Strangers in Company (19 page)

“And about time Greece was thrown out of the present one,” said a muted, unidentifiable female voice from somewhere halfway up the bus.

Very sensibly, Mike pretended not to hear. “I have told you already how much that is political we Greeks have invented. Professor Edvardson at the back there would tell you much, I am sure, about the
Politics
of Aristotle, but I am only an ignorant modern Greek, so I will tell you how, when the great Olympian Games were held, every four years, it meant a truce to all fighting between the competing states. Peace for their time, ladies and gentlemen. The heralds went out, far, far afield … to Asia Minor, to Egypt, to Sicily, proclaiming the Olympic truce.
All fighting stopped while the athletes prepared for the great competition. They had to train for ten months, I must tell you, at Olympia itself, and all this time the truce continued, the crops could be harvested, men could walk abroad freely. And then, when the time of the games themselves came, more permanent truces could be signed. It was a chance, ladies and gentlemen, a chance for peace and a greater Greece.”

“Like you've got now,” said that same female, anonymous whisper.

And beyond Mrs. Spencer, Marian was aware of Professor Edvardson, muttering something to himself. “I'm looking forward to Olympia,” said Mrs. Spencer brightly. “I've never been there. Have you, Mrs. Frenche?”

“No.” Marian rather hoped that the monosyllable would end the conversation, but once started, Mrs. Spencer went comfortably on and on. Her first trip to Greece. Marian's first trip to Greece? Her unsuitable clothes. “If only someone had
told
me!” And then, inevitably, poor Mrs. Hilton, poor Mrs. Duncan. Did Marian think they ought to get up a collection? For wreaths? Marian, explosively, did not, but wrenched her thoughts away from yesterday's disaster, from the arrangements Mike had made last night for sending home the poor, battered body, to listen to Mrs. Spencer, who had reached the subject of her children. “A bit young to be left alone, but such competent young things. I expect they'll enjoy themselves with old mum away. You have children, Mrs. Frenche?”

“Two.”

Once again, the intended conversation stopper had no effect. “So have I. Very respectable these days. Avant-garde, that's us. You know: population control and all that.”

“Quite.”

“‘Hostages to fortune,'” said the professor, and earned a puzzled look, and silence at last, from Mrs. Spencer.

As the long day dragged on, the bus grew more and more silent. Once the schoolmistresses tried to sing, but faltered into silence when an anonymous voice said, “Poor
Mrs. Duncan.” Mike seemed to have given them up. He was engaged in a rapid Greek conversation with the driver. Tomorrow, presumably, would be time enough to tell them more about Olympia.

But next day it was raining.

Waking to the sound of steady rain on her window, Marian was tempted to turn over and fall asleep again; and, later in the day, trudging dutifully behind Mike through the Altis, or sacred grove, listening to him talk of altars made of burned bones, of races won and lost, of cheats and the penalties they paid, she rather wished she had.

Stella was in the blackest mood Marian had yet seen, and for the first time she found herself thinking that Miss Oakland had been right. If things went on like this, she would indeed earn her high pay. With Stella beside her, silent, shoulders hunched, hands in raincoat pockets, how could she take an interest in the story Mike was telling about Nero and the Olympic Games? Did she dare ask what was the matter? She thought not, and as they trailed farther and farther behind the rest of the party, her own spirits sank to match Stella's. It was a curious thing; this morning she did not feel haunted or spied on, as she had so often, so desperately, in the past. Instead, she felt, quite simply, afraid. In sunshine, perhaps, it would have been possible to shrug off that chapter of accidents as—just accidents. Today, in the rain and after what Edvardson had said, she could not do it, nor, she suspected, could the rest of the party. They clung together in groups, as David Cairnthorpe had advised, and few of them looked as if they were enjoying themselves.

The professor had opted out this morning, announcing at breakfast that he was going to look for water birds along the sacred rivers. Remembering that happy afternoon by the Eurotas, Marian had found herself ridiculously
disappointed when he did not ask her to come too, though, of course, she could not have gone. His absence freed the tongues of the rest of the party, and Marian, catching snatches of conversation as they made their way by fits and starts from the workshop of Pheidias to the temples of Hera and Zeus, was surprised how angry they made her. The general view was that Edvardson was touched in the head. “He was in the army,” she heard Mrs. Spencer say. “A head injury, I expect. That white hair and black eyebrows must mean something.”

And Mrs. Adams, comfortably blood-curdled: “Ooh, do you think he's dangerous?”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Spencer, and then, “Hush, Mike's talking.”

They were in the stadium now, and Mike had begun a long story about a woman who broke the ban on her sex at the nude racing held there and nearly lost her life for it.

“Who'd be a woman?” said Stella crossly at the back of the crowd. “I don't know about you, Mrs. F., but I've had about enough. My feet are soaking, water's dripping down the back of my neck, and I don't care how many statues by Praxiteles they've got in the museum. Let's get the hell back to the hotel.”

Marian was glad enough to agree, and in fact, about half the party decided against the museum and trudged back to the hotel together. The rain was coming faster than ever, and Marian's headscarf was soaked through. Entering the hotel, she pulled it off with a sigh of relief and was amazed to see Professor Edvardson looking at her with a curious mixture of open-mouthed astonishment, and, surely, dislike? “What's the matter?” The question slid out.

“Nothing.” His smile was an effort. “At least, the strangest thing. With your hair like that, you reminded me of someone I knew a long time ago. Forgive me. It was like a ghost walking, just for a minute.”

“A pleasant one, I hope.” There was too much talk of ghosts on this trip.

“Oh, come
on,
Mrs. F.,” said Stella. “You're drenched, and so am I. We'll both be ghosts if we don't get into dry clothes.” And then, upstairs, pausing for a moment outside Marian's door. “What do you bet you reminded him of his dead wife?”

“Oh.” It was oddly disconcerting, and she was glad to be alone with it. In fact, it was a kind of relief that the rain went relentlessly on all day, and the most sensible thing seemed to be to spend the afternoon on one's bed with a paper-back and a two-day-old
International Herald Tribune
picked up at the shop on the corner in one brief sortie before lunch. Stella had announced that she intended to write her entire quota of postcards for the trip, and had, indeed, bought a vast supply of postcards and stamps while Marian was getting her paper. It was odd, somehow, to think of Stella with so many friends. But then, Stella herself was odd today, and Marian was glad of the excuse to leave her alone. The friendship that had been quietly developing between them seemed to have stopped growing, like a plant without water. It was with an effort that Marian finally put down her book, changed her dress, brushed out hair now fluffy from its wetting and went down to find Stella drinking ouzo with Mike.

“Not our most successful day, alas.” Mike jumped up gallantly to fetch Marian a drink. “But tomorrow will be better, and the next day fine.”

“Guide, philosopher and weather prophet.” There was a disconcerting note of bitterness in Stella's voice as Mike left them. “I hope you slept, Mrs. F.?”

“No, actually I've been reading. I got started on
My Brother Michael
and couldn't put it down.”

“Restful,” said Stella. “I hope you don't mind, Mike's joining us for dinner; this seems to be the one place where he hasn't got a friend.”

“Of course,” said Marian vaguely. “How very nice.” But it was disappointing to find that the fourth at their table was Mrs. Spencer, and impossible not to worry, just a little, when the professor never appeared. Altogether, dinner was a dull meal. Marian felt tireder and tireder,
and when Mike, who had ordered Nescafé all round, suggested that they go out for another coffee and a liquer, she refused almost without thinking, and then had a quick qualm of conscience when Stella accepted—rudely, brusquely, but still accepted.

But it was no use; she could not bring herself to go out again. Resisting the temptation to sit downstairs until the professor returned, she went to her room, undressed quickly and climbed with relief into her cold bed. She was too tired for anything but sleep and plunged down into it with a speed that surprised her when she woke, later, to moonlight, flooding through the window whose curtains she had forgotten to draw. Extraordinary. She could not remember ever doing such a thing. Darkness was essential to her sleep. She got out of bed and moved muzzily over to the window, which looked out onto the street. Down there, people were still moving about. It could not be as late as it felt. Strange to have slept so soon and so deeply, but no doubt it was the retsina, and Dr. Brown would be pleased with her. “Wine is better than pills” was one of his sayings.

Dizzy a little with the depth of her sleep, she pulled one of the curtains across, then paused with her hand on the other to look down into the moonlit street. Something, down there, had caught her rather fuzzy attention. A couple, of course, locked in a deep embrace just outside the hotel.

“Damn you!” The girl broke away, her voice unmistakably Stella's. “I want to talk to you! I don't want—”

“You don't know what you want, my star, but I do.” Mike pushed her away, semiresistant, to look down at her, his face, like hers, shadowed and blank in the otherwise revealing moonlight. But there was a smile in his voice as he broke into Greek.

“And what does that mean, pray?” Her voice was strained as she pulled a little away once more.

“You don't understand? It might have been written specially for you:

Gazing on stars, oh star,

Star of my soul, oh, me,

Would I were in heaven that I might gaze

With all those eyes on thee.

“In short you want to keep an eye on me.” Stella's voice held a strange note.

“I want to be near you always.” He pulled her to him, fiercely, and Marian seized the moment of their total absorption to pull the second curtain gently across and tiptoe back to bed, more disturbed than she liked to admit to herself. Nothing in Stella's daytime behaviour to Mike had given the slightest clue to what was going on. In fact, a good deal of the time, Marian had thought, she rather disliked him.

And what now? Should she tell Stella what she had seen? Every instinct said no to this. For one thing, it is never pleasant to have to admit to eavesdropping, however accidentally; for another, bringing the situation out into the open might so easily make things worse. It had always been one of her firmest beliefs, as a mother, that interference in affairs of the heart, however well meant, usually had the opposite effect to that intended. With a bit of luck, Stella was simply allowing herself a two-week flirtation with Mike as a salve for the hurt dealt her by that unknown young man back in England. Looked at this way, things could be worse. Mike would be careful; it was as much as his job was worth to be anything else, and Mike, Marian was sure, was a careful, ambitious young man. No, he might kiss Stella and quote poetry to her, but he would go no further.

Soothed, Marian slept deep and dreamlessly, haunted, for once, by none of those tantalising visions of the old life with Sebastian and Viola. She woke, reluctantly, to the sound of knocking on the door and the thought that dreamless sleep might easily be the best gift Aesculapius could give.

“Mrs. Frenche!” Stella's voice, high-pitched from outside. “Are you all right?”

Marian rolled over and saw her alarm clock's hands
accusingly at eight o'clock. And today's was to be an early start for the long journey to Delphi. Incredibly, she must have forgotten to set the alarm.

“Mrs. Frenche!” There was almost a note of hysteria in Stella's voice as she vainly rattled the self-locking door.

“Coming!” Marian's voice sounded irritable even to herself as she rolled out of bed and hurried to open the door. “I've overslept in the most awful way.” She was still heavy with sleep. “I suppose breakfast's over? Bless you for waking me. Tell David I'll be down in five minutes. Well.” She looked at the chaos of her room. And she had intended to get a start on her packing the night before. What could have got into her? “Say ten minutes.”

“Fifteen,” said Stella. “I'll bring you a roll and some coffee. After all, we've waited for the others often enough. But how do you feel? You look exhausted still.”

“I feel it. But I slept like a log. I'll be fine in a minute, but I would be glad of that coffee, if you can raise some.”

She was dressed by the time Stella returned with the coffee and, still only half-awake, grateful to sit and drink it while Stella swiftly and competently finished packing for her. Now, if ever, would be the moment to speak of the scene she had witnessed the night before. And “never” was the answer. It was curiously touching to sit and watch Stella competently folding her nylon nightgown, carefully tucking the alarm clock among its folds and laying the good blue dress neatly on top of everything.

“You're an angel.” She finished the coffee and looked at her watch. “Not so late as all that, after all.”

“No.” Stella lifted the larger case. “If you can bring the little one? The rest of the bags were down half an hour ago.”

“Oh,
dear
!” Downstairs, Marian apologised profusely to David Cairnthorpe, who was standing in the hotel lobby, watch in hand.