lapithos. Do you know it?’

‘Lapta,’ he says.

‘Oh, yes, sorry. I forgot we have to use the Turkish name now.’

‘Yes, I know the place. What made your parents come here to run a bar?’

I laugh. ‘God knows! I think it was some mad idea of my father’s. My mother never talked about it, but I think he was rather inclined to crazy impulses like that.’

He looks at me. His gaze is sharp, attentive, slightly disconcerting. ‘Was?’

‘I never knew him very well. He left us when I was six and died soon afterwards.’

‘And your mother? You speak of them both in the past tense.’

‘She died six weeks ago.’

‘I’m so sorry. So you came here out of – what? Nostalgia? Curiosity?’

‘A bit of both, I suppose. It was just an impulse, really. My doctor said I ought to take a holiday and then I happened to come across the photograph so I thought, Why not? I had no idea it would turn out to be so complicated.’ I hesitate, not wanting to appear ignorant. ‘I’m afraid I don’t really understand what happened here. I don’t have much time for politics and that sort of thing.’

He smiles wryly. ‘You’re fortunate. Here, everything is political. Anyway, I hope you will enjoy yourself, now you are here. It’s a very beautiful place. It’s just a pity you can only see half of it.’

‘Is it quite impossible to cross the border?’

‘Completely. Unless you are a diplomat or a member of the UN
peace-keeping force.’

‘Well,’ I finish my tea, ‘it doesn’t really matter. The part I’m interested in is round here – where my parents lived, well, where I lived briefly.’

‘Why don’t you join some of our excursions? It would give you a different perspective on the history of the island.’

My first instinct is to refuse. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. After all, these other people have paid for the privilege.’

His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow and I think that he is not a man to be thwarted by convention or red tape. ‘I don’t see that it makes any difference to them. There is room in the coach and one more in the group will make no difference. Come as my guest.’

The idea appeals, but I suspect for the wrong reason. But I give in. ‘Well, if you’re sure it’s OK …’

He smiles. ‘I’ll make it OK.’

I look at him. I have always gone for fair, very English-looking men before but there is no denying the quiver of excitement at the pit of my stomach. He glances at his watch. ‘Forgive me. I must leave you. I have to prepare a talk for this evening. I hope you’ll come and listen?’

I promise that I will and watch him walk away. He moves lithely, like a dancer or someone more used to walking barefoot than in shoes.

After dinner I feel more like turning in for an early night than going to a lecture, but I made a promise and I find I do not want to disappoint Karim Mezeli. So I treat myself to a brandy from the bar and make my way to the room set aside for the talk. Most of the rest of the group are there and a couple near the back make room for me with friendly smiles. They introduce themselves as Alan and Mary and I learn that he is a lecturer in maths at an FE college in Guildford and she teaches history at a local
comprehensive
. ‘Bit of a busman’s holiday,’ she says with a laugh. I am relieved of the need to admit that I am a teacher too, with the inevitable comparing of notes and sharing of grievances that
would follow, by Mezeli’s arrival. A projector and a screen have been set up in readiness and one of the hotel staff stands by the machine.

‘I hope you enjoyed our excursion this morning,’ he begins. His manner is pleasant; unassuming but at the same time authoritative. ‘Now I want to give you some background to that and to other temples we shall visit. As I told you, the worship of Aphrodite goes back many centuries before Roman times, or even the classical Greek period. Now, I know we are all familiar with the conventional image of Aphrodite, or Venus as the Romans would have called her. To us she is the goddess of love. Usually she is presented in a rather romantic, even sentimental style. We have all seen the Botticelli painting of a buxom, rather coy lady standing in a seashell. But the Aphrodite who was
worshipped
in Cyprus from prehistoric times would have been a much more powerful figure; an incarnation of the Great Mother Goddess who was worshipped all around the Mediterranean. She was primarily the goddess of fertility, as this ancient statuette makes clear.’ He taps the lectern and a photograph appears on the screen. It shows a terracotta figurine of a squat female shape, huge breasted and obviously pregnant. He smiles at the murmur of surprise from his audience. ‘Not quite what we think of as a love-goddess. Aphrodite symbolized the natural process of birth, maturity, death and regeneration. She had a triple nature, represented by the phases of the moon. At the new moon she was the virgin goddess, whom later Greeks called Artemis. At full moon she was the mother goddess and as the moon waned she became the goddess of death. One of her Greek names was Aphrodite Epitymbria – Aphrodite of the tombs. Of course, we don’t know precisely how her rites were celebrated but it seems that at some temples young girls were required to offer up their virginity to the first man who asked them, before they could marry. Then, there is this Bronze Age model that was found near Bellapais.’ He taps again and a new image appears on the screen. ‘This suggests that a bull was sacrificed to the goddess, or perhaps a man
wearing a bull mask. He was probably the sacred king, chosen by the High Priestess to be her consort at the spring equinox and then sacrificed the following spring, when his blood would be sprinkled on the ground to fertilise it …’

I only half listen to the rest of the lecture. Perhaps it’s the brandy, or the heat of the room. I find myself drifting into a drowsy state where the images he has conjured up seem to take concrete form. I see a girl, sitting in a temple courtyard. Other girls sit all around her but she does not speak to them. Her head is bowed and her hair falls forward to cover her face. Men stroll between the rows, examining, choosing. Some of the girls weep and tremble, others stare back brazenly. Some are obviously waiting for one particular man. When a man sees a face that appeals to him he throws a piece of silver into her lap, takes her by the wrist and leads her out of the temple. As a man pauses beside her, the girl I saw first raises her head and I see why she keeps it lowered. Her face is disfigured by an ugly red scar – a burn perhaps. The man draws back, shakes his head and passes on. She droops forward again, letting her hair cover the scar. Poor girl! How long will she have to wait?