Moon Of Aphrodite

She thanked him rather doubtfully. After all, she had only come in to find out where the bus stop was, not to spend any of her small hoard of drachmas on expensive sun cream, but when she produced her money, he waved it away.

‘I do not wish payment, thespinis. It is my pleasure to do this for you.’ He smiled into her eyes with a frank sensual appreciation that sent the colour racing into her face. ‘Perhaps one day you will come back to Athens.’

He escorted her to the pavement, and pointed out to her exactly where she could catch her bus. It occurred to Helen as she moved away that with very little encouragement he would probably have come with her. And she recalled too that Greek women were supposed to lead quite sheltered lives until their marriage. Judging by the way the men behaved on the slightest acquaintance, they had good reason to be sheltered! she thought with faint amusement.

There were already several people waiting at the stop when she arrived, and she hoped that was a good sign and that the bus would be along very shortly. Time was passing more rapidly than she could have believed possible, and she had no idea how long the journey to the Acropolis would take.

But twenty minutes later they were still waiting, and Helen was ready to scream with frustration. Most of the other would-be passengers had moved back from the bus stand to find themselves patches of shade, but Helen remained at the edge of the pavement, straining her eyes as she peered down the hill at the oncoming traffic.

She noticed the car at once, because of its opulence and sleek lines. And then she saw who was driving it, and a little gasp escaped her. It was Damon Leandros, and he was not alone. There was a girl with him, dark and in her way as opulently beautiful as the car. She was smiling and talking to him animatedly, and at any moment the car would be past and gone, then Damon Leandros turned slightly to flick his cigarette out of the window, and his eyes met Helen’s across two lanes of traffic. She was thankful those two lanes existed, because as well as recognition and disbelief, she had seen the beginnings of anger in his face.

She glanced down the hill again, biting her lip anxiously. He was caught in the traffic, and couldn’t stop, and anyway this was a one-way street, yet something told her that he would be back.

A battered grey taxi swerved into the side of the road to discharge its passenger, and Helen leapt for the opening door, almost knocking over the indignant Athenian who emerged in her haste.

The driver was very dark and unshaven, and looked like a member of the Greek Mafia, but he seemed to understand that she wanted to be driven to the Acropolis, even if he displayed no real inclination to take her there. He put the car into gear with a gut-wrenching screech and hurled it into the stream of traffic, muttering all the time under his breath as he did so.

Helen, being bounced around in the back seat from one side of the car to the other, was almost numb with rage. Quite a few of the taxis she had noticed in the streets had had the same battered look, with bumps and dents, and sometimes even their headlights taped up, and if this was a sample of the way they were usually driven, she could quite understand why. She wished very much that she spoke Greek, because she doubted very much whether the conventional phrase books on sale would provide a translation for ‘Please stop driving like a maniac!’

Her only consolation was that when Damon Leandros returned to look for her, and she had not the slightest doubt that he would, she would have vanished, she hoped without trace.

The taxi stopped at last with a jerk which almost hurled her on to the floor, and she stared doubtfully at the mass of figures on the meter, wondering which one depicted the fare. The driver didn’t seem prepared to help. As she hesitated, he directed a sullen stare at her, and eventually she produced her purse, peeled off a number of notes and handed them to him. Judging by the slightly contemptuous smile he gave her as he pocketed them, she had given him far too much, she thought angrily as she got out of the car.

It was hotter than ever as she walked up the hill which led to the entrance, but near the car park was a large stall selling cold drinks and other refreshments. There were people everywhere, sitting under the shade of the trees as they ate and drank, most of them tourists, a lot of them students, propping themselves up on their bulging rucksacks. There were all sorts of accents, and Helen found she was eagerly listening for an English voice, as she made her way up the slope to the summit. She would have her cold drink later, she thought, because something told her that if she ever settled under the trees, her sightseeing would be over for the day.

The stone slabs she was walking up were warm through the thin soles of her sandals, and above her the rock towered away, crowned by a cluster of buildings. She stood there for a moment, staring up, conscious of an isolation that went deeper than mere physical loneliness, overcome by the thought of time, and the generations of feet which had trodden this way before hers—tyrants, philosophers, soldiers, slaves and conquerors—suddenly aware as she had never been of her mother’s Greek blood in her veins, and of a faint stirring deep inside her which went further than the ordinary excitement of the holidaymaker.

Following the small knots of people ahead of her, she made her way without haste through the Propylaea and out on to the vast expanse of bleached white rock which had served the city of Athens as a fortress and a religious sanctuary. The Parthenon dominated, as she supposed it had always been intended it should. Its great honey-coloured mass seemed to rear into the flawless blue of the sky, like some proud ancient lion scenting the air, Helen thought, and smiled at her own fancy.

She became aware that a group of people behind her were patiently waiting to take a photograph and stepped out of the way with a murmured word of apology. She knew that because of the wear and tear of the centuries, and more recently air pollution from the great city which circled the foot of the Acropolis, the most she could do was look and admire from a distance. Some of the buildings, she noticed, glancing round her, were already supported by scaffolding. It was a shame, but at least the authorities were doing their best to preserve them for further generations of feet to tread up the long winding route from the foot of the rock.

She sat down on a piece of fallen masonry, and filled her mind with images to carry away with her, because she doubted whether she would ever come back. She had agreed to undertake this journey of reconciliation because her grandfather was elderly and ill. It seemed quite likely that he was at death’s door, she thought sombrely, and once he was dead there would be no reason for her to return to Greece ever again. That feeling of fellowship with the past, of homecoming even that she had experienced earlier, had disturbed her. She didn’t understand herself. She had always regarded herself as English through and through, and wholly her father’s daughter. She had never ever looked Greek, she thought in perplexity.

After a while, she rose and walked to the edge, threading her way between the chattering groups with their clicking cameras. The view was stupendous. She thought she could even catch a glimpse of the sea in the distance.

She turned away at last, feeling a little giddy. The sun reflecting off the white rock she stood on was almost overwhelming, like some exotic moonscape. It would surely be cooler, more bearable indoors. She went down a brief flight of steps, past a large stone owl and into the museum. She found an unoccupied bench and sank down on to it, pressing her fingers against her forehead with a little sigh.

When the hand descended on her shoulder, she looked up with a start, thinking it was one of the attendants. Instead she found herself looking into the coldly furious face of Damon Leandros.

‘Oh.’ She stared up at him, her brows drawing together. ‘It’s you. How did you find me?’

‘It did not require a great deal of thought to deduce where you were going,’ he said icily. ‘I saw you enter the museum and followed. What is the matter? Are you ill?’

‘A slight headache, that’s all,’ she returned stiffly, and heard his exasperated sigh.

‘I asked you to rest for precisely this reason,’ he said after a pause. ‘I do not wish to present you to your grandfather suffering from heatstroke or exhaustion.’

‘Of course not, although I needn’t ask whether that’s prompted by concern for me or concern for your job.’ She pushed her hair back from her face with defiant fingers. ‘I suppose my grandfather might not be too pleased that you’d left me to my own devices.’

He gave her a long, hard look. ‘Your grandfather was perfectly well aware that I had business to attend to this afternoon, and that our departure for Phoros would be delayed for a few hours.’

‘Really?’ Helen smiled in spite of her pounding head. ‘I saw your—business beside you in the car. Nice work if you can get it,’ she added with deliberately airy vulgarity.

But the expected explosion did not transpire. When he did speak his voice was softer than ever.

‘Miss Brandon, did your father never beat you when you were a child?’

‘Of course not.’ Helen dismissed from her mind the memory of numerous childish chastisements. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Idle curiosity. There could, of course, be no other reason.’ His tone was silky. ‘Are you prepared to return to the hotel with me now, and rest?’

Helen lifted her chin. ‘But I haven’t had a chance to look round the museum yet,’ she objected.

‘Then by all means let us do so.’ She didn’t like the smile he gave her as he lifted her to her feet.

Half an hour later, she was wishing with all her heart that she had meekly acceded to his original suggestion of returning to the hotel. Her head was pounding almost intolerably, and she felt desperately thirsty and slightly queasy at the same time. At any other time—and of course if he had been anyone else—she would have been fascinated by what he was telling her about the transition from the Archaic to the Classical style in sculpture, but his words seemed to buzz meaninglessly in her ears. And the curving smiles on the Korai, the maidens carved out of stone as offerings to the virgin goddess of the city, Athena, seemed to mock her everywhere she looked.

She swallowed, staring down at the floor, refusing to admit defeat. She was being a fool, she knew. After all, Damon Leandros had been detailed by her grandfather to look after her, and she was sure she only had to give a hint and she would be out of this increasingly stuffy atmosphere, and back in that comfortable hotel room, with the shutters closed. But if she asked him to take her back, he would have won in some obscure way and that she could not allow. She gave a little stifled sigh and forced herself to concentrate on the head of a boy, known as the ‘blond youth’, Damon told her, because there were still traces of yellow tint found on it when it was discovered.

‘We have always admired fair hair, you see.’ Her companion’s voice sounded amused. ‘On Phoros near your grandfather’s villa there is a ruined temple that archaeologists say was dedicated to Aphrodite. She is usually pictured as having blonde hair too.’

Helen said faintly, ‘She could be bald as a coot for me. I—I really must get out of here. I can’t breathe.’

The events of the next hour or so were mercifully blurred. Later she would remember details, like the strength of his arm round her, and the way the cushions of that sleek car of his seemed to support her like a cloud. As they drove back to the hotel, she found herself wondering, as she tried to control the waves of threatened nausea, what he had done with the dark beauty she had seen him with, but enquiring was altogether too much trouble. Besides, she tried to tell herself, what did it matter how many women he had?

And she could remember vomiting tiredly until her throat and her stomach ached, and the tiled bathroom swung in a dizzying arc around her, and the refreshing sensation of a towel dipped in cold water wiping her face, and being placed across her forehead as at last—at long last—she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again it was early evening, judging by the length of the shadows across the floor. She sat up gingerly. Her head still ached, but she no longer felt that terrible, debilitating nausea. In fact, she was almost hungry. She pushed back the single sheet which was the only covering provided on the bed, and started to get out, catching as she did so an astonished glimpse of herself in the long mirror opposite. She looked a mess, she thought candidly. Her eyes looked twice their normal size, and her hair hung on her shoulders in a tangle, but that was incidental. All she was wearing were her underclothes, a dark blue lace bra and matching brief panties. Her navy dress was hanging over the back of a chair with her sandals placed neatly beside it, and she couldn’t for the life of her remember removing any of them.

She got up and went over to the dressing table, reaching for her hairbrush which had been among the small amount of hand luggage she had unpacked, and starting to smooth her hair into its usual face-curving style. She looked wan, she thought critically, but cosmetics would soon improve that. She wandered into the bathroom and had a long leisurely wash, spraying herself liberally with L’Air du Temps when she had finished.

She would phone down for some soup, she thought, and also enquire if there were any messages for her. It was already well past the time that Damon Leandros had proposed they should set off for Phoros, and she supposed he would be waiting somewhere. Grudgingly, she had to admit that he had been kind enough during the dash back to the hotel, and that he had at least left her alone to recover from her sickness.

She sauntered back into the bedroom, and stopped dead, her eyes widening in disbelief. Damon Leandros was there, lounging nonchalantly against the long row of fitted wardrobes which filled one wall. For a moment their gazes locked, and then his eyebrows rose mockingly and she remembered too late that she was half naked.

She looked round wildly for her dress, but he was between her and the chair on which it lay. As if he guessed what was going through her mind, he turned and reached for it, tossing it to her. She snatched at it thankfully, and dragged it over her head, her hands fumbling as she sought to reach and close the long back zip.

He watched her efforts for a moment or two, a derisive smile curling his lips, then he moved towards her and she took an instinctive step backwards.

‘Relax,’ he advised curtly. ‘I have no intention of raping you, but you seem to need help.’

‘I don’t need anything from you,’ Helen choked, still struggling ineffectually with that damned zip.

‘You didn’t say that a few hours ago while I was holding your head in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘Besides, I may have damaged the zip when I removed the dress. I was in a hurry and they are fragile things.’

Helen pressed her hands against burning cheeks. ‘You—it was you? Oh, how could you? How dared you?’

‘There was no question of daring,’ he said coolly. ‘I thought English girls gloried in their liberation from outdated conventions. Besides, you were and are perfectly adequately clothed. I daresay you will wear far less when you go swimming on Phoros.’