‘I did hear it was just a hill with rocks on it,’ said Amy. Clearly she hadn’t factored Mycenae into her itinerary; she must be polite to Janet, but it would occupy a whole precious day. ‘I guess we could hire a car and driver. The hotel could organise it. I don’t like that phrase “day trip”, do you? It sounds so artificially lively. A minivan might be better. Then we’ll have room to stretch our legs.’ She looked pointedly at long-legged Eric, as if to emphasise the efforts she was making to preserve his dignity.
‘It was just an idea,’ said Janet, who knew she was being shrill and deferential. ‘We’re happy to go along with anything.’
But Murray cleared his throat and said, ‘You’ve wanted to see it, haven’t you, for some time?’
So Mycenae was decided upon as a special favour to Janet. Amy arranged it, just as she made the other plans. All week she led them through the streets of Athens with the enthusiastic gait of a tour operator; she was a sort of Hellenic shepherd. Eric co-operated with her silently until he noticed something that interested him. Then they stood and watched him be interested in it. He seemed oblivious to their waiting. When he was finished he stirred himself a little, a bear in spring, and they all moved forward again, the Dwyers wearing their accommodating smiles. Alone, Murray and Janet would have fussed about where to eat and when to withdraw money. They had done this in towns across Australia and England. Here in Greece they withdrew sums in the early mornings so as not to inconvenience the Andersons, and they allowed Amy to lead them into any café she liked the look of. There was one in Plaka she particularly favoured, a small place with tables on the street; she enjoyed watching the crowds of people as they took the sloping road up to the Acropolis, and observing their faces as they returned. The tourists made respectful space for these tables, looking at them longingly as they made their way up the hot hill, and they collapsed onto the café chairs in relieved exhaustion, crying out for cool drinks, as they descended. Amy never ordered cool drinks. She ordered coffee for herself and for Eric, but the Dwyers sipped at Cokes.
The Dwyers were both too large for the chairs at the café in Plaka — they teetered, with the chairs, on the cobblestones — but Janet was relieved to be sitting down, however precariously. She was made uneasy by the marble pavements of Athens, over which she slipped in the soft soles of her comfortable shoes. The Parthenon was humourless above them; it meant too much. It was almost offensive. Janet felt that it was wasteful not to look at it while she had the opportunity; at the same time, it exhausted her. She could find nothing human about it — nothing like Mycenae’s shining masks.
‘Let me see your passport photos,’ said Amy, who was plainly proud of hers.
‘Oh, no!’ cried Janet, reaching into her handbag.
Her passport was so new next to Amy’s. She saw Eric compare them. He turned to Murray, uncharacteristically expansive, and said, ‘Nothing prepares you for the Greek light.’
The Dwyers nodded and smiled. Australia had prepared them for the Greek light. But it was still something different, if familiar: the great, burdened light, the Attic light. They sat among the flowers of the café as if prepared for sacrifice. In her embarrassment, Janet wanted to speak of Damian. It was a struggle not to talk about him too frequently. Into the silence of the table she wanted to say, ‘Damian has a lovely Chinese girlfriend.’ Or, ‘Damian was promoted last year.’ Instead she shifted her glass with her fingertips and noticed with surprise the dirtiness of her nails. She would have liked the café to smell of fish and rosemary, but instead there was the sun on dust, and sunscreen.
‘I had quite an adventure this morning,’ announced Amy, whose meaningful days began hours before anyone else’s. She told of setting out from the hotel at sunrise, of her walk among the early-morning streets and markets, her coffee at a café crowded with workers, her encounter with a man named Christos who wanted to take her to Marathon. She spoke with solemnity of her lone walk, of the café and workers, but her tone altered for the story of Christos: she became amused and worldly.
‘Why Marathon?’ asked Janet.
‘That’s where he lives,’ said Amy, crumbling a floury biscuit between her droll fingers. ‘The man from Marathon.’
Eric stirred his coffee and looked toward the immemorial street.
‘And what did you say to him?’ asked Janet. She felt a small throb of envy. Before the trip, as she brushed up on the Greek dramatists, she worried that she couldn’t possibly do Athens justice, and here she was, tired and hot, with dirt under her nails. But here was Amy, not reading about Greece, but actually living it, and all this from a hotel, not an apartment. And still beautiful enough for a man in a café to ask her to go home with him.
‘I told him I was happily married,’ said Amy, with a brief look at Eric, a brief hand on his mammoth arm, and Eric inclined his head toward her, stirring, stirring his coffee. ‘I said I didn’t trust his intentions. In no uncertain terms.’
‘And what did he say?’ asked Janet. Murray pressed her foot under the table with the firm undersole of his sensible shoe, because they had decided last night, under the sweltering ceiling of their apartment, that they would stop encouraging Amy by asking questions.
Amy pursed her lips and leaned back in her chair in preparation for laughter. ‘He said, “I’m hungry, but I’m not that hungry.”’
And Eric let out a great, unsuspected laugh, a bark of laughter which Murray later described as a guffaw. It drew attention to their table, it silenced Janet, it left Amy adrift in the end of her story about Christos of Marathon. They sat startled among the plants and crockery. Eric tasted his coffee and pushed it away.
Janet all at once regretted every moment of the trip. Murray hated to travel. Damian had talked her into it; she’d talked Murray into it. She was furious with everyone. Travel was ridiculous. The dead plants, the fled cats, the concern at mounting mail. What could someone like her possibly be doing in Greece? The Greek light sped over the streets, the marble pavements tilted. So much marble. Restaurants in car parks, the blue dusk, doves among the stones. Greece was life, Amy said. But the Greeks must water plants and feed cats and answer mail. There were people here who taught high school, just as she had. Where were those people? They were speaking all around her, she supposed, but she couldn’t understand them, and never would.
The light ticked on and the real sun fell. The couples arranged to meet at the hotel for cocktail hour. Janet and Murray, arriving early, drank wine, intimidated by ouzo and carefully aware they were not paying guests. They drank too quickly as they waited for Eric and Amy to appear, and the sight of the Andersons made them drink faster still.
‘I’ll get drinks. A Scotch?’ Murray asked Eric. They were the patient husbands of friendly wives. Their conversation had been reduced to a funny little parody of manliness: liquor and modes of transport and the distances between places. Among the sharp, pointed objects of the male world they sat quietly, and Murray asked again, ‘Scotch, Eric?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Amy. ‘No, he’s just brushed his teeth. So have I. We’ll wait. Wouldn’t go, would it — toothpaste and whiskey?’