Mortal Remains

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘Did you see it happen?’

  ‘No. No one did. He’d wandered away from the group. Everyone else was bathing. It took ages to find him.’

  ‘How dreadful,’ said Patrick.

  ‘I heard about Dr Lomax. It was in the Athens News. That was terrible too,’ said Jeremy. ‘Rather the same sort of thing, in a way.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it was,’ said Patrick.

  They began to walk slowly back along the path. Jeremy was very small and slight, with steel-framed spectacles through which a pair of blue eyes gazed out at the world with assumed severity. He looked youthful in the extreme. Patrick remembered him coxing the Mark’s Third Eight in a determined attempt to progress higher up the river. He had been, in those days, an admirable but much too serious young man, and seemed unaltered.

  ‘I thought of going to Mikronisos tomorrow. Is it easy to get there?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘Oh yes. You get a steamer from Piraeus. It calls at some other islands first. Takes just over two hours.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘I think so – in the season anyway. But don’t take my word for it. Better check it.’

  ‘Tell me about the island. What’s special about it?’

  ‘Nothing, really.’

  ‘Why did you go there?’

  ‘Well, it’s easy to reach, and it makes a change from the ordinary tourist run to Aegina and Hydra – we’d already done that. It’s been so hot that we ditched some of our prearranged excursions and added a few that weren’t so tiring. People were wilting all over the place. They’re quite elderly, most of them,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Are you in charge?’

  ‘No. There’s a retired headmaster leading the party, called Gareth Hodgson. I’m helping. It makes a holiday for me,’ said the young man.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Livingstone. It’s near Omonia Square.’

  ‘Oh yes. The Leicester Square of Athens,’ said Patrick.

  ‘I suppose it is. It’s less salubrious than the Constitution Square area, certainly,’ said Jeremy. ‘But it’s good value. The hotel’s comfortable and the food’s good. The trouble is it’s such a trek to get anywhere. Some of the old dears are exhausted before we begin. Handy for the Archaeological Museum, though. You’ve been there, of course.’

  ‘Indeed I have, and I’ll be going again,’ said Patrick.

  ‘First thing in the morning’s the best time. Before the hordes descend,’ said Jeremy, in avuncular tones.

  ‘I’ll remember.’

  They turned into the main path and walked on towards the gate. A gardener went past carrying a rake, and ahead a priest of the Orthodox Church, cassock billowing, strode along, his little bun of grey hair neat under the rim of his stovepipe hat.

  ‘They always look such fine fellows, Greek priests,’ said Jeremy wistfully. ‘All tall, with magnificent beards.’

  Patrick, over six feet tall himself, could think of no cheering reply to this. It was perfectly true, he could not remember seeing a small papa.

  ‘Tell me more about Mikronisos,’ he urged. ‘Is it inhabited?’

  ‘Yes, but not on any great scale. There’s a taverna by the jetty, and a few tourist shops, and a small church and some fishermen’s cottages. And a few villas on the west coast. We didn’t see them. You reach them by boat. There’s no road. The church is interesting. Bits of it are Byzantine. There are traces of mosaic on one wall. It was a thriving place once, some sort of trading post, but there aren’t any notable ruins.’

  ‘Maybe they need to be found,’ said Patrick. ‘I expect there are fragments under most of these places.’

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Jeremy.

  ‘How about dining with me tonight, Jeremy?’ Patrick suggested. He could pump him further about the island over a meal. Without realising it, Jeremy might have seen Yannis or Ilena or noticed some interesting feature of life on the island that could be significant.

  ‘Oh, that would have been nice, but I can’t desert the group,’ said Jeremy. ‘Their morale is a bit low, as you’ll understand, after the accident,’ he added, gloomily. Then he brightened. ‘Couldn’t you dine with us instead? It would cheer them all up to meet someone new,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll accept with pleasure,’ said Patrick. He had no other plans.

  ‘The moon’s full tonight. The Acropolis is open then. Have you seen it by moonlight?’Jeremy asked.

  ‘No. Oh, that’s something that must be done. You tuck up your old dears after dinner and we’ll go.’

  ‘A few of them want to come,’ sighed Jeremy. ‘They can’t possibly walk. We’ll have to get taxis.’

  ‘They don’t cost much,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s not like London.’

  ‘True. We use the buses most of the time but they get crowded, and you have to move along during the journey, you know, from the back where you get in to the front where you get off. It’s a bit tough if you’re over seventy and not nimble.’

  ‘That’s why you see so many little old Greek ladies nipping into taxis in Athens,’ said Patrick.

  Jeremy’s company was making him feel as elderly as the people he described; he realised that he had been subconsciously cast back by Jeremy into the role of tutor and sustained. Poor Jeremy: worn down by all his responsibilities, he needed a crutch, and any spiritual one he claimed was not enough just now. He looked at the perspiring figure beside him. Jeremy would walk, in this heat, all the way back to his hotel, or anyway to Constitution Square where, with his local expertise, he doubtless knew the right bus-stop.

  ‘I’m having a taxi to Constitution Square. Can I give you a lift? You can catch a bus from there to Omonia, can’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes. On Venizelou. You have to remember how the one-way streets work. Then it’s easy,’ said Jeremy.

  The fellow was an animated guide-book. Patrick paid off the taxi outside the King George Hotel, where he sank into a chair and commanded a long, cooling drink while Jeremy scuttled away round the corner in search of his bus.

  ‘Two and a half drachs takes you anywhere,’ he cried as he went.

  Patrick remembered being told by Jeremy years before where to get shoes repaired at the lowest price in Oxford, and of other simple economies. He had been born thrifty, which was fortunate, for he was too earnest and humble ever to win earthly riches.

  The hotel porter knew all about the boats to Mikronosis; one sailed at nine-thirty every morning and returned in the evening. Patrick would go the following day. He asked the man, who spoke very good English, to find him a hotel room in Delphi for Sunday night. He would hire a car and drive up there to wait in the mountains for the Persephone.

  With all this arranged, he went up to his room to shower and shave.

  It was almost worth getting tired and over-heated for the sheer sensuous pleasure of reviving under a stream of cool water. Much refreshed, Patrick went out on to his balcony. Lights were on in several rooms, although he had not yet switched on his own. Through some windows, where the net curtains were open, a clear view of the interior was revealed. Patrick saw four intertwined legs on a bed in one room. He looked away, and across the well from him, on the same level, he saw a thick-set middle-aged man with curly grey hair standing in the room opposite, with a drink in his hand. He turned and moved from Patrick’s sight; it appeared as if he were talking as he went. In a moment he came back into view, and there was another man with him, wearing a blue shirt. They talked together and the second man was given a drink, which he swallowed quickly. Then the first man took something from a drawer and gave it to the other, who put it in a small holdall. They talked together for a few minutes, then shook hands, and the second man left.

  Patrick went downstairs too.

  II

  Patrick sat at a table in the middle of Constitution Square and ordered a beer. It was too early to go to Jeremy’s hotel, and it was pleasant to sit watching the people passing. Men selling lottery tickets moved between the tables, and there w
as a sponge-seller with a string of pale sponges slung over his shoulder like a balloon-man. Rather reluctantly, Patrick rose at last to keep his appointment.

  He turned down Venizelou as Jeremy had instructed and caught a bus a little way down the street. He got off where the roads converged on Omonia Square with its central fountains and subway entrances to the metro. There were more lottery tickets for sale here; the smell of cooking and petrol vapours filled the air, and the night was full of noise. The surging crowds were well-drilled, waiting for the pedestrian lights to change to green before crossing the streets, and ruled also by smart policemen with shrill whistles. Numerous roads radiated from the hub of the square, and Patrick consulted his map to make sure he was choosing the right one. It was easy to lose one’s bearings at this point. All the streets were well marked, however, and he walked on round the square till he came to Konstantinou. It was a wide street, sloping gently downwards; the hotel was almost at the end of it.

  Jeremy was waiting for him in the foyer.

  ‘We’re all in the bar upstairs. I saw you from the window,’ he said. He had shed his clerical collar and was wearing a narrow black tie, a plain white shirt and a blazer. He looked about eighteen, but cooler now and less worried. ‘I had a swim when I got back,’ he said. ‘Very refreshing.’

  ‘Is there a pool here?’

  ‘Yes – on the roof. It gets very hot up there – all the concrete, you know, and the air-conditioning. Hot waves come out of pipes all round you. They say Athens is getting hotter and hotter because of the petrol fumes and the air-conditioning.’

  It sounded likely. Jeremy was a fund of informative theory.

  ‘It’s terribly noisy,’ he added. ‘They’re tearing down some building or other at the back, and the bulldozers start work at about six in the morning.’

  ‘They’re always tearing down bits of Athens and putting them back again,’ said Patrick, and then hoped he hadn’t sounded patronising. After all, he’d only been here once before himself.

  Thirty-three people, most of them elderly and female, sat on black mock-leather chairs in a corner of the bar. There were two young women among them, one thin with long, lank brown hair, the other plump, with glasses and severe acne. Patrick shook hands with everyone as Jeremy introduced them. Gareth Hodgson, the leader, was a thin man with faded fair hair threaded with grey and gold-rimmed half- spectacles. He looked very frail.

  One of the men in the group wore a blue shirt and had thinning grey hair; Patrick had seen him not an hour before across the well of his own hotel in the opposite room. He must have had to wait some minutes for the lift, for Patrick, who had gone down the stairs himself, had seen him emerge, carrying a BEA holdall, as he came into the foyer.

  His name was Arthur Winterton. When they were introduced, he gave no sign of having seen Patrick before.

  III

  One long table was reserved for the party in the restaurant. The meal was good, with roast chicken, beans, and the ubiquitous chips. Conversation was muted. Occasionally someone laughed, then looked abashed, as though an improper remark had been made. Patrick sat next to Gareth Hodgson, who took one end of the table; Jeremy went to the other end, and Patrick saw the thin young woman with the lank hair rush to sit next to him. The plump girl was following them when Mr Hodgson called her and invited her to sit on Patrick’s right. This was clearly intended as a privilege, and the girl, whose name was Celia Watson, blushed and looked pleased; she obeyed, but throughout the meal Patrick noticed that she cast jealous glances towards the foot of the table. By the time the meal ended he was sure it was her female friend, not Jeremy, about whom she was most concerned.

  She taught history at a comprehensive school; the grammar school where Gareth Hodgson had been headmaster had been welded into it. They talked about teaching through the first two courses of dinner. Celia was an awkward, gauche girl, but she was interested in her work. Patrick was eager to turn the conversation towards the incident on Mikronisos but there seemed to be an agreement among the party to avoid the subject. In the end, while Mr Hodgson was answering some point about the journey home on Sunday raised by the elderly woman sitting on his left, Patrick asked Celia if she had known the dead man well.

  ‘Oh no. I’d never met him before this holiday,’ she said. ‘We don’t all come from the same study group at home.’

  ‘Was he married?’ There had seemed to be no grieving widow among the ladies he had met before dinner.

  ‘No. Or at least, maybe he was a widower.’

  ‘A sad business.’

  ‘Yes. It was dreadful. Until the accident, we’d been having one of our best days,’ said Celia. ‘It was such a good idea to hire a boat and go round to the quiet part of the island. Most visitors don’t go further than the harbour.’

  ‘I’m planning to go there tomorrow,’ said Patrick. ‘You recommend it, do you?’

  ‘Oh, certainly.’

  The waiter came between them then, and Patrick glanced at the row of people facing them across the long table. They were all at least a generation older than Celia. Among them sat Arthur Winterton, steadily eating; he seemed concerned only with his food and was making no effort to talk to the grey-haired ladies on either side of him.

  Patrick asked about Celia’s university career and dragged out of her the details of her good degree. He managed to keep her attention concentrated for a full five minutes before she looked towards the other girl and Jeremy again. Then she saw that Patrick had noticed her glance and blushed. The ugly pimples showed dark against her over-heated, sunburnt skin.

  Later, with the two girls, Jeremy, and five of the others, he set out for the Acropolis. Arthur Winterton and Gareth Hodgson were among those who stayed behind saying they wanted an early night.

  Outside the hotel, they stood on the kerb while the traffic tore past with screeching tyres and blaring horns, hoping to secure two taxis. A free one came along at last and stopped at their signals. Jeremy shepherded three elderly ladies into the back seat; then there was a discussion about who should go with them. There was space for another passenger beside the driver.

  ‘You come, Mr Vaughan,’ pleaded one old lady. ‘Please. We won’t be able to manage the money without you.’

  Jeremy grimaced. By the end of two weeks, surely they could sort out a few drachmas?

  ‘All right,’ he looked doubtfully at Patrick.

  ‘We’ll find you up there,’ said Patrick, cheerfully. ‘Well meet you at the entrance.’

  ‘Right.’

  Jeremy was about to get in beside the driver when the second girl, whose name Patrick could not remember, slid in under his arm and moved up behind the gear lever.

  ‘There’s room for me too,’ she said, and added rudely but truthfully, ‘We’re thinner than any of you.’

  Unless they were to have three taxis, five of them must travel together. But Patrick, already turned away watching for another cab, saw the expression on Celia’s face as Jeremy clambered in next to the girl.

  Celia saw that she had given herself away.

  ‘She’s so blatant,’ she said, scowling. ‘She runs after him all the time.’

  They were both a little apart from their two older companions who were thankfully leaving to them the task of capturing transport.

  ‘I don’t think Jeremy’s noticed at all, if it’s any comfort to you,’ Patrick said, and stepped out into the road, gesturing, as another taxi appeared.

  There were only a few people making their way up the steps at the start of the climb up the Acropolis when they reached it. Jeremy and his group were waiting for them by the gate through which the public were admitted, and they all began the ascent together. Wooden steps had been built under the great Propylaea since Patrick’s last visit; he felt a sense of violation as he walked on them; they might be safer, but they brought a utilitarian note to a scene that should not have one.

  Pale in the moonlight, the columns of the Parthenon took on a new dimension; voices were hushed; figures
looked spectral. It was easy to imagine the presence of Plato or of Sophocles.

  Patrick found that the wretched Celia, sensing sympathy, something she must rarely attract, had attached herself to him.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that, back at the hotel,’ she mumbled.

  ‘It’s all right. No one else heard you,’ he said. ‘Mind you don’t fall.’ He took her elbow as she seemed about to stumble over a lump of marble right in front of her. ‘Are you colleagues, you and—I’m afraid I didn’t catch your friend’s name?’

  ‘Joyce Barlow. Yes. We met at college,’ said Celia. ‘We always go on holiday together.’ She stared at the boulder- strewn ground. ‘It happens every year.’

  What could he say to comfort her? Her life would always be like this.

  ‘Forget it now,’ he said. ‘Look around you. You’ll come to Athens again, I’m sure, but perhaps not when the moon is full.’

  The miserable, spotty girl took a crumpled handkerchief out of her handbag and blew her nose. Then she made an effort to appreciate the scene.

  ‘It’s very fine,’ she said.

  Patrick felt a sudden wish for the company of Ursula Norris, who had found irony at Phaestos. Now here was he, on the Acropolis of Athens in the moonlight, with a plain, fat, pimpled girl who seemed to have lesbian leanings. It was difficult to laugh at such things alone.

  He managed gradually to manoeuvre Celia towards the others, intending to offload her if he could.

  ‘Oh Joyce, there you are, where have you been?’ cried Celia bossily when she saw the other girl. ‘Come and look at the eastern pediment.’

  She’d never learn, poor creature, Patrick thought. Friendship was not enough for her; she must possess. And she seemed bent on masochism. He turned his back on them all and wandered away towards the Belvedere, where he stood gazing out across the lights of the city at Lykabettos, rising like a jewel above its floodlit diadem; it looked entrancing. He had been to its summit in daylight, never at night. He stood in silence; the air, cool now, brushed his face; there was always a breeze up here. Was he imagining that he could smell the scent of thyme from the hills? Could there be another place in the world as mysteriously compelling as this city of the old and new? If so, he had never been there, nor wished to find one.