I had never asked her what her feelings for him were, and now, when I felt she was just about to explain of her own accord, Holroyd interrupted us. "I've had a talk with Deme-trios Kotiadis," he said to me. He was looking pleased with himself, standing over me, puffing contentedly at his pipe. "He's done a very thorough job tracing your father's movements last year and during his earlier visit in 1965. He's going to check up now on all the likely places, and when he finds him, he'll keep him under surveillance. But that's all. Leonodipoulos was very emphatic. I don't think he convinced him, but Kotiadis has his orders and Dr. Van der Voort will be free to rejoin the expedition, if that's what he wants." He patted my shoulder. "So you've no cause to worry about him any more."
I looked across at Kotiadis. He was still arguing with Leonodipoulos, the staccato sound of his voice ringing in the quiet of the glade as they walked towards the path that led to the village. "What are you planning to do?" I asked Holroyd.
"First thing tomorrow morning we'll move camp-to Ayios Giorgios first, and if that doesn't produce what I'm hoping for, then we'll be going to one of the islands. Levkas. Van der Voort seems to have been particularly interested in Levkas last year."
Kotiadis was shaking hands with Leonodipoulos. I watched him turn and hurry away up the path. "So you've found out all you need."
Holroyd nodded. "Enough I think to ensure that our time isn't wasted."
There was a smugness in the way he said it that had me simmering with anger. "You've no further use for him now?"
He was quick to understand my mood. "No man is indispensable, you know," he said mildly. "And from what Kotia-dis told me, he's not fit to be in charge of an expedition on his own. Would you agree with that?" And when I didn't say anything, he said, "Be honest now. He's not a fit man, is he?"
"He's been without food for some time. He's very weak, that's all."
It seemed to satisfy him. "In that case, he won't have gone far. He'll probably turn up at Ayios Giorgios. Kotiadis enquired there, of course, but-" He patted my shoulder in that aggravating way of his. "Any^vay, don't you worry. When he does turn up, I'm sure Miss Winters will see to it that he's properly looked after." He wanted to know my plans then. "Kotiadis told me you had a boat waiting for you at Preveza. Leonodipoulos will be leaving shortly for Athens. I'm quite certain he'd give you a lift-as far as Arta, at any rate."
I looked across at Sonia, but she was already on her feet and moving away. I had a feeling then, a sudden urgent feeling, that I must visit Levkas-now, before Holroyd got there. "Yes," I said. "I'd be glad of a lift." Levkas was on our route to the Aegean, whether we took the Corinth Canal or went south round the bottom of Greece.
Holroyd nodded as though the matter had never been in doubt. "Good. To be plain with you, I don't like people on a dig who are not a part of it. They get in the way. And as for your father, most of his life has been spent in strange countries. He's well able to look after himself."
"I expect you're right," I said.
"No doubt about it. And you've got your own life to live, eh-your own problems?" And he went off to fix it with Leonodipoulos.
That night I slept in a private house in the old Roman town of Arta. Leonodipoulos arranged it at a taverna where he was known. They were kindly people who spoke a few words of English and sent me to bed full of a strong local wine after showing me endless photographs of their son, who was about my own age and serving in a tank regiment somewhere up by the Bulgarian border. They had given me their best room, all Victorian style furniture and lace-lace curtains and the sheets and pillow cases of the big double bed edged with lace and smelling of lavender. A ewer and basin in blue china stood on a marble-topped wash-stand and there was even a chamber pot. Probably the room was typical of countless others belonging to the petit bourgeoisie in the country towns of Greece, so spotlessly clean, so lovingly cared for, that to me it was almost a museum piece. A single naked light bulb hanging from its flex in the middle of the ceiling was the only indication that the world had progressed in the last fifty years.
Lying there in the faded splendour of that brass-trimmed bedstead, the camp at Despotiko already seemed remote, part of another world to which I did not belong. When we had left they had already started packing up for the move to Ayios Giorgios. In the morning the tents would be gone, the olive grove empty except for the goats. The involvement which I had begun to feel was a very tenuous one. I was on my own again now and even my concern for the old man faded as my mind began to grapple with the problems of the voyage ahead. Leonodipoulos has given me a lot of information about sea conditions in the Aegean. He had sailed there regularly in a friend's yacht out of Vouliagmeni. He not only knew Samos, but he knew the actual port I should be using and warned me against the severe down-draughts to be expected off Pythago-rion whenever the meltemi was blowing.
This common interest in the sea had made the drive pleasant for both of us, and it amused me that Holroyd, in his haste to be rid of me, had made me a present of such a useful contact in the Greek Establishment. In fact, during our meal together in the taverna, Leonodipoulos had assured me that he would see to it that my father was all right; Kotiadis had orders to report to him as soon as he had located him.
I was woken in the morning by the daughter-in-law bringing my breakfast in on a tray. She had put in a brief appear-
ance the night before, leaving with a giggle and flash of dark eyes. I watched her now as she stretched up to pull the curtains. Like most of the girls I had seen in Greece she was too broad in the beam, too thick in the calves-a dumpy, unattractive figure. And yet somehow she managed to imbue her movements with a sensuous sexuality. And when she leaned over to put the tray on the bed I forgot about her figure; all I was conscious of was her eyes, big and shining and black like newly-washed grapes.
"Kafe," she said firmly and almost filled the cup with hot milk before adding a little of the very strong black coffee. Her skin had the sheen of olives. She smiled at me, and the smile lit up her eyes, and then she gave that embarrassed little giggle and was gone in a swirl of skirt and fat little buttocks.
I drank my coffee, wondering when the boy in those photographs would get home again. Six months they had said since he last had leave. She was too ripe a plum to be left on her own that long. She reminded me a little of Florrie. Florrie had that same southern sensuality-and there'd be another dawn, or perhaps a night watch. .
Somewhere above me a baby cried, and then I heard the murmur of the mother's soothing voice. Sex, procreation, birth, death-it all seemed much closer, more natural down here in the Mediterranean, an inevitable part of living. And the old people worrying. That had seemed inevitable, too. Worrying about their son, about themselves, about the future — that strange mixture of fear and human warmth and happiness that seems to be a characteristic of hot countries.
I was stripped to the waist, shaving, when she returned for the tray, and she stood there, her body thrust out to take the edge of it as she tried a few words of conversation-"You- Preveza-Simera?
She meant today, of course, and I nodded.
"Autobus-ten half hours."
She giggled, her eyes bright and liquid with the excitement of this contact with a stranger from another country. But then the baby started crying again, and as she listened the excitement in her eyes changed to something softer. "Stefan," she said, smiling gently, and she was gone-no swirl of skirt, but a mother to her young, quickly and with purpose.
They saw me to the bus, the whole family, including the baby; made sure I got a seat and waved me goodbye as though I were the son of the house. It was a leisurely journey, for we stopped at every village, and the waits were sometimes long. It was afternoon before we saw the Gulf of Amvrakikos. The great expanse of water was a silken blue, arrowed by the wake of a few fishing boats, and the hills beyond were puffed up to twice their size by the clouds that hung over them.