Mortal Remains

by Margaret Yorke

  Celia telephoned next. She wanted to thank him for everything, she said, sounding tearful.

  Patrick demurred; he needed no thanks.

  ‘Oh, but I had such a lovely day yesterday. And the bracelet. And then last night; you were so kind.’

  ‘You managed.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no need to describe the abuse Joyce had hurled at her. In the end, Celia had made her swallow a sleeping pill. ‘She’ll be all right. It’ll be forgotten.’ After days of punitive silence.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Patrick. He managed to fight down an impulse to ask her to call on him at Mark’s if she were ever in Oxford.

  ‘I’m going to think seriously about Elsie Loukas’s idea of going to America,’ Celia said, earnestly.

  ‘You do that.’ The climate might suit her better, or the charms of her British accent outweigh her lack of other allure. Anyway, a change could only do good.

  *I hope you enjoy the rest of your holiday.’

  ‘I’m sure I will. I’m going to Delphi today.’

  ‘Oh. I mustn’t keep you, then.’ She sounded wistful. They did not leave until after an early lunch so perhaps she had hoped for another meeting.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Patrick, firmly.

  Sadly, Celia hung up. He pictured her grimly facing the silent Joyce. Before anyone else could get at him, he went out. There was time to visit the Acropolis again before he picked up the car.

  He walked swiftly through the busy streets, past the shoe-shine men and the people in neat clothes going to church, keeping a look-out in case anyone seemed to be trailing him; it felt slightly ridiculous, as though he were in some gangster film, but at least he could keep a physical gap between himself and anyone following him.

  There were only a few people up on the great citadel so early. The breeze was fresh, and the sun not yet at its zenith. It was a good time to come. He sat down on a slab of marble well away from any slope or step, so that no one could approach him unseen, and began to think about Felix.

  Suicide. Could Inspector Manolakis’s suspicions, unvoiced though they were, be right?

  Felix was an able scholar, much respected even if not among the top flight in his field. He had published numerous papers and two books on Roman History, and was preparing another. Surely he would never kill himself with an unfinished job like that on his hands?

  What else did he know about Felix? There was his weakness about heights, and his limp. He’d been in the army during the war and was captured in the Western desert. He had been wounded in the leg and had spent some time in a German field hospital before being sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, where he had remained until the war ended. Patrick had never heard him talk much about those days; he seemed to remember some vague rumour that Felix had escaped from the camp once, but had been recaptured very quickly, and that someone who had escaped with him was shot, but Patrick was uncertain if that was in fact just what had happened. Could some sort of delayed, suppressed depression have caught up with him now? If so, why go to Crete to indulge it? He could have thrown himself over the side of the Persephone equally well. It didn’t make sense. No, either it was an accident, however hard to explain, or it was something much more sinister.

  His elbow felt bruised this morning.

  He thought back to the evening before and the feel of that hand in his back. He hadn’t imagined it. But either the pusher had lost his nerve or the attempt had been meant merely to incapacitate, not to kill, for these people were experts: their accidents ended in fatalities.

  It was time to go.

  He walked carefully back into the city, but no one came near him.

  II

  They drove through the suburbs of Athens, along wide streets with large houses set in shady gardens on either side; then past factories and new buildings until they joined the motorway. The car, another Fiat, was almost new; it was more powerful than the one Patrick had hired in Crete, and he enjoyed driving this one. Elsie sat in front beside him while George read the map in the back. At intervals, Elsie handed round boiled sweets, of which she seemed to have an unlimited supply in her bag.

  George pointed out the plain of Marathon, and said they must remember to watch for the spot where Oedipus slew his father. After they left the motorway, just before Thebes, the road ran through miles of fertile plain before climbing into the mountains. There was not enough traffic to worry them; the tourist buses had left Athens much earlier. The Loukases had brought a picnic; they ate cold chicken, cheese and fruit, and drank rather warm beer in a shady spot where the scent of thyme filled the air. Up here it was cooler, and when they had eaten, George wandered off with his camera. He took film of Elsie and Patrick sitting under an olive tree and then strolled down the road to capture shots of the plain below.

  Elsie packed up the remains of the picnic; her movements were neat and economical. She seemed relaxed today; perhaps the magic of Greece had reached her at last. The unexpected visit to Crete must have been a traumatic experience for her when the island held such associations from the past.

  They talked in a desultory fashion. Patrick told Elsie about Alec Mudie and their plan to travel together. A thought came to him, and he said, ‘I wonder if you ever met Alec?’

  Elsie repeated his name and said, consideringly, ‘I don’t think so. Why should I have done?’

  ‘He served in Crete. So did your first husband, I believe,’ said Patrick.

  ‘They may have met. Freddie was killed in 1941,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Oh – in the battle. Alec didn’t get there till later,’ said Patrick. ‘He was landed by submarine. He was a classical scholar who spoke only ancient Greek in those days. An unconventional sort of soldier.’

  ‘So was Freddie. He was an archaeologist,’ Elsie said.

  ‘You shared his interest?’ She had not seemed much stirred by what she had seen so far.

  ‘Not really. There wasn’t time to learn much about it. He was killed a few weeks after we married,’ she said. ‘We met at a dance, not on a dig.’

  George returned to them then, and Patrick dropped the subject. He had been tactless, perhaps, to raise it, but she had not seemed to mind. The car had cooled down in the shade where they had parked, and they resumed their journey in good spirits.

  In Arakhova, they stopped again and walked along the street looking in the shops. George and Elsie went shopping for souvenirs while Patrick ambled about, content to admire the grandeur of his surroundings and the little village perched on the side of the mountain. The commercial exploitation of the place did not worry him at all; Delphi, in the days when the oracle spoke, must have been a mecca for tourism. The more people who came to see for themselves the beauty of its setting, the better, he thought, and why shouldn’t they carry away with them mementoes of their visit?

  At the sight of the slender columns of the Tholos rising from the slopes as they approached, he felt his throat tighten. Even George was mute, and as Patrick slowed the car to a halt and looked round he saw that there were tears in the other man’s eyes.

  ‘Will you look at all those coaches?’ said Elsie, not awed at all.

  Someone – Jeremy perhaps, in one of his informative chats – had told Patrick that two hundred coaches a day came to Delphi during the season. It was probably true. Certainly at this moment, a long line of them was drawn up outside the sanctuary; more would be in the town and at the hotels.

  ‘Let’s stop for a quick look now. Then we can check in at the hotel and come on back after the crowds have gone,’ suggested George.

  The others agreed. Patrick found somewhere to park and they entered through the gate in the mesh fence. The afternoon sun beat down upon them, and the crowds with their guide-books and cameras moved along the Sacred Way like ants, but they did not detract from the magnificence of the setting. On such a day, in such a place, it was good indeed to be alive.

  And Felix should be living, drawing nearer hour by hour aboard the Persephone.

  They walked u
p as far as the theatre. A youth wearing no shirt was taking a photograph of his friend, who wore none either. Patrick saw a tourist policeman come up to reprove them both and ask them to dress. With gestures, they explained they had brought no shirts with them. The policeman gave up. Odd consistency of the regime: the ancient Greeks had disported here naked in the stadium.

  Their hotel was beyond the town of Delphi, built into the mountain-side overlooking the ravine with a view across the Bay of Corinth. The huge, stone-flagged lounge was blessedly cool after the heat outside. George and Elsie went off in one direction to their room, which was in an annexe across the garden, and Patrick in another to his, a small single one at the back of the building with wide windows opening to a view of the peaks above.

  He unpacked his bag, had a quick wash, and then took the car to the upper entrance to the sanctuary, above the stadium. It was seldom crowded up here; the daily coach trips from Athens allowed scant time for the whole ascent except for the nimble, who might manage a swift dash up and down again in the intervals between their guide’s discourse and the moment for departure. Some visitors did not even know of the stadium’s existence.

  He walked along the shady, wooded path until he came to the great blocks of stone marking the perimeter of the stadium, and climbed up until he could enter it. Then he sat down, with the huge arena spread before him. A few people sat scattered about, and others strolled on the dry ground where the athletes had competed. He stayed there for about half an hour, thinking of very little except that there was some healing presence in the air; when he went back to the car he felt soothed, and more peaceful than at any time for months. A week in this place would be therapeutic.

  The hotel was seething with activity when he returned to it. One small, elderly porter and a boy who looked only about twelve years old were loading enormous suitcases into an American Express coach that was about to leave. The travellers boarding it all wore their names pinned to their lapels; they were members of some confederation, and were off to Beirut after spending the night in Athens. In two weeks they would have ‘done’ Europe and the Middle East, Patrick heard one say.

  He watched the two porters plod back and forth with the luggage; they had no trolley, and the cases were much heavier than those normally associated with air travel. Tonight more porters would unload them and take them to their rooms; in the morning it would all be done again. Patrick wondered how many coachloads changed over each night in this hotel and how many cases the man and the boy carried each day.

  He shaved and showered, trying not to make too much mess; he had never yet found a Greek shower equipped with a curtain. Later, cool and refreshed, he went out on to the terrace with a drink and Martin Chuzzlewit. Another coach had arrived while he was in his room and the reception desk was surrounded by tired travellers; the porters were quietly bringing the cases in and lining them up in a row until the rooms had been assigned.

  He sat outside, with the faint sounds of the new arrivals floating out to him from the hotel, and before him the view to the sea.

  Somewhere over there the Persephone was steadily surging on towards Itea. Would anyone aboard her know why Felix had gone to Crete?

  III

  George and Elsie had not appeared by the time Patrick was ready for another drink. He wandered in to the bar to fetch it himself, as the waiter looking after the lounge and the terrace was scurrying about in a non-stop endeavour to serve other people. Still another coach had arrived; the little old porter and the boy were ferrying in more luggage. The old man’s shoulders sagged under the weight of the cases he carried; the boy tried proudly not to totter with his.

  Patrick saw George and Elsie walking up through the garden when he returned to the terrace; she wore a white dress gaily patterned in reds and blues, which stood out among the bushes in the grounds, and George, at her side, carried her stole in case it grew cold later.

  Patrick mentioned the coach arrivals and the burdened porters. George had talked to the boy when he took their bags out to the annexe. He was twelve and had finished with school; he was proud to count as a man.

  ‘Wish we could take him home with us and give him some more schooling,’ said George.

  They were joined at their table for dinner by two women who were on a tour of the classical sites by coach. It soon became clear that the two, who had never met before the tour began, were completely exhausted. They had soaked up the atmosphere of Ancient Greece with deep appreciation but were so tired, that they feared they had not absorbed all they should.

  ‘All the ruins are on the sides of mountains,’ said the elder lady. ‘You need to be a mountain goat to get to them.’

  ‘You see a lot in a very short time,’ said the second, who was about Patrick’s age.

  ‘The next time I come to Greece, I’m going to collapse on a remote island and go nowhere,’ said the other.

  ‘We certainly are lucky being able to take time over our trip,’ George said.

  They had all agreed that you must make the best use of what time you had, when a sixth person joined their table. It was the cottage loaf-shaped woman who had travelled out on Patrick’s flight from London the week before. He recognised her at once, though her face was now the regulation holiday pink hue; she needed reminding about where they had met; during the frisking process at Heathrow. Her name was Vera Hastings.

  She was visiting Delphi alone, since her daughter had two small children too young to come.

  ‘You must be having a great visit with them, Mrs Hastings,’ said George, beaming at her. He had insisted that all the ladies share the Demestica he was providing with the meal.

  Mrs Hastings was loving every minute, though it was very hot, and the noise of the planes at Glyfada, where her daughter had a flat, was excessive. She thought one grew used to it, however; Eleanor seemed scarcely to notice it now and the little boy enjoyed identifying the various airlines represented as the planes came low overhead. Under George’s friendly interest, Mrs Hastings, who had seemed shy at first, soon thawed. While she talked to the Loukases, Patrick asked the other two women about their classical tour. The wine, combined with fatigue and too much concentrated culture, had gone to their heads, and they cast discretion to the winds, pointing out their companions who were distributed about the restaurant at other tables. There was one very old lady, aged eighty-four, who weighed about fifteen stone. Her iron-grey hair was swept severely back and bound with a snood; her complexion was brick red. Beside her sat a pale, meek man of about fifty-five.

  ‘He’s her son. She’s very lame, and she can’t climb any of the steps or precipices we have to tackle daily,’ said the younger woman. ‘Her son stays with her in the coach at every stop.’

  ‘Good heavens. Why have they come?’

  ‘I can’t imagine. You’d think mama would let him off, at least, to see what they’ve travelled all this way for,’ said the older woman. ‘They live in Tunbridge Wells.’

  Patrick stared at the pair, amazed.

  ‘I’ve met men like that before,’ said the younger woman. ‘There are plenty about.’

  Patrick had too. What happened when their mothers died and at last, they were cast adrift?

  The two women, who had started their meal before Patrick and the others, finished first, and left, apologising. They were too tired to stay up a minute longer and intended to collapse instantly into their beds.

  ‘Nice ladies,’ said George, when they had gone. ‘Widows, I suppose.’ Both had worn wedding rings. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it, to see so many lonely ladies?’

  ‘They didn’t seem particularly lonely,’ said Patrick. ‘They’re enjoying their trip, even if they are tired.’

  ‘I know. But what a pity.’ George looked at Elsie, who was talking to Mrs Hastings. ‘They’re brave, of course. So was Elsie, when we met.’

  ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘In Seattle. I was there on a business trip and got toothache. She was the dentist’s nurse.’

  Elsie w
as telling Vera Hastings that although she was British, she had not been back to England since the war and would not know it now. She was an American citizen, naturally, after living so long in the States.

  ‘But we’re going there this trip,’ said George. ‘We’re going to see Elsie’s home town.’

  ‘Where was that?’ asked Vera.

  ‘Reading,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Oh, I know Reading well,’ said Vera. ‘I don’t live far away.’ She named her small Berkshire town, which Elsie did not remember.

  ‘I went abroad with the forces as soon as I was old enough,’ Elsie said. ‘I was married in North Africa.’

  ‘How exciting,’ Vera said. ‘Were you in the A.T.S.?’

  ‘No. The Navy.’

  ‘She was sent back to England after her husband was killed, weren’t you, honey?’ George said.

  ‘Mm. I went kind of crazy after that,’ Elsie said. ‘I deserted. Then I found I was pregnant – but my baby died, so I was afraid of being picked up and court-martialled.’

  ‘Surely no court-martial would have been very hard on you?’ Patrick said.

  Vera seemed about to speak, but Elsie got in first.

  ‘I guess not, but when you’re young you don’t understand these things,’ she said, and laughed. ‘What a shady past.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ve all done things we’re not very proud of,’ Vera said, looking at Elsie in a considering way.

  ‘What are everyone’s plans for tomorrow?’ George asked, seizing a chance to change the subject. He had looked uncomfortable during Elsie’s moment of self-revelation.

  Patrick intended to keep his plans to himself.