Songs of Blue and Gold (24 page)

JULIAN SPEARED A
piece of white fish with a kebab stick.

‘Veronica tells me I should give you up,' he said.

The boat bobbed at the side of the jetty at Agios Stefanos where they had put in for a late lunch. Under the awning of the taverna, glad to be out of the glare of another perfect day, Elizabeth sat as still as she could.

There it was again. Possessiveness. Two counts of it, and neither on her part.

Elizabeth waited for him to qualify this statement, but he did not. ‘Please don't think that I have any thoughts about you and her, or you and any other woman, come to that,' she said calmly.

‘You're sure about that?'

‘Completely.'

He grinned. ‘I knew she was wrong.'

Steeling herself not to betray any emotion, Elizabeth met his eyes, playing the game too. He reached for the notebook he always carried, he pulled out the centre pages and started to write.

Elizabeth ate slowly, concentrating on taking in the burning
blue of the tiny bay seemingly blocked at the end by the mass of purple-brown hills across the strait. The water glittered and she had to screw up her eyes to see.

‘There.' He pushed the folded paper across the table.

‘
Darling Elizabeth
,' he had scrawled. ‘
Whatever idiocies I may commit, whichever stupid woman I might let drink persuade me I want in that irrational moment, know that I adore you. You are the one who has given me this summer and made me whole again. Remind me of this whenever you need to. I adore you. Julian
.'

She kept her eyes down.

‘Keep it. Read it when you doubt me, when I'm a fool,' he said.

It was hard to tell if he was mocking or sincere.

That night the party was held at a Swiss architect's house, a pink palace above Nissaki, a few miles south of Kalami. A carnival theme had enticed guests to ‘Dress with Abandon'. Julian and Elizabeth turned up as they were, straight off the boat. The moon hung huge and low over the smooth black sea.

They climbed the steep steps from the mooring. Voices and notes of music drifted down the dark hillside. A scops owl called. Soon they reached a path lit by torches through the garden. It emerged from trees on the lawn where a juggler was throwing more flames into the night. Moving arcs and circles of orange light hung for a few seconds in the air.

Guests had spilled down from the house. Masked waiters in black dived in and out of the shadows.

At the head of the final flight of stairs up to the wide terrace,
Veronica was waiting at the balustrade. She must have seen them coming.

Her voice cut through the darkness. ‘I see you still have your silly little friend with you. She's lasted longer than most of your young meat.'

She was encased in a skintight silver sequinned cocktail dress, in the moonlight she was a mermaid covered in thousands of winking scales, the material tight over her neat hips and flat stomach. Already drunk.

Julian smiled pleasantly. ‘And good evening to you, Veronica. How lovely to see you.'

She gave a malevolent squint. ‘He's only using you, like all men do,' she slurred in Elizabeth's direction.

He swatted her away like a fly. They went up the steps to the villa, not looking back to see whether she was following.

The conversation at the party was the usual mixture of the inane and the spiky. Costumes were admired. A snatch of conversation floated over:

‘Never marry a foreigner. He seemed so nice before I could understand what he was saying.'

She caught Julian's amusement and they both laughed. Through the swirling burlesque of the party Veronica was watching them. She hardly took her eyes off them wherever they were, even as she tilted her head back to tip more drink down her throat. For a few seconds, Elizabeth felt claustrophobic.

A man tried to determine her views on student activism.
Another asked her whether this was her first time in Corfu. The music changed from subtle strings flying lightly on the dusky air, to the more earthbound sounds of the Rolling Stones. Couples had begun to dance, digging at the beat with their elbows, faintly ridiculous in formal evening dress or bizarre creations worn to approximate the idea of wanton hedonism but succeeding only in looking as if they had raided a dressing-up box.

Elizabeth found Julian was no longer at her side. He had been spun off by a succession of acquaintances and strangers, constantly in demand.

She smiled uncertainly at another woman about her own age.

The woman returned the smile and came over. She was dark with an hourglass figure encased in a slightly old-fashioned style of dress, a brightly made-up face and a ready smile. ‘I'm Theodora,' she said.

‘You're English!' There was no mistaking the flat working-class vowels. ‘I thought you were Greek . . . you look—'

‘St Albans, originally. Married to a Greek,' she said.

They exchanged brief histories. Theodora's husband considered himself a foreigner too, as he came from Crete originally. Three years ago she had come to Greece on holiday, met Giorgios, and stayed. ‘The King of Greece used to spend his summers in Corfu, so that's what we do now,' she giggled. ‘It's that kind of family.'

Theodora was good company.

‘I'd like to have a go at painting,' she said, when Elizabeth told her a little about herself. ‘But I probably won't be much good. Seems like fun though.' Then she added, quickly, ‘Hard work, I should think, to do it properly.'

‘Yes, well it can be . . .'

‘Sorry, is that boring?'

‘No . . . no . . .'

‘You look uncomfortable – what's up?'

Elizabeth tried to concentrate. ‘Oh, nothing – it's just—'

It was impossible to ignore Veronica. The dagger of her glare was between the vertebrae of her spine.

Elizabeth sighed. ‘It's that woman. Do you know her?'

Opening a sparkly evening bag, Theodora took out a pair of glasses. ‘Can't see much without them – silver sequins, you mean?'

Theodora peered, while Elizabeth wished she hadn't asked.

‘Don't think I do know her. Why do you ask?'

‘She's always . . . oh, it doesn't matter. Just wondered, that's all.'

Another wave of claustrophobia.

Elizabeth made an excuse and left the room. The note he had written was still in her bag. She found a bathroom and leant against the basin to read it again. A kind of cruelty uncoiled in her gut. It was unpleasant to realise that was what it was.

If a possessive nature repulsed him, she might let Veronica do for herself. The woman was already drunk and behaving badly. All that was needed was to tip the edge.
‘Darling Elizabeth.'
Yes, Julian, she was thinking, I have learned such a lot from you.

Elizabeth folded the page neatly. Then she went back to the door of the room where most of the guests were circulating, and stopped a waiter as he went past. Indicating Veronica, she asked him to give her the note.

She rejoined Julian. She slipped her arm around his back
and kissed him affectionately. He played up to it, for the benefit of all.

Veronica put her glass on a Chinese table with the exaggerated movement of the extremely drunk, stepping back to admire her work as if she had arranged and placed a vase of flowers. She stood shimmering for a moment.

A space cleared, as if others sensed the change in atmosphere.

Her dress slashed to the waist and skewed over one shoulder to expose one small well-shaped breast, on heels so vertiginous she could only walk extremely slowly and deliberately, she seemed to take a long time to pitch and roll towards them on her set course.

Finally, she arrived in front of Julian. His eyes were on a level with her chest, ‘Ah, Veronica. I'd know those nipples anywhere.'

Veronica swung an arm, and cracked a slap against his cheek.

It rang out. The room fell silent.

Then she turned to retrace her steps, but tripped, breaking a heel of one shoe as she saved herself instinctively. In a parody of dignified retreat, Veronica limped the length of the room.

Julian rubbed his face.

‘What the hell was that for?' he asked.

The party noise resumed immediately, louder and more excited than before.

‘Come on, let's go,' he said. ‘I'm not in the mood for this any more.'

He took her hand and led the way.

Elizabeth followed, quietly satisfied, but feeling shocked too – shocked at herself and what she had done, how easy it had been.

His clasp was warm and strong, pulling her down through the groves. The night air was a cool caress on her bare shoulders. They did not speak. She did not ask where they were going. The sea rubbed against the rocks below to their right. He was sure-footed and she followed. The path wound up and down. She barely noticed the walking. She was still astonished at her own initiative, and uncomfortable with the unkindness.

When he stopped, he pulled her to him. His mouth opened hers, soft and compelling. Her body responded.

Not far below them was the pool, black and bottomless before the copper path which led to the moon. She recognised the hut-like building pale above the glittering water.

Lights passed on a ship, silent and alluring, flying through the night.

The dark earth retained the day's heat, baked into the ground. His warm hand was on her stomach. She brushed her cheek against his chest. Then he guided her to the grassy mound on the ground above the shrine.

She pulled off his shirt and tasted the familiar sweet saltiness of his skin. The sea where they had swum was still on them both. She felt a surge of euphoria as he pulled her dress up.

A dry twig snapped only a few yards away.

They froze, listening for more sounds. She giggled, then kissed him again, wanting him more than ever, feeling equal to him.

More cracking in the undergrowth made them both start.

‘It must be one of the fishermen,' whispered Julian. ‘He'll be going down with his trident and an oil lamp for an octopus.'

All was black and resinous where they lay.

The footsteps were irregular. Was that a voice, muttering low between breaths? Elizabeth held her own. Each crack of the ground cover was followed by a brush of the fine carpet of pine needles. The strange rhythm grew more insistent. The brush after the beat, like the sound of a slow-hand jazz drummer.

She could not help but giggle.

‘Can you see anything?' she asked.

‘No.'

She began to kiss his neck lightly, expecting him to enjoy the incongruity. But he gently stopped her.

They waited, listening, still stretched out in the undergrowth.

The sound was the same: crack-shuffle, crack-shuffle.

It made her think of Veronica again, and the drunken attempted elegance of her one-heeled walk, and she smiled to herself. She would not mention it. She did not want to go on about it.

‘Fuck,' said Julian. ‘It's her again.'

The silver dress gleamed in the moonlight. Like a malevolent mermaid, Veronica sat on the rock. She was speaking to herself, in spurts and mumblings.

‘I thought that slap had an air of finality about it,' said Elizabeth, trying to inject some grim humour. ‘Obviously I was wrong.'

‘I'm sick of this,' he said.

Elizabeth shivered. ‘What are you doing?'

He stood up as if braced for a confrontation. ‘I'm going to talk to her.'

‘Shall I come too?'

‘You stay here. Probably make it worse if you said anything.'

He started down, then turned and motioned to her to keep out of sight.

Elizabeth thumped the ground in annoyance. The night was really being spoiled. She had a sudden visceral, primitive desire to lash out and hurt the other woman. It was so unlike her, that she was shocked again, this time by her own violent impulse.

These thoughts pinned her to the ground. From the back of her mind, a dread rose. Without being able to identify its source, she felt sucked down by fear.

Minutes passed. She could not hear what Adie was saying to Veronica, only the low murmur of conversation from beyond the shrine. Then louder voices, his then hers, harsh and shrill.

They would have to take her back, Elizabeth supposed. Back to the party, back to wherever she was staying. It was not how any of them would have chosen to end the evening.

Elizabeth stood up as quietly as she could and began to creep closer, wanting to hear what was being said. The monochrome of the pine wood, the cypress spears, the scrubby hillside seemed to close in on her. She was behind the shrine now, in the shadows.

Julian and Veronica must be sitting or standing below, on the turtleback rocks; she could not see them. She picked her way down. She heard a splash, followed by another.

Were they swimming together? Surely not. The dark sea was too powerful, too dangerous for someone in her state.

Elizabeth stumbled out on to the flatter rocks. She could see nothing in the water.

‘Julian?' Then she called his name again, louder, across the inky pool.

Silence.

Then he broke the surface, gulping noisily for breath.

‘What's going on?' shouted Elizabeth.

Still no response.

‘Where's Veronica?'

‘Gone!' he gasped furiously.

‘What do you mean, gone?'

‘In the water.'

‘But – she can't swim that drunk!' Elizabeth scanned the swell. Was that a movement further out? ‘Veronica!' she shouted. ‘Are you there?'

No answer.

Adie dived underwater again. He swam like a dolphin. He was strong. If the woman was down there, he would pull her up. He shot up again, scattering silver droplets.

‘What happened?' Elizabeth asked uselessly. She had heard the twin splashes.

‘Stupid, stupid woman!' he was shouting. ‘What was she thinking of?'

‘She can't be far away. It hasn't been long enough.'