Nights of Rain and Stars

by Maeve Binchy

  The place was not very much more than a big square ringed with cafés and craft shops. Elsa’s blond hair was hard to miss as she bent over some pottery plates in a little shop.

  There was hardly any need for explanations. It was obviously not a coincidence. And Elsa panicked.

  “Anyone looking for me?” she asked urgently. Her eyes looked wild and frightened.

  “No, nobody at all, but we both thought somehow that it would be good if we could all meet again. If you don’t mind, that is?”

  Elsa was reassured by his tone. “Of course, that would be lovely,” she said. “In fact, we were just talking about you, weren’t we, David?”

  “Yes, yes, we wondered where you were today,” David agreed.

  Thomas went straight to the point. “In a way, Elsa, we were hoping that you and Fiona could have a talk. She’s been a bit upset, you see.”

  “I can see that,” David said, looking at the livid red mark on Fiona’s cheek.

  “Next one would have broken her nose,” Thomas said grimly.

  “Well, certainly we’ll have a talk.” Elsa had her hand on Fiona’s arm. “Sorry for immediately thinking it was about me, but I have a few problems, which is why David and I are staying here tonight.”

  “Staying? Staying here?” Fiona and Thomas spoke together, amazed.

  “Sure, it’s a nice place, isn’t it, and there’s a lovely little hotel over there on the other side of the square. We have two rooms. Fiona can share with me and you men can share another room. Is that suitable, do you think?”

  The confident smile was back, and it seemed the most natural thing for four people who hardly knew each other to be having an unexpected mini holiday in a tiny village called Kalatriada. A place that only David had ever heard of. They all agreed that it was very suitable indeed.

  This time yesterday they had barely met.

  Today they were involved in each other’s lives.

  They talked easily about everything. It was as if they were old friends who had grown up in the same neighborhood, rather than four strangers from four different lands. It would not be like last night, when they were all so emotional about the accident and the effect of their phone calls home. Last night, when they had begun to talk intimately as soon as the stars came into the night sky.

  Tonight was different. A storm was coming.

  The family who ran the little hotel seemed to show no surprise at the ill-assorted group of people with no luggage who had turned up so unexpectedly. They all seemed pleasant and easy-going, perhaps a little strained, but then they had been in Aghia Anna, where that terrible tragedy had happened. Maybe they knew people on the boat that had been lost.

  Ireni was the woman who ran the hotel. She looked tired and bent, as she got them towels and a little cake of soap. With warm but weary smiles, she appeared to do all the cleaning and cooking while three men sat playing a board game in the corner. Not one of them helped her.

  “A lot of work to be done by the women’s movement here in this house, I’d say,” Elsa whispered to Fiona as they went upstairs to claim their room.

  “You could probably start with me, Elsa,” Fiona said humbly. “You don’t need to look much further than me to see a victim.”

  Elsa’s face was full of sympathy. “Sleep for a little,” she urged. “Everything is better after a couple of hours’ sleep.”

  “I want to tell you about him, and why he does what he does,” Fiona began.

  “No, you don’t. You want to hear me say you’re perfectly right to go back to him, and that he didn’t mean it.”

  Fiona’s eyes opened wide.

  “Maybe I will say that, but not now, Fiona. You are too tired and upset to hear anything at all. Rest now. We’ll talk later. There’s all the time in the world.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll sit here and look at the mountains,” Elsa said.

  To her amazement, Fiona felt her eyelids become heavy, and soon she was breathing deeply.

  Elsa sat in the little cane chair and watched the shadows come down over the valley. There was rain tonight, covering the blanket of stars.

  “Do you play chess, Thomas?” David asked.

  “Badly,” Thomas admitted.

  “Me too, but I have a little chess set. Would you care for a game . . . no expectations of high standards.”

  The boy looked strained, but he didn’t look as if he wanted to confide or talk. Chess could be a substitute.

  They set up a little table by the window, and as the night shadows fell and the downpour began, they played chess together happily.

  Ireni knocked on both bedroom doors.

  They could not eat out-of-doors, too much rain, but they could sit inside and see the square in Kalatriada, she said. She made no comment about the bruise on Fiona’s face.

  They all came down to the table with the red and green check cover. And with the background of old men clicking dice and counters from the backgammon game in the corner, they all began to eat the kebabs and salad that Ireni proudly produced for them.

  “Orea,” David said. “Poly poly kala.”

  Ireni’s tired face smiled a big toothless smile. She might only be forty, Elsa thought, less even.

  It was no life here for Ireni, but she was surrounded by the people she knew and liked, and now four guests were praising the simple food and saying it was beautiful.

  Once Elsa had been so sure and confident about everything. She would have known what was wrong with Ireni’s life. Now she was not so sure.

  Possibly it was better for Ireni to live here in this beautiful village between the mountains and the sea. One of those men at the backgammon tables might be her husband, another her father.

  There were children’s clothes flapping on the line. She probably had a family, little children who knew everyone in the village. There was a case to be made that she might be much better off here than if she had gone, like Andreas’s son, looking for brighter lights in Chicago.

  Elsa sighed. It had been much easier when things had been certain. Once, Elsa would have urged Fiona to look hard at Shane and realize that he would never love her, and was probably incapable of loving anyone. She would have said that although no woman should advise another in these circumstances, Fiona should consider all aspects of carrying Shane’s child to term. But nowadays Elsa was not at all certain about what was the right thing for anyone to do.

  She realized that she had been daydreaming and dragged herself back to the conversation at the table. She had come away to clear her mind, not to sit confused and brooding as she had a few weeks ago in her apartment, until she bought her ticket to Athens.

  She must pay attention and not allow herself to drift off like this again. Thomas was talking about his landlady.

  “She’s a real character, Vonni, been here for years apparently, she never talks about herself, but speaks Greek like a native. She knows this place Kalatriada well, she said, she comes every few weeks or so to buy pottery to sell in her craft shop.”

  “She’s from Ireland, Andreas told me yesterday,” Fiona said. “I was thinking about her only today . . . you know, if she could stay here, maybe I could too.” Her small, pale face looked very sad.

  “Did she come here with anyone, do you think?” Elsa wanted to inject some reality back into it before Fiona started living in some fantasy world where she and Shane might raise a family here in the purple Greek mountains.

  Thomas didn’t know. He told them that although Vonni was so open and friendly, you didn’t ask her questions.

  David had been in Vonni’s craft shop and talked to her. She had chosen a good range of items, he thought . . . She had to walk that difficult line between stocking touristy things for visitors and good taste. “I really like the fact that she didn’t seem obsessed by money, and I wouldn’t say she has much,” David said.

  “No, I think she’s fairly pushed for a living,” Thomas agreed. “She teaches English, and she sleeps in a sort of shed out ba
ck so that she can let me rent her place.”

  “How old is she?” Elsa asked.

  “Fifty to sixty,” David said.

  “Forty to fifty,” Thomas said at the same time.

  They all laughed.

  “Well, so much for dressing ourselves up to please men,” Elsa said with a wry smile.

  “No, Vonni doesn’t dress up, she wears a T-shirt and a colored skirt, and open sandals. I don’t expect she ever wore makeup.” Thomas was thoughtful. “It’s oddly restful somehow.” He seemed miles away, as if thinking of some other woman who did dress up and applied a lot of makeup regularly.

  “Do you fancy her then, this restful woman of uncertain age?” Elsa teased him.

  “No, not remotely, but she does interest me. I called her before dinner tonight in case she saw no lights in her place and wondered if I had disappeared on her.”

  “That was thoughtful of you,” Fiona said in wonder. It wasn’t the kind of thing Shane would have thought of.

  “She told us not to dream of getting a taxi again, that we should take the bus from the square. One leaves every two hours. I told her that I thought we would all probably go back tomorrow for the funeral. I checked that we wouldn’t be in the way. She told me that it would be appreciated. Is that okay with everyone?”

  “It’s fine with me,” David said.

  “Yes, and I can go to the police station and talk to Shane,” Fiona said eagerly. “He will be so sorry and upset by now, now that he’s had time to think it all through.”

  The others didn’t meet her eye.

  Elsa was the only one who hadn’t spoken.

  “Elsa?” Thomas spoke gently.

  “I might just stay on here for a couple of days, you know, I could join you all later.”

  It seemed to need an explanation. She hesitated and then decided to speak. “It’s a little bit awkward, you see. I’m trying to avoid someone, and I would prefer to hide out a little until he has gone away.”

  She looked at three blank faces. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s just the way things are. I ran away from Germany, from my friends, from a good job that I loved . . . just to get away from him. It would be stupid to meet up with him again in a tiny place like Aghia Anna.”

  “And you are certain he’s there?” Thomas asked gently.

  “Yes, that’s why I ran away with David.” She looked at David gratefully.

  “We could all keep him away from you.” David was busy living up to his heroic role in all this.

  “We could tell Georgi, you know, the brother of Andreas . . . He would warn him off if he tried to stalk you or harass you.” Thomas was reassuring.

  “No, it’s not that, I’m not afraid of him, I’m afraid of myself, that I might go back to him and then all this, all the business of coming here, would have been such a waste of time.” Her lip was trembling. Elsa, the cool, confident Elsa. They were amazed.

  “I’d stay with you, Elsa,” Fiona began. “Only I have to go to the police station and check about Shane.”

  “You don’t have to, Fiona, you just want to,” Elsa said.

  “Well, I love him. You must understand that.” Fiona was stung by this remark. “Seriously, Elsa . . . you have to be in love with this fellow, otherwise you wouldn’t be so afraid of meeting him.”

  Thomas intervened. It was getting too serious between the women. “We’ve all had a long day. Suppose we meet here for breakfast at eight. We could get the nine o’clock bus . . . those of us who want to go. Is that okay?” He had a gentle voice, but from years of teaching students he had a sense of authority. They realized he was right, and started to move.

  “Just a moment,” Elsa said. “I’m very sorry, Fiona, I was rude to you, you have every right to go and see the man you love. And I apologize for putting my own selfish affairs before other people’s tragedy. Of course I’ll come to the funeral with you, and I would be delighted to have the protection of kind friends like you.” She looked from one to the other, her eyes very bright indeed, as if the smile were hiding a lot of tears.

  SIX

  In the holding cell at the back of the police station, Shane sat with his head in his hands. He needed a cold beer very badly, but he was highly unlikely to get one from that ignorant Greek policeman, the brother of the tiresome Andreas up in the taverna.

  Where was Fiona? He would have thought that she would be here by now. He could send her down to the fish bar at the harbor to get him three cold cans. Of course he would have to do the sorry sorry bit, explaining of course that he had been so upset by the way she had sprung things on him, he couldn’t help his reaction. He banged the plate, which had held hard bread, against the door.

  Georgi pulled back the shutter and peered in. “Yes?”

  “My girlfriend. I’m sure she’s been to see me, have you kept her away from me? You can’t get away with this, you know, people in custody have a right to see family and next of kin.”

  Georgi shrugged. “Nobody came.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Nobody came.” Georgi began to move away.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that I didn’t believe you, exactly, it’s just that, you see, we are very close and I expected . . .” His voice trailed away.

  “It didn’t look as if you were very close yesterday,” Georgi said.

  “No, you don’t understand, we have a very passionate relationship, naturally it explodes from time to time.”

  “Endaxi,” Georgi said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means right or okay or whatever you say.” Georgi moved off.

  “Where is she?” Shane cried.

  “I heard she left Aghia Anna yesterday,” Georgi called over his shoulder.

  “I don’t believe you,” Shane shouted.

  “Believe what you like, I was told she took a taxi and left the place.”

  Shane sat there in disbelief. It couldn’t be true. Fiona would never leave without him.

  “Kalimera sas, Georgi, you look worried.” Vonni stopped to lean on the wall of the police station.

  “Well, we have all these crowds of cameramen trampling on everyone for the funeral, the station is full of accident investigators and insurance officials, I have eleven different reports to compile, and I have this young pup in a cell. I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “The boy who hit the Irish girl?” Vonni asked. Nothing happened that she didn’t know about.

  “Yes. I wish he were hundreds of miles from here.”

  “Well, export him.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what we used to do in Ireland years ago, if some tearaway was causing trouble, the judge or the guards would say that if he was on the mail boat to England that night, no further action would be taken.”

  Georgi smiled in disbelief.

  “No, it’s true. Terrible thing to do to England, send our dregs over there, but we thought, well, England is bigger, it can cope.”

  “I see.”

  “Suppose you put him on the eleven o’clock boat to Athens. Seriously, Georgi, he’d be out of here before the funeral starts. It would be a relief to everyone.”

  “And indeed Athens is big enough to cope with him.” Georgi stroked his face thoughtfully.

  Vonni’s lined, tanned face broke into its wide smile. “True, Georgi, Athens is well big enough,” she agreed.

  “You can’t order me off the island,” Shane said.

  Georgi looked at him with no pleasure. Georgi was in fact worn out, he had slept hardly at all with all the formalities that had to be concluded before the bodies were released for burial. He had not believed that there could be such red tape and bureaucracy involved.

  “Take it or leave it. We have no time to deal with you now. Locked up here until next week, then a prosecution, maybe jail. That’s on the one hand. On the other, you get a free trip to Athens. You choose, you have ten minutes.”

  “What about my things?” Shane asked
.

  “One of my boys will drive you past Eleni’s house. You can pack your rucksack and be on the boat at ten thirty.”

  “I’m not ready to go yet.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Georgi, turning to leave the cell.

  “No, wait a minute. Come back. I think I’ll go.”

  Georgi ushered him out to the police van. He got in sulkily. “Bloody strange way of running a country,” he said.

  Back in Eleni’s house, he noticed that Fiona’s things were still in the room. “I thought you said she had gone away.”

  Eleni explained in Greek that the girl would be back that day.

  The young policeman knew better than to translate. His boss wanted this violent boy aboard the eleven A.M. ferry and out of his jurisdiction. No point in delaying things because that foolish girl was coming back, and it wasn’t as if he had been asking much about her anyway.

  He watched while Shane stuffed his clothes into his bag. He made no attempt to pay Eleni for the room. He didn’t even say good-bye as he left in the police van.

  The bus from Kalatriada wound its way through the little hill villages as it headed slowly toward Aghia Anna. Old women in black got on and off, saluting everyone. Some of them carried vegetables which they might be going to sell at a market; one woman had two hens. A young man played the bouzouki.

  At one stage they stopped at a wayside shrine with a statue of Mary the Mother of God. Bunches of flowers had been laid around it.

  “This is amazing,” Thomas said. “It looks as if it was all set up by Central Casting somehow.”

  “Yes, or the Greek Tourist Board,” Elsa agreed.

  But apart from that they said little. They were all lost in their own thoughts and concerns about the day that lay ahead of them.

  Elsa wondered what the odds would have been against Dieter and his television team turning up in this tiny village where she had run to flee from him.

  Fiona hoped that Shane would feel much calmer now. Perhaps she could persuade that nice old man Andreas to put in a word for Shane, maybe they would let him out for the funeral.