Aphrodite's Island

by Hilary Green

  I skim over the next pages, which are mainly concerned with my mother’s efforts to adapt to her new life and the struggle to establish a regular clientele for the bar. There are references to tentative contacts with neighbours and some deft character sketches of some regular patrons but nothing of any significance. Then an entry catches my attention.

  25 April

  I am really confused by the political situation here. The local Greeks seem quite friendly but everywhere you go there is graffiti in support of enosis and EOKA. Even the church is involved. Now people are talking about an invasion from mainland Greece. Lalage, who comes in from the village to help in the bar, says the ordinary people just want to get on with their lives but they are afraid to speak out against the terrorists for fear of reprisals. Most of the houses fly the Greek flag but she says it’s only because they are afraid of EOKA. I thought all the unrest here had settled down, or I wouldn’t have agreed to move out here. Now it seems it is all starting up again.

  27 April

  I’m worried about Stephen. He’s taken to disappearing for hours at a time. He says it’s research for the articles he’s been commissioned to write, which involves interviewing people all over the island. That’s all very well for him! Meanwhile I am stuck here with a small child and a bar to run. I know I have Lalage to help, and it’s not as if we’re exactly rushed off our feet with customers. And I’ve got quite friendly with some of the regulars so there’s usually someone to chat to … But if I’d wanted a career as a barmaid I wouldn’t have bothered going to university and then getting my teaching qualification. I loved my job! Stephen could never understand that. To him teaching was just something he’d been forced into to support a wife and child. Nothing would do but we must move out here and buy this bar. And now we’re here he has no more interest in it than he had in his teaching job!

  I must stop this. It isn’t helping. It’s the wine talking. That’s the one comfort about this place. At least it’s cheap and easy to drown your sorrows esp. since S. never seems to notice how many bottles of vino are unaccounted for! I shall have to watch it or I’ll end up like some of the gin-sodden old ex-colonials propping up the bar night after night.

  I put the journal down and gaze out across the harbour. So that was when it had all started. I imagine my mother sitting alone in the bar, waiting for a customer to turn up, with a bottle and a glass at her elbow. Why did my father leave her to cope alone like that? Didn’t he care for her? For either of us? And where was I? I try to see myself as the small child in the photograph. What was I doing while my mother slowly sank into this slough of despond? I have fleeting memories of endless sunny days, of my mother cooking, picking strange, exotic flowers and fruit, but no recollection of her drinking. Somehow I was protected from that – during those early years, at least. I give up with a sigh and tuck the journal back into the box and lower myself into the pool.

  After my swim I take a stroll round the town, buy some postcards and write them at a table outside a restaurant facing the harbour. A waiter brings me a ‘village’ salad – (it would be a Greek salad in England) – and a glass of lager and I eat slowly, watching the passing scene. It is Easter week in England, but thinking of the packed beaches of Spain or the Greek islands, Kyrenia seems pleasantly uncrowded and relaxed. Many of the visitors are families who appear Middle Eastern in origin, Turks from the mainland, I assume. Most of the women are in summer dresses but a few are shrouded in headscarves and long robes. One such group takes a table next to mine. The children have curly dark hair and expressive faces and the father is muscular and macho in shorts and a tight-fitting T-shirt, but of the mother I can see nothing but her eyes. It comes as a shock to hear that their accents are pure Birmingham.

  When I get back to the hotel the tour group have returned and Mezeli is sitting at a table on the terrace with Alan and Mary. She sees me and waves me over but I hesitate, worried that after this morning Mezeli is still offended with me. But he rises with a smile and courteously offers me his chair. Mary leans forward. Her blue eyes are vivid with enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s such a pity you couldn’t join us today. We’ve been to the chapel of St Barnabas and then on to Salamis and it was absolutely fascinating.’

  ‘Salamis?’ I say. ‘Wasn’t there a battle there?’

  Mezeli shakes his head. ‘That was a different Salamis, a naval battle off the coast of Greece. But don’t worry, most people confuse the two until they’ve been there.’

  Mary says, ‘Dr Mezeli is so informative! I never realized that it was the place where St Paul first preached the gospel to the Jews of Cyprus.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I try to sound impressed.

  Mezeli’s expression is sardonic. ‘Not that it made much impression, to begin with, anyway. The idea of a god who died and rose again on the third day would not have seemed particularly revolutionary to the people there.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Alan asks.

  ‘They were already accustomed to the rites of Adonis, who was slain by Zeus in the shape of a boar and then restored to life after a season in Hades. People here still say that the anemones that flower every spring arise from his blood. It is another re-telling of the ritual by which the sacred king was sacrificed every spring to bring fertility to the fields.’

  ‘Human sacrifice?’ Mary shudders. ‘How horrible! Thank goodness we’ve got beyond that!’

  Mezeli lifts an eyebrow. ‘Have we? It seems to me this island has been regularly fertilized with new outpourings of blood. It is an inextricable fact of our history.’

  Alan says, ‘I suppose you’re referring to the EOKA business in the fifties. But surely it’s only natural that the Greek Cypriots should want to be governed by their own people instead of by us – I mean, us Brits.’

  ‘Why?’ Mezeli turns his hawk-like gaze towards him. ‘Cyprus was never part of Greece.’

  ‘Never? I know it was a British colony until recently. Wasn’t it Greek before that?’

  ‘No. For several hundred years before that it was part of the Ottoman Empire. And before that it belonged to Venice and before that to the Norman French who took it in the First Crusade.’

  ‘The Crusades?’ Mary exclaims. ‘Oh dear, Christianity against Islam – and now it all seems to be coming round again. Is the trouble here about religion?’

  Mezeli shrugs. ‘Religion and politics together. Cyprus has the misfortune to lie at the crossroads between east and west, between the Muslim world and the Christian. But that’s nothing new. Before that it stood at the crossroad between Christianity and paganism.’

  ‘Which brings us back to St Paul,’ I say and he smiles and nods.

  Next morning he stops by my table again. ‘We are going to visit the castle of St Hilarion. It’s not far. You must have seen it, up there above the city. Will you come with us?’

  I have seen it, of course. Perched on a precipitous crag, its towers and turrets look like something out of a child’s picture book. I am tempted, and besides, it would be rude to keep refusing.

  ‘Well, if you’re sure no one will object …’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to come.’

  As we climb out of the coach, one of the party, a large woman with dyed blonde hair and hands covered in enough rings to make effective knuckle dusters, exclaims, ‘Ooh, isn’t it romantic-looking! A fairy-tale castle!’

  Mezeli, overhearing, smiles. ‘Funny you should say that. It was actually used by Walt Disney as the model for Snow White’s castle.’

  I follow the others through the massive gateway and into a maze of steeply climbing, cobbled roadways.

  ‘Of course,’ Mezeli is saying, ‘St Hilarion was not the original name of the castle. As you can see, it is built on two peaks and its original name was Didymos, meaning Twins. St Hilarion was a hermit who was reputed to have lived up here and later a monastery was built in his memory. It is from that that the castle gets its present name. However, when the Franks under Guy de
Lusignan took over they must have misheard, or misinterpreted, the original name. That was the era of the troubadours and the cult of courtly love, so perhaps it’s not surprising that they opted for something more in keeping with their way of thinking. They called it not Didymos but Dieudamour – god of love.’

  ‘There!’ says the blonde. ‘I said it was romantic.’

  ‘There are romantic elements in its story,’ Mezeli agrees, ‘but I’m afraid they are outweighed by the more gruesome episodes. Siege warfare could be very cruel. Shall we move on up to the Royal Apartments?’

  On the topmost summit we come to a large, airy chamber with a wide window embrasure looking out westwards along the coast. The sun is at its zenith and in the confined space of the narrow streets the heat was suffocating but here, thank God, there is a breeze. I sit down on the windowsill and gaze out. Below me the wooded slope drops precipitously down to the narrow strip of fertile land, where villages cluster among their olive groves and citrus orchards. Beyond that is a sea of such transparent turquoise that every reef and rock shows up as a cobalt stain and away in the west land and sea, silver and green and blue, melt into the amethyst haze of the horizon.

  ‘You will be told by the local guides,’ Mezeli is saying, ‘that this is where Richard Coeur de Lion married the Princess Berengaria of Navarre. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not true. They were married in Cyprus, certainly, but in the chapel of St George in Limassol. Richard was on his way to the Third Crusade and the ships carrying his bride-to-be and her entourage were driven onto the south coast by a storm. However, it is true that when Richard left for the Holy Land he left Berengaria behind with his sister, Joan. This castle became the favourite summer residence of the new Frankish rulers, so it is quite possible that Berengaria spent a lot of time sitting in this room, which has always been known as the Queen’s Chamber.’

  I lean my head back against the embrasure of the window and close my eyes. Mezeli’s voice murmurs on, but I am no longer listening. I am imagining Berengaria, sitting here day after day, yearning for her father’s palace in Navarre, wondering when, if ever, her husband would return. Not that it was a love match! I remember my history lessons. Richard needed a political alliance, and an heir, but no man was ever a more unwilling bridegroom. Poor Berengaria, languishing in the castle named after the god of love, must have thought that she had as much chance of being impregnated by Cupid as by her husband. A child born from the union of a god and a virgin. How such a blasphemous thought would have shocked her! There is the beginning of another story here. If I had pen and paper with me I would write it down, but as I do not I memorize it to be typed up later.

  CHAPTER 10

  I sleep badly and wake the next morning with an amorphous sense of anxiety. This island seems to have a strange effect on me. To dispel the feeling, I go down to the pool. No one else is about and I have it to myself, but once again after a few lengths I feel exhausted. This is more than normal tiredness, brought on by stress and too many late nights. I remember my mother’s doctor looking at me and muttering something about anaemia. Perhaps I should have it checked out when I get home.

  To distract myself I go back to my room and open my mother’s journal. I don’t know what I am looking for and flick through the pages aimlessly until an entry catches my eye.

  3 May

  I met an angel today! At least, that’s what he says his name is and I must say he looks the part. Blond hair, like a helmet of silver feathers, but eyes the colour of amber and the sort of profile that wouldn’t disgrace a Michelangelo statue. His name is Evangelos, but he says everyone calls him Angel! He must be about eighteen, I suppose, and he came into the bar and asked for a part-time job. He says he wants to learn English so that he can go and work as a waiter in England, to learn the restaurant business. We don’t really need anyone else, but he is willing to work for nothing in return for English lessons, so I told him he could come and help out whenever he feels like it. Stephen wasn’t around when he came – surprise, surprise – but I described the boy when he got back and mentioned how extraordinary I found it that a Greek Cypriot boy could be so fair. Stephen says he is probably a throwback to some Frankish soldier who came here with the Crusaders and got one of the local girls into trouble. I suspect it’s more likely to be something much more recent – some Scandinavian tourist, or perhaps a soldier with the UN peace-keeping force. Anyway, he’s a nice lad, extremely polite and helpful, and I’m going to enjoy having him around.

  I lower the book. The angel boy! Angel … Do I really remember, or am I just imagining a tall, fair-haired boy who played hide and seek with me in the garden, among the lemon trees and the bushes of scarlet hibiscus?

  4 May

  More trouble! Old Jimmy Partridge, who is one of our regulars and has lived here for years, reckons the Turkish Cypriots will never stand for enosis and if the EOKA fanatics push for it too hard the mainland Turks may come in to back them up. And that would mean war! Why can’t the politicians leave people alone to get on with their lives in peace! With every day that passes I wish more profoundly that we had never come here.

  9 May

  I don’t know what’s the matter with Stephen. He’s becoming more and more morose and unpredictable. I thought perhaps it was the political situation and that maybe he was beginning to realize that dragging us all out here at this time was not a good idea. But when I mentioned it his response was that if I was that worried I’d better just pack up and go home. He’s looking for something – or someone! I’ve always had the feeling that something happened when he was out here as a National Serviceman that he’s never got over. I know, of course, that he was never really in love with me. I’ve never fooled myself about that. He was lonely and miserable and having a sort of mid-life crisis because he couldn’t make a go of journalism. And I think he saw how desperately I wanted him. He’s a kind man, underneath the moody exterior, and I suppose he thought at least one of us might as well be happy – and perhaps he thought it would work out for him, too. And, of course, there was Cressida on the way. We were happy, for the first year or so. At least, I was. Oh, sod it! And sod him! Let’s open another bottle.

  I shut the book. ‘Something happened … that he’s never got over …’ It must have been another woman, and those letters were written to her. ‘My only beloved’ … Who was she? What was there about her that had left such a vacuum at the centre of my father’s life? What power had she wielded that, even after so many years, she could draw him back to this island? Did he find her? I feel a sudden spurt of anger. What right had this stranger to wreak such havoc on three lives?

  Beneath these thoughts another phrase from the journal is struggling to the surface. ‘Of course, there was Cressida on the way.’ Had it been a mistake, or a deliberate trap to force Stephen into marriage? I try to push the thought down, but it demands my attention. My very existence is the result of a deception. I was used to entrap a man into a loveless marriage. No wonder he never cared for me!

  I hire the car again and drive out to Lapta. The Wentworths are busy in their garden, as usual, but they both seem delighted to see me and before long we are all seated round the table under the fig tree with glasses of Meg’s homemade lemonade.

  ‘By the way,’ Os says, ‘did you find anything of interest in those papers we gave you?’

  I have to clear my throat before I can answer. ‘Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve been reading my mother’s journal. It seems as though my father must have had some sort of affair with a local girl when he was here doing his National Service. Those letters must be addressed to her, not to my mother.’

  ‘Then how could they have ended up in the same box with her journal?’ Meg asks. ‘Surely he wouldn’t have left them where she was likely to come across them.’

  ‘It’s a puzzle,’ I agree. ‘Maybe he hid them and she found them. Or perhaps the people who bought the house found them, and put them in the box.’
>
  ‘Ah, very likely,’ Os says.

  ‘Of course, even if my mother had come across them she probably wouldn’t have realized what they were. Anyway, they obviously never reached the person they were intended for.’ I hesitate. Should I be asking this? Curiosity gets the better of discretion. ‘I was wondering … you said you could read Greek, Os. I would really like to know what is in those letters. Could you translate them for me? Or is that putting you to too much trouble?’

  ‘My dear girl, it’s no trouble! I quite enjoy little exercises like that.’ Then he seems to have second thoughts. ‘But are you sure you want me to? I shouldn’t wish to pry into your private affairs.’

  ‘Well, they’re not really my affairs, are they? Since both my parents are dead now, I can’t see that anyone can be hurt. Perhaps it sounds as if I’m being a bit voyeuristic, but you see I know so little about my father. I’m beginning to think that he never forgot this girl, whoever she was, and it ruined my mother’s life. I should like to at least try to understand why it happened.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ Meg says, in shocked tones. Then again, more gently, ‘Oh dear!’

  ‘If that’s what you want, of course I’ll have a go at translating them for you,’ Os agrees. ‘It may take me a day or two, though. If I remember rightly the writing is pretty faded.’

  I am beginning to regret my presumption. ‘Look, I really don’t want to be a nuisance. If it turns out to be too much of a pain, please don’t bother with it.’

  Meg smiles at me. ‘Oh, you don’t want to worry about that. He loves a puzzle, and it’ll make a change from the Telegraph crossword.’

  ‘Exactly!’ her husband agrees. ‘Have you got them with you?’

  I produce the letters from my bag and hand them over. ‘I’ll pop in, in a few days’ time, to see how you’re getting on.’