My Brother Michael (22 page)

I moved back a few feet from the edge, and sat down on a stone. To one side of me grew a thicket of tallish juniper. Beyond and all around this was the usual dusty expanse of hot stone. The path to the stadium led off to the right past the bushes, but I was tired, and
here at the cliff-top a cool breeze from the sea allayed the still-hot blaze of afternoon.

I sat quietly, chin on hand, looking down at the dreaming marbles of the shrine below, at the blue-and-silver depths of the valley where hawks circled below eye-level, at the great cliff beside me burning in the sun … No, I thought, I could not leave Delphi yet. Even if it meant sleeping in the studio near the intolerable Danielle, in order to save what I must owe on the car, I couldn’t leave. There must be tomorrow – and the day after, and the day after … how long a succession of days would it take before I had begun to learn and see and taste what Delphi had to show? I must stay. And my decision (I told myself quickly) had nothing to do with Simon Lester and his affairs. Nothing. Nothing
whatever
. On the thought I found myself wondering just what Simon would have decided that we should do tomorrow …

‘What are you doing up here?’

The question came from close behind me. I turned sharply. Danielle had come out from behind the thicket of juniper. Today she had on a wide bell of scarlet skirt and a turquoise-coloured blouse that was open at the neck. Very open. The inevitable cigarette clung to her bottom lip. Her mouth was rouged a pale pink against her sallow skin. Today her finger-nails were pale pink, too. On the thin brown hands it looked odd and slightly improper.

‘Why, hullo,’ I said pleasantly. If I was to be the girl’s neighbour tonight in the studio, it didn’t do to let last night’s irritation with her bad manners reappear.

But Danielle had no such scruples. It was quite obvious that manners, bad or good, had no place in her scheme of things. She simply was, and if others didn’t like it, they had to endure it. She repeated in that sharp voice that sounded as if she really wanted to know: ‘What are you doing up here?’

I said, letting a note of mild surprise creep in: ‘Sitting looking at the view. And you?’

She came towards me. She moved like a model, hips thrown forward and knees close. She stood between me and the edge of the cliff in one of the attitudes you see in fashion drawings – one hip out, toes at twenty past seven, one thin hand gesturing with the cigarette. Any minute now she would open her mouth and let the tip of her tongue appear.

She said: ‘It’s a long climb from the spring on a hot afternoon.’

‘Isn’t it? Has it tired you very much, or did you just come round the top from the studio?’

She gave me a glittering glance. I couldn’t see for the life of me why she should care what I was doing up here, but she obviously did. And I certainly wasn’t going to tell her where we had been. That was Simon’s pilgrimage, and no one else’s. If he chose to take me along, well, that was his affair. But I wasn’t going to tell Danielle.

She said: ‘Where’s Simon?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘Were you looking for him?’

‘Oh, not really.’ To my surprise she came forward and sat down not two yards from my feet. She swore
once, viciously, in French, as her hip met a thistle, then she settled herself gracefully on the dusty ground and smiled at me. ‘A cigarette?’

‘Why, thanks very much,’ I said, before I thought.

She regarded me for a while in silence, while I smoked and tried not to feel annoyed that now I could hardly get up and leave her, which I very much wanted to do. Really, I reflected, when faced with this sort of person why do we hold madly on to our own tabus; why could my careful manners not allow me to get up – as Danielle certainly would have done in my place – say: ‘I’m bored and you are a mannerless little trollop and I don’t like you,’ and then walk away down the hill? But there I sat and looked pleasantly non-committal and smoked her cigarette. I must admit that it was a good one, and – after Niko’s – nectar and ambrosia. I wondered why she had offered the olive branch, and eyed her warily. ‘
I fear the Greeks when they bring gifts
’ …

‘You weren’t in to lunch at the Apollon.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Were you?’

‘Where did you have lunch?’

‘I had a picnic. Out.’

‘With Simon?’

I raised my eyebrows, and tried to register cold surprise at the inquisition. It had no effect whatever. ‘With Simon?’ she repeated.

‘Yes.’

‘I saw him go out in the car.’

‘Did you?’

‘He picked you up somewhere?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘South.’

This set her back for half a minute. Then she said: ‘Why don’t you want to tell me where you went and what you’ve been doing?’

I looked at her rather helplessly: ‘Why should I?’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Because,’ I said, ‘I don’t like being catechised.’

She digested this. ‘Oh?’ She turned those big tired eyes up to me, and asked: ‘Why? Have you and Simon been up to something?’

Said by Danielle, the harmless question could only mean one thing. I said explosively: ‘My God!’ Then I began to laugh. I said: ‘No, Danielle. We have not. We took the car down to Arachova and left it there, then we walked back over the hill towards Delphi. We had a picnic at a place where there is a lovely view of Parnassus. Then I came on towards home and Simon went back for the car. If you sit here long enough you’ll see him drive past below you. In case you don’t know it by sight, the car you hired is a big black one. I don’t know the make. I know very little about cars. Will that do? And thank you for the cigarette. I must be going.’ And I stubbed out the two-thirds-smoked cigarette and got to my feet.

She made a little movement without getting up, a sinuous little wriggle in the dust, like a snake. She smiled up at me. The cigarette had dropped from her lip and was smouldering on the ground beside her. She made no attempt to retrieve it. She was smiling and
showing pretty white teeth with her tongue between them. The tongue was pale like her lips and nails. ‘You’re annoyed with me,’ she said.

I felt suddenly very old with all the adult weight of my twenty-five years. ‘My dear girl,’ I said, ‘what could possibly lead you to imagine that?’

‘You see, it’s only,’ said Danielle from the dust, ‘that I’m jealous about Simon.’

I wanted passionately to turn and run, but this gambit hardly provided me with a good exit line. I merely shed most of those adult years at one go and said feebly and childishly: ‘Oh?’

‘Men,’ said the voice of the dust-snake, ‘are all the same, mostly. But there really is something about Simon. I expect even you feel it, don’t you? On the whole my lovers bore me, but I want Simon. I genuinely do.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes. Really.’ The flat little voice held no inflection. ‘And I can tell you just what it is about Simon. It’s—’

I said sharply: ‘No, really, Danielle!’

She shot me a look. ‘You’re in love with him yourself, aren’t you?’

‘Don’t be absurd!’ To my horror I sounded almost too emphatic. ‘I hardly know him! And besides, this is not the—’

‘What difference does that make? It takes me two seconds to know whether I want a man or not.’

I turned away. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I must go. I expect I’ll be seeing you later. Goodbye.’

‘Are you seeing him again tomorrow?’

The question was said idly, in the same flat voice; but it was not quite idle. Something made me pause and turn back to her. I said: ‘I – I’m not sure.’

‘What’s he doing tomorrow?’

Definitely not quite idle. I said, ‘How do I know?’ as coldly as I could, before it occurred to me that I did know, quite well. He would certainly go straight back to the corrie, to look for Michael’s hypothetical cave. And he just as certainly wouldn’t want Danielle tagging after him. That whole of this embarrassing interview seemed to indicate that she was prepared to do just that.

I said, in a tone of one conceding a point to a stubborn adversary: ‘All right. I’ll tell you. I am seeing him. We’re going to Levadia for the day. There’s a horse-fair, and gipsies, and he wants to take photographs.’

‘Oh.’ She was looking away over the valley with eyes narrowed against the sun. Then she sent another of those glinting looks up at me. ‘But what a bloody waste,’ she said.

Though I was used to her by now, I didn’t quite manage to control the little flicker of anger that ran through me. I said: ‘So he didn’t come to repair the taps last night?’

The beautiful eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes narrowed over a look of the most intense venom. ‘You’re very outspoken, aren’t you?’ said Danielle.

‘My bad manners,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. And now I must go if I’m to get a bath before dinner. See you later. Did you know I was to come and stay at the studio from tonight?’

Her eyes opened wide. The dislike was still there, and now annoyance, and then both were suddenly, curiously, overlaid by what looked like calculation. ‘That’ll be convenient, won’t it?’ said Danielle, meaning what only Danielle could mean. Then I saw her look change again. It slid over my shoulder and I saw surprise in her face, and something else.

I turned quickly.

A man had come out from behind the clump of juniper. He was obviously a Greek, dark, broad-cheek-boned, with crisp, curled hair that showed a hint of grey, and a smudge of a moustache over a mouth at once thin-lipped and sensual. He was of medium height, and stockily built. I guessed his age to be around forty. He was dressed in a grey striped suit, rather shabby, and a dark crimson shirt with a vermilion tie that would have clashed if the colours had not been harmlessly faded.

He spoke in French. ‘Why, hullo, Danielle.’

It was as if he had told her quite plainly: ‘
It’s all right
.’ I could see the look of surprise fade. She relaxed. ‘Hullo. How did you know I was here?’

I thought: because you’ve just been together behind the juniper-bushes and I interrupted you. Then I shook the thought away with the wry reflection that this was what contact with Danielle did. Five minutes with her, and a full half-pound of civet would hardly sweeten the imagination.

Danielle said idly – too idly – from the dust: ‘This is Camilla Haven. She’s been out with Simon this afternoon and she’s sleeping at the studio tonight.’

The man bowed and sent me a smile. ‘
Enchanté
.’

‘Dimitrios,’ said Danielle to me, ‘is—’

‘A guide,’ said Dimitrios. ‘Mademoiselle has been to see the shrine this afternoon?’

As if you hadn’t heard from behind your juniper-bush, I thought. I said: ‘No. I went this morning early.’

‘Ah. And now you come up to the top of the Shining Ones to see the last of the sun.’

I said: ‘It’ll be some time still till dark, surely?’

‘Perhaps not so long,’ said Dimitrios. I saw Danielle turn her head to look at him. Her head was on a level with my thigh, and I couldn’t see her eyes for the curtaining lashes. Something crept along my spine like a cold-footed insect. The man, no less than the girl, gave me the creeps.

I gave myself another of those hearty mental shakes. ‘I must be going. If I’m to have a bath before dinner and arrange about—’

‘These rocks,’ said Dimitrios, ‘are called the Phaedriades, the Shining Ones. Always I tell my tourists the story of the Shining Ones. Between them flows the Castalian Spring, whose water is the best in Greece. Have you tried the water of the spring, mademoiselle?’

‘No, not yet. I—’

He came a step nearer. I was between him and the edge of the cliff. ‘They stand over the shrine like guardians, do they not? Because that is what they are. They were not only the protectors of the holy place, but they were themselves the place of execution. There were people executed on these cliffs – for sacrilege, mademoiselle. Did you know that?’

‘No. But—’

Another step. He was smiling, a smile of great charm. He had a pleasant voice. Beside me in the dust I saw Danielle lift her head. I saw that her eyes now watched me, not the man. She was smiling at me with the utmost friendliness, her eyes for once bright, not tired at all. I moved back from him a step or two. It brought me within four feet of the edge.

Dimitrios said suddenly: ‘Be careful.’ I jumped and his hand came out to my arm. It was gentle on the flesh. ‘You are not here for execution as a traitor to the god, mademoiselle.’ He laughed, and Danielle smiled, and I thought suddenly, wildly, why the hell can’t I just pull my arm away and run. I hate the pair of them and they frighten me, and here I stand because it isn’t polite to go while the damned man’s talking.

‘I always tell my tourists,’ he was saying, ‘one particular story. There was a certain traitor who was brought up here for execution. Two of them came with him to the edge … just there … to throw him over. He looked over … yes, mademoiselle, it is a long way down, is it not? … and then he said to them, please will you not send me over face first, please will you let me fall with my back to the drop? One understands how he felt, mademoiselle, does one not?’

His hand was still on my arm. I pulled back against it. It slid gently up the flesh to the inside of my elbow. I noticed that his nails were bitten to the quick and that his thumb was badly cut and crusted with dried blood. I started to turn from him and to pull my arm away, but his fingers tightened. His voice quickened a little in my
ear: ‘So they threw him over, mademoiselle, and as he fell, he—’

I said breathlessly: ‘Let me go. I don’t like heights. Let me go, please.’

He smiled, ‘Why, mademoiselle—’

Danielle’s voice said, dry and thin: ‘Are these your tourists, Dimitrios?’

He gave an exclamation under his breath. His hand dropped from my arm. He turned sharply.

Three people, a man and two women, were coming slowly along the path from the direction of Arachova. The women were plain, dumpy, middle-aged; the man was stoutish, and wore khaki shorts and had an enormous camera slung over one perspiring shoulder. They looked at us with incurious red faces as they plodded past like beef cattle in a row, like angels of heaven.

I shot away from the brink of the cliff the way a cork leaves the very best champagne. I didn’t bother to say anything polite to Dimitrios, and I didn’t even fling a goodbye at Danielle.