Aphrodite's Island Read online

  Dear Karim,

  I have finally realized how badly I have been behaving towards you and I want to apologize. Please believe me when I say that I really only wanted to do what is best for both of us. If circumstances had been different I think we could have had a wonderful relationship but as things stand at the moment that is just not possible. It is my fault that you have been hurt so badly. I should never have come back to Cyprus, or at the very least I should never have persuaded you to make love to me. It is a memory I shall always treasure – nothing can take away from that – but all the same it was wrong, because it gave you the impression that something permanent was happening between us. You must understand that I cannot commit myself to anything. I may only have a short time to live and I do not want you to give up everything you love about your job and your beautiful island just for the trauma of watching me fade away.

  Please, Karim, try to forget you ever met me. It will be better for both of us in the long run. But so that you will not have to pass months wondering what has happened to me I will write another letter and give it to a friend to post when … (I pause for a long time here before I can bring myself to write the next words) when it is all over. That way at least you will know the final outcome.

  I shall always love you but, unless some kind of miracle happens, we can never be together. One day you will find someone else, probably someone much more worthy of you than I am, and have a wonderful life.

  Take care, my darling.

  Cressida

  As I put Karim’s letter back in the drawer I see the yellowing bundle of my father’s letters. I take them out and smooth their creases with my hand. In the drawer with them is the letter Ferhan gave me with Ariadne’s address. I understand for the first time that the letters are not mine. They were addressed to that frightened eighteen-year-old girl whom Ferhan conjured up for me. Admittedly, that girl had grown into a mature woman by the time the letters were written but that must have been the image in my father’s mind as he wrote. It was a last, desperate attempt to explain that he had not abandoned her of his own free will, written at a time when he was in fear for his own life. I picture him, sick and shivering in that dark cave where he was imprisoned, frantically scribbling those words of apology and undying devotion. It was not his fault that he had fallen in love so completely that no other woman could ever fill the gap left in his life by the loss of Ariadne. And she must have loved him with the same abandon. Is it not my duty, as his daughter, to set the record straight? At last I come to a resolution. I will send the letters to Ariadne, with a note explaining how they had come into my possession. It will be a final tribute to my father’s memory – an act of forgiveness and reconciliation. I pick up my pen and begin to write.

  Over the next weeks I exist in a kind of limbo. As September turns to October there is an autumnal gentleness to the sunshine that I find soothing. I make myself go out for a walk every morning and each day I am able to walk a little farther. At times I almost begin to believe in the possibility of a cure but then a sudden fit of dizziness or bout of nausea reminds me that the disease could take me in its grip again at any moment. I read voraciously, but only the kind of light popular novels that I would once have considered beneath my notice. Then, one day, booting up my laptop to deal with some routine bills, I come across the brief historical vignettes which I typed out with the sense of transcribing words that were not my own. It occurs to me that it might be possible to work them up into a series of short stories. Once I start, the idea takes a hold of me and the work gives a focus to my otherwise idle days.

  I am sitting curled up in my easy chair, half watching some inane television quiz show, when the doorbell rings. I swear under my breath. Sue and Angie and Lisa have forgiven me for my outburst but they have taken the hint and made their visits less frequent and I am not expecting anyone to call this evening. Muttering bad-temperedly to myself, I get up and stomp to the front door.

  The man who stands outside is a complete stranger. He is a little above middle height, solidly built, thickening slightly round the waist. I guess he is somewhere in his mid forties. He has a mane of hair that must once have been silver-blond but has faded to the colour of straw and the softening of the flesh along the jaw line cannot obscure the perfect regularity of his features. I stare at him. A stranger – yet there is something about him that I feel I ought to recognize. His good looks and smart suit make me painfully aware that I am wearing ancient, sagging jogging bottoms and a stained sweatshirt and that I have no make-up on and my hair, which has started to grow back, is once again badly in need of washing.

  I see the shocked expression that I have come to expect and say abruptly, ‘Yes?’, then regret my lack of courtesy. I push a strand of hair back behind my ear and add, ‘Sorry. I wasn’t expecting visitors.’

  He is visibly disconcerted. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I should have telephoned. It was thoughtless of me.’ His English is perfectly correct but there is a faint hint of a foreign accent.

  I moisten dry lips with a tongue that feels like a piece of old carpet. ‘Did you want something?’

  He hesitates and clears his throat. ‘You are Cressida – Cressida Allenby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ In my head I am going through a card index of old acquaintances – ex-colleagues, old friends from university, casual pick-ups at parties …

  He goes on, ‘Of course, why should you? You were only a small child.’

  I feel the solid floor lurch under my feet. ‘It’s you! You’re Evangelos – the angel boy!’

  He laughs suddenly and the intervening years evaporate. ‘Yes, that is what your mother used to call me.’

  I have to reach for the edge of the door for support. He comes into the hallway. ‘You’re not well. Can I get you something – a glass of water, perhaps? Would you like to sit down?’

  His concern recalls me to my duties as a hostess. ‘I’m sorry. Please come in. I’m so glad to see you. Would you like a drink?’

  But I sway as I move towards the sitting-room door and he catches my arm and supports me into the room. When I am seated he murmurs, ‘Stay still. I will find some water.’

  A moment later he is back with a glass. I sip gratefully and get myself under control.

  ‘I’m sorry about the state of the place. I’m – I’ve been ill.’

  He looks down at me, his brow wrinkled with concern. ‘I hope it’s not serious.’

  ‘No, no. Just a nasty bout of flu, that’s all.’ It is the lie I usually tell to shopkeepers or other strangers. ‘Look, please sit down. Or wait – just a minute. I think there’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge. The glasses are in the cupboard above. Would you mind?’

  ‘Of course.’

  While he is out of the room, I try to order my thoughts. His sudden reappearance has shaken me. It is as if my own recollections of that long-past time have conjured him out of thin air.

  He returns with the wine and pours out two glasses. He sits down opposite me and raises his glass. ‘Here’s to a speedy recovery!’

  I take a tiny sip and find my voice. ‘I don’t understand. How did you track me down?’

  He leans forward, nursing his glass between his hands. ‘You don’t know? Surely you must have guessed that I am not just the boy who helped out in the bar at Lapithos.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I found you because you wrote to my mother.’

  ‘Your mother?’ My brain struggles to process the information. ‘You are Ariadne’s son?’

  ‘Yes. But not just hers. You still don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘The letters you sent her were written by my father – our father.’

  Suddenly that phrase in my father’s letter comes back to me. ‘Of course he has no idea who I am.’ ‘Our father? You mean, Ariadne had a child with my father?’

  ‘Yes. I am Stephen Allenby’s son. My stepfath
er gave me his name, so I am called Evangelos Charalambous – but that is who I am.’

  ‘That makes you … my half-brother!’

  ‘Exactly. I am so happy to meet you at last. Though of course we did meet, more than twenty years ago.’

  ‘Did you know – then?’

  ‘No, I had no idea. It was only when … only several years later that my mother told me the truth. It was kind of you to send the letters. She asked me to come and tell you how grateful she is for all the trouble you took to find her.’

  ‘You came all the way from Cyprus?’

  He laughs. ‘No, no. I live here, in London. I own a restaurant in the Fulham Road.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  For a moment neither of us speaks. Then he says, ‘You didn’t know that my mother was pregnant when our father disappeared?’

  ‘No, I had no idea.’

  ‘You spoke to Ferhan. Didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘No. She must have known, I suppose, but she never mentioned it. But I think she felt quite protective of Ariadne. I’m sure she blamed Dad for abandoning her. Is that why she was sent to Athens and married off to a man she had never met?’

  ‘No doubt.’

  I feel myself flush. ‘I’m sorry. That was tactless of me. Of course, you must have grown up thinking of that man as your father. Was … was it a happy marriage?’

  ‘Tolerable, I think. My stepfather was a good man.’

  ‘Stephen … our father … didn’t leave of his own free will. You know that now. I’m so glad your mother got the letters. I wanted her to know that he never forgot her.’

  He looks at me in silence for a moment. Then he says, ‘You wrote that your own mother died recently. I’m sorry. I liked her very much.’

  I say, ‘What I don’t understand is, how did you come to work for my parents all those years ago? Was it pure coincidence?’

  Evangelos shakes his head. ‘Oh no, far from it. But it’s a long story. Perhaps you don’t feel up to it tonight.’

  ‘No, please! I want to hear. It’s all been such a puzzle and I’d like to know the full story before … before you go.’

  ‘You know a little of what was going on, politically, at the time your mother and father brought you to Cyprus?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about that.’

  ‘My mother had two brothers …’

  ‘Iannis and Demetrios. I know. They are mentioned in the letters.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. So you know that my Uncle Iannis was involved with EOKA B, the terrorist organization.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was a fanatic, Uncle Iannis. He gave his whole life to the struggle for enosis. When my stepfather brought us back to live in Cyprus, I was seventeen. Iannis talked to me about the cause. He persuaded me that I should do my patriotic duty by joining EOKA. I was impressionable and he seemed a very glamorous and exciting figure. The outlaw! The freedom fighter! I joined and swore an oath that neither torture nor the threat of death would force me to disclose what I knew. At the time, I thought I was doing something fine and noble. I discovered very soon that it was neither of those things.’

  He takes a sip of his wine. His expression has darkened and he seems for a moment to have forgotten my presence.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When our father returned to the island and began asking questions, Iannis was convinced that he had come to spy for the British army. He told me to go to the bar when he was away and offer to help. I was to try to find out everything I could about him – where he was going, what he was doing …’

  ‘Did Iannis know who you were?’

  ‘Of course. That was the real reason behind it. He needed me to act as a decoy.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He intended all along to kidnap your father – partly to find out what information he had been passing back to the authorities but partly, largely I think, as revenge for what had happened with my mother.’

  ‘So, how did he do it?’

  ‘Iannis told me that he needed to talk to your father but he couldn’t be seen going to the bar himself. I was to tell him that someone wanted to meet him, secretly, and then take him to an old church up in the hills.’

  ‘Not the church of St Antiphonitis?’

  ‘Yes! How did you guess?’

  ‘It’s just a coincidence. I was there not long ago. Go on.’

  ‘Of course, Stephen thought that his messages had got through to my mother and that she wanted to meet him. He came with me and Iannis was waiting for him, with two other men. They held him at gunpoint, tied him up and drove him to a cave up in the mountains.’ Evangelos gazes into his wine glass. ‘He looked at me, just once, and I knew I had betrayed him. I have never forgotten that look.’

  ‘You weren’t to blame. Your uncle deceived you, as well as him. And you did try to look after him, didn’t you? He wrote about that in his letters.’

  ‘I did what I could. I would have let him go, if I could, but there were always a couple of Iannis’s men on guard.’

  ‘But you did get him paper and a pen.’

  ‘Yes, that was one thing I could do for him. Then, when the invasion started, Iannis and his men rushed off to fight and I was able to get him out of the cave. He was very ill by that time. I got him on to a donkey, somehow, and took him to a farm. There was total chaos by then – heavy fighting along the beaches and on the road between Kyrenia and Nicosia and Turkish planes coming over all the time, bombing and strafing. It was particularly heavy all round Lapithos and anyway I didn’t think Stephen would make it that far. It was hard enough keeping him on the donkey even for a short journey. The farm was owned by Turks and I could see that the Turkish forces were going to win, so I reckoned he’d be safe there.’

  ‘So it was you who left him there.’

  ‘I felt bad about just leaving him,’ Evangelos says. ‘But I was afraid that, under the circumstances, the owners might decide to make me a prisoner of war.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ I interrupt. ‘I remember you rescuing me when the bombs were falling. Was that before or after you left my father at the farm?’

  ‘After. Your father had made me promise to deliver his letters.’

  ‘But they were for your mother, not mine!’

  ‘I know that now. But when he first asked me for paper he said they were for his wife. Then he got delirious with the fever. I suppose he intended eventually to tell me the full story but once he got ill he really didn’t know what he was saying. I had no reason to think that the letters were for anyone but your mother. It was night time when I left him. As soon as it got light the next day I set off for Lapithos. That’s when I found you under the fig tree. Your mother was desperately trying to pack and half out of her mind with worry about your father. You must have wandered off. I took you home and gave her the letters but the Turkish army was advancing and I didn’t dare stay. I could see myself being shot, either as a spy by the Turks or as a deserter by my own side.’ He pauses and looks at me. ‘It was a great relief to know you got back to England safely.’

  We are silent for a moment. Then I say, ‘It must have been a shock for your mother, hearing from my father … our father … again after all those years. A voice from the grave!’

  Evangelos makes no reply but after a moment he says, ‘It doesn’t upset you, that he had a love affair with someone else, before you were born?’

  ‘It did, very much, to begin with. Now – now I just feel terribly sorry for everyone. I hope those letters have given your mother some comfort. And I’m so glad to have met you again before –’

  I stop myself but after a pause he says, ‘This illness – it’s not just flu, is it?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I’ve got leukaemia.’

  ‘Oh no! I’m so sorry! But that’s treatable, isn’t it? Have you seen a specialist?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been having chemotherapy and it seems to have helped. But it’s only a temporary remission.’ I look at him. Here, out of the blu
e, is the blood relative I thought I would never find. Dare I ask for his help? I empty my wine glass. ‘What I need is a bone marrow transplant from a donor whose genetic make-up is close enough to mine …’

  ‘Like a brother, or a half-brother,’ he says at once. ‘They can test for that, can’t they? When can you arrange for me to be tested?’

  ‘Very soon, I should imagine. But, Angel, are you sure you want to do this? It means an operation – not the nicest sort of process …’

  He interrupts by taking both my hands in his. ‘Cressida! You’re my little sister. Of course I want to help, if I can. Ask your doctor to arrange the tests – please.’

  ‘All right. I have to go for a check-up the day after tomorrow, as it happens. I’ll ask about it then. How shall I contact you?’

  ‘Here.’ He takes a business card from his pocket and writes quickly on the back of it. ‘That’s the restaurant – and I’ve written my personal number and my mobile on the back. Ring me as soon as you hear anything.’ He gets up. ‘I’m going to leave you now. I think you’ve had quite enough for one evening. I can see you’re very tired.’

  ‘I wish I could entertain you properly. It’s awful, meeting you again and not being able to invite you to a meal or something. There’s so much I want to ask you.’

  He presses my hand. ‘We’ll find the time. God willing, the genes will match up and soon you’ll be well again. Then we’ll have a big celebration at the restaurant. Do you like Greek food?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then that’s something to look forward to. I’ll call in again, soon – but this time I’ll telephone first.’ He hesitates, then bends and kisses me lightly on the cheek. ‘Don’t bother coming to the door. I can let myself out.’

  When he has gone I turn the card over and look at the name of the restaurant. It is called The Tree of Idleness.