South of Mandraki

by Anne Hampson

  ‘You haven’t much opinion of my management of them,’ retorted Toni, her chin lifting.

  ‘I’ve none at all. Had I not taken a hand they’d be worse now than when they came.’

  She glared at him.

  ‘You’re so clever - in every way!’

  ‘I’m efficient.’ He portrayed a sort of mild surprise at her show of temper, but made no comment on it. ‘Write to Pam and tell her we’ll keep the children until she comes out of hospital.’

  ‘You really mean it?” Toni recalled how he had at first ordered her to remove the children from his house immediately. ‘You ... didn’t like them once.’

  ‘I certainly jibbed at the idea of having three intractable brats foisted upon me, and without warning. But I must own that your sister’s children are most attractive now I’ve brought them under control, and I don’t mind having them here so long as you remember it’s your duty to look after them, and not Maria’s. She has enough to do.’

  ‘I only left them once.’

  A sigh escaped him; he said with some asperity, ‘Don’t you ever get tired of these stupid and childish little thrusts? We’re supposed to be dealing with a problem.’

  A flush spread and she glanced away, deeply conscious of the rebuke.

  ‘I’ll write to Pam today, and to my mother, for she must be worrying about the children’s arrival. They’ll have to stay off school, but perhaps it won’t be for long.’

  ‘They’ll go to school here.’

  ‘Here? But they don’t understand the language.’

  ‘Then it will be a wonderful opportunity for them to learn it.’ He drained his coffee cup and placed it on the saucer. ‘What about money? Your sister will require some. Let me know how much and I’ll arrange for it to be transferred to her bank.’

  Toni could only stare in disbelief. The husband who had been so stingy ... to be willing to pay out money for the comfort and peace of mind of a girl he had never met.... And that girl one of the hated English tribe!

  ‘You’ll give my sister money?’ she gasped when at length she found her voice.

  His straight brows rose a fraction.

  ‘When I wouldn’t give it to you, eh?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Daros wiped his mouth with his napkin, threw it down on the table and rose from his chair.

  ‘But then you demanded, Toni,’ he said, and lightly patted her cheek.

  ‘I’m your wife.’

  ‘Now, yes. But you weren’t, were you?’ He cocked her a sideways glance, his eyes lit with amusement. ‘You had all the appearance of a hard-headed little gold-digger ... but as I said the other evening, you puzzle me immensely.’

  She was looking up, her head tilted right back. He gazed into her eyes in a searching way and then appreciatively took in the lovely colour of her hair and the peach-like tint of her cheeks. Her lips were parted and he bent his head, to kiss her for the first time without passion or desire.

  ‘Daros....’ Toni’s heart was acting in the strangest way imaginable. ‘You ... I ... ’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’ll write to Pam today, and to my mother,’ she told him in breathless haste, and a smile of sheer amusement touched the firm outline of his mouth.

  ‘Yes, my dear, you’ve already said so.’

  ‘It’ll stop their worrying.’

  ‘It will indeed.’

  ‘The children will be thrilled.’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  ‘But perhaps they won’t be thrilled—’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Louise has been talking about her mother a good deal lately.’ ‘Toni,’ said Daros with a laugh, ‘this could continue indefinitely. If you want to catch the post you had better be off and write your letters.’

  She watched him go, her mind confused by the change in him. For there was a change. Perhaps it was the children that had

  mellowed him ... but no. The children weren’t responsible for that kiss, a kiss so very different from those kisses of desire that held neither gentleness nor respect.

  She puzzled him, he had several times asserted. Could it be that his opinion of her was changing? Strangely, she desired that this should be so - after all her efforts to be as unpleasant and provoking as she could.

  Toni was humming a little tune to herself as she went upstairs to fetch her notepaper and envelopes. She forgot his detestable remarks about English girls, deplored her own action in swearing to pay him back, and even forgave him for all his threats of violence.

  Her sister’s reply came within the week. Toni read it out to Daros who, she noticed, listened with keen interest, though frowning now and then as if at something he did not like to hear.

  ‘This is wonderful news, Toni, and please convey my very grateful thanks to your husband. Dr. Benson says the matter is urgent, but I intended putting the operation off because I couldn’t see Mum having the children. But now I can go into hospital right away, and with an easy mind. I think your husband must be very nice and I’ve vowed to save hard when I come out of hospital - once I’m back at work, of course - and come over next year for a holiday—’

  Toni broke off, a lump in her throat. Pam was being optimistic

  - or perhaps cheering herself up. But she would never save the money for four fares to Rhodes. Daros’s thoughts were running on the same lines, judging by the way he was shaking his head and frowning.

  ‘—As for the money Daros is willing to lend,’ Pam had written, ‘ten pounds will be ample. I just want to buy myself something decent (and frilly, for the morale!) to take into hospital with me.... ’

  Toni allowed the letter to fall on to the table.

  ‘Isn’t she brave? You have no idea what she’s been through since her husband died.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ was the grim response as, leaning over, Daros picked up the letter and scanned its contents for himself. ‘Did you say I was only lending her money?’ he asked shortly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then she’s misunderstood?’

  ‘Deliberately. I told you of her pride, Daros. She won’t take money from me. I have to buy the children things.’ He was glancing oddly at her over the top of the letter. Was he thinking of the bill she had run up at the store in Rhodes and wondering how she had the nerve to say she bought the children things? Toni averted her head, wishing she had not reminded him of the bill that he himself had been forced to settle.

  ‘She must be made to take some money — and certainly more than ten pounds. That’ll go nowhere.’

  ‘She’ll insist on paying it back,’ she warned.

  ‘We’ll sort that out later. Give me some idea of the sum required and I’ll deal at once with the transfer.’ He paused, his dark eyes thoughtful. ‘And I think, after all, that you had better go over; you can then visit her in hospital and bring her back with you as soon as she’s fit to travel.’

  His cool announcement staggered her; she stared at him, for the moment bereft of speech.

  ‘Bring her here?’ she gasped at length. ‘You mean, you’ll pay her fare?’

  ‘Pam will need to recuperate and she’ll do that more speedily here where she can benefit from the climate and the sea air. Also, she’ll be with her children.’

  Toni shook her head dazedly, murmuring something about not understanding him. He smiled at that and replied with an edge of humour to his voice,

  ‘Then that makes two of us - for I’m very sure I don’t understand you.’

  And no wonder, she ruefully had to admit. She had been all that any man would detest — grasping, defiant, insolent. With a sort of swaggering unconcern she had gone into debt, forcing Daros to pay what she could not extract from him by any other means. Deliberately she had endeavoured to disgrace him before his business friends; she had brought into his house three unruly children, with the sole object of their driving him to distraction.

  On the credit side was her devotion to the children, whose affection for her was always apparent. There was her de
ep concern for Pam, and for her mother when it appeared she would be forced to take the children. Then there was Toni’s own changed attitude towards her husband. He must have noticed her more amicable manner, her lack of hostility and defiance. What he did not know of was the strange new yearning in her heart and the all-pervading desire for complete unity with her husband.

  He was still watching her and she smiled. Should she make a clean breast of everything? - admitting that she understood his language and pleading provocation for all her actions? She recollected that scene when her demand for a settlement had been made. Was what she had overheard an excuse for such conduct? Daros would not think so, she felt sure. And in any case how would he react to the humiliation of learning that all he had said had been understood by Toni? He was so proud.... No, Toni felt he must never know that she had at that time understood his language. Some day she must inevitably speak Greek, if she was to live here permanently, but Daros would conclude that she had learned it later, by mixing as she now did with the villagers of Lindos.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BY the middle of September Pam was in Rhodes, being nursed back to health by her sister.

  ‘I’m not having you running about after me like this,’ she had protested at first when Toni took her breakfast to her as she sat up in the large white bed, satin coverlets Over her and a flattering bedjacket about her shoulders. The window to the balcony was thrown wide open and the sun streamed through on to the bed.

  ‘Daros said right at the beginning that you’d to have complete rest.’ Toni fixed the bed-table and poured her sister’s coffee. ‘And Daros expects his instructions to be carried out. There ... half milk, one sugar. Just as you like it!’

  Pam looked up, her eyes moist.

  ‘You’re lucky, Toni; he’s so nice.’

  Toni perched herself on the side of the bed and stared musingly out to the acropolis with its turreted walls, brown and mellowed in the low slanting rays of the morning sun. A sigh escaped her. The relationship she desired between Daros and herself was not developing in the way she had hoped. True, he had been away for a few days last week on business, so he had not really seen much of him since her return to Lindos, but even when he was with her his manner was neither warmer nor colder than it had been on the day he kissed her with what she had then thought to be a certain amount of affection.

  ‘You’re right, he is nice.’ Toni smiled at her own admission. It did seem odd to be agreeing with Pam when only a short while ago she had considered her husband to be the meanest, most despicable and arrogant man she had ever met.

  A fortnight later, the doctor having given his permission for Pam to swim, she and Toni were on the beach, drying themselves in the hot sun after having taken a cool refreshing bathe. The children were at school and Daros was in the house, working. But eventually he joined them on the beach, clad in bright blue shorts and a white open-necked shirt, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. He had a book with him, but he laid it down and sat with his knees drawn up, looking out towards the harbour that was the tiny Bay of St. Paul, a cerulean lake in a dark setting of naked and twisted volcanic rock.

  Toni glanced up to see her sister watching Daros with a pensive expression. That she liked him immensely was evident, but today she was both puzzled and anxious. For Daros had been seen out with ‘another woman’.

  The fact had come to her ears only that morning, mentioned by Charitos, who thought that Toni was alone. She and Pam had gone into Lindos village to do some shopping and while Pam was in the newsagents, and Toni waiting outside, Charitos had come up. After greeting her with a friendly kalimera, he had then asked gravely,

  ‘Who’s the woman I saw your husband out with in Rhodes?’

  Flushing, Toni murmured in tones of sudden dejection, ‘I don’t know.’

  But she did know, because she had heard Daros making the date on the telephone. Olivia had called him up on several occasions prior to Toni’s going to England to be with Pam, and since her return she had often wondered if they had been seeing one another in her absence.

  She wished she could meet this Olivia, and size her up. She was regarded by Toni as a potential wrecker of her marriage and she naturally felt she could fight back more effectively if she were able to estimate the strength of her adversary. ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Dark, tall and very good-looking. You don’t know her?’

  ‘I—’ Toni stopped as Pam came from the shop, her face pale, her eyes questioning and troubled. ‘Pam, meet a friend of mine, Charitos Leonti. He lives in that magnificent house on the hillside. You know, the one you were admiring when we went for that drive the other day.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ A hand was held out and Charitos took it. ‘Can I treat you to coffee?’ he asked, pointing to the taverna across the road. ‘They make the milky kind, if you don’t like the Turkish.’

  ‘I don’t think we have time,’ apologized Toni, glancing at her watch. ‘The children will be home before us even now. They finish at half past eleven on Wednesdays.’

  ‘Of course. It’s their long midday break. Oh, well, another time perhaps.’

  Toni, said Pam when they were again on their own, ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what that young man said.’

  ‘About Olivia, you mean?’

  ‘So you do know her?’

  ‘I’ve never met her, but she’s an old flame of my husband’s.’ ‘And he’s going out with her?’ Pam spoke sharply, her wide forehead creased in a frown. ‘You’ve never said how you met Daros,’ she ventured at length. ‘I asked you once and you avoided an answer.’

  Toni hesitated.

  It’s a long story, Pam, and not an especially pleasant one. I’ll tell you about it some other time.’

  ‘Not pleasant?’ Pam put the question in spite of the finality of her sister’s tone.

  ‘No, Pam, in fact it was most unpleasant.’ She quickened her steps, making for the car which was parked in the square. ‘I must think about it,’ she added as they got into the car. ‘I don’t really know whether I should tell anyone the details.’

  ‘But you must! You’ve made it sound so mysterious. What about my curiosity?’

  A rather feeble laugh broke from Toni’s lips.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Pam, but when I’m ready.’

  ‘This Olivia, did she come into it?’

  ‘Not at all. She came into the picture later.’

  ‘You’re jealous of her, Toni.’ Pam stopped speaking as her sister took a dangerous bend. ‘I can tell you’re jealous, so therefore you must be worried. I thought you were so happy,’ she added flatly. ‘Daros is so wonderful. Oh, Toni, I don’t believe you have anything to worry about!’ The wish was father to the thought, because even in the short time she had known him Pam’s admiration for Daros had grown strong.

  As she watched him, sitting there on the beach, he seemed to sense her anxiety and he turned his face towards her, smiling affectionately as he said,

  ‘What’s wrong, Pam? You appear to be worried about something.’

  ‘No ... not really.’ She managed a bright smile in response to his own. ‘I suppose I must soon be thinking of taking myself and my children off your hands,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘It’s been a wonderful holiday, and I’m really very grateful to you. I don’t know when I’m going to repay you all that I must owe.’ ‘Repay me?’ He raised his brows. ‘You don’t owe me anything, Pam. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed having you, and as for going home, there’s not the slightest need to trouble yourself about that yet awhile. The children are quite settled, and I see no point in your moving them when it’s not necessary.’

  ‘But it is necessary. I can’t sponge, Daros.’

  He frowned at her.

  ‘That’s a word I don’t like. We’re a family; if my sisters want to come they do so, and you must feel the same. You must consider this as your home, Pam, and stay just as long as you like.’

  She glanced at Toni; it was not difficult to read her thoughts. How
could Daros be doing anything underhand or dishonourable? It wasn’t possible.

  ‘Daros is right, Pam. Don’t go home yet. What is there to go for, anyway? You haven’t a job - at least, you did say your boss had written saying he couldn’t keep it open. He hasn’t changed his mind?’

  Pam shook her head.

  ‘No. I’ve had all letters sent on here and there hasn’t been anything since that letter saying he would have to fill the post.’ Her brow furrowed; she looked very forlorn all at once, and defenceless.

  Toni glanced at her husband; she felt he would willingly help Pam, financially, but he knew, as she did, that Pam’s pride would not allow her to take money from him. She would have to take the price of the fares back to England, but she was determined to repay it no matter how long it took. Of course, she would have Daros to contend with, and Toni knew he would flatly refuse to take money from someone who was having such a struggle to make ends meet. However, as there was no chance of that argument between the two taking place yet awhile, Toni dismissed it from her mind. But she was greatly troubled about her sister, and the more she thought about her returning to England the less she liked the idea.

  ‘If only Pam could stay here for good,’ she said to Daros that night after Pam had gone to bed.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ came the surprising response. They were on the verandah, having a drink, the cool sea breeze fanning their faces. ‘She has no job at home, so there’s really nothing for her to go back to, is there?’

  ‘No. The house is only rented. Frank didn’t have a very good wage and they never really got on their feet, not with the children coming so soon after they were married’

  ‘I could find her a job in Rhodes. ...’ His brow creased in thought. ‘It’s a pity I haven’t anything here in Lindos, because my mother has a very pretty house just on the hill there—’

  ‘Your mother? You never told me?’

  He smiled then, and said,

  ‘I seem to remember remarking on how little we know of one another. You know scarcely anything of my family, and apart from Pam and her children I know absolutely nothing of yours.’ He drained his glass and, going into the drawing-room, he poured himself another drink. Her glass was on the small table which stayed all the time on the verandah and Daros brought the bottle with him. ‘Tell me when you’re ready,’ he said, putting the bottle down on the table. ‘Now about this house. Mother wants to sell it and we can arrange for it to go cheaply—’