Strangers in Company (3 page)

“Oh—” Marian was dumbstruck. The situation was slipping hopelessly out of her control, and she could feel only sympathy for Mr. Cairnthorpe when they came on him, standing helplessly among a red-labelled crowd in the lobby. Other tours seemed to be marching resolutely away in all directions. Only Cairnthorpe, quite evidently, had not the slightest idea what to do.

“Someone is to meet us here,” he was explaining it, obviously, for the second time, to a large, anxious lady in a floppy hat, presumably acquired in a moment of madness on a previous holiday. Hovering behind her was the only young man of the party, unmistakably her son, though features sullen in her plump face were surprisingly handsome in his young one, even shadowed as it was with lack of sleep and an incipient beard.

“Fancy!” Stella had noticed him, too, but not, by the sound of it, with approval.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Cairnthorpe managed to raise his voice above the growing hubbub of anxious questions. “We're sure to be met. Let's all keep together, please, and wait here.”

They murmured a little, tiredly, but stood around him, exhausted, quiescent. “Insufficiently briefed,” said a brisk Civil Service, female voice behind Marian, and wondering if Mr. Cairnthorpe had heard, she found herself thinking about their fellow tourists. She looked at the tired faces, extra-pale in the garish light of the lobby. Mostly women, of course. A few middle-aged men here and there, most of them very much occupied with wives. A honeymoon couple, and, “poor things” she was thinking, when an unmistakably American voice spoke up from the far side of the group.

“It looks to me as if everyone else has gone outside.” Marian could not see the speaker, but he sounded as tired as she felt. “Shouldn't we?”

“Well?” Cairnthorpe hesitated and was lost. The party moved of its own volition towards the doors and he could
only follow, muttering something unintelligible, but, Marian was afraid, with the word “Americans” in it.

It was good to be out in cool, retsinated air again and better still to see a row of buses lined up with their backs to the airport steps. It was perceptibly lighter now, and Marian could see the immaculate golden coiffure of the uniformed girl who came briskly forward to meet them. “There you are at last.… I was beginning to wonder.… Oh!” She had picked out Cairnthorpe from the crowd.

“I'm a stand-in, I'm afraid.” Not for the first time, Marian felt sorry for him as he launched into the now-familiar explanation. But beside her, Stella twitched with impatience and muttered something under her breath.

Full dawn broke as the coach hauled its exhausted load of passengers towards the city. There was a sudden, excited babble: “There. There it is.” One clear voice: “It's just like the postcards.” Marian had missed seeing the Acropolis. She closed her eyes again, beyond caring, then opened them as the microphone at the front of the coach rasped into life. The blonde Greek girl who had taken charge of them was standing up, swaying gracefully to the movement of the coach. She spoke clearly, in her accented, fluent English. There was a small change of plan.… Mercury Tours was so sorry, but the hotel advertised was not yet open.… They were going to a better one, the Alexander, in Alexander Avenue.… Very quiet, very select, very restful.

“Which means several miles from the city centre.” A voice Marian had heard before, the one that had found Cairnthorpe “insufficiently briefed.”

“I knew it was a mistake to come on the first tour of the season.” This was the woman across the aisle from
Marian, a conspicuous figure in scarlet and black. Beyond her, a harassed-looking husband muttered something soothing.

Up front, the golden girl took no notice. “Mercury Tours will, naturally, compensate you for any inconvenience,” she went on. “The hotel porter will arrange taxis for anyone wishing to visit the centre of town, and Mercury Tours will be happy to repay the small expense involved. Coming back, of course, you will be in the Hotel Hermes as arranged.” She replaced the microphone in its bracket and sat down, turning her back on a rising tide of weary grumbles. In the seat behind her, Mr. Cairnthorpe was fast asleep.

“Oh, well.” Marian was resigned now to being awake. “I don't see that it makes much difference. I know I'm going to sleep all morning, and we've got Sounion this afternoon.” Her tone sounded disconcertingly like the one she had used when breaking bad news to the twins. It was odd to be so sure that the silent girl beside her was seething inwardly.

“Muddle!” was all she said, hunching a shoulder to stare out the window at suburban buildings, strange and ugly in pitiless morning light. The streets were waking up now. A black-clad woman emptied a bucket of water across the pavement; girls in blue uniforms loitered towards an uncompromising modern building that must be a school. A small boy waved vigorously from a window.

Across the aisle of the bus, the woman in scarlet and black settled an unfortunate hat more firmly over her ears. “Alexander Avenue?” she asked. “Where in heaven's name's that?”

“It's not too bad.” Her husband had produced a map. “See!”

“But it's miles,” she wailed. “Way over beyond Lykabetos. I told you we shouldn't have booked for the first tour.”

“And I told you it was the only time I could get away.” It was obviously not the first time he had said it.

“It's a bit much.” She leaned across the aisle to
address Marian. “You've not been here before? Well, the Hermes Hotel's right in the centre of everything, by Omonia Square. There's a shop there—I meant to go in this morning and get some espadrilles. For the ruins, you know. It's as much as your life's worth to try do to them in heels.” She looked down for a moment from her old-fashioned stilettos to Marian's neat, light walking shoes. “You've been sensible, I can see.” It was more criticism than praise. “I don't know what in the world I'm going to do. I must have my sleep.” She turned on her husband. “What am I going to do, George?”

“I told you to bring the old ones.” His voice was weary as he refolded the map. “Sunday morning it would likely be closed anyway.”

“Oh, nothing closes here.” She sounded uncertain for the first time. “Look!” She leaned forwards. “There's that temple. The one we never got to see.” It was his fault.

“The Temple of Zeus.” He unfolded the map again. “We're going on the other side of it. See. Along King Constantine Street.”

“I wonder they don't change the name, now they've thrown him out.”

“I rather think that was a different king,” he said mildly, but she took no notice.

“Looks like we're going to be clear over at the wrong end of Alexander Avenue.” She had seized the map. “See!” She turned her back on her husband to pass the map across to Marian. “Miles from anywhere.” And then, momentarily distracted, she peered past Marian and Stella. “Look! There's the modern stadium. Isn't it splendid?” And, an obvious connection, “I suppose I'll just have to wear my heels till I can find some espadrilles.”

“Would you like to see?” Marian offered to pass the map to Stella, who shrugged it away with daunting rudeness. “At least we're nearly there.” She unfolded the map and handed it back, reminding herself unhappily that she was not supposed to involve Stella with other people. It looked as if this were going to be a more difficult task than she had understood.

“Our name's Hilton,” said the black and scarlet woman, confirming this. “Like the hotels, but not so rich.” She had said it many times before. “What I always say”—she was cheering up as they neared their journey's end—“is that on these tours you've just got to introduce yourselves, or you never get to know a soul.”

“No. I mean, yes. I'm Marian Frenche, and this is Miss Marten.”

“I thought she wasn't your daughter,” said Mrs. Hilton at Stella's back.

The bus swerved formidably across the traffic and turned left. Alexander Avenue. Marian was relieved to see that street names were given in both Roman and Greek lettering. “I wish I could read Greek,” she said as the bus began to slow down.

“You won't need to, love,” said Mrs. Hilton comfortably. “It's all in English, too.”

The Hotel Alexander, it turned out, was not actually on Alexander Avenue, but tucked away on a side street that led up towards the tree-covered hill that was identified, without enthusiasm, as Lykabetos by Mrs. Hilton. “No chance of a view of the Acropolis from here.” She got up as the bus stopped and began to push her way forward down the aisle. Following, her husband had one quick, apologetic glance for Marian. He was a small, neat man, half a head shorter than his buxom wife, with a face that should have been roundly cheerful, but was scored with deep lines of anxiety. Following in his wife's ruthless wake, he cast more glances of apology to right and left.

Feeling sorry for him, Marian turned to see her own companion staring at her with frank dislike. “Honestly!” She reached into her bag, produced cigarettes and a lighter and lit up with one of her quick, cross gestures. Then, belatedly, “Sorry! Have one?”

It was a challenge and must be accepted. “Thanks. But I think I'll wait till we get out of here.”

“You'll wait some time.” Some sort of blockage had developed up at the front of the bus, and the aisle was crowded with waiting figures, frozen in curious, awkward
positions, cluttered with small baggage. “God,” said Stella, “what in the world made me think I'd like a bus tour?”

Since Marian had been thinking very much the same thing, she did not try to answer, but sat staring out past Stella at the Alexander Hotel. It looked promising, she thought, from what she could see; clean and new-painted in the morning light. There were window boxes along its front, filled with gay, unidentifiable flowers. “It looks nice,” she ventured pacifically.

“Nice!” Stella's anger overflowed suddenly. “And this is a nice bus, and what a lot of nice people we are, this nice morning.”

Marian managed a laugh. “You're quite right. It's a terrible word. I used it in an essay once, and my tutor made me read
Northanger Abbey
before I wrote another one.”

“Oh, God, Jane Austen,” said Stella.

People were moving down the aisle again. Stella stubbed out her cigarette as ruthlessly as she had lit it, and Marian wondered whether, in fact, she disliked them as much as she herself did. “Let's get out of here,” said Stella. “I'm getting claustrophobia.”

And that, Marian thought, meekly rising to get their coats and hand baggage from the rack, was all they needed. She turned without a word and found herself blocking the way of a tall middle-aged man, whose bushy black eyebrows contrasted strangely with short-cut silver hair, under the kind of Panama hat favoured by American tourists. “I'm so sorry.” She moved back a little, but he waved her on.

“Ladies first.” His was the American voice of the airport. “Frankly”— his smile eased the deep lines of a tanned face—“I don't think hurrying's going to get us anywhere. We've lost that splendid girl, did you notice? She went off like a bat out of hell when the bus stopped. Well, we're late, of course. But poor Mr. Cairnthorpe.…”

“Useless,” said Stella.

The scene in the lobby of the Alexander confirmed her words. It might be late for the Greek girl, but it was very
early for the hotel, and an aged night porter was on duty at the desk. He spoke no English, and Cairnthorpe, it appeared, no Greek. A total impasse had developed, with Cairnthorpe trying various pronunciations of the magic words “Mercury Tours,” none of them successfully. Around him, the other members of the party sagged in anxious exhaustion. The few seats had been appropriated by the first comers; the others were rapidly filling the small lobby to overflowing.

“Hell and damnation,” said the American. What on earth was someone like him doing on a tour like this? Now Marian watched with awed amusement as he contrived to make his way, courteous but firm, forward through the depressed crowd. Arrived at the desk, he spoke, loud and surprisingly bullying, in German. “The manager. Send for him at once.”

The night porter looked at him with intense dislike but lifted the telephone on the desk and spoke rapidly in Greek. “She comes.” He ignored Cairnthorpe and spoke, now in German, to the American, still with dislike, then detached himself from the whole affair by producing a pair of dark-rimmed glasses and poring over the hotel ledger.

“Thanks,” said Cairnthorpe, a little breathlessly. “Stupid of me; I never thought of German.”

“They don't like it,” said the American. “But it works.”

It did. A door at the back of the lobby had opened to reveal an enormous black-clad lady of some age, who came through the crowd like a frigate to confront Cairnthorpe by the desk. “But you are a day early.” She reached over the desk, produced a file, opened it and handed him a piece of paper. “See. Here it says April fifth. And today it is the fourth.”

“Oh, my God,” said Cairnthorpe.

“We were given the wrong date.” She shrugged, her motherly smile for Cairnthorpe alone. “But what matter? Since it is our first booking, all is ready. I, Anastasia, am always ready. So: welcome, ladies and gentlemen.” She moved with heavy grace round to the back of the desk,
said something in quick Greek to the night porter and turned a page of the huge ledger. “Names and passports, please. We will pretend that it is already tomorrow.”

What followed was, inevitably, a muddle. She could not pronounce the English names: Cairnthorpe, quite naturally, could not connect names with faces; it took a very long time to get the rooms allocated. Marian waiting passively in a corner, where at least she had found a pillar to lean against, found herself wondering if, by any chance, the blonde Greek girl had known what was going to happen and had made good her escape before it began.