Aphrodite's Island Read online

‘But you wouldn’t expect your wife to wear a veil or … or live in a harem?’

  He laughs. ‘Good Lord, no! How many veiled women have you seen out here?’ Then his face sobers. ‘But just the same, there are differences of attitude, different values.’

  We are both silent for a moment. Then I say, ‘So there’s never been anyone – for you?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘But you’re not – you can’t be…!’ The words are out before I can stop them.

  He holds my gaze. ‘A virgin? No, not quite. Thanks to a kind girl in Newcastle and one or two … professional ladies since. But I don’t like that kind of relationship. On the whole, I prefer continence.’

  It is my turn to look away. Suddenly I see how vast the gulf must seem to him between my lifestyle and his own and I wish I had lied about the previous boyfriends, or could in some way erase them.

  Karim gets to his feet. ‘I’ll walk you back to your hotel.’

  We walk in silence, past the now empty tables. At the hotel entrance he takes my hand.

  ‘Thank you for a very enjoyable day.’

  ‘No,’ I respond, ‘I should thank you. It’s been a lovely day, and you’ve been very kind and thoughtful.’

  Our eyes meet again and I long to reach up and press my lips to his but find myself held back by an unfamiliar restraint. He raises my hand and kisses it lightly.

  ‘Good night. Sleep well.’

  ‘Good night, Karim.’

  In the foyer of the hotel I turn and watch him through the glass of the doors, walking away towards his car. It comes to me that he has not asked me to go out with him again.

  CHAPTER 14

  When I come down to breakfast the following morning, I find that the tour group has already left on a day trip to Nicosia. I pass the day idling around the town, explore the castle, then lie by the pool. When I come back into the hotel I find another envelope waiting for me from Os Wentworth. Inside are translations of two more of my father’s letters. I take them to my favourite spot on the terrace and discover that my hands are shaking as I unfold the first one.

  My darling,

  I had to break off last night because Iannis suddenly appeared. Luckily I heard him speaking to the sentry outside the cave and so was able to hide the letter before he came in. Perhaps I should not be writing at all. I don’t care what he might do to me if he found out but I could not forgive myself if it caused trouble for you. God knows, you’ve suffered enough because of me. And yet, I cannot let this one last chance of communicating with you slip away. I do not expect anything to come of it. I know you would never betray your husband and your family. After all these years I am probably only a distant memory to you.

  I am rambling, I know. The fact is, I can feel a fever coming on. For years now I have suffered from bouts of malaria that recur from time to time, particularly when I am under stress. The damp and chill in this cave are not helping, either. It doesn’t matter. When I have served whatever purpose Iannis has for me he will dispose of me. The malaria may save him the trouble!

  What I want to do, what I must do while I have a chance, is set the record straight. Yes, I was responsible for the ambush. I had to give my superiors some concrete proof that I had really been following up a useful lead. I came across the arms cache one day when I was waiting for you. Of course I realized that you had not the faintest suspicion of its existence. How could I have possibly guessed that Demetrios was involved? He was my friend and your brother. I would never have harmed him. You must believe that!

  My head is splitting. I shall have to stop. Good night, my darling girl.

  The third letter was brief and Os had written at the top of his translation, ‘The writing on this page is very erratic and quite difficult to follow. I think your father was in a bad way when he wrote it. I’ve done my best with it but there were bits I couldn’t make sense of at all.’

  Iannis is convinced I am still working for British Intelligence … (Indecipherable) Can’t make him understand … Strong arm tactics are useless. Have to persuade him I don’t know anything. Not making much sense anyway. High fever … delirious some of the time. Must find a chance to give these to Evangelos before it’s too late. Should I tell him the truth? What could he do, poor kid? (More indecipherable scrawl, then the writing becomes steadier again) Just woken up. Head a bit clearer but think I must still be hallucinating. Thought for a minute I was back in Vietnam. Keep thinking I can hear gunfire.

  (The letter breaks off here. My guess is that what your father was hearing was probably the beginning of the Turkish invasion. This is bound to be distressing for you. I’m sorry. If you want to come out to Lapta and talk it over Meg and I would be delighted to see you. Os.)

  I look at the back of the letter and feel sick. Those rust-coloured blotches that I noticed before have taken on a much more sinister significance. ‘Strong arm tactics.’ What did that mean?

  I shut my eyes tightly and try to force myself to remember those last days on the island. There are only fleeting, disjointed images. Bags, suitcases, my mother shouting at someone – and running. That recurring nightmare. Running with my mother, being dragged along by the hand, a bag banging against my legs. ‘Hurry! Come on! You can run faster than that! We can’t stop here!’ Then something I had not recalled before. A beach, crowded with people, but not sunbathing, not swimming. ‘No, you can’t go and paddle! Sit here and don’t move. Do you understand? Don’t move from this spot. I want you to look after the cases.’ Legs moving around me – men’s, women’s – cases being picked up and dumped down again – voices. Then someone lifting and carrying me, a man, a stranger. Not my father. In all the confusion there is no image of him. And yet I remember him in England, walking me to school along the Hampshire lanes. Surely I can’t be mistaken about that.

  I take a taxi to Lapta, where the imperturbable Meg insists that I stay for lunch. When I describe my memories Os says, ‘That makes sense to me. When the invasion happened the navy was sent in to rescue British nationals. They couldn’t use Kyrenia harbour because the EOKA guerrillas were firing into the town from the hills above and the castle itself was still in Greek hands. So people were taken off by launch and helicopter from the beaches to the east of the town. It was a pretty chaotic scene, I should imagine. That’s probably what you were remembering.’

  ‘But where was my father at that time?’ I ask. ‘The last thing we know, he was being held prisoner in a cave somewhere, half dead with malaria. How did he get away?’

  Os shrugs gently. ‘We shall probably never know. Perhaps the Turkish army rescued him when they took over. Maybe his captors just disappeared and he managed to get himself to a road or a village. He may not have left on the same ship as you and your mother. What matters, surely, is that he did get away.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I agree reluctantly. ‘But I would love to know the full story. It’s awful to think of what he must have been through – and I never knew anything about it.’

  ‘What still perplexes me,’ Meg remarks, ‘is how those letters came to be here. He meant to give them to Evangelos to pass on to this other woman – whoever she was.’

  Suddenly I have a vivid mental picture of the ‘angel boy’ who rescued me from the bombing. ‘Of course! He did give them to Evangelos! And Evangelos brought them to my mother by mistake. He must have misunderstood.’

  I describe the dream/memory I experienced under the fig tree. ‘I can picture him carrying me back to the house. There was another explosion and I think he must have been wounded. Blood was running down his arm and he was carrying some folded papers. Those marks are Evangelos’s blood, not my father’s!’

  ‘Well, that would certainly explain how the letters got here,’ Os agrees. ‘You and your mother would have had to leave in a hurry so they were probably shoved into a box or a drawer and forgotten about.’

  Meg says thoughtfully, ‘The fighting in this area was pretty fierce – well, you obviously remember that. And yet Evangelos brave
d the shelling to get those letters to your mother. I suppose, if your father was delirious at the time, it’s not surprising that Evangelos misunderstood who the letters were for. But he must have felt very strongly about your father to bring them, under the circumstances. Unless it was that he felt he had an obligation to you and your mother.’

  ‘I wonder where he is now,’ I say. ‘I suppose it would be no use searching for him.’

  ‘Not on this side of the dividing line,’ Os says. ‘If you want to pursue your enquiries you’ll have to come back to the Greek half of the island for your next holiday. Only make sure that the Turkish customs and emigration don’t stamp your passport when you leave. Otherwise they’ll never let you into the Greek sector.’

  As I collect my key from the hotel reception desk I try to suppress a hope that there might be a message from Karim. There is not, and I spend the evening trying to fight off a growing sense of depression. Alan and Mary call me over and invite me to join their table at dinner. There are four others and conversation is lively. They all seem to have bonded and are full of enthusiasm about the island and its history – and full of praise for Karim – but their bonhomie only serves to make me feel more solitary. Afterwards, we adjourn to the terrace and order more drinks. A Turkish belly dancer has been brought in to entertain us and as the evening progresses the mood becomes more and more raucous. These people can certainly put away the alcohol and I find myself wondering what Karim would make of us if he were present. I totter off to bed at midnight with my head swimming.

  The next day at breakfast, Karim comes over to my table.

  ‘I’ve found someone you might like to meet,’ he said. ‘Someone who remembers your father.’

  I gasp in surprise. ‘How wonderful! You are clever, Karim. An Englishman?’

  ‘No, one of my people. He lives in my village. I remembered that he used to be in the police force so I asked him if he recalled anything about an Englishman disappearing around the time of the peace operation. He recognized your father’s name at once. Do you want to meet him?’

  ‘Of course! When?’

  ‘I have to take the group to Lambousa this morning, but it’s only a half-day tour. I’ll pick you up about four o’clock this afternoon and take you to his house. Will that be OK?’

  ‘That will be fine. Thank you, Karim.’

  Rauf Demirel is a corpulent man in his late sixties, as near as I can guess. He welcomes us courteously into his small, whitewashed house and offers apple tea. After the exchange of some necessary small-talk, Karim brings up the subject of our visit.

  Demirel responds at once in fluent though heavily accented English.

  ‘Mr Stephen Allenby? I met him only briefly. But I remember his wife – your mother – very well. She came to see me a few days before the peace operation began.’

  ‘Why did she come? Was she looking for my father?’

  ‘She came to report that he had disappeared, yes. At that time I was in charge of the police depot in Kyrenia. It was a difficult period. I’m not sure how much you know, but the situation was … volatile, shall we say. If I remember correctly your mother came to the police station on the tenth or eleventh of July. She was obviously very worried. She told me your father had not been home for several days and asked for our help.’ Demirel spreads his hands. ‘You understand, your father was a grown man, in full possession of his senses. Normally we would not follow up such a case, except to check the hospitals and circulate his name to other police stations. If a man wishes to disappear …’ He shrugs expressively.

  ‘So you don’t know what had happened to him.’ Is that all? I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  ‘Ah, but wait!’ Demirel goes on. ‘That is not the end of the story. As you perhaps know, a few days later the Greek National Guard attempted a coup against President Makarios. From then on there was civil war – Greek against Greek – as the supporters of Makarios fought the National Guard. We Turks were told to keep out of it, that it was nothing to do with us. But we knew whichever side won we would be next to suffer. Kyrenia was taken over by the National Guard. My officers and I were mostly Turks. We decided to withdraw from the city, up into the hills near the pass that leads to Lefkosa. We stayed in a village called Agirdag and waited to see what would happen. Then, five days later, the Turkish army arrived. I watched the paratroopers coming down out of the sky onto the mountain slopes right in front of me!’

  I try not to fidget. It is obvious that Demirel is wrapped up in his memories, but I can’t see what relevance they have to my father. Karim catches my eye and makes a slight, pacifying movement of one hand.

  ‘The fighting went on for two days and nights,’ Demirel continues. ‘The planes came over by day, dropping bombs and strafing the Greek positions. And the ships off the coast kept up a constant bombardment. It was high summer and very hot. Soon the hillsides were ablaze. The Greeks had prepared positions in caves, where they had stashed large quantities of arms and ammunition. We could only wait and watch. Then, on the third morning, during a lull in the bombing, a farmer arrived in the village. He was driving a tractor and pulling a trailer on which were his wife and children and everything he had been able to salvage from his home. There was also an Englishman – a very sick man.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Allenby. Your father. The farmer told us how the previous night, during a lull in the fighting, he had heard a knocking at the door. When he opened it, he found your father slumped on the threshold. He was delirious and unable to stand, so obviously someone must have brought him to the farm, but whoever it was had already disappeared.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We did what we could, but we had no medicine and no doctor. Of course, all communications were cut. So I sent him with two of my men with instructions to try to get through to the British base at Dhekelia. I believe they had some difficulties, but they reached the base eventually. I assume your father was cared for there until he was well enough to be flown home. He reached you all right, in the end?’

  I hesitate. It seems ridiculous that I cannot be sure. ‘I suppose he must have done. I remember him in England, soon after that.’

  ‘Dr Mezeli tells me he died a year or two later,’ Demirel says sympathetically. ‘My commiserations. Perhaps he never recovered from his ordeal?’

  I struggle to remember whether he was ill during that brief interval. ‘Perhaps not. But thank you. Thank you so much for helping him – and for filling in part of the mystery for me. I suppose you have no idea why he was kidnapped?’

  ‘What makes you think he was kidnapped?’

  ‘Some letters he wrote – letters I have only just come across. It seems he was being held in a cave somewhere, but I don’t know why.’

  Demirel shrugs again. ‘I can only guess. The EOKA terrorists were very active at that time. What they might want with your father I do not know, but kidnapping and murder were part of their trade. If they were holding him, perhaps his captors were killed in the bombing, or went off to join in the fighting, and he was able to escape. But someone must have helped him.’

  ‘I wish I knew who. I should like to thank them.’

  Demirel raises his palms. ‘There, I’m afraid, I cannot help you.’

  We leave soon after that. In the car Karim says, ‘Shall I drive you back to the hotel? Or would you like to come back to my place for some proper tea?’

  My mood lifts immediately. ‘Tea would be lovely.’

  Once we are seated in the shade in the courtyard of Karim’s house I say, ‘Thank you so much for taking the trouble to find Mr Demirel for me. At least now I have one more piece of the jigsaw.’

  ‘Enough pieces to make up a picture?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I assemble my thoughts with an effort. ‘The one thing we haven’t been able to discover is the one thing I should really like to know.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Who the girl was. I wonder if she’s still alive. And
Evangelos. I wonder where he is now.’

  Karim shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help any further. If there are answers to those questions, then they are on the other side of the Green Line, in the Greek sector.’

  I sigh. ‘There’s no more time, anyway. I have to go home the day after tomorrow.’

  Karim gets up. ‘Come on. I’ll drive you back to the hotel.’

  I decide on a last throw of the dice. ‘Actually, I thought we might have dinner together. My treat, this time.’

  For a moment his eyes narrow. Then he says, ‘I’m afraid not. Thank you for the invitation, but I have a talk to give tonight.’

  I follow him out to the car, raging inwardly but whether at him or myself I do not know. As we drive away from the house I try once more, against my better judgement.

  ‘Well, if not tonight, how about tomorrow?’

  For a moment it seems he is looking for an excuse to turn me down again. Then he says, as if the decision has cost him a struggle, ‘Very well. But you will be my guest. I cannot allow a woman to pay for me.’

  That night I can’t sleep. I am beset by confused emotions that refuse to submit to rational examination. What did I expect from Karim? What did I want? A holiday romance? A one-night stand? Am I that desperate? I feel a hot flush of humiliation at the thought of how obvious I have been. No wonder he cooled off! He was attracted to me to begin with. I am quite sure of that. And I know exactly when it all went wrong. It was when I confessed to having had several former lovers. I feel a rush of exasperation. What did he expect? I am twenty-eight and this is the end of the twentieth century. If he is looking for a virgin bride, it is no wonder he is still single. He had better settle for one of the nice Muslim girls his parents keep finding for him. Anger comes to my rescue. Sod him! It’s his loss. There is no way I am going to settle for the kind of marriage he would want. My train of thought hits the buffers with an almost physical jolt. Whoever mentioned marriage, anyway?