The Island (5 page)

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Authors: Victoria Hislop

BOOK: The Island
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By now, other customers were arriving, and Stephanos got up from the wicker-seated chair to show them to their tables and present them with menus. The sun had now fallen below the horizon and the sky had turned a deep pink. Swallows dived and swooped, catching insects on the rapidly cooling air. What seemed like an age went by. Alexis had eaten everything that Stephanos had put in front of her but she was still hungry.
 
Just as she was wondering whether to go into the kitchen to choose what to have next, as was perfectly acceptable for customers in Crete, her main course arrived.
 
‘This is today’s catch,’ said the waitress, setting down an oval platter. ‘It is
barbouni
. I think that is red mullet in English. I hope I have cooked it as you like it - just grilled with fresh herbs and a little olive oil.’
 
Alexis was astonished. Not just by the perfectly presented dish. Not even by the woman’s soft, almost accentless English. What took her by surprise was her beauty. She had always wondered what kind of face could possibly have launched a thousand ships. It must have been one like this.
 
‘Thank you,’ she said finally. ‘That looks wonderful.’
 
The vision seemed about to turn away, but then she paused. ‘My husband said you were asking for me.’
 
Alexis looked up in surprise. Her mother had told her that Fotini was in her early seventies, but this woman was slim, scarcely lined, and her hair, piled high on her head, was still the colour of ripe chestnuts. She was not the old woman Alexis had been expecting to meet.
 
‘You’re not . . . Fotini Davaras?’ she said uncertainly, getting to her feet.
 
‘I am she,’ the woman asserted gently.
 
‘I have a letter for you,’ Alexis said, recovering. ‘From my mother, Sofia Fielding.’
 
Fotini Davaras’s face lit up. ‘You’re Sofia’s daughter! My goodness, how wonderful!’ she said. ‘How is she? How is she?’
 
Fotini accepted with huge enthusiasm the letter which Alexis held out to her, hugging it to her chest as though Sofia herself were there in person. ‘I am so happy. I haven’t heard from her since her aunt died a few years ago. Until then she used to write to me every month, then she just stopped. I was very worried when some of my last letters went unanswered. ’
 
All of this was news to Alexis. She had been unaware that her mother used to send letters to Crete so regularly - and certainly had no idea that she had ever received any. How odd during all those years that Alexis herself had never once seen a letter bearing a Greek postmark - she felt sure she would have remembered it, since she had always been an early riser, and invariably the one to sweep up any letters from the doormat. It seemed that her mother had gone to great lengths to conceal this correspondence.
 
By now Fotini was holding Alexis by the shoulders and scrutinising her face with her almond-shaped eyes.
 
‘Let me see - yes, yes, you do look a bit like her. You look even more like poor Anna.’
 
Anna? On all those occasions when she had tried to extract information from her mother about the sepia-toned aunt and uncle who had brought her up, Alexis had never heard this name.
 
‘Your mother’s mother,’ Fotini added quickly, immediately spotting the quizzical look on the girl’s face. Something like a shudder went down Alexis’s spine. Standing in the dusky half-light, with the now ink-black sea behind her, she was all but knocked backwards by the scale of her mother’s secretiveness, and the realisation that she was talking to someone who might hold some of the answers.
 
‘Come on, sit down, sit down. You must eat the
barbouni
,’ said Fotini. By now Alexis had almost lost her appetite, but she felt it polite to co-operate and the two women sat down.
 
In spite of the fact that she wanted to ask all the questions - she was bursting with them - Alexis allowed herself to be interviewed by Fotini, whose enquiries were all more searching than they appeared. How was her mother? Was she happy? What was her father like? What had brought her to Crete?
 
Fotini was as warm as the night, and Alexis found herself answering her questions very openly. This woman was old enough to be her grandmother, and yet was so unlike how she would expect a grandmother to be. Fotini Davaras was the antithesis of the bent old lady in black that she had imagined when her mother had handed her the letter. Her interest in Alexis seemed totally genuine. It was a long time - if it had ever happened at all - since Alexis had talked to someone like this. Her university tutor had occasionally listened to her as though what she said really mattered, but in her heart she knew that was only because she was paid to do so. It wasn’t long before Alexis was confiding in Fotini.
 
‘My mother has always been terribly secretive about her early life,’ she said. ‘All I really know is that she was born near here and brought up by her uncle and aunt - and that she left altogether when she was eighteen and never came back.’
 
‘Is that
really
all you know?’ Fotini asked. ‘Hasn’t she told you any more than that?’
 
‘No, nothing at all. That’s partly why I’m here. I want to know more. I want to know what made her turn her back on the past like that.’
 
‘But why now?’ enquired Fotini.
 
‘Oh, lots of reasons,’ said Alexis, looking down at her plate. ‘But mostly it’s to do with my boyfriend. I’ve realised lately how lucky my mother was to find my father - I’d always assumed that their relationship was typical.’
 
‘I’m glad they’re happy. It was a bit of a whirlwind at the time, but we were all very hopeful because they seemed so blissfully content.’
 
‘It’s odd, though. I know so little about my mother. She never talks about her childhood, never talks about living here—’
 
‘Doesn’t she?’ interjected Fotini.
 
‘What I feel,’ said Alexis, ‘is that to find out more about my mother might help me. She was fortunate to meet someone she could care so much about, but how did she
know
he would be the right person for ever? I’ve been with Ed for more than five years, and I’m not sure whether we should be together or not.’
 
This statement was very uncharacteristic of the normally pragmatic Alexis, and she was aware that it might sound rather nebulous, almost fanciful, to someone she had known for less than two hours. Besides, she had strayed off the agenda; how could she expect this Greek woman, kindly as she was, to be interested in her?
 
Stephanos approached at this moment to clear the dishes, and within minutes he was back with cups of coffee and two generous balloons of molasses-coloured brandy. Other customers had come and gone during the evening and, once again, the table Alexis occupied was the only one in use.
 
Warmed by the hot coffee and even more so by the fiery Metaxa, Alexis asked Fotini how long she had known her mother.
 
‘Practically from the day she was born,’ the older woman replied. But she stopped there, feeling a great weight of responsibility. Who was she, Fotini Davaras, to tell this girl things about her family’s past that her own mother had clearly wanted to conceal from her? It was only at that moment that Fotini remembered the letter she had tucked into her apron. She pulled it out and, picking up a knife from the next table, quickly slit it open.
 
 
Dear Fotini,
 
 
 
Please forgive me for being out of touch for so long. I know I don’t need to explain the reasons to you, but believe me when I tell you that I think of you often. This is my daughter, Alexis. Will you treat her as kindly as you always treated me - I hardly need to ask it, do I?
 
Alexis is very curious about her history - it’s understandable, but I have found it almost impossible to tell her anything. Isn’t it odd how the passage of time can make it harder than ever to bring things out into the open?
 
I know she will ask you plenty of questions - she is a natural historian. Will you answer them? Your eyes and ears witnessed the whole story - I think you will be able to give her a truer account than I ever could.
 
Paint a picture of it all for her, Fotini. She will be eternally grateful. Who knows - she may even return to England and be able to tell me things I never knew. Will you show her where I was born - I know she will be interested in that - and take her to Agios Nikolaos?
 
This comes with much love to you and Stephanos - and please send warm best wishes to your sons too.
 
 
Thank you, Fotini.
 
 
Yours ever,
Sofia
 
When she had finished reading the letter, Fotini folded it carefully and returned it to its envelope. She looked across at Alexis, who had been studying her every expression with curiosity as she scanned the crumpled sheet of paper.
 
‘Your mother has asked me to tell you all about your family,’ said Fotini, ‘but it’s not really a bed-time story. We close the taverna on Sunday and Monday and I have all the time in the world at this end of the season. Why don’t you stay with us for a couple of days? I would be delighted if you would.’ Fotini’s eyes glittered in the darkness. They looked watery - with tears or excitement, Alexis couldn’t tell.
 
She knew instinctively that this might be the best investment of time she could ever make, and there was no doubt that her mother’s story could help her more in the long term than yet another museum visit. Why examine the cool relics of past civilisations when she could be breathing life into her own history? There was nothing to stop her staying. Just a brief text message telling Ed that she was going to be here for a day or so would be all it would take. Even though she knew it was an act of almost callous disregard for him, she felt this opportunity justified a little selfishness. She was essentially free to do what she pleased. It was a moment of stillness. The dark, flat sea almost seemed to hold its breath, and in the clear sky above, the brightest constellation of all, Orion, who had been killed and placed in the sky by the gods, seemed to wait for her decision.
 
This might be the one chance Alexis was offered in her lifetime to grab at the fragments of her own history before they were dissipated in the breeze. She knew there was only one response to the invitation. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. ‘I’d love to stay.’
 
Chapter Two
 
ALEXIS SLEPT DEEPLY that night. When she and Fotini finally went to bed, it was after one o’clock in the morning, and the cumulative effect of the long drive to Plaka, the afternoon on Spinalonga and the heady mix of meze and Metaxa drew her into a deep and dreamless sleep.
 
It was nearly ten when luminous sunshine came streaming through the gap between the thick hessian curtains and threw a beam across Alexis’s pillow. As it woke her, she instinctively slid further under the sheets to hide her face. In the past fortnight she had slept in several unfamiliar rooms, and each time she surfaced there was a moment of confusion as she adjusted to her surroundings and dragged herself into the here and now. Most of the mattresses in the cheap pensions where she and Ed had stayed had either sagged in the middle or had metal springs protruding through the ticking. It had never been hard to get up from those beds in the morning. But this bed was altogether different. In fact the whole room was different. The round table with a lace cloth, the stool with its faded woven seat, the group of framed watercolours on the wall, the candlestick thickly coated with organ pipes of wax, the fragrant lavender which hung in a bunch on the back of the door, and the walls painted in a soft blue to match the bed linen: all of these things made it homelier than home.
 
When she drew back the curtains she was greeted by the dazzling vista of a sparkling sea and the island of Spinalonga, which, in the shimmering haze of heat, seemed further away, more remote than it had yesterday.
 
When she had set off from Hania early the previous day, she had had no intention of staying in Plaka. She had imagined a brief meeting with the elderly woman from her mother’s childhood and a short tour of the village before rejoining Ed. For that reason she had brought nothing more than a map and her camera - and had certainly not anticipated needing spare clothes or a toothbrush. Fotini, however, had been quick to come to her rescue, lending her everything she needed - one of Stephanos’s shirts to sleep in, and a clean if rather threadbare towel. This morning, at the end of her bed, she found a floral shirt - not at all her style, but after the heat and dust of the previous day she was glad for the change of clothing. It was a gesture of such maternal kindness that she could hardly ignore it - even if the pale pinks and blues of the blouse looked rather incongruous with her khaki shorts, what did it really matter? Alexis splashed her face with cold water at the tiny sink in the corner and then scrutinised her tanned face in the mirror. She was as excited as a child who was about to be read the crucial chapter of a story. Today Fotini was going to be her Scheherazade.

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