Realm of the Pagans

by Anne Hampson

  Yet Luke had seduced the girl… By her own admission he was the father of her child. Again Martine had the sensation of unreality; her thoughts were chaotic, for she did not know what to think. Yet the truth was there, stark and admitted by the girl concerned. At last Martine was able to ask, 'Does Mr. Leoros give you money?'

  'He does, for me and my child. He is generous. He buy this land so we can grow many lemons and tomatoes.'

  Again Martine glanced around, diverted for the moment as she said with a frown, 'You seem to be short of water, though.'

  'We are not short, but we are very careful with it. You have to have much water for the lemons.'

  Martine brought her attention back to the girl. She noticed now that Litsa seemed faintly ill-at-ease and this impression was strengthened when the girl said, in a voice edged with urgency and apology, 'I must go now, if you please. I have work to do in the house.'

  Martine merely nodded and, turning slowly, walked away, skirting the orchard to take the narrow path along which she had approached the back of the house.

  As promised Kelvin phoned her. He asked if she still wanted to help him.

  'Yes, I'll do your typing for you.'

  'Thanks a lot. Are you coming down now?'

  'In a few minutes.' She did not know why she wanted another few minutes alone; she had been sitting on the balcony of her room, thinking as she stared unseeingly down to the Sanctuary, thinking and planning, changing her mind a dozen times, often asking herself why she should mind so much that her husband had done this vile thing to Litsa. She did not love him so she ought not to be brooding like this, wondering how she was to tell him that their marriage was finished. The next moment she was denying it was finished, then the next again she was seeing life with Kelvin, a happy life based on far more than sexual attraction.

  A deep and shuddering sigh escaped her; she wished her thoughts would become clear, so that she could make a decision which she could keep to.

  At length she went down to see Kelvin. He was waiting and she asked how long Sophia had stayed.

  'She left about five minutes after you did,' he answered, an anxious look on his face. 'You were so upset, dear, and I didn't like letting you go.'

  'I went to the village to see Litsa.' Her face was pale, her nerves taut, but her voice was calm and steady as she continued, 'It's true. Luke is the father of her child.'

  They were in the sunlit living-room and Kelvin turned away abruptly, saying he would make a cup of tea. It seemed a strange thing to do—to turn so swiftly, without commenting on what she had said. 'I shan't be long,' he called from the kitchen. 'You can read through what I've written and ask any questions you consider necessary before you start to type.'

  Walking over to the desk she took up a pile of papers, but her perusal was not concentrated and after a few minutes she realized she had not read a word.

  'Did Sophia still persist in her intention of telling Luke?'

  'I think I persuaded her to keep silent, at least for the present. I was going to tell you all about it, later.'

  'You managed…' Why hadn't Kelvin spoken of this at once, to put her mind at rest? Was it because her own information had erased it from his mind temporarily? 'How did you manage it?' she wanted to know, impatiently dropping the sheets of paper back on to the desk. She did not feel like doing his typing after all.

  'I appealed to her better nature.'

  'So she has a better nature? You surprise me.' Martine walked to the kitchen door and stood there, watching him prepare a tray with crockery and milk and sugar. 'Kelvin, I could be imagining it but—there seems some mystery to me—'

  'Mystery?' in a swift interruption. 'What do you mean?'

  'I can't put my finger on anything. This business of Sophia—she was so determined to talk to Luke.'

  'Well, so I thought, too, but I talked to her and after a moment or two she agreed to leave it for awhile.'

  'Why "for awhile"?'

  'I don't know,' he replied in an expressionless voice. 'She just said that and I had to be satisfied.' He lifted the kettle and poured water into the teapot. 'I daresay she'll forget all about it.'

  'You know that's not true.'

  Kelvin looked at her after picking up the tray. 'Do you really mind whether she tells Luke or not? I mean, now that you know what kind of man he is you surely are not intending to remain married to him?'

  'No… Oh, Kelvin, I don't know! I can't think straight!' Her composure fled and she felt tears gathering in her eyes. 'You must remember that although I don't love my husband I do not hate him either. I married him of my own free will because I was drawn to him in some way—!'

  'What way?' demanded Kelvin almost harshly.

  She was reluctant to tell him the truth, naturally. 'I must have been drawn to him or otherwise. I'd never have agreed to marry him,' she said after a pause.

  'You admitted you married him to spite me—for revenge. I gathered that any man would have done at the time.'

  A frown creased her forehead at that. 'Any man?' she repeated angrily. 'That's not true!'

  Kelvin brought the tray into the living-room and set it down on the table. He straightened up and looked into her eyes. 'I repeat, any man would have done. I can understand just how you felt, so angry and humiliated that you'd have married any man who asked you. As it was you married the first man you met. It was crazy but, as I've said, I fully understand how you felt.'

  'You think you understand,' she corrected.

  Kelvin picked up the teapot. 'In what possible way could you have been drawn to a man like Luke Leoros?' he demanded. 'You didn't even know him!'

  She had to smile. What would Kelvin say if she told him she had known Luke so well that she had almost surrendered herself to him even before marriage? 'It's something I do not want to talk about.' She sat down, crossing her slender legs, saw him look at them before his eyes travelled up to her face again. She took the tea he offered and helped herself to sugar. 'I don't think I want to do your typing, after all,' she said with a quivering sigh.

  'I can't see why you are dithering like this, Martine. I should have thought that once you knew what kind of man your husband was you'd immediately have decided to leave mm and ask for a divorce.'

  'It's what you wanted?' Something within her sent out a warning light but she was unable to understand what it was all about.

  'I want you back, darling.' He put down his cup and came to her. 'Martine, I am begging you to get rid of this man and marry me.' Distress caused his voice to falter and Martine looked at him with pity and yet accusation was there, too, in her lovely eyes, eyes still bright with the tears she had managed to hold back.

  'It isn't so easy,' she quivered. 'Why did Sophia have to come between us! Why did we come here in the first place! There were a hundred sites in Greece we could have used.'

  'I know. It was simple bad luck that we ever came here. Do you suppose I haven't thought so many times during these past weeks?'

  'You were fully occupied with Sophia at first,' Martine could not help reminding him.

  'Perhaps—yes, I agree,' he said on noticing her expression. 'I do agree, but do you know, Mar-tine, that after only a short while I realised the affair would not continue? I was infatuated— and you must admit that Sophia's very lovely. I don't know what I'd have done if she had not thrown me over—whether or not I'd have thrown her over. All I do know is that there was a great deal lacking that had been there between you and me. It was different, somehow. There was no depth to it.' He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. His lips found hers and she stood passive, accepting but not giving… and yet all the time she was acutely aware of what had been, of the beauty of their courtship. How could she let it all go in favour of a marriage that was empty of love?

  'The conflict within me is unbearable,' she confessed as she looked up into his face. 'I want love in my marriage, spiritual love… Kelvin, what on earth must I do?' It was a cry from the heart, a desperate plea for advice which she
knew would not be accepted without another ordeal of thinking, of decisions made and unmade, of near despair at her inability to make a calm resolve which she could keep.

  'There's only one logical thing you can do,' he said reasonably. 'Tell Luke you've realised your mistake and you want a divorce.'

  'He'd want to know the reason. I'd have to tell him what I know, of course—'

  'Tell him?' Kelvin seemed disconcerted all at once.

  'Surely you'd expect me to tell him what I know?' Martine looked at him in surprise, for it was plain by his expression that that was the last thing he had envisaged.

  'No, I'd certainly not expect you to tell him what you know. For one thing, it would be indelicate—embarrassing for you both, and for another he'd very quickly tell you that what he did when he was single had nothing to do with you—and you must admit that it hadn't.'

  She nodded, frowning heavily. 'I suppose you're right…' She again had the impression that all was not open and above board in this matter, that there was some mystery, something which Kelvin was keeping from her. And yet what could it be? He had always been open with her, frank and scrupulously honest, so why should she doubt him now? 'I'll think about it,' she promised. 'Perhaps the best thing is to leave him right away.'

  'Now—at once?' eagerly as he moved away, taking a couple of backward steps. 'I'm more than willing, love. We could move to another place—Mykonos, and do some work on Delos. You'd like that. You were so enthusiastic about it, weren't you?'

  She merely nodded. Delos had been such a happy time, wandering hand in hand with her husband among the ancient ruins, the sacred temples, the sad fallen columns, seeing the lovely mosaics and wondering by what magic they had survived for so long, survived for modern man to come along and unearth them for his pleasure and gratification, helping him to form pictures of what life was like in those far off times when the Greeks brought civilisation to the Western world.

  She looked at Kelvin and did not want to go to Delos with him. It was a memory she wanted to keep… But why? Frowning, she made an effort to analyse her emotions, to find a reason for wanting to keep Delos as a memory that would bring back the happiness she had experienced in her husband's company. Sex had certainly not come into it—no, there was something else that day… something almost spiritual…

  The revelation hit her with blinding effect. She was in love with her husband… A man who could never love her because of what another woman had done to him, a man cynical and hard where emotion was concerned, a man who ridiculed the possibility of love between a man and a woman.

  'Well, darling, have you made up your mind?' Kelvin's voice came to her as from a distance.

  'Yes,' she whispered in an agony of despair. 'Yes, Kelvin, I have made up my mind. I will ask Luke for a divorce. There is no future for me in a loveless marriage.' In a marriage where love is one-sided, she added, but to herself.

  'You'll not come away with me at once?' Disappointment ran through his tone. 'It would be best, darling, believe me. I don't like to think of your having a scene with your husband.'

  'I must tell him,' she said firmly. 'It wouldn't be fair to leave without a word of explanation.'

  'A note would suffice.'

  'Not for me. It would be shirking.'

  'All right,' he agreed, but with a sigh of regret. 'I have to abide by your decision. When will he be back?'

  'He said in a couple of days, or perhaps three, but he has a lot to do and might be away until the week-end.'

  'And you'll be packed and ready to leave?'

  She nodded, stinging tears at the backs of her eyes. 'Yes, Kelvin, I'll be packed and ready to leave.'

  Chapter Seven

  Luke phoned Martine that evening. She stiffened and closed her eyes, wishing she had not answered his call. 'Are you missing me?' he asked after greeting her. 'What are you doing with yourself?'

  'Oh—er—pottering about.'

  Her voice was stiff and cold and she heard her husband say, 'Something wrong, Martine? You don't sound too happy.'

  'I'm all right. When shall you be back?'

  'I rather think it won't be until Friday or even Saturday.'

  'All right. I'll see you then.' She injected a note of finality into her voice and hoped he would say good night and ring off.

  'There is something the matter,' he asserted. 'You had better tell me what it is.'

  'When you come home, Luke.'

  'Now!' on an imperious note which she strongly resented.

  'It isn't anything we can discuss on the phone.'

  'So it requires a discussion?' Plainly he was puzzled but there was also a touch of anger in his voice as if he were impatient with her refusal to tell him what was wrong.

  'It does, yes. I'm ringing off now, Luke, so I'll say good night.'

  'Martine—wait—'

  She replaced the receiver on its rest, her heart beating far too quickly. Anger rose within her at the knowledge that he could install fear into her from all that distance.

  'I don't know how I'm going to tell him,' she was saying to Kelvin later when they were having dinner in his living-room.

  'Then come away with me tomorrow,' he urged, refilling her glass with the Boutari, a rich Burgundy type wine he had bought in the village along with the ready-made stifado—a meat and onion stew which he merely had to heat up in the oven.

  'You can't leave when you're in the middle of your work here.'

  'I've made copious notes; they could suffice.'

  But Martine shook her head. Unpleasant though the confrontation with her husband might be, she would not dream of shirking it. Anyway, she owed it to him to be there when he came home, and to tell him to his face that she had changed her mind about the marriage and wanted to end it.

  'He'll be back by the week-end,' she said. 'After that I can think of leaving.'

  'You promised me you'd be packed and ready to leave,' Kelvin reminded her, moving the wine bottle to his own glass. 'You'll not go back on your word?'

  'No, Kelvin, you've no need to worry about that.' It was ironical, she thought, that the reason for her decision to leave her husband was not owing to what he had done to Litsa—as Kelvin believed—but because of the revelation that had come to her, the knowledge that she was madly in love with her husband. It was the sure conviction that he would never love her which was the spur to her own action—or her proposed action—in leaving and asking for a divorce.

  'But you won't come away tomorrow, and save yourself the unpleasant meeting with him?'

  'I must do what my conscience tells me is right,' she returned, an unconscious note of apology in her tone.

  He sighed deeply and changed the subject, telling her that he was disappointed by her reluctance to do his typing for him, at which she said she would do it; she would come early in the morning and make a good start.

  'Thanks, darling. You've taken a load off my mind.'

  After a dessert of a cream-filled pastry topped with almonds and honey they had coffee and cognac on the verandah, in the dark because Martine was afraid of being seen.

  'Why afraid?' he wanted to know, going on to remind her that as she was leaving Luke anyway she had nothing to fear from the possibility of his learning that she had dined with the man she intended to marry, once her divorce was through.

  'I'd rather not have him know I've been here,' was all she said. 'And I'd certainly not want him to know I am typing for you.'

  But little did she guess that Luke was to know she was typing for Kelvin, and only a few hours after she had begun. At eleven o'clock the following morning Luke's car slid to a halt before the window of the room in which she was working. She glanced up and gasped, the colour draining from her face. Kelvin was out making a map of the Sanctuary, and for that at least Martine was thankful. But something akin to sheer terror caught at her nerves as she saw the murderous expression on her husband's face as he stalked into the room after having seen her clearly as he alighted from the car.

  'I h
ad an idea I'd find you here,' he almost snarled, moving across the floor with the lithe silence of a tiger. 'What does all this mean? Tell me at once!'

  She stood up, then sat down again for her legs were like jelly beneath her. 'What—I thought—I mean, you said you'd be away until—'

  'I came home because I realised something was wrong!' He glanced towards the door leading to the kitchen. 'Where's that fellow?'

  'Kelvin? H-he's at the Sanctuary—working.'

  'You didn't dine at home last evening,' he rasped. 'You were here—after I'd told you not to see him again—'

  'Luke,' she broke in. 'I don't understand—how could you know I'd be here?'

  'Because I've already been up to the house! I learned that you'd left early this morning, and also that you'd not dined at home last night!'

  Her chin lifted and she assumed a reasonably calm exterior in spite of the fear within her. 'You haven't the right to dictate my actions!' she began, when he interrupted her to say, 'As your husband I have every right to expect you to keep away from other men!'

  'Oh…!' The colour ebbed from her face, leaving it pale with an anger equal to his own. 'Just what are you insinuating?'

  He set his teeth, eyes glaring, a sort of pagan fury and ruthlessness in their depths.

  'Get up from that chair,' he ordered. 'You're coming home with me. I refuse to argue with you here, in someone else's home!'

  At first she knew an instinct to refuse but on scrutinising his face more closely she had the sense to do as she was told. 'I'll write him a note,' she said quietly, wishing her nerves would not act in this erratic manner. If only she could be calm she felt she could cope with what was before her, but the way she felt… Why did she allow herself to be plunged into a state of fear like this? Luke was only a man; he might have the appearance of some Greek god but his powers were limited to what was mortal.

  He stood while she wrote a quick note, then he picked it up and read it. 'You can cross out the last line,' he told her peremptorily, then threw the piece of paper down beside the typewriter. 'You will not "be seeing him soon".'