My Brother Michael Page 17

  Where there was green there must certainly, in September, be water … cold water, not Niko’s tepid bottle that smelled of goat. The thought brought me eagerly to my feet. A shadow at the cliff-top flickered again, but I hardly noticed. My eyes were on the corner below the slim bow of the juniper, where, like a mirage, showed a glimpse of vivid emerald …

  I got up, skirting the corrie’s edge, picking my way between the enormous fallen blocks. I slid between two rough rocks that caught at my clothes, bent my head to pass under a wing of limestone that shored up the cliff like a flying buttress – and there was the grass. The colour was so startling, and so beautiful after the dazzling changes rung by sun and stone that I must have stood quite still, gazing at it, for a full minute. It flowed in a deep and vivid ribbon of green between two boulders streaked liberally with the red of water-borne iron. But there was no water now. There might be some spring, I thought, that was dependent on intermittent showers high on the peaks; perhaps, like snow on the desert’s face, the grass sprang up in the wake of a shower and faded with the next day’s sunset … It lay there, itself like a small pool of cool water, a green thought in a green shade, moist to the touch, and lending the corner of the corrie a freshness that the shadowed rock had not had.

  I sat gratefully down, with my hands spread on the ground and the soft grass springing up between my fingers. Among the green were tiny flowers, bells of pale blue, like pigmy hare-bells. Some of these grew on the face of the cliff itself, and their seeds had, in the last decade, flown and rooted everywhere in the fallen debris of earthquake. Only here in this moist corner were they still in flower, but I could see fading clumps of seeding stems on all sides among the boulders. Other alpines had grown here, too; there was something with a pale furry leaf and a thin dry flower-stem sticking out like a humming-bird’s tongue; a tuft of tendrils dried into hexagonal shapes till they looked like bunches of brown chicken-wire; a tiny plant of the a corned holly, rooting purposefully in a thin crack. Then with another shock of pleasure I saw one more flower that had not yet died of drought. In a cleft just above eye level there was a plant of cyclamen. The leaves, blue-green and veined palely, were held out in stiff formal curves on their red stems. The flowers were soft rose-pink, a dozen of them, and clung like a flight of moths to the dry cliff. Below the flowers, in the same cleft, grew the remains of another rock-plant, dead, fraying away to dust in the drought. Above it the cyclamen’s flowers looked pure and delicate and strong …

  Something was fretting at the edge of my mind. I stared at the cyclamen, and found I was thinking of the Dutch painter and his donkey surrounded by the laughing village lads, and I wondered, without knowing why, what Nigel was doing now.

  We went back by the shorter route.

  It appeared that the search of the cave had yielded nothing, and apparently Simon didn’t want to delay Stephanos and Niko by making a more prolonged investigation. We left the corrie by the gap in the west side, and scrambled down the steep slope below the scree.

  We had nearly reached the bottom of the dry valley that lay below the ridge, when we came on the barely visible track that I had glimpsed from the top of the crags. Even this was appallingly rough going. We made our careful way along it for some hundred yards or so, and then it forked. The right branch fell steeply away, curling out of sight almost at once round a spur of cliff. The left-hand branch turned downhill for Delphi. We took this, and in just over half the time the outward journey had taken we saw ahead of us the edge of the high land and, beyond it, the gap where the Pleistus valley cuts its way down to the sea.

  Stephanos paused and spoke to Simon. The latter turned to me.

  ‘Stephanos has come back this way because he thinks you may be tired. This path will lead you straight down to Delphi. It comes out above the temple, and you can get down behind the Shining Ones, and then through the stadium. The drop down the cliff-top is steep, but there’s no danger if you take care. I’ll come down with you if you like, but you can’t possibly miss the way.’

  I must have looked slightly surprised, because he added: ‘The car’s at Arachova – remember? I thought I’d go back along the top with Stephanos now, and collect it. But there’s no need to drag you the whole way.’

  I said gratefully: ‘Oh, Simon – that car! I’d forgotten all about it. I don’t really see why you should have to shoulder all the responsibility for my bit of nonsense, but I must confess I’ll be awfully glad if you will! Don’t tell Niko, but I really am beginning to feel I’d like to be home.’

  ‘Well, it won’t take you long from here, and it’s all down-hill. No – look, dash it, I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you, if it means your trailing back later on to Arachova for the car. I can’t possibly get lost between here and Delphi, and I promise to be careful on the cliff-path.’ I turned to hold out a hand to Stephanos and thank him, then did the same to Niko. It was like Stephanos, I thought, virtually to ignore me all the time, and yet to lead the whole party some hour or so out of its way to show me the quick way home. The old man nodded gravely over my hand and turned away. Niko took it with a melting look from those beautiful eyes and said: ‘I will see you again, miss? You come to Arachova often?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘And you will come to see the rugs in my sister’s shop? Is very good rugs, all colours. Local. Is also brooches and pots of the very best Greek style. For you they are cheap. I tell my sister you are my friend, yes?’

  I laughed. ‘If I buy any rugs and pots I’ll come to your sister’s shop, Niko. That’s a promise. And now goodbye, and thank you.’

  ‘Goodbye, miss. Thank you, beautiful miss.’

  The luminous socks plunged away along the path after Stephanos.

  Simon grinned. ‘His grandfather’d have the hide off him if he could understand half he says. Is there such a thing as innocent depravity? Niko’s it if there is. A little of Athens superimposed on Arachova. It’s a fascinating mixture, isn’t it?’

  ‘When it’s as beautiful as Niko, yes … Simon, was it true that you didn’t find anything in the cave? Or was there something that you didn’t want to talk about in front of the others? You didn’t see anything at all?’

  ‘Nothing. There was a small inner cave, but it was as blank as a scoured pot … I’ll tell you about it later on; I’d better be off after them now. I’ll be in to the Apollon for dinner and I’ll see you then. Afterwards we’ll get you installed at the studio. You’ll dine with me, of course?’

  ‘Why, thank you, I—’

  ‘Take care of yourself, then. See you at dinner.’ And with a lift of the hand he was gone in the wake of the shocking pink socks.

  I stared after him for a few seconds, but he didn’t look back.

  It occurred to me, with a slight sense of surprise, that this time yesterday I hadn’t even met him.

  I turned and began to make my careful way down towards Delphi.

  12

  Seize her! Throw her from Parnassus,

  send her bounding down the cliff-ledges,

  let the crags comb out her dainty hair!

  EURIPIDES: lon.

  (tr. Philip Vellacott.)

  IT was late afternoon, and the sun was straight ahead of me when at length I came out on top of one of the great cliffs that stand above the shrine at Delphi. Far below me and to the right lay the temple precinct, its monuments and porticos and its Sacred Way looking small and very clean-cut in the sun, like the plaster models that you see in museums. The pillars of Apollo were foreshortened, and tiny as toys. Directly beneath me was the cleft of the Castalian Spring. The tangle of trees filled it like a dark waterfall. Already, beyond the tree-filled cleft, the Flamboyant cliff was taking the late afternoon sun like flame.

  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 bu
shes, 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 h
im. 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.