No one, Charity acknowledged. Just as they had not understood what had driven Faith to rush away from the Arachova house when it was her husband's home, so they would condemn her for going away with Colin.
'You can't make me go!' She hesitated. ''I haven't got my passport with me - and Alexander hasn't got a passport at all.'
'You must think me a fool,' Colin smiled. 'I've been planning this for days, sweet Charity. Nothing is going to go wrong now.'
'If you've put us on your passport, it's illegal!' she
declared.
To her dismay, he only laughed. 'Tell that to passport control!' he mocked her. 'If you can.' 'Wh-what do you mean?'
'You'll see!' He splashed his fingers through the water of the spring, a curious smile on his face. 'Do you mean to go on arguing for the rest of the day, or shall we make the best of things and go and take a look at the view before we go and get ourselves something to eat?'
There didn't seem to be anything else she could do. 'We can't leave Alexander on his own in the car,' she managed.
'Why not? He can sleep there as well as anywhere else and he's too young to do anything else!'
Charity shrugged, more miserable than she ever remembered being. Nothing mattered to her any more. Colin took her by the hand and was immediately irritated by the way ťshe winced away from him.
'It's a good thing I'm not a jealous man, but you'll have to do better than that! Relax, Charity! There's nothing you can do to change things now. I may not be the husband you want, but I'm all you're going to get' He broke off as they came level to the deserted monastery of Kaisarinai. 'Do you want to take a look at that church?' he asked her.
She shook her head.'Idon't want to go anywhere with you!'
'Too bad! Perhaps a little exercise will sweeten you. We'll climb up to the top and see what the view is like.' He pushed her ahead of him up the steep slope where he could keep a watch on her every movement. Charity began to walk, bitterly aware of him coming along behind her. There was nowhere where she could hide from him, and her head ached, making it impossible for her to think clearly.
The stunted shrubs of the mountainside whipped against her legs, tearing her stockings to shreds. She began to name them to herself - anything rather than allow herself to think of Loukos' condemnation of her. There was juniper and ter-
ebinth, and another shrub she didn't recognize though the name cistus kept coming into her mind. It was hard to tell what all the herbs were in winter. Rosemary, thyme, lavender and aromatic sage, she thought she recognized them all. Ovid had mentioned bays and dark myrtles too, but she didn't recognize either of them, nor the thin lucerne and the cultivated pine. Nor was there any sign of the grape hyacinths and the purple spring crocus, on which the famous bees were supposed to feed. But then it was winter now and the monks who had kept the bees had gone away. The city had grown right up to the mountainside and it was hard to remember that once the Athenians had come up here to escape the ravages of the plague during the Turkish occupation.
They went past another little Byzantine church, with Charity still walking a few paces ahead. She wanted to pause, to catch her breath, but the knowledge that Colin was close behind her made her press on to the summit where the slope flattened out into a rather bleak plateau from where she could look down on the whole of Attica and the islands of the Saronic Gulf. That was Loukos' country - and her own by right of marriage! Let Colin do his worst, she would never leave it! Her heart pounded in time to her panting breath, and she knew that it was partly excitement. If she could inveigle Colin into standing very close beside her, she could push him down that slope and be off down the hill, back to the monastery, before he could recover. She turned to him and forced a smile.
'Isn't it marvellous?' she enthused. 'Oh, Colin, thank you for bringing me here! I'm sorry if I was difficult, but I thought you'd gone away and left me, and that hurt - a little. But if you can truly give me Alexander' She allowed her voice to die away, despizing herself for the little scene she was playing.
'I thought the money would talk to you in the end!' He came and stood beside her. 'Loukos looks less attractive to
you all the time, doesn't he?'
She couldn't bring herself to agree, so she looked away from him, right across that magnificent view instead. 'I've always been fond of you,' she began.
He came close. She could feel his breath against her bruised cheek and she hated him. He leaned towards her and she braced herself for the moment when she could tip him off balance. He smiled, and the moment came. She pushed him with all her strength, nearly going with him as he gave her an astonished, hurt look, slipping to his knees. She reached down and pushed him again. It was a defiant, more than an effective gesture, for she had never been par-tricularly strong, but her luck held and he slipped further down the slope, giving her a few extra yards' start in her run for the shelter of the monastery.
The scrubby bushes held her back, laying traps for her feet, and tearing at her clothes, delaying her progress. She kept repeating Loukos' name as if it were some sort of charm to keep her safe as she hurtled on down the steep path. She fell heavily and rolled headlong into a thorny bush, but pulled herself back on to her feet, ignoring her grazed elbows and knees as she pressed on for the bottom.
It was only when the monastery came in sight, the church built in alternating courses of stone and brick which made it instantly recognizeable, that she realized that there was no sign of Colin behind her. She couldn't bring herself to stop and look back up the hill she had just come down, but she changed her mind about hiding in the church as she had first intended and hurried on past the spring to the car and Alexander.
The keys of the car were in Colin's pocket and although she had once seen in a film how to start a car without an ignition key, she was sure that she would never manage such a feat in real life. She pulled open the rear door of the car and reached into the carry-cot for Alexander, overwhelmed with relief to find him safe and still sleeping. She would
leave the carry-cot, she thought, and hope that Colin would not look inside it and find the baby gone. If he thought Alexander was there, he would think that she must be somewhere close by too and would waste time looking for her, whereas she hoped to gain the streets of the suburb of Kaisariani and lose herself amongst the other people of the district.
But she had forgotten that these same streets, which had looked so busy when they had driven through them, would now be deserted for the long lunch hour. No matter where she looked, there was no one to be seen anywhere. She soothed Alexander, who had now woken up and was crying for his food, and wondered what to do next. The depressing certainty that Colin would have reached the car by now and would overtake her at any moment began to obsess her. She could not go on much longer. Her body felt battered and bruised and Alexander grew heavier by the moment. She could cry when she thought how close she had come to escaping Colin. If she were to fail now
She looked up and saw a taxi coming towards her. It was so unexpected that it had almost gone past her before she pulled herself together sufficiently to hail it. It came to a screeching stop beside her, the driver giving her a jaunty look of appreciation that made her more conscious than ever of the state of her clothes and the bruise on her face. With leaden limbs, Charity sank into the back seat and eased Alexander more comfortably on her knee.
'Vasileos Konstantinou,' she murmured to the driver, hoping against hope that he would understand her atrocious accent.
He did not. He smiled encouragingly, winking a knowing eye. 'Pou?'
'Konstantinou,' she repeated. 'The American Embassy, do you know that?' He looked more confused than ever and reached for a map in the pocket in front of him, passing it to her for her to look at. With some difiiculty she found
the right place and his brow cleared as if by magic. It was then that she realized that somewhere on Hymettus she had lost her bag, and she hadn't as much as a penny piece on her. She watched the tariff ticking upwards with a fasci
nated guilt, wondering how she was going to explain it all to the driver.
To add to her trouble, Alexander began to yell. He was hungry and he needed changing, and he was prepared to tell the world all about it in loud, gusty sobs that had no right to be coming from anyone as young as he was. Charity rocked him gendy against her, singing to him softly under her breath, but now that he was fully awake, he was not to be soothed so easily. He pounded his legs back and forth against her, curling his toes in his indignation and beating his hands against the empty air.
'Vasileos Konstantinou,' the taxi-driver announced.
Charity gestured him on, pointing out the block where Loukos' apartment was situated. 'Kyrios Papandreous,' she said hopefully. She pointed to her wedding-ring and then to herself. 'Kyria Papandreous!'
The driver smiled, nodding his head vigorously. 'Hero poli pou sas hnorizo!'
'You don't understand,' Charity said, meaning that she didn't. Her memory for anything she had seen written down was usually good, so she tried desperately to recall something from her Greek phrase book, anything that would help her out now. 'Parakalo perimenete os otou epistrepso,'she experimented. The driver's suspicious look convinced her that she had not said what she had intended. 'This is ghastly!'
'Tha ithela no sas sinodhefso,'he said with decision.
Charity wondered what on earth he had said. She gave him a blank look and started to get out of the car. Her legs hurt and she stumbled and almost fell as she stood up. The taxi-driver got out of the car as well.
'Pou piyenete?'he asked her.
That she thought she did understand. Where was she going? She pointed vaguely upwards. 'Kyrios Papandreous,' she said very slowly.
The man nodded. He reached out and took Alexander from her, getting back into the taxi with the baby in his arms.
'But you can't do that!' she exclaimed.
He held the baby away from him, jerking his head towards the American Embassy. 'Americaniki Presvia,' he said.
Charity despaired, 'But that isn't what I want! I must have the baby! It's going to be awful enough' A great sob shook her and she turned away. If only her head would stop aching and allow her to thinkl'Oh, all right,' she stormed, 'keep him as a hostage, but don't you dare go away until I get back!' After which remarkably silly speech seeing that he hadn't understood one word of it, she burst into tears and ran up the steps and through the great door that guarded the entrance to the block of flats.
The lift whirred upwards and she stumbled out, going over to Loukos' front door with a little rush and pressing the bell with an urgency that hurt her head. She felt sick and had the horrid feeling that she was going to faint, and wasn't anyone ever going to open the door?Supposing they had all gone out? What was she to do?
The door opened a crack and was then flung wide and she found herself in the warm security of Loukos' arms.
'I'm so sorry, Loukos!' she wept. ''I was going to be back by lunchtime, truly 'I was. 'I didn't mean' She gulped, wishing that she could stop crying.
'Slowly, slowly, agapi mou,'he whispered. 'Where have you been?'
She took a deep, shuddering breath. 'With Colin,' she confessed. 'Only, I didn't mean to go with him!' She stole a look at him, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. 'Alexander is in a taxi downstairs,' she said blankly. 'I
hadn't any money to pay the driver, you see, and I couldn't understand what he was saying.'
'Naturally not,' her husband said. 'I shall go downstairs and pay him and Electra will look after Alexander. You will sit down and be fussed over by my mother until I get back. No, no' as she tried to speak again, 'I will hear all about it when I get back, and when you are a little calmer, yes?'
She sniffed and nodded. 'Oh, Loukos, you don't know how sorry I am! I should never have gone out'
He gave her a little push towards the living-room. 'My mother is in there. And, Charity, no more tears!'
Xenia jumped to her feet with a shocked sound when she saw her daughter-in-law..'You must sit down at once!' she bade her, beating the cushions into greater comfort with ineffectual, fluttery movements of her pudgy hands. 'That such dreadful things should happen! I will fetch Electra and she will make tea for us both, and we will not cry any more, because it is not the thing when the men are round. They are not understanding and think it tiresome, no?'
Charity blew her nose and tried to laugh. 'I expect you're right,' she said. 'Oh, my head!'
Xenia put her head on one side and peered at Charity's bruise. 'Has Loukos seen-this?' she demanded. She clicked her tongue, her eyes flashing with indignation, and called out to Electra in a flood of Greek. Electra answered more calmly from the hallway, but she too exclaimed over the darkening patch on Charity's cheek.
'Loukos will not be pleased!' she said tautly.
Charity bit her lip. 'It was all my fault!' she repeated.
'What will not please me?' Loukos asked from the door- way. He put Alexander into Electra's waiting arms and strode across the room towards Charity. He put a hand beneath her chin and turned her face towards him. A muscle flickered by his mouth as he touched the bruise with fingers so gentle that she could hardly feel them.
'Who dared do this to you? Who dared to hurt you so? Was it Colin?'
She winced. 'It - it doesn't matter!' she assured him.
His hand beneath her chin tightened. 'Not matter? When he has hurt you!Do you think such a thing doesn't matter to me? When I have finished with him, he will wish that he had never been born! That I promise you, yinekalHe has me to reckon with now, not a woman who has no man to protect her!'
Charity trembled. She held his hand against her cheek, loving the feel of him. 'It wasn't like Faith. It wasn't! 'I know I shouldn't have gone out' She raised her eyes to his. 'I should have sewn the button on your shirt and then none of this would have happened!'
The anger she expected never dawned. 'This is not a prison, Charity, that you can't go outside the front door'
'But I was upset - and - and angry!'
He touched her hair, smoothing it away from her face. 'What was there to upset you? Because I wouldn't take you to the Acropolis this morning?'
She was shocked that he should think her so unreasonable. 'Oh, Loukos, no!' she protested. 'Only I saw you with Ariadne' She blinked, sure now that he would turn away from her, but his smile held only an amused mockery that set her heart racing. She bit her lip. 'I'm sorry,' she said again.
'Ah yes, Ariadne,' he said thoughtfully. 'You should have more confidence in yourself, my ridiculous wife! But this is not the moment for long explanations about something which does not concern you. I have other things to do!' He bent his head and kissed her hard on the lips. 'No one takes liberties with my woman and gets away with it! He shall pay, and pay in full, for that!'
'Don't hurt him!' Charity begged.
Loukos frowned. 'Do you expect me to be gentle with such a man? I'd like to break his neck!'
'Yes, I know,' Charity said, surprised to discover that she did, and even more surprised to find that she could approve such an attitude. 'But Colin thinks you're terribly rich, and he'll sue you, and I couldn't bear that! That's why he wanted me and Alexander to go to England with him! He -he thinks Alexander inherited a whole lot of money from Nikos - a million pounds!- and that an English court would award me custody. So you see'
'And what was he going to do about your marriage to me?'
Charity blushed. 'He talked about having it annulled. I told him that wasn't - wasn't possible, but he said you'd let me go soon enough when you discovered I was with him. I thought so too,' she added in an undertone.
Loukos gave her a brilliant look. 'That's something else that I intend to put right! Do exactly as my mother tells you and be good! I'll be back as soon as I can be, and I expect to find you looking a lot better than you do now!'
The Tower of the Winds Page 18
