Secrets of Santorini

by Patricia Wilson

  ‘Okay, they’re on,’ he said, stepping back, suddenly noticing how much leg was on show. ‘Mmm, nice, but not what we want. Keep still.’ He delved into his jeans pocket and pulled out a roll of double-sided tape, ran a length of it along my thigh and halfway down my shin, then pressed the skirt against it.

  Holy God!

  ‘What’s the hold-up? We’ll lose the light,’ Paula yelled. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, look at the colour of that woman’s face. Get Sofia back, quickly!’

  The make-up artist brought powder and, with a large brush, applied it to my face.

  Angelo came in so close, his beard brushed my jaw. ‘Relax. Don’t worry about the dog-ess, she just arf-arfs a lot.’

  I murdered a grin, then was engulfed by guilt that I was having such an adventure when my mother was critical.

  Angelo told me to keep absolutely still. He spoke softly to Sofia, slipping an arm around her shoulders and saying something, which sounded kindly, in Greek. Adoration shone from the make-up artist’s eyes.

  He turned to me. ‘We are ready. Do not think about anyone but me, understand?’

  He tilted my head and arranged my hair over one shoulder, his fingertips brushing the side of my neck. A shiver ran through me. I watched his face, which was tense with concentration. I glanced at the trailer for Sofia’s approval. The beautician stood in the Portakabin doorway, phone in hand. She glared at Angelo, her dark eyes glinting with tears. I wondered what had caused such a dramatic change of mood but before I could analyse the situation, the photographer started shooting.

  Angelo called out instructions: ‘Drop your right shoulder; look into the lens; lower your chin; twist your shoulders to the left – the other left!’

  ‘Okay, let’s move on to the cover shots,’ the photographer shouted. ‘Bring the fan and get me a cold beer, I’m sweltering.’

  Paula stuck her hand in the air. ‘Sofia, bring iced drinks for everyone. Irini, come and change for the next shots.’ In the trailer she gave me a retro black dress with little cap sleeves and a plunging, sweetheart neckline. My narrow waist was extenuated by a wide red patent belt and a voluminous organza calf-length skirt, which reminded me of Quinlan’s creations for a local Swan Lake production.

  *

  ‘I’ve just seen the first photos,’ Angelo said when I joined him in the forecourt. ‘They’re good. You did well. Now we will take the most important shots.’

  I caught the scent of him – lemon shampoo, and on his breath, peppermint. I shivered again.

  ‘You are cold?’ He sounded surprised, and, for the first time, concerned about my wellbeing.

  I shook my head. ‘Nerves.’

  ‘Okay. The photographer wants you to sit on the edge of the barrel and face him.’

  He helped me onto the barrel, then squeezed my feet into another pair of size sixes. The full skirt tangled around my legs, and the more I struggled, the worse it got.

  ‘Wait.’ He placed his hand on my shoulder and shouted: ‘Manoli, Stefano!’ Two men appeared beside him. He spoke to them in Greek while keeping his eyes on me.

  ‘When they lift you, open your legs wide as you can, then hold the position as they put you down, okay?’

  I bit my lip, not wanting to think about two strange men touching my skin.

  ‘Don’t do that.’ He scowled and then called over his shoulder, ‘Get Sofia – again!’

  Another mistake. Desperate to get this right, I cursed myself.

  The men moved behind and lifted me by my armpits. Feeling glaringly conspicuous under the bright stare of onlookers, and conscious of the warm-handed men, I was determined not to frown or blush. I opened my legs, feeling exposed and vulnerable for a moment, but I told myself to woman-up and get on with the job.

  Angelo leaned forward, his head almost on my shoulder, his mouth next to my face. Perhaps because at that moment I deliberately willed myself to drop the nerves, I became aware of his breathing in my ear. In a thrilling instant, I imagined him in bed. Unaware of my wicked daydream, he pulled the surplus fabric from under me and then nodded at the crew. They lowered me onto the cask and moved away.

  A new, and oddly conflicting magnetism drew me towards the Greek. ‘Now, grip the edge of the barrel between your legs and hold the skirt there,’ he ordered.

  I felt the heat of the day and the onset of a headache that had periodically plagued me since the crash. Being this close to Angelo was not helping the situation, because suddenly I realised how much I wanted to please him.

  While Sofia stood on a step-stool and worked on my lipstick, I scrutinised her face. Beautiful large brown eyes with lashes to die for, and her lips were full and well defined. A look that models suffered to achieve, but her mouth turned down miserably at the corners. I sensed this woman had suffered pain for her glamorous looks. A victim of the personification of a beautiful woman. Was I on the threshold of falling into that trap?

  Angelo spoke to Sofia in Greek again, rubbing the woman’s back as if to console her when she stepped down.

  Sofia smiled at him and then took the stool away. I was intrigued by her mannerisms, she seemed so heartbreakingly sad. Perhaps she was lonely. I decided that if anything came of this job, I would try to befriend her. She could teach me Greek, and I would be the shoulder I sensed she needed.

  ‘Now, let’s see if you can do this without another catastrophe,’ Angelo said, looking straight into my eyes.

  Of course I could, if only my heart would stop hammering every time Angelo touched me.

  CHAPTER 19

  BRIDGET

  Santorini, 28 years ago.

  I COULDN’T REMEMBER FEELING such happiness and contentment before. Sitting on an old sea chest, with my back against the wall, I nursed my baby at sunrise. Her little fists opened and closed, and her gaze fixed on my face while she suckled.

  The previous day, Tommy had found the start of another fresco. Dare we hope our dreams of twenty years ago were coming to fruition? That evening, he had splashed out on a bottle of local red to celebrate but, because I was breastfeeding, I only had one glass. Tommy took care of the rest.

  Irini fell asleep in my lap. I gazed upon her perfect little face and my heart exploded with love. How amazing to have a baby of our own after all this time. The greatest gift on earth must be to bring up your child. I felt complete, content with life. We were a family. I stroked Irini’s cheek to wake her and changed sides, catching the buttery-vanilla scent of breast milk. Once again, I was filled with wonder at this perfect little person in my arms.

  My thoughts went to my own mother. Had she sat in the brick-walled backyard in Dublin, nursing me and feeling this amazing pleasure? I remembered my mother as a subservient woman, a good Catholic, they said, cleaning the church and keeping a spotless house. A highly intelligent woman, who ‘knew her place’ and shrugged off her dreams in order to fit into the scheme of things in a male-dominated world.

  Ma wrote poems and prayers in a little book, which was hidden away in her handbag. She said her rosary every night, mass on Sunday and the first Friday of the month. She also went to confession every Saturday, although I often wondered what sins she had to confess.

  ‘Vanity, for one thing,’ she said, her hair wrapped in bits of tissue and pink perming rollers, the kitchen ripe with the smell of ammonia. ‘I can’t go without my Twink every six months, or a dab of scent for church.’

  My parents had never eaten in a restaurant, never stayed in a hotel, never been out of Ireland.

  The day was fully light now, and with less chance of a mosquito bite, I pulled away the muslin veil. In a flash, I recalled my dream-daughter, Oia, pulling the veil back in the ritual of the maidens.

  A brightly coloured swallowtail butterfly flitted about the patio table, drawing my attention towards the broken dish. My notes were there too, held down by a grapefruit-size stone. What could the markings mean, the circle of symbols cut into the terracotta base? Minoan, almost certainly, but as there was no actual record of the Minoan
language, how could I find out what the engravings said? Ten arrowhead shapes, each one made unique by a different pattern, pointed towards a circle of letters that surrounded a simple star.

  The cracks and crevices of the shapes were still dark, stained by my blood and Irini’s, and I wondered whose blood had run into the pattern before ours? Was the vessel really connected to the religious rights of ancient people? Irini looked up, holding my gaze, her innocent eyes wide and questioning, as if she kept a deep secret too.

  The only glitches in my life were the headaches and the dreams. The previous night, I suffered another dream of Thira when I fell asleep with Irini in my arms. As always, the scenes were clear in my mind, and as I rocked Irini and watched her eyelids become heavy, I recalled the events leading up to the River Festival.

  *

  Oia curtsies before me. ‘My festival clothes are exquisite! Do I look beautiful, my Queen?’

  ‘You shall see for yourself.’ I lead her into my antechamber, where we stand before a long rectangle of highly polished silver.

  Oia gasps, turning this way and that, staring at herself. ‘What magic! I can see myself so clearly.’ She twirls again. ‘If I had one of these I would never leave the dressing room.’

  ‘Now you are prepared. Go and wait in my private garden, Oia. I shall join you shortly.’

  Oia spins around once more, moving closer to the mirror, clearly pleased with her appearance.

  Eurydice comes into my dressing room and bows. ‘Dear Queen, the time has come for the festival.’

  My heart races. The day is passing too quickly. ‘Help me change my gown, and then we shall lead the procession of kings to the ships.’

  The River Festival has started and I am filled with dread for the end of the day. The palace doors are opened. I see the populous of the city waving flags. A deafening roar rises from the crowd as I descend the palace steps with Princess Oia at my side. The ten kings, in full regalia, follow. The throng parts for us, cheering and throwing rose petals as our procession passes.

  Warriors in battledress, complete with polished breastplates and boar-tusk helmets, line the way, holding back enthusiastic people. The crowd chants: ‘Long live Princess Oia!’ The ecstatic girl squeezes my hand.

  On reaching the royal galley, young Prince Dardanus steps before us and places a wreath of orchids on Oia’s head. He draws his sword from its sheath and lays it flat across his hands, the sun flashing from the polished blade. Before he offers it to her, he goes down on one knee and bows his head.

  The crowd roars ‘Bravo!’ at this formal request for betrothal. Oia, her eyes sparkling, turns to me.

  ‘What shall I do, my Queen?’

  ‘You may accept the sword and, after five crocus harvests, become his wife, or you may walk past him.’

  The crowd falls silent; the earth shivers slightly. I hold my breath, begging Poseidon to stop his tremors. Everyone waits. Oia seems rooted to the procession-way. She stares at the bowed prince, then reaches out and takes the sword. The populous explode into fits of jubilation. Prince Dardanus straightens, and for a moment the young couple gaze into each other’s eyes. Neither smiles, as nobility never shows emotion in public, but I sense their delight and rejoice that Oia has experienced this special moment.

  Dardanus lowers his eyes and steps aside. The nobles and their entourage board the royal galley. At the prow of the ship, opposite my ten kings, I sit on the raised dais with Oia at my side. We glance around at the cheering crowd, my people, the people that Oia is destined to save.

  I turn to my daughter, about to ask if she is enjoying herself, but her face is tense and her eyes troubled.

  ‘Are you all right, Oia? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Everything is wonderful, my Queen, except . . . you’re crushing my hand.’

  *

  ‘Wake up, Bridget, you’re dreaming! Give the baby to me. You’re squeezing her hand too tightly.’ He lifted Irini from my arms and laid her back in the cot. ‘Come on, I’ll make a pot of tea while you write it all down. Do it while it’s still in your head, then we’ll analyse it together. Lay the ghost, so to speak.’

  Confused for a moment, my mind was tugged between fantasy and reality, I blinked stupidly and tried to organise my thoughts.

  He fetched my notebook. How did I come to deserve such a caring, understanding husband? Despite our problems over the past twelve months, everything was all right now.

  *

  The years passed quickly. Aaron went back to Ireland, graduated, and returned to work at the archaeology site full-time, taking care of all the heavy work. Tommy continued to get better, and it was not until Irini was four years old that everything changed.

  We had excavated to the next layer. Tommy went down to the site every day, returning home breathless with excitement as more frescoes were uncovered.

  ‘They seem to have painted their entire lives on the walls before they left,’ he said over breakfast. ‘The frescoes are almost complete and perfectly preserved behind the pumice. We can learn so much about how they existed.’

  Neither of us mentioned Atlantis. If we voiced our dream, that we hoped to expose such a place of myth and legend, somehow our finds would be cheapened, sensationalised, and in a way, we would discredit ourselves. Yet it was always there, in the back of our minds.

  One evening in November, we turned the lights out and sat on the patio under a star-spangled sky. The tourists had gone and the island had settled into its sleepy form of winter tranquillity. Tommy opened a bottle of wine and we contemplated the archaeological site.

  ‘You’re very quiet tonight, Tommy.’

  ‘A lot to think about,’ he said. ‘I received an analysis back from a sample I sent away last month. As I suspected, it’s dried grass growing from the top of a ruined dwelling. It confirms my suspicions and adds another piece to the puzzle.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something caused many of the buildings to collapse and, looking at the damage, I believe it had to be an enormous tremor. However, we can see that those buildings didn’t have frescoes, but they did have tufts of grass growing from the tops of the broken walls. This tells us there must have been at least one season with rain, after a substantial earthquake, for the grass to grow on the ruins. I’m guessing at least a year passed before the volcano erupted and the entire city was buried in volcanic ash.’

  ‘So you think they painted their life stories inside the remaining buildings after that earthquake?’

  ‘Obviously. It’s as if they deliberately left a message, telling us how they lived.’ He stood and paced. ‘What forethought! To imagine their towns being uncovered thousands of years into the future. This ancient civilisation left the equivalent of a modern-day time capsule. Quite remarkable, even for a highly advanced civilisation. And then they departed.’ He stared at the stars. ‘I wonder where they went?’

  ‘It’s difficult to understand how organised they were, to evacuate the entire island and all their valuables. I wonder how big the island was before the eruption?’

  ‘Who can tell? Of course, we know it was much larger before the volcano blew its top. Perhaps they all went to the other end of the island, which sank. Or perhaps they packed the entire populous into their wooden ships and left, taking their livestock and valuables with them, but were drowned by the volcano’s tsunami. As we uncover the frescoes, we will learn more about them. Undoubtedly, they would think the earthquake was an act of god. They would believe they had angered Poseidon in some way, as he was the deity they worshipped.’

  ‘That bowl I’m trying to decipher, if it is a liable blood vessel, do you think they made human sacrifices?’ I hugged myself, then sipped the wine. ‘My dreams . . . you know? They make me wonder all kinds of things.’

  Tommy shook his head. ‘I don’t see anything in the frescoes to suggest they made human sacrifices, except there was something at Knossos, in Crete. I’ll look it up. Although we’ve uncovered many animal bones, perfectly
preserved, we haven’t uncovered any human remains. In extreme circumstances, they may have tried to appease Poseidon by offering a life on the altar. The sacred bull’s horns in the temple are stained, I guess by blood. I’ve sent scrapings away for analysis but haven’t had the results back yet.’

  ‘But you think that blood is from the ceremony of the maidens, that we see in room three’s frescoes? Pricking the girls’ heels, catching the blood in a dish, then pouring it over the horns?’

  Tommy nodded. ‘There’s so much more to the puzzle. It’s exciting and irritating, like an itch that’s just out of reach. Every bit of plaster, every dish, every fragment, has the potential to reveal so much. Just one more clue and everything might fall into place.’ He sighed, smiled, and took my hand.

  ‘It’s been an amazing journey, hasn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘We’ve been lucky to have found the site. How’s the writing going?’ he asked, changing the subject.

  ‘Good. My source at Interpol can’t give me any information about current cases, but he’s helped me with some facts about smuggling artefacts across countries.’

  ‘That’s interesting. So how do they get antiquities shipped halfway around the world without being detected?’

  ‘The most common way is to have literally thousands of copies made, and then hide the one original artefact among them when they’re shipped to America.’

  ‘I guess they can’t be sniffed out by the dogs of custom officials – like exotic animals or drugs. It must be difficult to catch the bastards.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ My own treachery surfaced and my mind went to Splotskey, the little jug, and the dragonfly necklace. The shame had never left me, but when I looked at Tommy, and remembered how close I had come to losing him, my guilt lifted a little. That terrible time in my life was over. I could put the incident behind me, and pretend it had never happened.