Nights of Rain and Stars

by Maeve Binchy

  “But it hasn’t worked, our saying that. She’s hundreds of miles away. And I miss her, Sean, every moment of the day. I’d love her to be coming in like Barbara now, telling us about the kind of day she had. We’ve only driven her away by our attitude. Don’t you think, Barbara?”

  “I agree with Mr. Ryan, actually; we didn’t misunderstand anything. Shane is a real out-and-out bastard because he manipulates her, he makes things seem to be her fault, not his. He plays the victim card, the rest of the world has a down on him, that’s the hardest bit to deal with.”

  “What I find the hardest is that they say they love each other.” Maureen Ryan’s face was troubled. “He’s never loved anyone but himself. He’ll only stay with her for as long as it suits him and then she’ll be alone, miles away with no friends and humiliated.”

  “She won’t want to come back to us. She’ll know that we’ll be thinking, ‘I told you so,’ even if we manage not to say it,” said Barbara.

  “You miss her as much as we do.” Fiona’s father sounded surprised.

  “Of course I do, I miss her at work every day and I miss going out with her in the evening. I think of a dozen things to tell her and then remember she’s gone . . . I was wondering if we could try to build some kind of a bridge.”

  “What kind of bridge?” Sean Ryan didn’t hold out much hope.

  “Well, could you write her a letter, sort of assuming that we all know now she and Shane will be together in the long run? And I could do the same, like asking would she and Shane be home for your silver wedding or Christmas, something like that?”

  “But we can’t assume that she’s going to be with him forever, Barbara. What kind of message are we giving the other children if they think we accept Shane as part of their sister’s life?”

  “Listen, Mrs. Ryan, he is part of her life. They’ve gone off to live together for God’s sake, but deep down I’ve a feeling it’s not going to last that long, and if we pretend that we think it’s normal, then we stop being part of the Bad Cruel World that’s beating up on Poor Misunderstood Shane.” Barbara looked from one to the other.

  Fiona’s father was shrugging helplessly as if to say it was all beyond him. Her mother’s face was working as if to try and stop the tears.

  Barbara gave it one more go. “Believe me, I don’t like it either and I don’t like sitting here talking about my friend Fiona behind her back, but I think that we’ve got to do something or else we’ve lost her entirely.”

  The letter was pushed through the door and fell to the floor. Miriam Fine went to see who could possibly be delivering something by hand at this time of night. It was a big thick envelope addressed to them both; it contained some kind of heavy card. She brought it in to her husband and they opened it together.

  It was the confirmation that Harold Fine had won the coveted Businessman of the Year award and details of the ceremony. It would be presented in November at the Town Hall before an invited audience. They hoped that he would ask a group of family and friends to join them for drinks first with the mayor and dinner later.

  “Oh, Harold, I’m so pleased for you to see it there in black and white,” she said, tears in her eyes.

  “It’s amazing.” He looked at the document as if it might fall away and crumble in his hands.

  “David will be so proud and pleased; we’ll tell him the actual invitation has arrived. It will make it real for him too. I know he will come home for it all,” Miriam said.

  “Let’s not be too confident, Miriam. From where David stands, businessmen are bad enough. A Businessman of the Year would be the worst thing he could encounter.”

  “Hi there, Bill.”

  “Hi, Andy.”

  Andy sat down beside him on the swinging seat in front of the house. “You down about something, kid? Want a run?”

  “No, Andy, running doesn’t solve everything.” He didn’t even look up.

  “You’re so right there, kid, but it kind of blocks bad things out for a bit.”

  “You don’t have bad things, Andy.”

  “I don’t, huh? Then I’ve been doing a pretty good job hiding things.” He punched Bill affectionately in the arm, but this time the boy winced and withdrew from him.

  “Sorry, kid.” Andy looked at a loss.

  “It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

  “So whose fault is it?” Andy asked.

  “I don’t know, I think it’s mine, I wasn’t enough for them. Mom and Dad, I didn’t make them happy enough.”

  “They’re both crazy about you, kid, it’s the one thing that they really see eye to eye about.”

  “So my mom says, but maybe she just wants to think that.”

  “Your dad says it too, he told me so before he went away.”

  “But he went away, Andy.”

  “He did it for you, kid, to give you space, so that you could get used to me being around and feel part of your mom’s life and mine together. It was good of him to do that.”

  “I don’t want space,” Bill said.

  “What do you want, Bill?”

  “I suppose I want him and Mom to love each other still, but I can’t have that so I guess I want him to be living nearby. You and Mom don’t mind if I see him a lot. That’s right, isn’t it?” He looked anxiously at Andy.

  “Sure it’s right, you know it is.”

  “And does he know, does Dad know that?”

  “Ah, Bill, you know he does.”

  “Then if he knows this, why did he have to go so far away?” Bill asked simply.

  Hannah had overheard the conversation between Claus and Birgit. She could hardly credit it. Elsa had gone so far away to leave what had been the love of her life, and this catastrophe had brought them together.

  “Claus, excuse me, can I have a word?”

  “Of course!” Everyone liked Hannah. A bright, helpful, confident young woman. Hannah was a secretary in the television center and had been one of Elsa’s friends. They had gone to the gym together or shared a lunchtime salad at each other’s desks. People were accustomed to seeing them talking and laughing together.

  “I just wanted to ask if she’s coming back,” Hannah said. She spent no time beating about the bush.

  “Would you like her to come back?” Claus asked gently.

  “For me, I would. I would like to have my friend back home again. But for her, I think she might be better to stay away.” Hannah spoke from the heart.

  “I wish I could tell you what has happened, but truthfully I don’t know,” Claus said. “He told us to go home ahead of him. So of course we did. But she looked different. She wasn’t the same Elsa that we know. She was changed somehow, as if she had made up her mind.”

  “I see.” Hannah was doubtful.

  “I know you probably think that men are hopeless about reading the signs, but believe me, you would have found it difficult to know what was happening.”

  “Oh, I know, Claus, it’s not easy. Thank you for telling me. We can only wait and hope.”

  “And what are you hoping for, Hannah?”

  “I’m much more hopeless than you! I actually don’t know what I hope. I suppose I hope things turn out for the best,” said Hannah truthfully.

  Adonis decided he would telephone his father. He would do it quickly, before he changed his mind. It would be evening in Greece; his father would be at the taverna. It would be busy, so his father would not be able to talk for long, which was just as well. Adonis would say that he was very sorry about the tragedy and that he sent his sympathies. They would not talk about what had passed between them.

  He could hear the telephone ringing. It rang and rang and there was no reply. He must have dialed the wrong number. He dialed again. But in the empty taverna the phone rang and nobody answered.

  Before he had left Aghia Anna he had installed an answering machine for his father. Evidently the old man had never learned to switch it on. Adonis eventually hung up. In many ways, he thought, it was probably all for the b
est.

  Shane found exactly the place he was looking for. This was his clientele. It was just the kind of place he would have gone if he had been looking to score. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know the language. There was an international language over this sort of thing. He spoke to a guy who was some kind of thicko who understood nothing, then to another who shrugged at him. The third man looked more promising.

  “How much?” the man asked. He was small and round, with quick dark eyes.

  “How much do you want?” Shane had asked.

  “Well, how much do you have?” the man wanted to know.

  “Enough,” said Shane.

  At that moment there was flash of a Polaroid camera and then another, right in his face. “What the hell . . . ?” Shane began.

  Then he literally felt a hand on his collar, almost choking him. The round face of the man with the quick dark eyes was an inch from Shane’s own face. “Listen to me good. We have two pictures of you—one in this bar, one we will show to the police. If they see you trying to deal again, it will be very very bad for you.”

  “You said you wanted to buy.” Shane choked the words out somehow.

  “This is my father’s bar, my family runs this place. I would go very far from here very quickly. That is my uncle holding you. He is expecting you to apologize and leave. In twenty seconds from now.”

  “I don’t know how to apologize in Greek.”

  “Signomi will do.”

  “Sigomi, is it?” Shane stuttered.

  “Signomi . . . Learn to say it, you little shit, and be pleased you got away so easily.”

  “I could come back,” Shane threatened.

  The man laughed. “You could, of course . . . Ten seconds.”

  “Signomi!” Shane cried over his shoulder to the older man who was holding him. Then the grip was released and Shane staggered out the door into the warm Athens night.

  TEN

  Thomas woke with a slight headache. It didn’t take him long to remember why. The red wine they had drunk last night at the police station had not been allowed to age for any respectable time. Georgi said it could well have been made last month. Still, a couple of cups of good coffee would cure that. Maybe he would go out and get fresh oranges and hot crusty rolls for breakfast. Possibly Vonni would have a hangover too. There would be solidarity in the cure.

  But when he got up, he saw the door to the spare bedroom was open. The bed was neatly made. No signs of any personal possessions around the place. She was truly using it only as a bed for the night. He wondered where she was now. Back in the shed? Or like the pied piper, with a group of children at the harbor?

  She was such a self-sufficient little figure, hair braided around her head, suntanned, lined face with its broad smile making it impossible to know what age she was. Forty, fifty, sixty? Hard to know from anyone how long she had been in Aghia Anna. And she told little or nothing about herself, so you would be a long time guessing.

  Thomas yawned and went into the kitchen. She had beaten him to it. There were four large oranges on the table and, wrapped in a little check cloth to keep them warm, some fresh bread rolls.

  Thomas sighed with pleasure and sat down to his breakfast.

  Fiona was still asleep. Elsa left her a note:

  Gone down to the harbor. Didn’t want to wake you. Why don’t you come and meet me at noon and we can have something in that nice place with the blue and white tablecloths? I can’t remember its name. I’d like that.

  Love, Elsa

  She thought of Fiona as if she were a younger and more foolish sister. Imagine, back in the real world this girl was a competent nurse and yet she was still so foolish as to believe that Shane was somewhere in Athens still concerned about her.

  Elsa walked slowly through the narrow streets looking around her at the way life went on. The people washed the sidewalks in front of their little stores and laid out their wares. In the cafés and restaurants they were laboriously writing their menus on big blackboards. There wasn’t the same carefree, cheerful way as before the accident. But at least they were getting on with it. Or pretending to. Like Elsa herself.

  She felt she was making a fairly good job of hiding that she was numb and empty inside. She thought she was managing quite well, all things considered. She had talked well to the others last night, she had been a rock of strength to Fiona, who had cried on her shoulder when they came back.

  She was able now to nod and smile at people she passed, saying “Kalimera” here and there. But she felt very light-headed and unreal. She wished that she belonged somewhere, that there were people who cared about her. She had never felt so isolated. No family, no love, no job, and since she had left Germany . . . no home. A father who had abandoned her, a mother who had only been ambitious for her, not loving, a lover who had lied and wanted to go on lying forever.

  Somebody in a shabby, broken-looking van hooted at her. Elsa put up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun and see who it was. It was Vonni, with a load of children.

  “We’re going for a swim on a really great beach you might not know. Would you like to come?”

  “Great. I said I’d meet Fiona at noon in the harbor, but I’d be back by then, right?” Elsa was glad that she had her bathing suit and straw hat in her basket. She was prepared to go anywhere.

  Vonni nodded at her in agreement. “Oh, certainly, we’ll be back by then. I can’t expose children to the midday sun . . .” She said something in Greek to the five- and six-year-olds in the back of the van and they all smiled at her and chorused, “Ya sou, Elsa.”

  Elsa felt a sudden lump in her throat as if suddenly her wish had been answered. As if in a small way she did belong somewhere. Just for a while.

  David had hired a bicycle and traveled eight kilometers to where the family he stayed with had told him there was a wonderful beach. He would have loved to have met the others from last night and talked about the evening, the dancing, the way people had shown respect. But nobody had suggested it and David hated the thought of being a hanger-on.

  He puffed up some hills and sailed down the slopes at the other side. The countryside was so beautiful. Why would anyone want to live in a crowded city? Spending hours commuting, breathing in diesel oil—when they could have this.

  He came to where the beach must be and to his disappointment he saw first a parked van and then Elsa and that strange older woman Vonni already down on the sand with eight or nine children.

  He watched as Vonni lined the children up at the water’s edge. She was making great signs with her arms. The children were nodding in agreement. She must be explaining that she would go in first with Elsa and that nobody must go out any further than the grown-ups.

  David lay on a grassy mound and watched them all.

  Elsa was so beautiful in her elegant turquoise swimsuit and her short blond hair reflecting the sun. She had a light suntan and moved gracefully in and out of the sea, playing with the children.

  Vonni, small and swarthy, her hair in plaits over her head, wore a functional black swimming costume that would have been in fashion twenty years back. She too ran in and out of the little waves calling and encouraging the youngsters to join her and helping the more timid ones by holding a hand under the chin.

  David longed to join them but he felt he would be intruding.

  Just then Elsa saw him.

  “Ela, ela, David, come and swim—it is total magic.”

  Awkwardly he went to join them. He had his swimming trunks under his shorts. He took off his glasses and left them on top of his neatly folded clothes.

  He greeted the children, “Ya sas, Ime Anglos.”

  “As if they ever thought you were anything but English!” Vonni said, teasing him.

  “I suppose so,” David said ruefully.

  “Come on, David, you’re better than ninety percent of the tourists, you take the trouble to learn a few words of Greek. People are so delighted with that, you wouldn’t believe it.”

&nbs
p; “Are they?” He was childishly pleased.

  One of the children splashed him with a handful of water.

  “Very good, poly kala,” he said.

  “I hope you have six children, David, you’ll be a wonderful father,” Vonni said unexpectedly.

  Thomas walked down to the harbor. Everything was nearly back to normal. Many of the fishermen had already set out to sea; others were there mending their nets. They nodded at him. He had been here now for many days; he wasn’t a stranger, someone passing through.

  One of the men said something that Thomas could not understand. He wished now that he had studied a phrase book as David had; he might have been able to get some hint as to what they were saying.

  “I’m sorry, signomi,” he apologized.

  A man with many tattoos and the appearance of a sailor said, “My friend said you and your friends are good people, that you have shared our tragedy.”

  Thomas looked at him, amazed. “We are all so sad for what has happened here and we were so very touched by the dancing last night. We will never forget it.”

  “When you go back to your land you four will talk about it, you and your friends?” The sailor man obviously knew the fishermen and was going to translate for the others.

  Thomas spoke slowly. “We are from four different countries—Germany, England, Ireland, and the United States—but we will all bring this memory back to our lands when we go,” he said eventually.

  “We thought you had been friends forever,” said the man with the tattoos.

  Fiona woke up and read the note. Wasn’t life so odd that she should meet by accident such a kind and generous girl? Elsa was almost as good a friend to her as Barbara had been. What an amazing chance! Shane would be so glad when she told him. He would get in contact soon, no matter what they all thought.

  Fiona washed her hair and used Elsa’s hair dryer. She didn’t look too bad. Pale, a bit wishy-washy, but nothing that would frighten the birds off the trees, as her father used to say about people who didn’t look well.