The Pleasure Seekers (9 page)

The years had taken a heavy toll on some places on Crete, and Laurence and D’Arcy would make their trip over long difficult back roads to avoid as much of it as possible. D’Arcy knew every short cut that was passable, every village worth stopping at, and that was why once the news was out that they were going away for a few
days, Mark asked for a lift. Manoussos suggested that he follow them out and take them to a village that only he and D’Arcy knew. There they would see marvellous things and could break the journey for a picnic which he would provide.

Two days later, at six in the morning, the convoy of three cars set out: Manoussos leading in his jeep with Arnold as passenger, packing two cases of wine and five litres of Katzakis’s best extra virgin olive oil, D’Arcy driving her 2CV with Laurence next to her and Mark squashed in the back with a whole lamb butchered and ready for the fire, and twenty loaves of bread. The rear was brought up by Max driving the other American Second World War jeep with Bridget, Elefherakis Khalikadakis (it was his grandmother’s village and he maintained the church there) and a visiting house guest of his from Athens, Maria Kokas, who was balancing on her knees trays of Greek sweets oozing with thin and sticky honey syrup. Two burlap sacks of potatoes were lashed across the jeep’s flat bonnet.

Manoussos had called ahead to his officer for that area to announce they were descending on the village for lunch and everyone was invited as their guests. Everyone in that convoy knew what Cretan hospitality was. Here was a poor village, with not even a bakery in it, and the moment the cars arrived every household would be emptying their larders to offer them food and drink. The only way to avoid stripping them bare of food was to bring enough to the village to feed them all well with quantities to spare. Even then the villagers would trot out every bit of foodstuff they
had in the house to the picnic that had turned into a banquet.

The church and icons were treasures and the view of the mountains and the sea spectacular. There were marvellous ruins of early civilisations, and magnificent caves. The men in that village had a reputation for courage and bravery, were heroes of the resistance when the Germans occupied Crete during the Second World War. They were fiercely proud men who had fought hard for their freedom and their country and now even their children and their grandchildren carried those same traits in their blood. No man was going to rob these people of what was rightfully theirs. They were some of the most helpful people Manoussos had as allies against art theft on Crete, the extra forces his department could not afford. They were his guerrilla army for art as their friends and relatives had been for freedom during a dark time of war.

Eight miles before the village, when the convoy was still on a climb up a narrow dirt road with a treacherous drop to one side, a mountain rising high above them on the other, they heard rifle shots echo above the sounds of grinding gears and noisy engines. Manoussos raised his arm, a signal for D’Arcy to keep going, then, one hand still on the wheel, he raised the rifle lying between him and Arnold and fired two shots into the air. They were navigating a blind bend in the road. Once past that the steep grade of the climb eased off, and five men could be seen walking towards them, firing more shots into the air and smiling. They wore jeans tucked into high white leather boots, and white shirts. Some had a red
sash tied about their waist, and they wore narrow black bands fringed and tied across their forehead.

Big rugged-looking men, dark and handsome, contemporaries of Manoussos, they shouted for the drivers not to cut their motors as they swaggered forward to shake the hands of the party in welcome. They walked alongside the cars which were travelling at what seemed like a snail’s pace, slapping backs and asking about the road and their journey. Two of the men knew Max and ogled Bridget, one recognised D’Arcy, and they all teased her about the 2CV.

Here the road was even narrower. Three of the men walked ahead, clearing stones and throwing them down into the ravine. The others draped themselves on the open vehicles, hopping off now and again to give a push when they thought it necessary, shouting an order to cling closer to the mountain when they saw the tyres riding the edge of the road. There was the sound of the occasional rock crashing down into the ravine, an unnerving occurrence, but there was the drama of the landscape to distract them, rough and arid, barren of trees, all shapes and forms, beige and white and grey against a sky bright blue and clear. A pair of huge birds with enormous wingspans kept swooping then gliding on the warm currents of air not far above the cavalcade.

It was barely eleven o’clock in the morning when they finally arrived in the village and five o’clock in the afternoon when the convoy split up and D’Arcy drove away with her passengers plus an escort of two. They would be very late arriving at the Chumleys’ for dinner.

Manoussos had given them the most wonderful time.
The village had been a jewel, the works of art of museum quality and the villagers marvellous: a community of very old Cretans and younger men, several children, and the women, of course staying in the background of the festivities. Other men arrived on foot from neighbouring villages, some a good distance away. It was a great party with great food: the lamb, covered with rosemary and olive oil, was roasted over a pit dug in the earth and filled with charcoal and wood that had turned to hot white ash. There were dishes of yoghurt and cucumber salad strong with fresh dill, earthen pots of cooked beans, and potatoes fried in olive oil, rosemary and garlic, salted and sprinkled with coarse black pepper. The wine never stopped flowing, and then came the tiny cups of sweet black coffee and the cakes.

D’Arcy, Max and Manoussos had even managed a spectacular walk with the sea far, far below always in view. There had been something very special about that place where they walked. The mind kept making side trips. There she was a goddess and the two men gods and this was Olympus where they dwelt.

Never had D’Arcy felt so connected to two human beings as she did during that walk with Max and Manoussos. She had always known ever since she was a child that she loved Manoussos, would always love him, but she had never known that she loved Max. She had been running away from him for too many years even to contemplate such an idea. There had been no clap of thunder, no bolt of lightning had struck her, this was no
coup de foudre
where she was catapulted into love. It had been a much slower realisation, one to be savoured.

The three barely spoke to each other on the walk; it was as if no one wanted to shatter the mood of a moment that was so personal to each of them. They walked separately and at times together, three abreast, holding hands, Manoussos with an arm round D’Arcy’s waist.

They had been standing together on a large slab of rock that protruded like a ledge over the edge of the mountain. There was barely a breeze, the sun was bright and the heat dry and intense. They looked at one another and knew without having to declare it that it was time to leave. There was fire and passion and love so very strong, a powerful spirit, emanating from them. Souls soaring. This was a moment in their lives that would never happen again, one that would be remembered forever. Manoussos had taken D’Arcy’s face in his hands. He had only ever seen her look as she did at that moment while in the throes of orgasm, when the inner D’Arcy surfaced and she gave herself up wholly to sexual bliss. He placed his lips upon hers and moved his hands to the buttons on her dress. One, two buttons, and she took over and continued.

Max approached her. He removed her hands and continued, stopping only when the buttons of her white cotton dress were undone and it was open to below her waist. Manoussos had stepped behind D’Arcy. He slipped her dress from her shoulders and it fell to rest on her slender hips. He caressed her shoulders and her back, and slipping his arms under hers, found her breasts and caressed them, removing his hands only to stroke her long red hair and watch Max take over where he had left off.

Max was a big man with large, strong hands that
he used gently. There was tenderness in his touch. He fondled her breasts, felt the weight of them in those hands, caressed their swell, the nipples, and then ran his hands over her midriff, caressing the flat of her belly, the curve of her hips. He took her breasts in his hands and kissed them. His lips sucked the stunningly elegant and subtle nipples. He transferred those kisses, that passion for her, to a kiss on the lips, and gave her a smile filled with affection, respect, even a hint of adoration before he took her hand in his and kissed it then walked round behind her. Manoussos took his place.

D’Arcy and Max watched Manoussos drop to his knees and lick her flesh, resting his face on her mound beneath the. white dress, covering it, while Max stroked her shoulders and back. These were some of the sexiest moments of D’Arcy’s life, of all their lives, and yet it was not mere lust. It was lust and much more than that. It was sex and much more than sex. It ended as innocently and easily as it began with Manoussos rising from his knees and Max slipping D’Arcy’s dress back on to her shoulders; both men, Max from behind and Manoussos from in front, doing up the buttons for her.

They had smiled at each other and Max broke the spell that had taken them over. He did it with nothing more than a shrug of his shoulders and a sigh that was one of pure pleasure and contentment. D’Arcy placed her arms around his neck, grabbed a handful of his hair and hung on to it as she placed a kiss on his lips, then his eyes and his cheeks. She did the same to Manoussos and they left that place that they knew they would never return to because it was there that something very special
had reached into their lives and that could never be repeated. They were not people to chase after rainbows.

All the way over the mountain range and during the remainder of the drive to Rethymnon, these were the things that kept slipping to the forefront of D’Arcy’s mind. And more, the realisation that she was one of the most fortunate of women, truly blessed.

For Mark also it had been a memorable day. She thought she had never seen him happier or in better form than he had been in the village. He did have a way with the Cretans. Mark had held them spellbound with his knowledge of the history of the island, his stories of the bravery of the Cretan people, and all told in the most perfect Greek.

As a story-teller and an orator he could compete with the best. He had been witty and intelligent, passionate and serious by turns. He had natural timing, the pauses always in the right place, and had spoken with authority, to everyone’s relief leaving his Fascist thinking buried in the recesses of his mind or heart. D’Arcy never knew where that side of Mark truly lived.

He had charmed everyone and had been patient and considerate with Arnold, translating when he thought Arnold might have missed something, watching the amount he drank, and even being discreet about that. He played backgammon with several of the men and recited one of the epic Cretan poems, going on for nearly half an hour without faltering once. Mark had held everyone in the village entranced and when he finally fell silent there was a tear in every Cretan’s eye.

Here had been the Mark they all wanted him to be,
the Mark that they’d thought he was, the Mark he had been when they had first met him on his arrival in Crete. But time, and changes that had come about in his life in the last few years, had made Mark not only rude and uncaring, but bitter and sadistic as well. He had written two books in the years that D’Arcy had known him and had received moderate critical success. But his writing kept him poor. Mark was always going to be a not quite first-rate literary talent, and always poor. And that was the problem, his hatred of being second-rate and poor. He wanted it all: to be a great writer, wealthy, and have critical success as well.

Those things and having the sound of his own voice for Fascism silenced by the voices of free-thinkers, liberal democrats such as Arnold, frustrated him. He had only one friend who listened and agreed with him. And when she was visiting, a conversation between them was like hearing goose-steps.

If only Mark could be persuaded that such thinking was not going to make his or anyone’s life easier or more palatable – quite the opposite. It can infect, destroy, ravage and poison minds and hearts, his own a case in point. And how many others who admired him for his thinking? More days such as they had just experienced, more love and good friends was what was needed. Maybe then that aggressive behaviour he took with the weak and less driven than himself would taper off and he could enjoy life as much as he had during the marvellous day they had all just had together. D’Arcy had great hopes for Mark, for all of them.

After their picnic in the villages, Manoussos, Max and Arnold returned to Livakia while D’Arcy and Laurence spent several days on the move round the island, visiting the odd friend, but in general just enjoying themselves and each other enormously. They were having a lazy lunch straight from the sea to the fire in a small taverna in a village to the far west of Livakia, when D’Arcy suddenly said, ‘Let’s go home.’

‘Sure. This has been a great trip, D’Arcy, but, yes, do let’s go home,’ he agreed, taking her hand in his.

There was nothing more to it than that. The aquamarine 2CV, top down and layered with dust, was parked out of the sun and under a thatched lean-to close to the beach. They had choices: they could try and find a bed in the village and leave the next morning or they could leave immediately, but it was a long hard ride from that village up the mountains and across the range to get home. They would have to drive the last hours at dusk and more likely in the dark. While that was not a problem for D’Arcy, she had been driving for days and the prospect of another long haul did not inspire much enthusiasm.

They had very nearly decided to stay the night in the village and asked the taverna’s proprietor if there was a bed to be rented. D’Arcy and Laurence were no strangers to the village or the proprietor who had joined them over a bottle of wine and assured them there were several beds in several houses they could be comfortable in. Or, he had suggested, ‘We can lift your little blue bug and put it and you on board Sotiri’s boat and you can be home in a couple of hours,’ pointing to a large and handsome wooden boat sailing in towards the beach and
a dilapidated wooden dock a hundred yards from where they sat.