by Maeve Binchy
It would have been so simple for him to scribble her a note and leave it here even if he didn’t want to do it at the police station. She felt light-headed. But she steeled herself in front of the kindly Eleni, whose face was sympathetic and pitying. Then she felt a hot wet sensation on her thighs.
It must be sweat. It was such a hot day.
But as she looked down at her sandals she knew only too well what it was. And Eleni knew too as she saw the blood.
The Greek woman helped her to a chair. “Ela Ela Ela,” she said and ran for towels.
“Eleni, could you find Vonni for me, please? Vonni, you know?” She said “Vonni” over and over to make Eleni understand her.
“Ksero Vonni? Yes, I know Vonni,” Eleni said and shouted down to the children.
Fiona closed her eyes. Vonni would be here soon and would know what to do.
Vonni was sitting opposite Thomas in the apartment over the craft shop.
“I’ve told you before, I’m telling you again, you are paying me an enormous number of Euro, so this is your place. Because of you I am a rich woman, I will not take your pity and sleep in your house.”
“Have you no concept of friendship, Vonni?” he asked.
“I think I have, but then we all think that.”
“Then apply it here. I am asking you not as my landlady but as my friend to sleep in that little room you decorated so beautifully, sleep there, not where chickens are crapping all over you.”
Vonni pealed with laughter. “Oh, Thomas, you are so Californian, so hygienic. There are no chickens crapping on me. A couple of hens in a different part of the building, certainly.”
“Stay in that room, Vonni, please. I hate my own company. I’m lonely. I need someone in the place.”
“Oh, come on, Thomas, you love peace and time to yourself. You are a sensitive man. Don’t offer me charity. Please.”
“You are a sensitive woman. Don’t throw my offer of friendship right back in my face. Please.”
Just at that moment they heard children shouting something urgently up the staircase.
“I must go” she said, standing up.
He reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Vonni, you are not going anywhere unless you agree to what I offer. Do you hear me?”
“I hear, I agree,” she said to his surprise.
“Good. Well, then, okay, you can go.”
“Come with me if you like, you can help, get us a taxi from the square.” To his even greater surprise she snatched some towels from his bathroom and ran down the steps to talk in Greek to two little boys.
“What’s happening?” he asked as he ran after her.
“What’s happening is . . . that with any luck Fiona is losing the baby of that little shit who beat her up, but that’s not exactly how we are going to phrase it when we get there.”
Thomas ran for a taxi and Vonni bundled Eleni’s two little sons into the backseat, congratulating them for having found her. A taxi ride was a rare treat and they were beaming with pleasure.
Thomas had been about to ask if he was really necessary on this particular expedition. But he realized Vonni would not have asked him to come unless she thought so. So he smiled at her and climbed in after her.
“Life is never going to be uneventful with my new roommate,” he said.
“Good man yourself, Thomas,” she said with a huge, wide smile.
They asked the taxi to wait in case they might need him to go to the doctor’s. Thomas stayed downstairs watching the little boys play and make occasional journeys to stroke the car in which they had traveled. They were not very much younger than his boy, Bill, who had traveled in a car since he could remember. How different people’s lives were.
Vonni had gone upstairs and he could hear the women’s voices as they spoke in English and Greek. From what he could make out, Fiona would be all right.
Then Vonni came down and reassured him. “She’s going to be fine, she’s lost some blood but she’s a nurse after all and she’s a sensible little thing about everything except that fool. She thinks he’ll be upset when he hears. God protect us! Anyway, I’ll ask the doctor to have a look at her, give her some medication.”
“Is she all right staying here?”
“I don’t think so, they don’t speak English in any real sense . . . What I was thinking . . . ,” Vonni began.
“That she might come and stay with us . . .” Thomas interrupted.
“No, not that at all. I was going to suggest she spend a couple of days with Elsa, the German girl.”
Thomas shook his head. “I think Elsa’s a bit tied up in her own affairs just now, better if she comes to us,” he said.
“You might find she’s not tied up anymore,” Vonni said.
“But . . .”
“I hear her German friend left on the eight A.M. ferry,” Vonni said.
“I imagine she must be very upset, then.” Thomas was pessimistic.
“No, I think it was her doing, but we needn’t necessarily say that we know all this,” Vonni suggested.
“I expect you know where she lives,” Thomas said, smiling.
“I know the apartment building, but perhaps you could take the taxi that’s outside and ask her?”
“Would I be the right person?” He was doubtful.
“Nobody better. I’ll wait here until you come back.”
He turned around and looked behind. He could see Vonni staggering out with sheets and towels she was going to wash there and then.
What an extraordinary woman! He wished he knew more about her, but he knew she would reveal very little and then only when she wanted to.
“Vonni?”
“You’re all right.”
Fiona held out her hand. “I wanted to say sorry for all the trouble, the blood, the mess, everything.”
“It doesn’t matter a bit, you know that. You of all people, a nurse, know about cleaning up, it’s of no importance. What is important is that you are all right, that you recover and get strong again . . .”
“I don’t care if I do or not.”
“Terrific,” Vonni said.
“What?”
“That’s terrific. Eleni and I are both worried sick about you, she sent her sons to find me. Thomas took us all here in a taxi, he’s gone to find Elsa to ask if you can stay in her house, we have sent for Dr. Leros, who is coming to see you here—everyone who has met you, and even people who haven’t, care about you, but you, you don’t care. Great!”
“I don’t mean that. I meant it’s not really important to me what happens now. It’s all over, I’ve lost everything, that’s what I meant.” She looked wretched.
Vonni pulled up a chair beside her. “Very soon Dr. Leros will be here. He’s a kind man, a real old family doctor person. But you are not meeting him at his best, Fiona. His heart is broken over the funeral, and having to pronounce dead young men whom he delivered into this world. He has been stumbling for hours talking as best he can in English and German to the families of the foreigners who died here, telling them that their loved ones did not suffer much. He doesn’t want to hear that a perfectly healthy young girl who has had a miscarriage at a very early stage doesn’t care if she lives or dies. Believe me, Fiona, this is not the time to tell him this. Of course it’s sad, of course you are upset, but think of other people as you have done all your life as a nurse, as you do about that fellow you claim to love. I will always be here. You can tell me how you may want to die, but don’t tell Dr. Leros, not today. He has been through just as much as you have.”
Fiona was sobbing. “I’m sorry. It’s just that everyone says Shane was awful, they’ll say this was all for the best. It’s not all for the best, Vonni, truly it isn’t. I would have been happy to have his child, I would have loved to have his son or daughter. Now it’s all gone.”
Vonni held her hand and stroked it. “I know, I know,” she said meaninglessly, over and over.
“You don’t think it was all for the best?”
“Of course I don’t! Losing what was on its way to being a person is terrible. I’m so sorry for you. But if the child had lived, you would have had to be strong; all I am saying is that you still have to be strong. And you have friends here. You are not alone. Elsa will be here before too long.”
“Oh no, why should she take me in, she has her own life, her own fellow, she thinks I was weak to love Shane in spite of everything. She won’t want anything to do with me.”
“Mark my words, she will,” said Vonni. “And I hear Dr. Leros arriving.”
“I’ll remember what you said,” Fiona said.
“Good girl.” Vonni nodded approvingly.
Eleni’s little boys had never known such a day. A trip in a taxi, people coming and going, sheets and towels being pinned on the line in great numbers to wave in the sunshine. The tall American man with the funny trousers had brought them a big watermelon to share when he came back the second time.
“Karpouzi!” he had said proudly as if delighted that he knew the name of something so ordinary as a melon. They went behind the house and ate it all, then planted the seeds in the earth.
The American man, who was waiting near the taxi until the women came down, watched them with a pleased expression on his face. Then the woman who had been sick came down with Vonni and their mother and the smart woman in a yellow dress who looked like a film star. Dr. Leros was with them, and he kept saying the sick woman was fine but she must rest.
The sick woman’s bag had been packed for her, so she must be leaving for good. She kept talking about money, and their mother kept shaking her head.
Eventually the man with the mad trousers who must be a millionaire, traveling all day in a taxi, insisted their mother take some notes, and then they were all gone.
Except Vonni, who sat down to have coffee with their mother, but there was something about their faces that made it clear small boys weren’t welcome at the kitchen table.
“I’ll only stay a couple of days until I get myself together,” Fiona promised when she saw the beautiful apartment that Elsa had.
“I’ll be glad of your company,” Elsa assured her as she took out Fiona’s clothes from the canvas bag, shook them, and hung them up. “There’s an iron here; we can get all domestic later on.”
Fiona looked at Elsa’s cream linen dress and navy jacket drying on hangers out on the balcony.
“Aren’t you disciplined, Elsa. That’s what you were wearing at the funeral yesterday, and look, you have it all laundered already.”
“I’ll never wear either of them again, but I wanted to give them away to someone so I washed them first,” Elsa said calmly.
“But, Elsa, that’s your best outfit. It must have cost a fortune! You just can’t give it away!” Fiona was aghast.
“Try it on later and if it fits you, Fiona, and suits you, then you are more than welcome to it. I’m never putting it on again.”
Fiona lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes. It was all too much to take in.
“I’m going to sit and read; it’s too hot outside so I’ll be here in the room with you. Try to sleep if you can, but if you want to talk, then I’m here.”
“There’s not much to talk about now, honestly, is there?” Fiona spoke in a small voice.
“You might feel like it later.” Elsa’s smile was warm. She pulled a curtain to darken the room.
“Will you be able to read in the dark?” Fiona asked.
“Sure. There’s a nice beam of light coming in here.” Elsa settled in a chair by the window.
“Did you meet him, Elsa?” Fiona asked.
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“And are you glad you did?”
“Well, it was just to say good-bye, really. It had to be said. It wasn’t easy but it’s finished now. What is it you say . . . onwards and upwards?”
“Dead easy to say, but not to do.” Fiona’s voice sounded sleepy. The sedative was beginning to work. Soon she was asleep, breathing regularly.
Elsa looked at her as she slept. She must be about twenty-three or twenty-four, and looked even younger. Hadn’t it all been a great mercy. But Elsa had heeded well Vonni’s whispered advice that whatever she said she must not even hint that it had all been for the best.
Thomas had worked out when best to call his son Bill. It would be when the boy was having breakfast. He dialed the number wondering what the chances were that he would get straight through to his son. Three to one probably, or maybe the odds were stacked even more against him, since he couldn’t expect a child to answer the phone when there were two adults there.
As it happened it was Andy. “Well, hi, Thomas, good of you to call the other night, some helluva scene that must have been.”
“Yeah, it was very tragic.” Thomas felt his voice becoming clipped and curt. There was a silence between them.
“But apart from that, everything else okay?” Andy asked.
The man was insufferable, to call a catastrophe that ripped the soul out of a small town “one helluva scene.” “Hunky dory,” Thomas said scathingly. “Is Bill around?”
“He’s helping his mother do the dishes,” Andy said, as if that’s all there was to it.
“Sure, and could you perhaps tell him he might dry his hands and come talk to his father phoning from the other side of the world?”
“I’ll see if he’s through.” Andy was genial about it all.
“Perhaps his mother might risk letting him leave even if he hasn’t quite finished.” Thomas realized that his fists were clenched with fury. In the distance he was aware that Vonni was watching him from the kitchen door. It didn’t help his mood.
“Hi, Dad.” Bill always sounded delighted to hear from him.
“How are things, son? Good?”
“Yeah, fine. Is your island in the Dodecanese, Dad?”
“No, Bill, but if you have the atlas handy I’ll show you where it is . . .”
“It’s not beside me, Dad. The books have been put upstairs on the landing,” Bill explained.
“But not the atlas, surely, not the dictionary? You need these things when you are looking at television, Bill. You can’t let him stow away any signs of culture from your life to make room for another rowing machine or whatever.” There was real pain in his voice as he spoke.
At the other end there was a silence as the child tried to think of something to say.
“Get me your mother, Bill. Put Shirley on the phone.”
“No, Dad, you and she would only fight, that’s what happens. Please, Dad. It doesn’t matter where the atlas is. I can run and get it if you hold on.”
“No, Bill, you’re right. It’s not important where the atlas is. I’ll send you an e-mail with a drawing attached and you can look it up. That is if the computer also hasn’t been filed away where no one can get at it.”
“No, Dad, of course it hasn’t.” He sounded reproachful.
“So what are you going to do today—it’s only morning there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, well, we’ll be going to the shopping mall first. I’m getting new sneakers, and then Andy is going to take me for a run to try them out . . .”
“Sounds great,” said Thomas in a voice that sounded sepulchral as it went across the thousands of miles between them.
“I miss you, son,” he said eventually, since Bill had said no more.
“Yeah, Dad, and I miss you too a lot, but it was you who went away,” the child answered.
“Who told you that? Was it your mother? Andy? Listen to me, Bill, we discussed this endlessly, better for me to go and give you space together as a family . . .”
“No, Dad, she didn’t,” Bill interrupted. “And Andy didn’t say that either. I just said I missed you, and that I was still here and you were the one that was gone.”
“I’m sorry, Bill, we’re all upset here. So many people died. Please forgive me. I’ll call again soon.”
He hung up, feeling as low as he had been in years. Vonni came toward hi
m with a brandy. “You made a right dog’s dinner out of that,” she said.
“You don’t understand what it is to have a son,” he said to her, willing the tears away from his face.
“Why the hell do you assume I don’t have a son?” she asked him, her eyes blazing.
“You do?” He was astonished.
“Yes, so you don’t have a monopoly on being a parent.”
“And where is he? Why isn’t he with you?”
“Because like you, I made a mess of things.”
He knew she would say no more. And yet critical though she was of him, it was somehow comforting to have her there. Much better than four walls to cry to, railing against what was happening to his beloved Bill.
Georgi drove up to the taverna. Someone had given him a big leg of lamb. He thought maybe Andreas could cook it for his customers.
Andreas explained sadly that nobody but David had come to the taverna today. It didn’t look likely that anyone would come tonight. But then Andreas had an idea. Why didn’t they cook it at the police station, give all those young boys who had worked so hard at the funeral a real dinner? They would ask David and his friends to join them, and Vonni.
Andreas scraped up all the salads into a big bowl. He was pleased and excited at the thought of cooking for people rather than sitting alone in his empty taverna.
“It’s not very comfortable of course in the police station,” Georgi said doubtfully. “Not very welcoming.”
“We’ll get those long red cushions, we can put them on benches.” Andreas would not let the idea die. “David, run up to Adonis’s room and get them, will you?”
David looked at him, astonished. Adonis had been gone for years to Chicago but still had his own room in this house.
“At the top of the stairs on the left,” Georgi advised him, and David hastened up the narrow steps.
The room had pictures of Panathinaikos, the Athens football team, it had posters of a Greek dance troupe, it had images of Panayias the Virgin Mary. He was a man of varied tastes, the missing Adonis. His bed was made as if he were coming back that night, with a bright red rug folded at the end. On the window seats were long, narrow red cushions.
