by Kay Thorpe
`We do,' he said. 'Pity for his wife, though, she's a very nice woman. Too good for him by a mile. I'll take you out to the terrace, if you like.'
`Please.' She was grateful for the offer. 'And if you have any more Roland Gordons up your sleeve do tell me now.'
He laughed. 'I think you'll find the other men here relatively harmless. Come on, let's get on with it.'
The terrace was reached via a glass door from the comfortable lounge, and overlooked the beach. Everyone, it seemed, congregated here after siesta, including those brave souls who refused to sleep away the afternoon hours. There was laughter and conversation, the idle chit-chat of folk happily at peace with life in its present condition, the end of the holiday not yet quite close enough to effect the general sense of well-being.
Nicky's appearance with Lee had its own kind of effect. She could sense the subtle variations in reaction, the men frankly interested, the women closing up a little in the way women have when confronted with an attractive member of their own sex who is scheduled to be in a particularly noticeable position.
As always she made a point of addressing most of her
remarks to the women in the various parties to which Lee introduced her, attempting to put across by implication if not by actual statement that she was not in the least bit interested in husbands, fiancés or boyfriends except as ordinary members of the clientele. She had already memorized the various names and room numbers from the list her predecessor had left, and now only had to fit faces into the pattern. By tomorrow she wanted to be certain of the ability to address everyone here by his or her correct title.
Of the forty guests at present in the hotel, eight were children, the rest divided up more or less equally into pairs, the exception being two young men in their mid-twenties who looked, and probably felt, somewhat out of place in this fraternity. They greeted her with an eagerness they did not try to conceal, promptly invited her to have dinner at their table that evening and looked like a pair of schoolboys deprived of a special treat when she regretfully declined.
'Perhaps tomorrow instead,' she suggested tactfully, and was taken up on the offer with alacrity.
'God knows why they chose to come to Perata in the first place,' commented Lee when they had left the table. `The brochure makes it clear enough what to expect in the way of entertainment. They'd have been far better off in town with other younger groups. We haven't had any unattached girls here so far this year — unless you want to count the students who come in for a snack now and then.'
'English students?'
'All nationalities — and sexes. There's a whole passel of 'em camping out on the cliffs. They get here dirt cheap and live rough for the summer. Nobody here
seems to bother with them overmuch.'
'Except you?' she suggested mildly.
'Except me. The student travel scheme was brought out to help broaden education in all directions, not just the one. Personally, I'd shovel 'em all up and dump 'them back where they belong.' He glanced at her and grinned. 'Don't mind me. I have to have an axe to grind. How about us two having ourselves some tea while the going is good? Or do you prefer coffee?'
'Tea,' she said, 'sounds heavenly. Lead me to it.'
Seated in the far corner of the lounge while they waited for the tray to be brought to them, Nicky said lightly, 'Do you ever wish you were back in the town yourself, Lee? Gerry told me you were manager of one of the Alexandros restaurants for a year or so.'
'That's right.' He considered the question. don't think so. Any time I feel the need of night-life I can usually arrange it, and I've got a very good job here. Then there's Nikos's place just up the road. I can always go there for a chat and a drink when I feel like it You'll have to come and meet Kyria Alexandros when you're settled in.' He raised amused eyebrows at her obvious surprise. 'What's wrong? Even Nikos is entitled to a mother.'
`If anything, I suppose I'd imagined he lived alone,' she explained. 'This afternoon . .
'This afternoon . . . what"?' he prompted as she paused.
'Well, we called at the villa, on the way here — for a drink. I just got the impression that it was a bachelor's home.'
'Greek women don't fill their houses with bric-a-brac like most of your sex; they prefer it functional
rather than fancy. His mother would have been in her room at that time, and Dino ... well, he could have been anywhere.'
`Dino?'
`His younger brother. He's been studying the restaurant business in England for the last year, and only came back to Corfu six weeks ago. Nikos hoped he'd come back prepared to take his share of the work, but Dino has other ideas. He wants them to sell out and return to the mainland.'
`And are they going to?'
`You must be joking ! The Alexandros came here in when the British pulled out. Nikos's grandfather built up the business from scratch, starting with a poky little taverna in Karousades. They now own five restaurants at various points of the island, three hotels, including this one, and Nikos had just got the plans passed for another at Pelekas to be started this year. You don't seriously think he'd even consider selling out his interests just to satisfy a whim of Dino's, do you?'
`I doubt,' she said dryly, 'that Nikos Alexandros does anything to satisfy anyone other than himself.'
Lee gave her an odd look. 'He certainly got your goat this afternoon. I wonder . . .' He broke off his train of thought as the waiter arrived with their tea, said instead, `Nicky I want you to meet Stamatis Verikiou, without whom this whole place would grind to a standstill.'
Nicky looked up at the solidly built man in the whiter than white shirt and neatly pressed black trousers, and liked what she saw. Spiros's father was perhaps in his mid-forties, which was getting on a bit in a job calling for both speed and stamina. The hotel
waiter normally worked from six in the morning until ten or eleven at night, with a couple of hours off in the afternoon, one or two evenings after dinner and one full day a week to call his own — a routine which left little time for outside interests, including family. Most of those Nicky had known in Athens had been young, and intent only on amassing enough money to get to England or America where they would make their fortunes overnight and return to their homeland to open up a high-class restaurant of their own. For a man like Stamatis such ambition would be beyond understanding. Work was a way of life. It was as simple as that.
`I met your son earlier today,' she said. 'He drove me part of the way to Perata.'
His eyes had lit up at the mention of his son, and he nodded eagerly, but it was obvious that he did not fully understand the rest. Lee repeated it in fluent Greek, bringing a puzzled frown to the olive features, then added something of his own which included the name Alexandros and changed the puzzlement abruptly to worry.
`What did you tell him?' she asked when they were alone again.
`Only that the boss wanted to speak to him about Spiros stranding you on the pass this afternoon.'
'I wasn't stranded,' she protested. 'The tyre had been changed and we were ready to go when he arrived on the scene.' She closed her mind to the memory of her reluctance to continue the journey in the taxi. `And why take it out on Stamatis? He can't be held responsible for anything that happened on the way here.'
'He can when his son is involved. Spiros has been running wild for a couple of years; he's always in some kind of trouble. Nikos will no doubt demand that his father start exercising some control over him.'
'Has it really anything to do with him?'
'Certainly has. You're not the first Xenia passenger who's been let down by that rattletrap he calls a car, after probably hiring him in the first place only because he told them his father was head waiter at the hotel. We had one couple who had to spend the night in one of the mountain villages because they were foolish enough to trust him to fetch them back from a night out at the Achilleon. When you consider that he hardly makes enough to keep himself, much less the car, in good repair, it's hardly surprising.'
'By someone, meaning Nikos?' with a smile. 'Hang it, he's no philanthropist ! His investments have to pay dividends.'
bet,' she murmured, handing him his tea. `I'll let you help yourself to sugar.'
They did not mention Nikos Alexandros again, but chatted instead about themselves. Nicky told Lee something of life in Benton, and roused him to laughter over a couple of incidents from her time in London with the American tourists. In her turn, she found that he was thirty and came from the Midlands, had spent six years in hotel management before coming out here, and regarded the Xenia as a comfortable niche for the next year or so.
'After that, I'm not sure,' he said. might drift
across to the States and get a foot on their ladder, or I might even find myself a wife and settle down.' His smile made mock of that particular statement. 'If you're still heart whole and fancy free in a couple of years' time, look me up.'
'If I am,' she promised, T put you on my priority list.' She glanced towards the door and the people beginning to filter back into the room from the terrace. think I'll go and get my first day's report made out before I get collared. Will it be all right if I have an early meal just for tonight? A salad will do me.'
'You can have anything you like,' Lee assured her, getting up along with her. 'How about a nice fresh lobster?'
`N o, thanks I've never been able to eat them since the time I saw one being cooked.' Her shudder was not play-acting. 'Thanks for the tea, Lee. I'll be in my room if I'm wanted at all.'
Upstairs again, she took out the sheaf of report sheets from her brief-case, found a pen and sat down at the desk. It was not yet half past six by her watch, yet already the day was beginning to dim at the edges, making it necessary to switch on the small lamp. She wrote out the report in a neat longhand, read through what she had written, and put it to one side to be finished off later after she had had her first real chat with the people downstairs. In more than one way she would be relieved when these next few days were over, and she could start again from scratch with a totally new group. It had to be difficult coming in almost on the end of a fortnight like this, because she was the stranger to the routine with which they were all familiar and therefore hardly likely to gain any proper
standing. She would just have to play it by ear as much as possible, and leave her set pieces for a time when they might be appreciated. At least there was always Lee Merril to fall back on.
A thought she found oddly comforting.
CHAPTER TWO
NICKY had expected the first few days at the Xenia to be hectic, and she was not disappointed. With so much to catch up on and prepare for the coming party of holidaymakers, she found herself left with little opportunity to do much more than pass the time of day with the present group.
On the Wednesday she accompanied a coachload into Corfu town for a final look at the shops before their departure on the following day, met Gerry in the imposing foyer of the huge Castello which was his own province, and sorted out a few matters which had been posing problems.
`You'll find things a whole lot easier tomorrow when your new lot arrives,' he told her briskly over coffee. `I'll be at the airport, of course. We have departures and arrivals every week here at the Castello. What do you think of Perata up to now?'
`Pretty but primitive,' she said. 'Only the larger buildings have electricity, and many of the houses don't even have piped water. Yet the people are some of the gayest and happiest I've ever known.'
`No comparisons. A great many of them will never have been even as far as Corfu, much less off the island.'
`There's the hotel.'
`Ah yes, but that's for the tourists and the rich Corfiots, and few of them will have seen inside the doors. It's a case of what you don't have you don't miss,
I suppose.' He shifted restlessly in his chair as a group of people came laughing through the main doors, said swiftly, 'I hope you won't mind if I leave you here to finish your coffee on your own, Nicky. There's a couple over there I've got to see about a night club trip. Can you find your own way back to the coach?'
`I found my way here,' she smiled.
Walking hack through the narrow thronged streets a little later, she reflected that Gerry Copeland would probably have worn himself out before he was thirty. She wondered briefly about girl-friends and how they reacted to his never-ceasing activity, grinned to herself at a mental image of him being chased all over the hotel by a horde of frustrated young women, and was immediately called upon to defend herself from the attentions of a couple of gay Lotharios who had taken the smile as an invitation.
They were young, they were handsome, and so full of devilment that Nicky found it impossible to conjure up any- real show of anger when they kept on refusing to let her pass. Yet pass she must or she was going to be late back at the coach.
na,' she implored them. Pao . . . pao
aryisa!'
The man who had just that moment stepped out from a nearby shop stopped abruptly when his eyes fell upon the little tableau. Next moment he was there at Nicky's side and the youths were beating a hasty retreat, leaving her to gaze in some dismay at her rescuer and reflect wryly that it would have to be Nikos Alexandros, of all people, who had come to her aid.
`You are not hurt?' he demanded. 'They did not touch you?'
`No, of course not,' she said quickly. 'They were only having a game. But thank you for . . .'
'A game !' His voice was clipped, his expression forbidding. 'You do not mind that you are accosted in the streets and forcibly prevented from continuing on your way? Is this the kind of game your young men in England play?'
`Oh, all the time,' she said brightly. 'Boys will be boys, you know, all the world over !'
' The hand beneath her elbow tightened painfully, and she saw the sudden glint in his eyes. .
'There are other customs our countries share, Miss Brent, as you may one day discover to your cost. Why are you walking the streets alone?'
'I've been to see Gerry Copeland at the Castello,' she said. 'I was on my way back to the coach.'
'Which is where?'
'Beside the Palace of St. Michael.'
'The Palace of St. Michael and St. George,' he corrected her smoothly. 'You must take more pains with your memorizing if you are not to mislead your countryfolk. Come, I will see you back to the coach.'
'There's no need . . .' she began, but he was already -on the move, and as he still had a hand beneath her ;elbow she had no choice but to move with him. In any case, she had a feeling that her protests would simply fall on deaf ears. Women did not walk the streets of Corfu alone, and that was that.
Were the truth admitted, she doubted that she could actually have found her way unaided — not in any short time. The streets of the tourist quarter all looked alike, "with their shops displaying much the same goods in
extravagant array outside the doors, and the tall,Ven
etian-style buildings pressing in from either side. Here, where the breeze did not penetrate, the heat was oppressive, sticking the yellow shirt to her back and beading her upper lip with perspiration. And if she was hot, he must be just about at boiling point, she thought, casting a glance at the lightweight tan suit and crisp white shirt. Yet he certainly didn't look it. Mind over matter, she reflected sourly, and wished she could bring her own mind under that much control.
I walk too fast for you?' he asked suddenly, slowing his steps. was forgetting that you are not yet fully accustomed to our climate.'
'I'm fine,' she lied, wondering when he was going to let go of her arm. 'The coach will be waiting.'
'Then the coach must wait. It is better to arrive late than to do so in a state of collapse. You would like to rest for a moment?'
Nicky would have liked very much to rest, but nothing would have made her admit it.
'It can't be far now,' she insisted, and heard him give ven
t to an exasperated sigh.
'Would it be too much to hope that someday I shall be given a glimpse of the qualities which must lie beneath this unreasonable stubbornness?' he asked with sarcasm. I am sure your employers would not consider a little polite capitulation outside the limits of your duties.'
Nicky was certain they would consider it a very essential part of her duties, were the truth only known. Good relations with owners and local management were always to be sought after. The crux of the matter, she supposed, was her own reluctance to be in any way managed by a man like Nikos Alexandros who seemed
to stand for everything she most bitterly resented in the male-female relationship. Britain herself was only just
ginning to emerge from the dark ages of male dominance; she had no intention of relinquishing even a [ minor part of the status gained — no matter what the Romans did in Rome !
`The guests have first priority,' she returned airily. `And they'll be wanting their lunch. You don't have to come any further with me, kyrie. I'm sure I can make my own way from here.'
His mouth tautened ominously. 'That will not be necessary. I am in the habit of finishing what I have begun.'
Nicky stole a surreptitious look at the lean features as they continued to thread their way through the crowds, considered the possibility of a threat in the words he had chosen, and came to the conclusion that she was reading far too much into the whole episode. She could Irritate him for a few moments, but that was all. In some ways that was the most provoking thing about
him.
Emerging from the maze of streets on to the north, ern end of the Esplanade some minutes later, she could see the coach already standing before the neo-classical Palace with its Doric colonnades and arches, and the driver beside it apparently in argument with one of the men in the party.
`There you are !' exclaimed the latter in some relief as Nicky arrived with her escort. 'We were beginning to think you'd got yourself lost, and the driver here wanted to set off without you. I'll get myself aboard now. Everyone else is on.'
