One Cretan Evening and Other Stories (9 page)

As far as he was concerned, life had never been so good. He left the room with a lightness of step.

Olga stared out at the rain. Finally the intense humidity had given way to a storm. The darkened sky now crackled with lightning and in the slate-grey sea a frenzy of white horses reared and fought and fell into the foam. The street below the Komninos house was soon submerged. Every few minutes a great arc of water curled over the edge of the promenade. It was a tempest of exceptional fury, and the sight of the boats rolling up and down in the bay was enough to bring back to Olga the terrible nausea that had blighted the past few months.

She got up to secure the window but, catching the strange but pleasing odour of rain on damp cobbles, decided to leave it open. The air seemed almost fresh after the stifling heat of the afternoon, and she lay down again, closed her eyes and enjoyed the gentle breaths of salty air on her cheeks. Within a moment, she was asleep.

Now she was the lone sailor in a fishing vessel struggling with the rage of the waves. With her dress billowing around her, her loosened hair stuck to her cheeks and the briny water
stinging her eyes, the sunless sky and the landless horizon gave her no indication of the direction she was going. The sails were filled by a powerful southwesterly wind that carried the boat along at an alarming speed, its steep pitch allowing the water to lap over its sides. When the wind suddenly dropped, the sails were left empty and flapping.

Olga clung on, one hand on the boat’s smooth gunwale and another on the oarlock, desperately trying to keep her head clear of the swinging boom. She did not know if she was safer in or out of the boat as she had never been in one before. The water was already beginning to soak her dress and the spray on her face and inside her throat was starting to make her choke. Water continued to gush into the boat and, as the wind picked up again and filled the mainsail, a gust caused its fatal capsize.

Perhaps death by drowning would be painless, she thought, giving herself up to the weight of her clothes, which began to pull her down. As she and the boat began to slip steadily beneath the waves, she saw the pale shape of a baby swimming towards her and reached out for him.

Then there was an almighty crash as if the boat had hit a rock. The naked infant had vanished and now Olga’s gasps for breath were replaced by sobs.

‘Kyria Olga! Kyria Olga!’

Olga could hear a faraway voice, breathless and distraught.

‘Are you all right? Are you all right?’

Olga knew the voice. Perhaps rescue was at hand.

‘I thought you had fainted!’ Pavlina exclaimed. ‘I thought you had taken a tumble!
Panagia mou!
I thought you had fallen! It was ever such a loud crash downstairs.’

Covered in confusion and somewhere between the state of dreaming and waking, Olga opened her eyes and saw her housekeeper’s face close to hers. Pavlina was kneeling right beside her, looking anxiously into her eyes. Behind her, she could see the huge floor-to-ceiling curtain furling and unfurling like a great sail, and even now the force of the wind was lifting the heavy satin drape and blowing it horizontally across the room. Its edge licked at a small circular table and swept across its empty surface.

Disoriented, almost giddy, Olga began to realise what had caused the noise that had woken her and brought Pavlina rushing into the room. She brushed away the strand of hair that had fallen across her face and slowly manoeuvred herself into a sitting position.

She saw the fragments of two porcelain figures scattered across the room, heads severed from bodies, hands separated from arms, thousands of drachmas-worth of
objets d’art
literally reduced to dust. The weight of the damask and the force of the wind had swept them to the unforgiving floor.

She wiped her damp face with the back of her hand and realised that she had not left her tears behind in the nightmare. As she struggled to catch her breath she heard herself cry out: ‘Pavlina!’

‘What is it, Kyria Olga?’

‘My baby!’

Pavlina reached out and touched her mistress’s stomach and then her forehead.

‘He hasn’t gone anywhere! No doubt about that!’ she concluded cheerfully. ‘But you’re a bit on the warm side . . . and you seem rather damp too!’

‘I think I had a bad dream,’ whispered Olga. ‘It seemed so real.’

‘Perhaps I’ll send for the doctor . . . ?’

‘There’s no need for that. I’m sure everything is fine.’

Pavlina was already kneeling on the floor gathering up pieces of china into her apron. Mending a single ornament in this state would have tested an expert, but the combined shards of the two together meant it would be an impossibility.

‘It’s only some porcelain,’ Olga reassured her, seeing how upset she was.

‘Well . . .I suppose it could have been worse. I really thought you had fallen.’

‘I am fine, Pavlina, you can see I am.’

‘And I’m the one supposed to be looking after you while Kyrios Konstantinos is away.’

‘Well, you are. And you are doing a really fine job. And please don’t worry about those figurines. I am sure Konstantinos won’t even notice.’

Pavlina had been part of the Komninos family for many years longer than Olga, and knew the high value placed on such collector’s items. She hastened over to the French windows and began to close them. The rain had made a patch on the carpet and she could see that the edge of Olga’s fine silk dress was soaked.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she fussed. ‘I should have come up before. We’re in a terrible mess up here, aren’t we?’

‘Don’t shut them,’ appealed Olga, standing at her side, feeling the spray on her face. ‘It’s so cooling. The carpet will dry out as soon as it stops. It’s still so warm.’

Pavlina was used to Olga’s occasional eccentricity. It made
a change from the rigidity with which her late mother-in-law, the older Kyria Komninos, had ruled the house for so many years.

‘Well, as long as you don’t get too wet,’ she said, giving her an indulgent smile. ‘You don’t want to be catching a chill, not in your state.’

Olga lowered herself into another chair further from the window, and watched Pavlina meticulously picking up the pieces of porcelain. Even if she had been able to bend, Pavlina would not have allowed Olga to help.

Beyond the bulky figure of the kneeling housekeeper, Olga could see the wild sea. A few ships were out there, just about visible through the storm, occasionally illuminated by a flash of lightning.

The ornate clock on the mantelpiece struck seven. She realised that Konstantinos would have been at sea for an hour or more by now. Such weather conditions rarely held up the bigger ships.

‘If the wind is in the right direction, then I suppose it might even speed up Kyrios Konstantinos’ journey,’ Pavlina reflected.

‘I suppose it might,’ answered Olga absent-mindedly, now only aware of the gentle stirring inside her womb. She wondered if her baby had heard the storm and felt himself tossed by the sea. She loved her unborn child beyond all measure and pictured him swimming effortlessly around in the clear liquid of her womb. Tears and sea water rolled down her face in equal measure.

On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother’s past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her she will learn more.

Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone’s throw from the tiny, deserted island of Spinalonga – Greece’s former leper colony. Then she finds Fotini, and at last hears the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters, and a family rent by tragedy, war and passion. She discovers how intimately she is connected with the island, and how secrecy holds them all in its powerful grip …

‘A vivid, moving and absorbing tale, with its sensitive, realistic engagement with all the consequences of, and stigma attached to, leprosy’

Observer

‘War, tragedy and passion unfurl against a Mediterranean backdrop in this engrossing debut novel’

You
magazine

‘Hislop carefully evokes the lives of Cretans between the wars and during German occupation, but most commendable is her compassionate portrayal of the outcasts’

Guardian

‘Wonderful descriptions, strong characters and an intimate portrait of island existence’

Woman & Home

Beneath the majestic towers of the Alhambra, Granada’s cobbled streets resonate with music and secrets. Sonia Cameron knows nothing of the city’s shocking past; she is here to dance. But in a quiet café, a chance conversation and an intriguing collection of old photographs draw her into the extraordinary tale of Spain’s devastating civil war.

Seventy years earlier, the café is home to the close-knit Ramírez family. In 1936, an army coup led by Franco shatters the country’s fragile peace, and in the heart of Granada the family witnesses the worst atrocities of conflict. Divided by politics and tragedy, everyone must take a side, fighting a personal battle as Spain rips itself apart.

‘What sets Hislop apart is her ability to put a human face on the shocking civil conflict that ripped Spain apart for three bloody years between 1936 and 1939 . . . Stirring stuff’

Time Out

‘[
The Return
] should be required holiday reading for anyone going to Spain’

Daily Mail

‘Brilliantly recreates the passion that flows through the Andalusian dancers and the dark creative force of
duende
’

Scotland on Sunday

‘Hislop marries an epic family saga with meticulous historical research, and it’s a captivating partnership’

Easy Living