Byron's Shadow

by Jason Foss

  ‘Moussaka. Just for a change,’ Andy observed.

  ‘What’s special about it?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘Dunno.’ Flint said, ‘Perhaps he’s going to warm it up.’

  From the corner of his eye, Flint saw the Dalek fidget and tap his pipe, clearly displeased. He seemed in worse humour than usual and most of the group were trying to ignore him. Emma muttered darkly, just loud enough for Flint to hear.

  ‘That woman will be moving in soon.’

  Flint closed his hand around a piece of cutlery, then released it slowly. How dare they? Lisa caught his eye. She had a vivacious mischief in her smile.

  ‘You’ll curdle the milk,’ she said.

  ‘Drinks,’ Flint responded. He stood up and clapped his hands, ‘Drinks!’

  Quivering wads of lukewarm moussaka came and went, with a portion to spare. The five youths clustered around Lisa, trying to impress and amuse. Emma and the Dalek were quickly excluded from the circle and moved away to play cards at a side table. Cheap and aggressive wine, plus fizzy beer, were brought to the table. Mikos sensed the mood, and dropped his one Bob Dylan LP onto the functional gramophone.

  Six Greek men by the far wall shook their heads silently.

  Flint hummed along, content. Life just carried on getting better. The Dalek might have a hidden agenda, but this was his own payoff for the sweaty toil of archaeological fieldwork. It was his heavenly reward for turning the other cheek and absorbing all those insults.

  ‘Mister Embury!’ Mikos called from the door. ‘Some persons to see you.’

  The Director rose and carried his trail of pipe smoke towards the taverna owner. He went outside, and was gone for ten minutes. Socially isolated, Emma drifted back, making token forays into the party. Lisa was retelling tourist stories, each improving with telling, as did caricatures of her clients’ mannerisms.

  Emma cut across the conversation, ‘He’s not going to put that record on again is he?’

  Three times through, ‘Gawd on mah side’ was enough even for the would-be hippies in the bar. Lisa agreed with the complaint.

  ‘I’ll go talk to Mikos.’ Flint rose reluctantly and padded to the bar. Mikos was whistling and wiping out a glass.

  ‘Another drink Jeff?’

  ‘No, Mikos, another record. I love Dylan, for me you can play it forever, but there are barbarians who refuse to be converted. Be a mate, find something different.’

  A car door slammed somewhere outside. Sebastian Embury strode back into the bar in a deep, black mood. He placed both his hands on the bar, without looking directly at Flint. ‘Are you going to pay for that girl’s meal?’ he rasped.

  Flint was wrong-footed and was still thinking of a reply when the Director attacked again.

  ‘Are you listening to me Flint?’

  ‘Pay who?’

  ‘This food is funded by the project.’

  Fumbling around the objection, the youngster blurted, ‘But does it matter? Who cares?’ He turned to Mikos. ‘How much?’

  ‘Eh? What for?’

  ‘Six cubic inches of moussaka, three chunks of feta and half a slice of stale bread. Lisa has dined royally at our expense.’

  ‘Is paid for,’ Mikos confirmed. He too was confused.

  ‘Insolence!’ Embury breathed, ‘You insolent...’

  Dispute dissolved into chaotic acrimony. Embury was all beard and invective. Flint refused to be cowed with Lisa at stake, meeting ire with ire, enjoying the chance to let rip. When he next glanced towards Lisa, she was pulling herself around the chair back and shouldering her handbag.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll move in another day,’ she pushed between Flint and his oppressor. ‘One can tell when one’s not wanted.’

  Flint reached out a hand to stop her, then withdrew it.

  ‘See you, Jeff,’ she winked at him.

  He followed her out of the bar, but she would say nothing else. Lisa climbed into her car with just a twitch of her chin. The single tail-light receded into the night, then was extinguished. Flint returned inside, ready to resume the fight, but The Dalek was taking Emma upstairs, deep in conspiratorial discussion.

  ‘Mikos!’

  ‘Jeff?’

  ‘Another beer. And stick the Dylan back on.’

  *

  The Dalek was away for most of Tuesday, finding a pressing need to see some crony at Epidaurus which conveniently kept him away from real work. He brought the minibus back to Palaeokastro before supper, speaking to no one, except to grudgingly surrender the keys to Flint. Within minutes, Flint had gathered the other four male students and was urging life into the minibus, christened ‘the shuttlecraft’; a Ford Transit conversion, painted yellow with the College Logo on its door. It had already seen 90,000 miles of travel on excavations, field trips and beer runs. The left and right wings were different hues of mustard, whilst the bodywork was pitted by stones and splattered by the corpses of flies.

  Flint negotiated the potholed road down to the highway and into Nauplion, where the cinema was within a converted mosque. It often showed dated English language releases with Greek subtitles and that week it was A Clockwork Orange: as scratched and noisy as the minibus. The expedition soothed Flint’s nerves and served to compensate for weeks of cinematic deprivation; his exposure to London’s glut of cinemas had spoiled him. Kubrick had withdrawn the film from British Cinemas, so Flint settled down for a treat in an island of empty seats. Trying not to read the subtitles, he allowed his mind to wander. How had they translated ‘malenky bit of cutter’ into Greek? What picture of England did the film transmit to the local audience? What did the locals think of Zorba the Greek or The Guns of Navarone? How long would it be before one of the digging team stabbed The Dalek to death with a trowel?

  *

  Breakfast normally consisted of bread and coffee, sometimes with a little cheese, sometimes with yoghurt and honey when Mikos was feeling sweet. Little was eaten next morning, everyone was outside the taverna by seven, standing around an empty patch of ground.

  Flint and The Dalek argued over keys, handbrakes, security and amnesia. No one could remember hearing the minibus driven away, no one could confirm that Flint had indeed locked all the doors and put the brick under the back wheel.

  The Dalek might have been a shade of purple behind the glasses, the facial hair and the squashy hat, ‘You see, it was easy for them. You left the door unlocked. The thief just had to climb in and let off the handbrake, then roll it to here…’

  Flint watched the Director pace to the roadside, ‘…and he could freewheel for half a mile before starting the engine.’

  He should have been a detective, thought Flint, maintaining a neutral expression. But then, all archaeologists were detectives, of a sort.

  ‘It is your fault, of course...’

  Fault lay with Flint, of course, further argument was futile. He adopted a penitent pose and half-listened to the rebukes. If it were not for the unnecessary jaunt, the minibus would still be rusting quietly behind the taverna. Instead, some colour-blind hooligan with no sense of value had saddled himself with innumerable garage bills and the digging team had been marooned. Breakfast was cancelled.

  Flint was sent back to the olive grove with a list of trivial tasks to perform, whilst The Dalek waited for the police, muttering about hiring a car. For once Flint suffered a crisis of confidence. Was he to blame? Had he been too sure in himself, too arrogant? The young archaeologist’s morale began to tip towards the abyss. One bus per day made the round trip to Nauplion, and there was no link to the beaches further south. His future held the prospect of dust and more dust. It seemed a long way to the top of the hill.

  Down on site, the four-letter word count was high that afternoon. When the Director returned from talking with the police, he embarked on a campaign of systematically needling his workers one by one. From the edge of the olive grove, Flint could see the green blob strutting round the site, bawling at unfortunate students. The arm waved, the voice grated derision, random
words of reprimand drifted on the still air. It was possible to approximate the moment at which he and Andy would take a turn as victims of approbation.

  Flint braced himself, laying down his trowel to avoid temptation. Embury was approaching. ‘Klingons on the starboard bow,’ he quipped.

  ‘Deflector shields on maximum, Mr Sulu,’ Andy responded.

  ‘So? What have we here?’ Embury seemed to be panting from the exertion of climbing the hill, but otherwise, was quite calm and irritatingly chummy.

  ‘It’s a wall,’ Flint pointed to the short stretch of crude stonework they had uncovered, ‘See the cunning way one stone has been heaped on another, with all the precision of finest classical craftsmanship. The construction cut is tantalisingly sterile, matchless in its poverty.’

  The director nodded, deep in thought, not seeming to hear the sarcasm. Flint gently suggested the hole be filled in and that he should return to the site. The director shook his head slowly. ‘Another trench I think, ten metres to the north, following this wall.’

  *

  Flint remembered the excavation as a blur of useless toil. Holes were dug, and filled. Grubby finds cleaned and marked. Embury seemed to have had means, but no ends. It had been Wednesday, in a week with six Wednesdays and an infinitely distant Friday and Lisa as his only link to sanity. If he had not been so hooked on Lisa he might have seen what was coming.

  The crowd of grey suits parted and the mature Emma Woodfine looked his way. Her lips set thinner than usual, she involuntarily straightened her glasses and slowly sauntered towards him.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Jeffrey Flint,’ Emma said, with her expression totally neutral.

  ‘Hello Emma, how’s tricks?’

  She threatened to smile. ‘My sister was talking about you only last week. It’s her museum now, in Kingshaven. What’s left of it.’

  Typical Emma, straight for the kill. Flint tried not to recall old animosities. ‘I was thinking about you too, Emma.’

  ‘How sweet.’

  ‘You never forgave me, did you?’

  ‘You never even tried to tell me what happened,’ she retorted.

  The party was already thinning out. ‘Ready now?’ Emma looked around for her husband. ‘Hubert wants to leave soon.’

  ‘Pack him off to bed, and I’ll get you a taxi later. Give me twenty minutes and we’ll lay all the ghosts. You can’t hate me forever.’

  ‘Watch me.’

  *

  Flint had avoided alcohol that Wednesday evening. His stomach rebelled against something greasy which had swum around in the bottom of Mikos’ frying-pan and he was wishing he had stayed vegetarian. Emma emerged from the stairwell, with her hair combed back and swathed in a scarf. She was wearing a severely plain blue dress, and made a show of departing for dinner with Doctor Dracopoulos, the site guardian, whose name she repeatedly dropped to impress.

  Flint had been lounging against the bar, drinking soda water and showing Mikos the pen which had caused all the excitement in the Nauplion taverna. Mikos said the local grapevine had already been chattering with stories of gold and old bones at Palaeokastro. It was a pitilessly small world, thought Flint.

  As Emma was about to leave, the Dalek came into the taverna and she moved towards him. ‘Oh Sebastian, there’s still time, do come.’

  ‘It’s business,’ he dismissed her plea and walked towards the bar.

  ‘Business, ha, ha,’ Emma tightened her grip on her handbag and ran for the door.

  The Dalek gave one glance towards his rebellious assistant, then addressed another. ‘Don’t drink too much, Flint. I’ve hired a car: I want you to drive me into Nauplion tonight.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Important business. I need a driver, you know how the Greeks do business.’

  A table crowded with empty bottles and choked ash trays came to mind. Flint simply nodded reluctantly.

  Embury indicated the pen at the centre of discussion. ‘What’s that?’

  Flint was saying, ‘Nothing,’ as Mikos handed over the pen, immediately retelling the story of its discovery.

  ‘Nothing? This is your idea of nothing?’ Embury held the pen in his quivering hand, gripping it by its crushed tip, ‘You never told me about this.’

  ‘I must have.’

  ‘No, my memory is excellent; you never told me about this!’

  ‘It came from down by the gully, in the olive grove, in with all that modern rubbish you had me search through.’

  ‘You should have reported and classified it with every other find.’

  ‘And a couple of wine bottles, half a dozen spent hunters’ cartridge cases, sheep bones, an old boot, a brass button...’

  ‘All right all right, but this is different!’

  ‘Because it’s gold?’

  ‘Well no,’ The Dalek blathered, his breath stinking like a disaster in an ouzo factory. All the team knew a bottle lay concealed in the site hut.

  ‘So, the pen is irrelevant.’ Flint plucked it from the other’s grasp and dropped it into his own top pocket. ‘Just junk.’

  The Dalek stepped back and levelled a wavering finger. He was certainly in no state to drive. ‘You’re insubordinate, you know? You’re no good Flint, you’re useless on my team. Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘Before or after I drive you to Nauplion?’ Flint played it cool. He was the only other person with a valid driving permit. It gave him a last lever of power; it offered an opportunity to escape into town and gatecrash Lisa’s usual Wednesday Greek Cultural Evening.

  ‘Half past eight: don’t wander off.’ Embury snapped out of the conflict, and went towards the stairs without another word.

  *

  The Dalek had hired a red Ford Fiesta, whose nearside bore a long white scar. He explained that it would serve as emergency transport, until the minibus was brought back. Flint thought this optimistic, but signed the papers and allowed the men from the hire firm to drive away. He sat in the driver’s seat and fiddled with the gearstick before starting the engine.

  ‘Right side of the road,’ he reminded himself aloud.

  ‘What?’ The Dalek climbed in beside him.

  ‘Nothing.’ Flint hated driving. He crunched the gearbox and drove away into the night.

  Not a word was exchanged on the ten minute drive to town. The sky was a deep, dark blue by the time they rounded the black mass of the Palamidi rock, with its Venetian fortifications crenellating the skyline.

  ‘Past the station, through the new town,’ The Dalek said mechanically, as if following a script.

  Flint did as ordered, passing the station, passing through and beyond the modern suburbs. As the houses faded into the night, they were replaced by industrial buildings and anonymous sheds.

  ‘Slow down.’

  A building site beside the railway track stood at the very northern limit of town.

  ‘Stop by that cement mixer.’

  Flint pulled off the road onto a rough rubble kerb where the yellow cement mixer stood. ‘Picturesque,’ he commented.

  ‘This could take some time,’ The Dalek said, climbing out.

  ‘Who are we meeting?’

  ‘I’m the one doing the meeting. You wait here.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘An hour, perhaps longer. You won’t go anywhere, will you?’ The Dalek leaned across and whipped the keys from their hole. With a thin chuckle, he pulled himself out of the car.

  Flint was angry, ‘Where are you going?’ he shouted after the retreating figure. The Dalek offered no answer.

  ‘Bastard.’

  Boredom came in seconds, as did rebellion. Flint needed ten stiff beers, or a pair of warm arms, or both, to rectify his mood. He would seek Lisa out, have a talk and deploy his best chat-up lines. If successful, The Dalek could drive himself home and damn the consequences. If he failed, nothing was lost.

  Ten minutes’ brisk walk would bring him to the heart of Nauplion. The first stars were advancing on the heavens
as he jogged around the football ground and took a short cut along Boubolinas to the seafront. Entrancing lights drew him on, whilst the road still radiated the day’s heat. Squadrons of bugs besieged each puny orange streetlamp as he reached the lit area. Sea air and the scent of warm, dusky vegetation lifted his spirits. He need never go back, damn the Dalek and his mysteries.

  Well within his ten minutes, Flint stopped to gather breath outside the ugly slab-concrete hotel where synthetic Greek Culture was being paraded for the tourists. The reception desk was unmanned so the archaeologist easily gained access to the enclosed courtyard behind.

  Below a perfect night sky, a troupe of sad-eyed young people in national dress flogged their routine to the rhythm of an expertly played bouzouki. Lisa was in the process of rousing a table of eight to join in the dancing. Flint stood back and watched her work. After a minute, he caught her eye and she broke away from her people.

  ‘Jeff, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Couldn’t keep away. Thought I’d just pop in and see you.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid fifty people have paid good money to have my attention tonight. I’ll be up to here with fun and merriment ’til midnight.’

  ‘Afterwards?’

  ‘Afterwards is bedtime. It’s jolly old Olympia tomorrow; it’s a hell of a way and I’m on duty from six. I need my energy, sorry. Stay around if you like, but I have to work.’

  Her next ‘Sorry’ was surgical, not apologetic. Lisa turned her back on him and returned to her job. Perhaps he had been naive, certainly he had over-estimated his own charm. The gamble had been in vain and he would have another row with the Dalek to no profit. Totally dejected, Flint walked down to Atki Mouri and looked out at the castle of Bourdzi, seemingly moored in the harbour and bobbing like a tug-boat below the moon. The sea lapped gently around fishing and pleasure boats whilst music drifted from half a dozen sources. What should have been an idyll was turning into hell. At that moment, he decided to desert. Damn the Dalek, damn Palaeokastro, damn Lisa. He was going home for the cricket and the rain.

  A deliberately slow journey brought him back to the car, kicking at loose road chippings and swatting at flies to defuse his anger. The car was intact where it had been left unlocked. Only as he moved to open his door did Flint see that his passenger was already there, slumped against the other door. The Dalek had soaked up a skinful of ouzo with whoever he’d had to visit so urgently. The grubby construction site had probably been an unsubtle diversion to hide his real destination. Flint smiled to himself, imagining a furtive meeting with a woman, possibly the bored wife of one of his many acquaintances; it would explain why Emma was so miffed.