Aphrodite's Island Read online

  CHAPTER 19

  At the outpatients clinic I tell them about Evangelos and ask them to arrange a test, so I am not surprised when I receive a call from the hospital giving me an urgent appointment with the consultant. I walk into the room buoyed up by a tremulous optimism, but that is immediately dispelled by the expression on Dr Prentiss’s face. I sit down opposite her and she folds her hands and leans forward.

  ‘So. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Not too bad, actually. I went through a very low patch but I seem to have come out the other side.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘You did get the message – that I’ve discovered I have a half-brother? Do you think there’s any chance that he might be suitable?’

  ‘It’s possible. But there is something else we have to discuss first. Did you know that you are pregnant?’

  ‘Pregnant!’ I stare at her. ‘I can’t be.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it. It shows up clearly in your recent test.’

  ‘But you told me the chemotherapy would make me sterile.’

  ‘I said it might. And you told me that you were not in a relationship at present.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I’m not …’ I stumble into silence. I don’t want her to think that the pregnancy is the result of some casual encounter. ‘I thought it had finished but it started up again.’

  There is a pause. Then the doctor says in a gentler tone, ‘I’m sorry if this is a shock to you. But now you have to make a decision. If your potential donor turns out to be a good enough match, there is no question of going ahead with the transplant while you are pregnant. You are going to have to decide if you want this baby.’

  I press my hand to my forehead, as if the physical pressure could still my churning thoughts. ‘I don’t know. How can I make a decision like that on the spur of the moment?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Of course you must have time to think. But we can’t afford to leave it too long. Do you know when the child was conceived?’

  ‘Yes, exactly. It would be almost six weeks ago.’

  ‘Then we have a little time – say another five weeks. That is, if you decide to go for an abortion.’

  I force myself to breathe deeply. After the initial shock my brain is starting to work again. ‘Is there any chance that it could have been … harmed by the treatment I’ve had?’

  ‘I’m afraid there is that possibility. Did the conception take place before or after we stopped the chemotherapy?’

  ‘Afterwards. About a week after.’

  ‘Well, that’s something in our favour. If you had still been having the treatment the chances of foetal deformity would have been very high. Even now I can’t guarantee that there won’t be a problem. There is also the possibility of a miscarriage.’

  ‘Can we find out? If the baby’s OK, I mean?’

  ‘We can do a scan and later, after sixteen weeks, an amniocentesis. But even then we can’t be sure of picking everything up. But that is not the only, or indeed the primary, consideration.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I would be failing in my responsibility if I did not warn you that if you go ahead with the pregnancy you could be putting your own life at risk. If the leukaemia returns to the acute phase we should not be able to treat you with the same drugs without endangering the child. Have you considered that?’

  I hear myself say, ‘I suppose I shall just have to hope that the remission lasts long enough for the baby to be born.’

  ‘And if you succeed in carrying the child to term and successfully delivering it, at the expense of your own life, what happens to the baby?’

  This is more than I can deal with at this moment. ‘The father might … he might want … I don’t know. I suppose there are always people wanting to adopt, aren’t there?’

  ‘Well, if that is your decision, after you have had time to consider all the factors, I shall respect it, of course. We can start you on a course of alpha-interferon, which should slow the progress of the disease and will not harm the foetus, and I’ll refer you to a colleague of mine in the gynaecology department. We’ll monitor your progress and hope for the best.’ She smiles, and the professional mask is replaced by a warm humanity. ‘Whatever decision you come to, you can rely on my support.’

  When I get home I take the letter with Karim’s number on it from the drawer of the desk and stand for a long time by the telephone. Karim has a right to know, hasn’t he? I stretch out my hand to the receiver. One phone call and he will be on the next plane. Then the decision will not be up to me alone. The prospect of passing some of the burden of responsibility to him is tempting. But even as the thought comes to me I know what his reaction will be. He will want me to get rid of the child. He will say that my health is the most important consideration – that he cannot allow me to do something that might mean he will lose me forever. But if I decide to go ahead with the pregnancy in spite of everything he will insist on marriage and at least then, if anything happens to me, the child will have a father. But suppose the tests show that there is some terrible deformity? Suppose I were to miscarry? And I still have no prospect of a permanent cure – less now, if anything. It would be too cruel for Karim to lose his child and his wife within months of each other. Eventually I decide to wait, at least until I have the result of the scan.

  The scan shows nothing abnormal and as I enter the flat the phone is ringing. It is Evangelos.

  ‘Have you arranged for the tests?’

  ‘Yes – but there is something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘Fine. I want you to meet some people – my family, my wife. Will you come to the restaurant?’

  I almost refuse. Going out means such an effort and I am in no state of mind to be sociable but I need to talk to him.

  ‘Yes, thank you. I should like that.’

  ‘Tomorrow evening, about seven?’

  ‘Yes, that would be fine.’

  I dress with care. I have been eating better lately and with the application of some make-up I look a little less ‘like death warmed up’, as my mother would have put it. I call a taxi and find that the prospect of the evening ahead is not as daunting as I expected.

  The restaurant is sophisticated, with modern, uncluttered decor and subtle lighting. It is obviously successful, since most of the tables are occupied although it is still early.

  Evangelos is waiting for me at the door. ‘Cressida! You look beautiful! Come upstairs. We will eat en famille, not in the restaurant.’

  He leads me to the back of the restaurant and up a narrow flight of stairs and through a door into a hallway, where a huge vase of fresh flowers stands below a large framed photograph of Kyrenia harbour. Then he stops and turns to look at me.

  ‘Cressida, I haven’t been entirely truthful. I said I wanted you to meet someone, and it’s true that I want you to meet my wife and kids, but before that there is someone else you should meet. Please, this way.’

  He opens a door and ushers me into a comfortably furnished sitting room. A small, plump woman whose dark hair is streaked with grey rises from a sofa as we enter. Evangelos takes me by the arm and leads me over to her.

  ‘Cressida, this is my mother, Ariadne.’

  The solid earth seems to disintegrate beneath my feet. This little old lady is the seductress who stole my father’s heart? This is the enchantress who spun a thread that kept him captive all his life? This is Circe? This is Calypso?

  ‘Cressida, my dear! I am glad to meet you at last.’

  I stammer like a schoolgirl. ‘Ariadne – Mrs Charalambous – I’m sorry … I had no idea. I thought you were in Cyprus.’

  ‘So I was, until a few days ago. Then, when Angel telephoned, we knew we had to come. Please, sit down.’ She indicates a place on the sofa beside her. ‘It is tragic that we have had to wait until you are so ill. Thank God we have found you before it is too late! How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m … a little better at the moment, thank you.
’

  There is a knock and a waiter comes in with a tray bearing glasses and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. Evangelos says, ‘Forget sickness for a moment. We must celebrate finding each other again.’

  Ariadne says, ‘I was so touched that you sent me those letters. I think many women would have burned them.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I reply. ‘They were my only souvenirs of my father. I never really knew him, you see.’

  ‘Did you miss him very much, while you were growing up?’

  ‘I suppose I did but children accept things, don’t they? It was really only after my mother died that I realized what a … well, what a hole there was in my life. It wasn’t that my father was dead, but that I knew so little about him. My mother wouldn’t talk about him, you see, and she must have destroyed everything that reminded her of him, except a few photos I found at the bottom of a drawer.’

  ‘And were you angry, when you found out that he had had a love affair?’

  ‘Yes, I was initially. It broke my mother’s heart, you see. Not that he’d had another love, but that he’d never got over it. But then I began to realize that you must have suffered too. Ferhan told me how your father sent you to Athens, to marry a man you hardly knew. It must have been awful for you.’

  Ariadne lays her hand on my arm. ‘Being separated from your father was awful, but I was lucky in many ways. My husband was a good man. I never loved him but he was always kind to me and he never threw my sin back in my face.’

  ‘You think of it as a sin?’

  ‘In the eyes of many people it was a sin. But to me? No. I could no more have stopped myself from loving your father than I could have forbidden the waves to break on the shore.’

  ‘Was he very good-looking?’

  ‘Good-looking? Oh yes, he was beautiful. Tall and fair as a young god. But it was not just his looks that I fell in love with.’

  ‘What was it then?’

  ‘It was his smile, and the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners when he laughed – and his kindness.’

  ‘Was he kind? He wasn’t very kind to my mother.’

  ‘You are still angry with him, then?’

  ‘No, not any more. I think he did his best but he just couldn’t forget. Why didn’t he marry you?’

  ‘He would have done, if it had been possible. My family would never have permitted it. He asked me many times. What happened was not his fault.’

  We are talking as if we have known each other for a long time. I look into her dark eyes and see in them the pride and tenderness that must have enthralled my father.

  ‘I don’t think it was anybody’s fault,’ I say.

  Somewhere out of my line of sight a door opens and Evangelos says softly, ‘Cressida, look behind you.’

  I turn and see that a second man has entered the room. He is tall and lean and silver-haired and his face is as lined and tanned as the leather of a well-worn brogue, but the blue eyes are as vivid as a boy’s. He stands still and looks at me across the width of the room.

  ‘Cressida?’ His voice cracks slightly. ‘Don’t you know me?’

  I get to my feet. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, as if in a dream.

  ‘Dad? But you can’t be! You died. Mum told me you were dead.’

  He comes towards me, both hands held out. ‘My darling little girl! If only I’d known sooner. I can’t bear it that you’re so ill!’

  I shrink back from his touch. ‘I don’t understand. What are you doing here? Where have you been?’

  He drops his hands. ‘Yes, you’re right. I owe you an explanation. Sit down, please. Let’s talk this through.’

  I sink back onto the couch and realize that Ariadne has moved in order to make room for Stephen beside me.

  He says, ‘Years ago, soon after we got back from Cyprus, when you were only a small child, I realized that your mother and I had come to a point where it was impossible to go on living together. I had already given up my teaching job and was making a living as a journalist. It gave me a reason to be away and I thought perhaps if we gave each other some space things might come right. But each time I came home it was worse. In the end I only came back in order to see you. Do you remember that at all?’

  ‘You brought me a clockwork monkey. I remember that.’

  He smiles briefly. ‘Oh, that monkey! I’m glad you remember that.’

  ‘But then you went for good.’

  ‘Yes. You’ve spoken to Ferhan. You know that she used to write to me? One day I got a letter telling me that Ariadne’s husband had died and giving me her address.’

  ‘She told me she had written, but she said you never replied.’

  ‘No, that was remiss of me. But all I could think of was that Ariadne was now free and I could go to her. At last I could explain why I had left her without a word and tell her how I felt.’ He turns and stretches a hand to the small woman who was sitting on his other side. ‘And she, God bless her, forgave me and took me in.’

  Ariadne says softly, ‘There was nothing to forgive.’

  ‘And you have been living together ever since?’

  ‘Yes, ever since.’

  ‘Then, those letters … I need never have sent them.’ The confusion of thoughts and emotions threaten to overwhelm me.

  ‘I’m so glad you did! Without that I should never have known where to find you.’

  ‘But why did you let me think you were dead, all these years?’

  ‘That was your mother’s wish, not mine. When I wrote and told her that I wanted her to divorce me she said that she would on one condition – that I must give up all right to see you and let her tell you that I was dead. She said it would be better for you to think that than to know that I had left you both to live with another woman. I don’t know if she was right. Perhaps I should have fought her on that point. But she convinced me that it was best for you. Believe me, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.’

  ‘It was a choice between us, Mother and me, and her.’ The words are choking me. I glance towards Ariadne. ‘You could have chosen us.’

  ‘Yes, I could. But your mother and I couldn’t live together peaceably. Would it have been good for you to grow up in the middle of our rows? And I had a debt to Ariadne, too, and to Evangelos. Don’t forget I had another child to think of.’

  ‘Why did you marry my mother if you didn’t love her?’ Finally I arrive at the crucial question.

  ‘But I did! At least, I thought I did. Or perhaps it was that I needed an anchor, something, someone to hold on to.’

  ‘Because you couldn’t find Ariadne? But that must have been years later.’

  ‘Oh yes, many years. But I had never settled, never put down any roots. When I left the army all I could think about was finding Ariadne and when I finally had to accept that I had lost her for good, I had to find some way of occupying my life. That was when I decided to become a journalist. Things went quite well for a while. I worked as a stringer for several papers, mainly in the Far East, and later as a foreign correspondent for the Guardian. But it’s a lonely life. I had no home to go back to and I spent far too much time in bars and hotels. Most journalists drink. I came to rely more and more on alcohol to get me through the lonely evenings. Eventually it began to affect my work. I missed deadlines and finally got the sack. At that point I came back to England, pretty well down and out. Luckily for me, a friend put me in touch with a rehab clinic and I managed to get myself dried out. But I still didn’t have a job, so I decided to go back to university, do a PGCE and go into teaching – which was the career I had originally planned. My first post was in that comprehensive school where I met your mother. She was much younger than I was, of course, but we had one thing in common. We were both trying to recover from a failed love affair.’

  This is news to me and I feel a physical jolt of surprise. But before I can speak my father goes on, ‘I’m sorry if that comes as a shock to you, but I wasn’t your mother’s first lover any more than she
was mine. She had just been let down rather badly and needed someone to lean on. We found mutual comfort in each other. She was bright, intelligent and fun and a brilliant teacher – and I badly needed someone to help me through a disastrous first year. I realized very quickly that I just wasn’t cut out for the job. If it hadn’t been for your mother I think I would have resigned at the end of my first term. Then the day came when she told me she was pregnant.’ He releases Ariadne’s hand and turns to take mine instead. ‘I want you to believe that that was one of the happiest days of my life. I had never had a real family. The idea that I could have a wife and child of my own was wonderful to me. I knew I wasn’t in love with your mother as I had been with Ariadne but I thought that I could never feel that way again about anyone. We seemed to have a reasonable basis for making a life together and when you were born I really thought everything was going to be all right.’

  ‘You drove my mother to drink!’

  ‘Did I? I really don’t think so. You were too young to know anything about it, but she was already drinking before we went to Cyprus. Perhaps I was partly to blame for that, but not in the way you think.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘I suppose it began as post-natal depression. The tragic thing was that, although having you was one of the best things that had ever happened to me, motherhood never really worked for her. To begin with she was over-anxious, over-protective. Then, as time went on, she got very bored and frustrated staying at home with no one but a baby for company. I suggested that she went back to work but that was wrong, too. She worried about leaving you with a childminder. She didn’t sleep. She’d lost all the sparkle and enthusiasm that made her such a good teacher.’ He pauses briefly, then continues, ‘One day I met someone who gave me a chance to go back to Cyprus – and a chance to work as a journalist again. I couldn’t resist it, and I thought a new life would be good for all of us.’

  ‘Did my mother know you’d been there before?’

  ‘She knew I served there in the army. Nothing else.

  ‘You didn’t go there in order to look for Ariadne?’