by Hilary Green
‘I imagine that you still take an interest in what is going on out there. In which case, it will not have escaped your attention that trouble is brewing again. You were there during the EOKA rising. Did you know that EOKA has been re-formed? They are calling themselves EOKA B and the old agitation for enosis is back on the agenda.’
‘I had read something in the papers about that, yes.’
‘Right. Well, my clients are looking for someone who would be prepared to go out there, on a long-term basis, and send back in-depth reports.’
‘Your clients?’
‘I’m not at liberty to divulge who it is at the moment. I seem to remember that you reported for several of the quality broadsheets, back in the day. All I am asking at the moment is whether you are sufficiently interested to come to a formal interview. At that point I should be able to be much more explicit.’
Once again, Stephen studied the other man’s face. He knew that if any of the papers he had once worked for wanted him back on the staff the invitation would have come in an informal telephone call. There was something else going on here – but what?
‘What did you mean by long term?’ he asked.
‘That’s hard to define. A year? Maybe longer. You can be assured of one thing. My clients are prepared to pay quite well – better than the average teacher’s salary, anyway. And, of course, your family could accompany you. You have a small daughter, I believe.’
Stephen knew he should end the conversation there. These people, whoever they were, knew too much about him. But he was being offered the chance to get away from London, from a job he had never liked and now hated more with every passing day. Above all, he was being offered the chance to go back to Cyprus. The temptation was too much.
‘When would this interview take place? And where?’
‘You have the address there.’ Warrender indicated the card which Stephen had laid beside his saucer. ‘As for when … I presume you can’t get away during school hours. How would 5 p.m. the day after tomorrow suit you?’
Stephen hesitated, drew a breath, and said, ‘OK. Five o’clock it is.’ He put the card in his pocket and rose. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
Warrender smiled. ‘My pleasure.’
Driving home, Stephen told himself he was being a fool, but he could not dismiss the throb of excitement in the pit of his stomach – an excitement he had not experienced for years. It would be good for all of them, he told himself. God knew, they needed a change!
As he stepped through the front door, his small daughter threw herself at him and clung to his legs. Her face was red and streaked with tears. He bent down and lifted her into his arms.
‘What’s the matter, Cressy? Don’t cry, darling. Tell Daddy what’s wrong.’
‘Mummy cross. Mummy shout at Cressy! Horrid Mummy!’
‘No, you mustn’t say that. If Mummy’s cross with you I expect it’s for a good reason. You must have done something wrong.’
‘Didn’t! Didn’t!’ The small face creased up and the tears began to flow again.
Stephen felt an all-too-familiar sinking at his heart. ‘Come on. Let’s go and see what Mummy has to say.’
Laura was in the kitchen. Stephen took in the half-smoked cigarette on the ashtray and the opened bottle of wine on the kitchen table. Almost half of it was gone and the kitchen was in a fog of tobacco and the smoke from pork chops being fried in too hot a pan. The radio was playing ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree’.
She said, ‘Oh, you’re back then.’
‘Yes. Sorry I’m a bit late. I got held up.’
‘Oh yes? Little Miss Blue-eyes needed a shoulder to cry on, did she?’
‘Miss Blue-eyes’ was Laura’s name for a young teacher who had recently joined the staff in Stephen’s department. She was having a difficult first year and he had gone out of his way to help her, but Laura insisted on construing his kindness as the beginning of an affair. Stephen controlled his temper and said evenly, ‘No. It was nothing to do with school, actually. I’ll tell you about it later. Why are you angry with Cressida?’
Laura looked round. ‘Oh, Daddy’s girl’s been telling tales again, has she? You ought to know better. She turns it on like a tap, as soon as she sees you. You spoil her, that’s the trouble.’
‘No, I think she’s genuinely upset. What happened?’
‘Nothing! It’s all very well for you, swanning in expecting your meal to be on the table. I’ve had a hard day at school, too, you know. And then I have to pick Madam up from the childminder, and she’s done nothing but whine and grizzle ever since we got home. “Play with me! Play with me!” As if I had time!’
‘That’s not fair, Laura!’ he protested. ‘I don’t swan in expecting my meal to be on the table. Very often I do the cooking. And Cressida only wants a bit of your time and attention. After all, she doesn’t see you all day.’
Laura slammed plates into the oven. ‘That’s right! It’s all my fault. I knew it would be. It was your idea that I should go back to work.’
‘I only suggested it because you seemed miserable stuck at home all day.’
‘Anyone with half a mind would be miserable stuck here with no one to talk to except a toddler. You should try it one day!’
‘So that’s why I thought you might be happier if you went back to work. Come on, Laura! You can’t have it both ways.’
She put down the pan of potatoes she was draining and sat at the table. ‘I can’t have it any way! I’m wrong whatever I do.’
He set Cressida down on her feet and went to put his arm round his wife. ‘No, you’re not. You’re just tired. We both are. Come on. Let’s get the dinner on the table and then I’ve got something to tell you.’
He reached across and re-tuned the radio. The chimes of Big Ben vibrated around the kitchen.
‘Oh, why can’t you leave it alone?’ Laura exclaimed.
‘I want to listen to the news.’
‘I can’t think why. It’s the same every evening. I’m sick to death of hearing about Nixon and Watergate, strikes, prices going up, Edward Heath moaning on—’
‘Hush!’ Stephen said sharply. ‘Just listen a minute.’
The announcer was saying, ‘In Athens today it was announced that the Greek junta which has been in control of the country since the revolution has abolished the monarchy and declared Greece a republic.’
‘Well, hurrah for them!’ Laura said, with a hint of sarcasm.
‘You don’t mean that! The colonels’ regime is one of the most repressive in Europe. It depends on the secret police and the use of torture to maintain itself.’
She looked at him with an expression of affectionate mockery that reminded him of the old Laura. ‘OK, calm down. I know the Greeks are your special pets.’
‘I love Greece. I love the country and I love its history. And it sickens me to think of what is going on there now. But there’s something else …’ He fell silent as he took in the possible implications. If EOKA was rearing its ugly head again, this news could only encourage it. He took the plate that Laura held out to him. ‘Come on. We need to talk. There’s something I want to tell you.’
Two days later Stephen presented himself at the address on Warrender’s card, which turned out to be an anonymous office block just off the Strand. A board in the foyer directed him to the fourth floor and a secretary in an outer office ushered him through to the inner room. Inside the door, Stephen came to an abrupt halt. Suddenly everything was becoming clearer. Warrender was standing by the window but it was the man who rose from behind the desk who jolted Stephen back twenty years.
‘Major Henshaw!’ It was all he could do not to come to attention.
Henshaw came round the desk smiling, his hand extended. ‘Not major any more. I left the service years ago. Good to see you, Stephen.’
‘How are you, sir?’ Stephen asked as they shook hands, struggling for the right social tone.
‘Pretty well, all things considered. And you?’
/> ‘Not bad – all things considered.’
‘Have a seat.’ Henshaw waved him to an easy chair near the window and took one opposite him. ‘You’ve met Matthew, of course. Have a drink. Scotch?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Ah, no, of course not. Something else? Tea? Coffee?’
‘Coffee would be good.’
Henshaw signed to Warrender, who busied himself at a side table where a coffee machine stood beside a collection of bottles. Henshaw leaned back in his chair, a glass of whisky in his hand.
‘Well, you’ll be wondering what all this is about. The fact is, we think you may be able to help us.’
‘Why me?’ Stephen asked. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘You won’t realize it, of course, but we’ve been keeping a fatherly eye on you ever since you left the army.’
‘Why? What on earth for?’
‘Your activities in Cyprus gave us cause for concern, for a start. You allowed yourself to become involved with a family that was in the forefront of the EOKA terrorist organization, while ostensibly working for British Military Intelligence.’
‘I had no idea they were terrorists! My only interest was in –’
‘In the young lady concerned. Yes, we came to that conclusion in the end. Your efforts to track her down when you were finally demobbed convinced us.’
‘You knew about that?’
‘We knew that you went straight back to Cyprus and then to Athens. We even knew that you paid a private detective to track her down – but to no avail.’
‘Her father had married her off to some family friend. I didn’t even know her married name.’
‘Probably the best outcome, under the circumstances. Anyway, we lost sight of you for a while after that, until we started to read articles by you in some of the quality papers. It was obvious that you had a knack of turning up wherever there was trouble brewing and worming your way into the confidence of the people involved. We were particularly impressed by your despatches from Vietnam, for example. You have a way of getting to the heart of matters. It’s a great pity that you finally succumbed to the trap that ensnares so many foreign correspondents, stuck in hotel rooms far from home.’ Henshaw held up his glass so that the evening sunlight coming through the window turned its contents to liquid gold.
‘That’s all in the past,’ Stephen said sharply. ‘I’ve been clean for five years now.’
‘We know that, and I applaud you for your strength of mind. And for finding a new career. But,’ Henshaw leaned forward, holding the glass between his knees, ‘I must admit that I find it hard to believe that the humdrum routine of a schoolteacher’s life really suits you.’
Stephen hesitated. This was too close to the truth for comfort. He said, ‘I’m not ideally suited to it. Perhaps I’m not very good at it.’
‘But you were a very good foreign correspondent. Wouldn’t you like to go back to that life?’
‘I have a wife and child to support.’
‘Ah yes. Laura, isn’t it? I seem to remember that she was involved in the anti-Vietnam war protests.’
‘Do you keep tabs on everyone?’
‘Only those who bring themselves to our attention. A war reporter and an anti-war protester. Isn’t that a rather unusual alliance?
‘Not at all. I’ve seen enough of war to hate everything about it.’
‘I take your point. So you will be all the more anxious to help us avoid future conflicts. To get back to my previous point. Wouldn’t you like to get back to what you do best, as a journalist?’
‘Ideally, yes. But no one would employ me now.’
‘Oh, I think that could be arranged. Let me put my cards on the table. We are concerned about developments in Cyprus. We want someone out there who knows the people and speaks the language, someone who was familiar with the old EOKA, who can report back on what these new chaps are intending. How do you fancy being based out there?’
‘We’re not talking about being a foreign correspondent, are we? That’s just a cover.’
‘Yes, but I can promise you that, provided your articles are up to your old standard, they would appear in some prestigious newspapers. Of course, you would not be telling the general public quite what you would be telling us, but there would still be plenty of scope for in-depth reporting.’
‘So who would I be working for, really? Military Intelligence again?’
Henshaw shrugged slightly. ‘A rose by any other name … You would be serving your country, and I can promise you that when the assignment was over you would find that there was a generous – what shall I call it – severance settlement. Plus the fact that you would have had the opportunity to re-establish your career.’
‘You are asking me to relocate my family, on a long-term basis. Suppose my wife doesn’t want to go?’
Henshaw sat back with a smile. ‘Here’s a suggestion. Why don’t you take her there for a holiday? Easter is in a few weeks’ time. If she likes the place you would be able to work out your notice for the summer term and move permanently in July.’
‘There’s a snag to that. I can’t afford foreign holidays on my pay.’
‘Oh, that won’t be a problem. I’m sure The Telegraph would be happy to commission you to produce a report for their Travel section. I believe Cyprus is becoming a popular tourist destination. All expenses paid, naturally.’
Stephen gazed at him. He felt breathless. The chance to get his career back on track; to go back to Cyprus; perhaps to see Ariadne again – He stopped himself sharply. There was no chance of that. She was in Athens, a married woman with children. But all the same, just the chance to be back on that magical island.…
He said, ‘And if I did decide to relocate, in the long term, how am I supposed to be supporting myself? The occasional article in the British papers won’t be enough to convince people.’
‘I suggest you might look for a small business – a shop, a B&B, something that wouldn’t take up too much of your time. There are plenty of ex-pats out there, eking out a living that way.’ Henshaw rose. ‘So, what about it? Do we have a deal?’
Stephen got up too. ‘I’ll have to discuss it with my wife. Not the real motive behind the move, of course, but the general idea.’
‘Offer her the holiday,’ Henshaw said. ‘That should be enough for now.’
Laura was slumped in an armchair in front of the TV when he got home. A pile of exercise books was on the table beside her, together with a half-empty bottle of wine. Cressida, content for once, was playing on the floor with her doll’s tea set.
Laura looked up. ‘Well, how did it go – this mysterious interview?’
He knew from her expression that she thought the story of the interview was an excuse; that she still believed he was seeing another woman. He forced a smile.
‘It went pretty well. I’ll tell you all about it over dinner.’
She hauled herself to her feet. ‘I’d better start cooking then.’
‘No need. I picked up a Chinese on the way home. Come on, let’s eat.’
Three weeks later they were sitting on the balcony of their hotel room watching the last light fade from the waves lapping the long sandy beaches of the east coast of Cyprus. Or Laura was watching, while Stephen tapped away on his ancient typewriter. In the room behind them, Cressida was sound asleep. He pulled a sheet of paper out of the machine, added it to a small pile beside him on the table, and stretched his arms.
‘That’s enough for tonight.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Nearly finished.’
He looked at her. Her face had softened and filled out, losing the pinched, exhausted expression he had seen too often over the last months. They had spent all day on the beach, watching Cressida building sandcastles and playing with her in the edge of the water, and they were both bathed in the afterglow of sunshine and fresh air. In the gentle evening light, she looked again like the young woman he had fallen in love with five years earlier. He me
ntally corrected himself. Not ‘fallen in love’. He had fallen in love once in his life, and it had not been with Laura. But he had been attracted to her – to her vitality and self-confidence – and it had seemed to him then that she offered all he could hope for in a relationship. That was before Cressida’s birth had transformed her, knotted her into an apparently endless cycle of alternate lethargy and frantic activity. Now, he thought, perhaps at last they might be able to break free. He stretched again and yawned.
Laura said, ‘What shall we do tomorrow?’
‘I’d like to go over to the north coast again. It’s the area I got to know best when I was here before.’
‘Kyrenia? Yes, that sounds good. I think I liked that best of all the places we’ve visited.’
‘We can stop off in Kyrenia. But I want to go further west, along the coast. It’s pretty rugged but quite beautiful and almost unspoiled. That OK with you?’
‘Sure, fine. We’ve had a good day on the beach. It’ll be better for Cressy to keep out of the sun tomorrow.’
Around lunchtime next day they found themselves in the village of Lapithos. Cressida was becoming fretful and Laura said, ‘Let’s see if we can find a bar or a restaurant where we can get something to eat and drink. I’m parched!’
At first it seemed there was nowhere, then as they drove out of the village Laura exclaimed, ‘There, look!’
Three whitewashed Moorish arches shaded a terrace set with tables, at which half a dozen men and women were drinking. Stephen parked the car and left Laura and Cressida at a table while he went inside. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light of the bar, he saw a tubby grey-haired man polishing the counter. When he asked, in Greek, for two Cokes and a lemonade, the response took him by surprise.
‘Sorry, chum. You’ll have to slow down. My Greek’s a bit dodgy, even after all this time.’
‘You’re English? So am I.’
As he poured the drinks, the man explained that he and his wife had bought the bar on an impulse, after discovery it on holiday.
‘We fancied retiring to somewhere warm and this was a way of funding it – and I must say we’ve never regretted it. But now it looks as though we’re going to have to put it on the market and go home.’
