The Tower of the Winds

by Elizabeth Hunter

  She went into Alexander's room and he stopped crying, gurgling contentedly up at her.

  'It was you who began all this!' she told him tearfully. 'Are you coming with me, or are you going to stay?'

  The baby waved his fat little hands in the air and looked as though he might be sick again.

  'You've no choice,' Charity muttered, wiping his face for him. 'I can't leave you here on your own all morning!'

  She was still crying when she picked up the baby and transferred him to his carry-cot. She struggled into her coat, her eyes misted over with her tears, and went out of the flat, slamming the door behind her. She hadn't even got a key, she thought disconsolately, so she couldn't go back even if she wanted to, for nothing would make her ring the bell and interrupt Loukos' idyll with Ariadne! She pushed the carry-

  cot ahead of her into the lift, making Alexander cry with fright as his mattress landed on the floor.

  'Oh, shut up!' she begged him. 'Please, Alexander! I want to spend the day with him just as much as you do, but we can't!' The carry-cot was heavier than she had expected and she was so busy crying that she couldn't see what she was doing. She had no idea where she was going and she didn't care! She grasped the handles more securely and stepped out of the lift, almost running as she hurried out into the street and the fitful sunlight, and straight into Colin's outstretched arms.

  'How's that for timing?' He took the cot from her and smiled at her. 'I was just wondering if I should come up and take a chance on your being alone. They told me at the hotel you'd moved out from there.'

  Charity nodded, unable to say anything at all. She accepted his kiss with a frozen dignity and wished he would go away. Couldn't he see that she was perfectly miserable and that the last person she wanted to see was Colin Anderson? But he obviously saw nothing of the kind!

  'I've got a car round the corner,' he went on, sounding very sure of himself. 'I thought we might fill in the time by having a picnic. It isn't exactly hot, but at least the sun is shining. Will that suit you?'

  Charity shrugged her shoulders. She might as well, she thought. She had nothing better to do. 'Where will we go?' she asked.

  'How about Hymettus, where the honey comes from? You look as though you could do with something to sweeten your life right now, and I'm just the man to supply it!'

  Charity was immediately intrigued. 'Oh yes, do let's!' she exclaimed. 'The Greeks believed that the very first bees in the world came from there. Do you think it can be true?'

  Colin shivered elaborately. 'We'll be lucky if we see a bee today! They'll be hibernating, or whatever bees do in the winter.'

  'They filled Plato's mouth with Hymettus honey at birth,' she said. 'I wonder if Alexander would like some.'

  ''I think one Plato is all the world can stand,' Colin answered. 'What have you been crying about?' he added on much the same note.

  'I was just being silly!'

  He turned her round to face him, swinging the carry-cot against her legs and making her cry out. 'Did you play Loukos along as I told you to? I see you're looking after the child, which is mightily convenient for us, but what made you move into Loukos' apartment? I thought you'd be more careful of your reputation than that!'

  'But I told you I was going to marry him—' 'You're going to marry me!' he bit out. 'It's all part of the plan!'

  'But I can't!' Her eyes widened as she saw the blind rage on his face and she was suddenly afraid. 'Colin - it can't matter to you! You never really wanted to marry me!'

  He took her by the arm and forcibly marched her round the corner to where he had left his hired car. 'Get in!' he commanded. 'We can't talk about it here!'

  Charity struggled feebly against him. 'But, Colin, I have to tell you - I'm married to him! I married him yesterday!'

  He let go her arm and she rubbed the place where he had held her, not looking at him. 'Get in!' he repeated. 'But there's no point—'

  He raised his hand and slapped her hard. Her head snapped back and hit the roof of the car with a resounding crack. 'Get in! You may have married him, but I'm not going to let you spoil all my plans! You can get an annulment, my dear Charity, and like it!'

  'I won't!' she said.

  'Oh, for heaven's sake, get in the car! Or do you want a bit more of the strong-arm stuff?'

  She put a hand up and felt the side of her face where she

  had hit the car. It was already swollen and throbbing painfully. 'But why, Colin? Why?'

  He pulled open the front door and gestured her to sit down quickly. He slammed the door after her, catching her skirt in the door and tearing it. With an equal lack of care he tossed Alexander's carry-cot on the back seat and climbed into the driver's seat. He had never driven well, but Charity had never known him drive as badly as he did when he set the car in motion and drove out into the traffic, ignoring the maelstrom of vehicles that whirled about him, blowing their horns and shaking their fists at him.

  'Please, Colin, I want to go home!'

  'You will, my dear. I've booked all three of us on the evening flight to Paris, and on to London in the morning.'

  'I mean home to Loukos!' Charity gulped.

  'His home will never be yours!'

  But it already was! Charity tried to ease her aching head by holding it with her hand, but it went on throbbing just the same. ''I won't go back to England with you! I won't go anywhere with you! I can't think what's got into you. I told you I was marrying Loukos—'

  ''I thought it better to play along with the idea until I'd made all my plans. Besides, I never thought he'd actually marry you. A bit of fun maybe, but one Archer had already antagonized his family without his marrying another one of them. He was pretty clear when he spoke to me that he wasn't going to let you get your hands on Alexander!'

  'That was when he thought I might marry you!'

  Colin smiled without humour. 'I know that! He likes me as little as I do him! I could have laughed all the time he was talking to me. He suspected that I knew about the money, of course, but he couldn't prove it no matter how he tried to make me give myself away! I've been busy checking up on him ever since.'

  'Oh no!' Charity protested.

  'What's the matter, my sweet? Don't you want a share of

  a million pounds?' 'No!'

  Of course you do! And it's just sitting there, waiting for us to pick it up. I could have kissed you when you walked out of that door this morning and handed me the carry-cot and a million quid with it!'

  ''I don't believe it!'

  His eyes slid over her. 'Why not?'

  'You forget, I saw where Nikos and Faith had been living in Arachova. When Nikos gave up work, he gave up all claim to the family fortune. He must have done! No one would have chosen to live in a house like that if they didn't have to!'

  'Rubbish, my dear. Nikos didn't leave a will, but his fortune went straight to Alexander and none of the family is contesting it. Forty million drachmas, to be exact! We may not like each other very much, but I think that will hold us together, don't you?'

  'Alexander's money?'

  'Our money. Once we've got him to England there isn't a court in the land that won't give you custody of your sister's son. He needs a woman's care at his age!'

  Charity laughed shortly. 'I don't believe for a minute that Alexander has any money, but even if he has, do you imagine that I would touch a penny of it?'

  'You will, sweetie, you will, just as you'll get on that plane this evening. You'll do it, because you'll be too afraid not to!'

  Judging by the way her head ached, she thought he meant what he said. She felt awful! And somehow she had to think of some way of getting away from Colin. It wouldn't be easy with Alexander, and with Colin himself watching her every step of the way. The only thing she could do was to try and lull him into a false sense of security about her. It went against the grain to talk to him at all, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to make a start.

  'As long as I have Alexander—'

  Coli
n gave a triumphant shout. 'Not as deeply in love with your Greek as you thought, are you? Isn't it marvellous what a million pounds will do!'

  'Isn't it?' she said dryly.

  Colin took his hand off the steering-wheel and patted her knee. 'It won't be half as bad as you think!' he comforted her. 'Let's talk about it later, Charity. We have the whole afternoon in front of us. Shall we enjoy our picnic first?'

  She nodded listlessly. She opened her handbag and took out a comb, looking at her face in the small glass of her powder compact. Her cheek was badly swollen and already discoloured to a dirty shade of black-brown. She thought that by the morrow she would have a black eye as well - and what would Loukos say to that? She sniffed, trying to hold back the tears that the mere thought of Loukos threatened to release. Supposing he thought she had gone willingly with Colin? What would she do then? He would never forgive her, never! And she didn't blame him! She would have been much better employed sewing on the button on his shirt!

  The road to Hymettus went through the working class suburb of Kaisariani, which had earned the nickname of the 'Stalingrad of Greece' as one of the chief Communist strongholds in the rebellion of 1944. Charity stared dully out of the window, wondering about the people who lived there now. If Electra's son, Dimitri, ever came back to Greece, was that where he would choose to live? Or would he now feel a foreigner in his homeland, speaking another language, and living all his life away from home? Perhaps he would feel as bewildered as she felt by Greece? Perhaps he would come to love it just as she did? She gave herself a little mental shake, because if she began to think about Greece, she would start thinking about Loukos, and how much she loved him. If only she had not seen him and Ariadne together, she would still be comfortably in his apartment, waiting for him to come to her. But now he would

  think her another Faith, rushing out of the house because her feelings had been hurt in just the way her sister had. It would serve her right if he neverforgave her!

  The suburb gave way to a small green valley folded into the side of the smooth-topped mountain. There were a number of cypress, plane, and olive trees adding their different greens to the pretty scene. Looking back to Athens, one could see literally hundreds of cream-coloured buildings, all of them similar in design and all of them built in the last few years in an attempt to come to terms with the exploding population of the city.

  Colin pointed up the valley to a large plane tree. ''I thought we'd have our picnic up there,' he said. ''I came up here the other day and thought it would appeal to you. There's a spring there.'

  ''I know,' Charity said.

  Colin threw her a quick look of concern. 'Have you been here before?' he demanded.

  'No. I read about it. That's the funny thing about Greece, wherever one goes one of them was there before one, way back, probably some timeB.C.,and it's hardly changed at all. It gives one a funny feeling!'

  'I'd give up reading, if I were you!' Colin advised.

  'But I want to know!' Charity retorted before she had thought what she was saying. 'It's all part of Loukos, you see—'

  Colin turned on her angrily. 'Can't you talk about anything else? If you mention him again, I'll - I'll—'

  'Yes? What will you do? Hit me again?'

  'I didn't mean to hurt you,' he said sourly. 'You've always been stubbornly unreasonable about the things that matter!'

  'Like money?'

  He shrugged his shoulders, looking like a hurt small boy. 'I thought you'd like it up here. You haven't even looked at that litde monastery over there, and I thought you liked that

  sort of thing.'

  ''I do,' Charity said.

  'Well then, why do you have to keep talking about Loukos Papandreous?'

  Charity got out of the car and walked up the valley towards the spring - a fertility spring, she remembered. Would it work for her? She trembled at the thought of bearing Loukos' child and put it hastily out of her mind. It was water, and it would do to bathe her face in. She heard Colin's footsteps behind her, but she made no effort to turn round. It was bliss to feel the cool fluid on her throbbing head, and he would just have to wait until she was finished.

  'Are you in love with him?' he asked her.

  ''I thought you didn't want to talk about him,' she said. 'You know, Colin, this place is exactly as Ovid described it, except for the monastery, of course. But he called them the purple, flowery hills of Hymettus, and this a sacred spring, and ground soft with green turf. Even Pindar called Athens the violet-crowned citadel of the gods. Hymettus must have meant a great deal to them, don't you think?'

  'And Loukos Papandreous is an Athenian!'

  'Yes.'

  'And you're in love with him?'

  She straightened up. 'Hadn't you better fetch Alexander?' she suggested pleasantly. 'I hope you've brought some milk for him. He's a little young for anything else.'

  ''I didn't bring anything, if you must know!' Colin almost shouted at her, his voice tinged with desperation. 'I thought we could find a restaurant somewhere, after I'd brought you here. ' thought you'd think this a sufficiently romantic place to listen to my plans for our future together, but you're in love with that Greek fellow, aren't you?'

  'Yes, I am,' Charity said.

  Colin clenched his fists. 'It doesn't make any difference! I'm not going to give up a million pounds now that I've

  come this close to it! You may have married him, but you'll have to get an annulment. It shouldn't be hard, seeing that it's only a convenience so that you can look after Alexander at no cost to him!'

  'Is that what you think?' she asked in light, amused tones. 'How little you know about either of us!'

  Colin flushed angrily. 'What do you mean?'

  'What do you suppose I mean?' She stared at him across the water, raising her eyebrows in mute inquiry. 'Can you imagine Loukos marrying for any other reason?'

  'And you let him? How could you, Charity? I told you I'd be back in a few days and that it would all be all right then. Whatever made you marry him?'

  Charity gave him an exasperated glance. 'Because he asked me to! Besides,' she added, ''I wanted to - very much! I'm proudto be his wife!'

  Colin's lip curled. 'I'm surprised you can stomach being called Mrs. Papandreous!'

  Charity's heart jerked within her. Was she really that? 'I like it,' she said with a certainty that surprised her as much as it surprised Colin. 'And I have no intention of getting an annulment, even if I could, but I'm glad to say that there's no chance of that. So what are you going to do now, Colin Anderson? Take me home to my husband?'

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  'Oh no, Miss Archer, I'm not letting you and the money get away from me as easily as that—'

  'I'm not Miss Archer any longer,' Charity said proudly. She tossed back her head in a very creditable imitation of the gesture she had once seen Loukos use. 'I'm Mrs. Papandreous !'

  'Not for long, sweetie. Not for long!'

  Charity strove to retain her air of calm certainty, but inwardly she was not at all sure. 'You can't undo my marriage!' she exclaimed.

  ''I shan't have to,' Colin assured her. 'Loukos will do that for me. You know that as well as I do, don't you? He has the pride of the devil! What will he have to say at your running round the countryside with me? Have you thought of that? Oh no, my pet, once I have you on that plane, I shan't have to worry any more about your marriage! He'll cast you off quicker than he changes his shirt! And after Faith's disastrous challenge against the Papandreous authority, who will believe you when you say you didn't want to go with me?'