Heart and Soul (34 page)

When Vonni went to collect her mail, she saw that there was a letter from Fiona. That was odd—she had heard from her only last week. She had been full of news about this boy Declan Carroll who was a doctor in the heart clinic and who had a car crash but was recovering very well. Perhaps this one was saying that they were engaged. Vonni hoped so.

Her little craft shop was empty. She sat down and poured herself a cup of thick, sweet Greek coffee and opened the letter. It was not about an engagement, even though it said the romance continued as wonderfully as ever. Fiona wanted to tell her that these really eccentric seventeen-year-old twins would love a job of any kind for the spring break.

She said that no amount of genealogists and historians could explain who they were. They possibly had real parents somewhere, and they were originally from some toffee-nosed family but for years Muttie and his wife, Lizzie, had given them a home in St. Jarlaths Crescent.

They were bright and funny. The boy was hoping to go into law and the girl was going to be a teacher. They were agreeable kids and they would be well able to carry boxes of things or go with Vonni to market. They could do washing-up for Andreas as well. They didn't want to make real money, just to pay for a holiday and get some work experience.

She ended up, “I hope you'll be able to find something for them, Vonni. Despite all my mad dramas and disasters there I just love the place, and I always think of it and you all with huge affection. Love always, Fiona.”

Vonni thought about it for only a moment, then took out her writing paper and began a letter.

She would go now and put it in the postbox. But the bell on the door jangled and she looked out to see who it was. It was Takis, her lawyer.

He walked into the shop and looked around. “Are we on our own, Vonni?”

“You sound as if you had secrets of state to tell.”

“No, but it is private business.”

“Fire away, Takis.”

“Your son is in jail on remand in England.”

“My God—what for?”

“Some VAT fraud or other.”

“And what's going to happen now?”

“He can't get bail. It's quite high, you see. They're afraid he'll skip.”

“And how do you know all this, Takis?”

“Well, since you made your will a while back leaving everything to him, I had to keep an eye on where he was. In case you died and I had to get in touch with him. No matter how I feel about this, it
is
your wish …”

“And Stavros asked you to get in touch with me?” Her face was full of hope.

“No, Vonni, he doesn't even know that I am aware of his circumstances.”

“He didn't ask for me?”

“No.”

“But I will organize his bail. Of course I will.”

“I was afraid that's what you might want.”

“Afraid?”

“My contact says that he will skip.”

“Well, if he does, he does. He must get that chance. I owe him that.”

“You owe him nothing.”

“So you say, but I know different. I was drunk and out of my mind all through his childhood. I owe him more than can ever be repaid.”

“It's a lot to take on, Vonni. You may have to go to England. They won't accept anonymous funds from abroad.”

“I'll go, of course I'll go,” she said. She could count on Maria, the young widow, to watch her store.

Takis bowed to her and left. He would have given the boy a boot up the arse. But mothers were different.

Fiona went to see the twins with the letter from Vonni.

“It's an unusual name,” Maud said.

“For an Irish person,” Simon filled in.

“I think it was Veronica originally,” Fiona explained. “She's from the west of Ireland.”

“You must have said we were great if she's taking us on and giving us a place to stay.” Maud was a bit overwhelmed by it all.

“It's only a henhouse, but you're right, I did say you were very reliable.”

“How do you know we'll be reliable?” Simon wanted to know.

“Because the chief of police out there, Yorghis, is a great mate of
mine and he'd lock you up quick as look at you if you weren't reliable.”

“Oh, well then,” Simon said.

“Then we have to be very reliable,” Maud agreed.

“And when you get out of jail, that's if you ever do, I will come round to your house and beat you both with a stick until you bleed for letting me down.”

“Lord!” said Simon.

“Heavens!” said Maud.

“Is Declan very frightened of you?” Simon asked.

“Oh, I do hope so,” Fiona said with a smile. “Are you all set?”

“We fly to Athens first…”

“And you say the ferries go two or three times a day …”

“So we take the bus to Piraeus …”

“And the boat to Aghia Anna …”

“And walk up the Twenty-sixth of March Street…”

“And Vonni's shop is on the right as you go up the hill…”

Fiona looked at them in bewilderment. She wondered what the people of Aghia Anna would make of them.

Vonni and Andreas were having coffee by the harbor.

“I may have to go away for a short while soon,” she said.

He knew better than to ask her why. She would tell him, or she would not tell him. He talked on easily about his son, Adoni, who had come back from Chicago to help his father in the taverna. Now, of course, he wanted to buy up half the town. Andreas shook his head. Nothing was enough for young people nowadays. They always had to have more, more and still more.

“I know, Andreas, I know only too well.” She was very silent then.

He wondered if her trip had anything to do with that son of hers.

“So you want me to keep an eye on the Irish children for you?”

“If I have to go when they are here I would really appreciate it. Just a fatherly eye on them to make sure they're not bringing riffraff
into my henhouse, which by the way is lovely. Please thank Adoni again for lending me his men to clean it up.”

“I was glad to see him do that rather than open a fifty-bedroom hotel. Really and truly” Andreas was appalled at such daring and risk-taking.

“I spoke to Fiona. She phoned me last night and said they were looking forward to seeing us. Imagine—to be their age and seeing this beautiful place for the first time …” She smiled around at the view of the harbor and the purple mountains. “Fiona says her young man has asked her to marry him. She's very happy. He sounds like a good man.”

“When you go away Vonni, don't stay away too long,” Andreas said.

It had been good advice to tell them to arrive at dawn. Maud and Simon stood leaning over the rail of the ferryboat as they came into the harbor the next morning. They pointed out the various landmarks that Fiona had told them about. That big long low white building must be the Anna Beach Hotel; the huge building high on a cliff must be the hospital.

Muttie had said they should bring Vonni a bottle of Irish whiskey. Fiona had said absolutely not, it would be the last thing she would like to see. So instead they had brought a porter cake in a tin.

They were slightly fearful of meeting Vonni. Fiona was quite frightening enough, but this woman was much, much older, and probably mad and had painted a henhouse for them to live in.

Fiona said that they must do whatever she told them to do; it might be choosing wool for blind people, or carrying plates from a hillside market. Maybe Vonni might want them to give leaflets about her shop to day-trippers. Fiona had warned them again that she would know every heartbeat of it all because she would be in regular contact with the chief of police, Yorghis.

They hardly dared to say his name, so fearful did they feel about him.

•   •   •   

It was fantastic in the harbor as the old ladies in black clothes carried their cages of hens and baskets of shopping off the ferry. There were families meeting and greeting each other. There was music coming from a café.

“Do you know, it's straight out of…” Maud began.

“Central casting!” Simon finished happily for her.

And together with their backpacks they walked up the Twenty-sixth of March Street and found Vonni's house. They knocked at the door, wondering what kind of person would appear.

She was very small and wiry, with long hair twisted in a braid behind her head; she had heavy lines on her face but a bright smile.

“You look as if you need a good breakfast. What would you like?” she asked.

“Avga,
if that's all right…” Simon said.

“Or indeed anything at all,” said Maud politely.

“Avga
indeed. You've been learning your Greek.”

“So far I just learned ten words, food things, things we might be able to afford,” Simon admitted.

“Ah, if only you had been here when my magnificent hens were laying, you would have had beautiful
avga,”
Vonni said. “But we'll do the best we can with shop eggs instead.”

“Can we help you at all?” Maud wanted to establish how helpful they would be.

“Not at all. Haven't you been up all night on that boat. Go out and put your things in what I must stop calling the henhouse.”

“It might be a henhouse again when we've gone,” Maud said reassuringly.

“No, I don't think so. My friends tell me that I should use your room to let next year. I'm getting slower and there are other craft shops. Bigger and better than mine.”

“We'll help you as much as we can …” offered Maud.

“And restore you to your rightful position,” Simon said.

Fiona had been right. They were like some marvelous, mad double act.

Muttie called on the Carrolls’ house in St. Jarlaths Crescent. Declan was just leaving for work.

“And will you tell that nice fiancée of yours that she did a great job settling our Maud and Simon in. They rang to say they got there safely and this Vonni is great altogether.”

“I'm so glad to hear that.” Declan was pleased to be able to report such good news.

“They said the place was like paradise—maybe you and Fiona will go there on your honeymoon?” Muttie suggested.

“She hasn't agreed to set the date yet. She keeps saying there's plenty of time.”

“She's a very sensible girl,” Molly Carroll said approvingly. “You were blessed the day you laid eyes on her, I tell you.” She spoke with a sense of satisfaction, as if she had personally gone out into the highways and byways and found Fiona herself.

“And what took Fiona out there in the first place?” Muttie was interested.

“It was a few years back—she went with a group of friends,” Declan said. He knew from Fiona that there had been a boyfriend and that it had all ended badly, but she seemed edgy and ill at ease when they talked about it, so he had let the subject fade into the background. He felt that wherever they went on honeymoon it would not be Aghia Anna, scene of many good friendships and solidarity but also a scene of too much drama and pain.

Fiona was very pleased that the whole Greek adventure was going so well. It brought her mind back to the island and all the friends she had made there. She sent two postcards. One to David in England, David the gentle Jewish boy who had been so wonderful that summer and whose father had died so he had eventually persuaded
his mother to sell the business that he had never wanted to run.

“I don't know what I did before those twins came here,” Vonni said to Andreas and Yorghis. “They are so quaint and old-fashioned and yet they're willing to do anything at all. I took them up to Kalatriada and we saw all these boxes of things going from a place that was closing down. Much too many to carry on the bus, so Simon took the bus back here, found Maria and brought her car up, and we had the whole lot home by nightfall. Much too bright a lad to be a lawyer.”

“Don't let Takis hear you say that.” Andreas laughed.

As it happened, Takis was passing by, taking his little evening stroll around the village.

“Don't let me hear what?” he asked.

“She was speaking ill of your profession.” Andreas and his brother, Yorghis, laughed.

“Ah, Vonni, you're just the person I was hoping to meet. Remember those papers I was talking to you about. Will I bring them round to your house tonight?”

“No, Takis. I have two Irish children there. Can I come up to you instead?”

“Certainly,” he said and continued his walk.

Andreas and Yorghis exchanged glances. This had something to do with Vonni taking a trip away. But she wasn't going to tell them and they weren't going to ask.

“So what happens now?” Vonni asked Takis that night.

“I have let them know that the money is available for bail.”

“You didn't say who it was?” She looked anxious.

“No, but this is the point: they can't just accept a lump of cash from somebody without knowing where it came from. It could be laundered money or drug money. So we have to say who you are.”