The Santorini Summer (5 page)

He was anxious that I explain to my mother that I would be spending part of the next summer in Athens. I did not know how to deal with this. I had not told her about Christos, because I knew she would disapprove. Foreigners, like foreign food, were to be tolerated only when abroad. Just as the medieval world believed that the sun revolved around the Earth, so she believed that the world revolved around England and the English.

Christmas came and went. My mother and I tried to enjoy Christmas lunch together, but I knew she was missing my father and it was all a horrible strain. I spent Boxing Day at Daddy’s new flat, Susan tactfully absenting herself by visiting her parents. I was grateful for this because I really did not know how to conduct myself with her and felt conflicted in my loyalties. Daddy gave me some lovely pearl earrings but, far more importantly, a cheque. Ever since I returned to England, I had begun saving earnestly –I had to finance my trip to Athens somehow.

Then, with the arrival of Sping came the letter that changed everything.

‘Olivia, my love, such a thing has happened! I have an invitation from Syridon Marinatos himself to work on the dig at Akrotiri! Professor Saridakis has arranged everything for me. I will work there in August. There will be no pay, so I must fund myself, but what an opportunity! A friend of mine at university has a cousin who is a fisherman in Oia on Santorini. I will work for him some weeks to earn money, and then I will go down to Akrotiri. But, my darling, you are not to suppose that this will spoil our time together. I have worked out a plan for us. You must come to Santorini and we will spend all the summer together. First at Oia, and then at Acrotiri, and when Marinatos sees what a knowledgeable archaeologist you are, perhaps you can be my assistant. What do you think of this plan? Santorini is truly beautiful, you will love it, I promise.’

If telling my mother I wanted to spend the summer in Athens with the family of a young man I had met on Crete was impossible, going off alone with him to Santorini, an island I knew she had never heard of, was inconceivable. But Christos was so excited about working with his hero Marinatos.

‘You will fly first to Athens, my Olivia, and take a taxi to Piraeus. There you must ask for the boat to Santorini. It will bring you to Fira, and I will meet you there and take you to Oia. Will you do this, my darling? Are you brave enough to travel alone? I must see you soon. I long for you.’

I knew my mother would never allow it. So there was absolutely no point in asking.

But I was definitely going. I was planning to be deceitful, to spin a whole web of lies if I had to, because I needed to see Christos. My trip to Crete with Professor Margerison had gone well, without any of the disasters my mother had imagined would happen. My paper on Knossus had gained top marks, thanks to Christos’ knowledge. If I were to say that I had been invited to spend the summer at Knossus again, surely my mother would think it worthwhile. And she would assume I was going with the Professor again, in a group, with all the arrangements as before. Could I get away with it?

I wrote to my mother that another trip to Knossus was planned for the summer holidays. (True) I wrote that the Professor handpicked the students she would take. (True) I said I had been asked. (Untrue – the Professor liked to give different students the chance each year.) I asked if I might go.

My mother replied that she thought it was an honour to be asked again. She said it had proved a very useful experience for me and highly educational. She herself had thought of going to Scotland for a few weeks, to spend time with my Aunt Audrey. I could tell the Professor yes.

So easy. I had a passport, I had my Cretan clothes, my mother paid for my return ticket to Athens, and I had saved enough to pay my way in Santorini. I wrote to tell Christos the date of my arrival in Athens. He replied that he would meet every boat from Piraeus after that date. I gave no thought to what the arrangements would be in Oia. I thought of nothing but seeing Christos again.

I had done my homework on Santorini. I knew about its ancient name, Thira. I knew its shape, a crescent, was formed by the collapse of the crater after the big eruption, when the sea rushed in through a breach. I researched everything in the library that related to the eruption.

But nothing prepares you for your first sight as you sail around the remains of the cone in the centre of the caldera, the high cliffs of multi-layered black, white and red volcanic rock that face you, the little town perched high up on the edge of the crater with its white, blue-domed churches, and the utter serenity of the caldera – a complete contradiction to the unimaginable violence which created it.

As the boat neared the tiny harbour I could see the steps climbing up to the town, I could see a string of donkeys patiently awaiting the new arrivals, and I could see a young man, slender and brown, waving a white handkerchief. As I stepped ashore, he put out his hand, and I placed mine in it, and he clutched it to his heart, murmuring, ‘Oh, my Olivia.’

We stood with our arms wrapped around each other, while all around us was a bustle of activity. Passengers disembarked, crates were unloaded, tourists began to haggle with the donkey man, but we stood in a bubble of silent happiness.

I had been struggling with doubt as the ferry drew into the harbour. What was I doing? Did I really love Christos enough to spend the whole summer on Santorini with him? Did I, in fact, remember him properly, or had my feelings been magnified and romanticised by the year apart? Did he truly love me? Or was I a trophy he had picked up in Crete? What if we now realised we were not soul mates?

But the second I saw his eager, happy face on the dockside, all my doubts just disappeared. It was strange, what had happened to us, but it was real and true.

‘Will you ride, sir, madam?’ asked the donkey man, impatiently.

Christos looked at me. ‘You cannot be allowed to climb 600 steps, Olivia, so we must take the donkeys.’

He lifted me up onto the saddle, which wobbled as the beast took sideways steps beneath me.

‘You must keep your legs well away from the walls as we go up, since the

donkeys delight in trying to crush their riders against them if they can. Hold on tight, my darling.’

I did not enjoy it. I felt sorry for the animals, tormented as they were by flies and the switch of their owner as he urged them on. It was very hot, although it was only May, and the smell of ordure was overpowering. But Christos was on the beast behind me, holding my luggage and murmuring, ‘Oh my Olivia,’ over the tinkling of the donkeys’ bells.

The view from the top of the donkey steps was magnificent.

‘Look, Olivia. Over there you can see Oia, and down to the south that is the tip of Akrotiri. We are in Fira, the island’s capital, and we shall have some lunch and then I shall take you to see the house where you will be staying.’

That seemed to clarify things. “You” and not “we”. I had been too nervous to ask what arrangements he had made, fearful of the implications, but now that he had made it clear that we were not in fact staying together I was disappointed.

He took me to a dusty-looking taverna on a narrow street.

‘This is Nickolas’ Taverna’, he told me. ‘It is the best place to eat in Fira.’

A waiter bowed and led us to a small table. He pointed to a blackboard on the wall, and murmured something in Greek I could not translate.

‘Will you let me order for you, Olivia?’ smiled Christos. ‘I promise you a truly

Greek meal which you will like, I think.’

Since I could not decipher the squiggles on the board, and I was totally overwhelmed by being with Christos once again, I smiled in agreement. The order was given, and soon a basket of bread and a dish of olives arrived. Cutlery followed, and then the waiter produced a bottle which he displayed to us with some pride. Christos nodded, and a small amount of wine was poured into his glass. He sniffed it, took a mouthful, swirled it around his mouth and swallowed. Then he grinned at me. ‘Wait until you taste this, Olivia. It is Assyrtico, a wine produced only here on Santorini. It is very, very good.’

I would have drunk turpentine had it pleased him, but as it turned out it was delicious, cold and flinty-dry. As I sipped appreciatively, Christos leant across the table and questioned me urgently.

‘How was your journey, Olivia? Were you afraid? I was a brute to expect you to do it alone. I’ve been so worried. Were you troubled by anyone?’

‘Christos, it was fine. Really. I was excited. I couldn’t wait to get here. To see you again.’

‘And now? Now we are together, are you happy? Will you be content here?’

‘I shall always be happy when I am with you.’

It was the simple truth. He nodded, satisfied.

Our lunch arrived.

I had no idea what I was eating or what it tasted like. I was drowning in Christos’ brown eyes, his smiling mouth, his loving words – absorbing every tiny detail. As we sipped our coffee, still too sweet and too strong, Christos assured me that we would be the happiest pair on the island.

‘You will love this place, Olivia. It is the most beautiful, wonderful place I have ever seen. We shall live like simple fisher-folk, and you will get brown and even more beautiful if that is possible, and totally fluent in Greek. Then we shall go to the dig and I shall become Marinatos’ right hand man – that is the phrase, is it not? – and after I graduate we will work together and become famous.’

I could not tell whether the last “we” was Christos and I or Christos and Marinatos, but I did not care.

We travelled to Oia on a donkey cart, sitting on a hay bale in the back whilst Christos pointed out the beautiful scenery we passed.

‘Santorini is so narrow that in places you can see the Aegean on one side and the caldera on the other at the same time.’

‘Tell me about your friend’s cousin. Do you like him? Do you work together? Do you like being a fisherman? Where do you live?’

‘His name is Niko. He works for his father-in-law who owns the boat. He is a young man, with a young wife. They have a little house down by the harbour they call Armeni, and I have a room with them. Irini is expecting a baby, and they are grateful for the little I pay them and the help I give Niko. They will love you, and you will like them. Irini will help you to be a Greek woman, and a good wife. And if you are not a good wife I shall beat you.’ He laughed and then ducked as I shied a pretend slap at him. Then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It was our first kiss on Santorini, and I was reassured that I liked it every bit as much as I remembered.

‘Oh, Olivia, I cannot believe that you are here, and we have the whole summer together.’ He took my locket out of his pocket and fastened it around my neck. ‘Here is your hostage safely returned. I have looked after it well.’

I loved him with all my heart.

Oia had the same narrow pathways I had seen in Fira. Definitely not built for cars – a laden donkey could just negotiate the lanes, many of which were steep and twisting, but our cart was too wide to pass. So we were deposited in a little square in front of a church on the edge of the little town, and Christos grabbed my hand and my luggage and we set off walking.

‘In the nineteenth century’, he told me, ‘rich seamen built mansions in Oia, using the volcanic rock which is all around us. They are not like the traditional dug-ins which most people live in here. They are more like Italian villas, with a Venetian influence. You know that the Venetians were great sailors and had a huge empire at one time? You can see architecture influenced by them all over the Aegean and Adriatic. Such houses are an important part of Santorini’s history. Irina’s parents live in a Captain’s House, just around this corner…’

Facing the sea, and set back behind a garden, was a large stone house, symmetrically styled, with a very tall and imposing front door. It was shabby, its paintwork peeling, and the garden uncared-for, but you could see that once upon a time it had been very grand indeed.

‘Are Irina’s parents rich, then?’ I asked, struggling to equate this idea with a poor young couple who lived in a fisherman’s cottage.

‘By Oia’s standards they are better off than most. They own three boats, and Stavros no longer goes to sea himself. His two sons, and now his son-in-law, work the boats and he sells the fish to the tavernas. He is an ambitious man. One day he will be rich. I will take you to meet him, but not today.’

We walked on, the pathway beginning to narrow and slope downhill.

‘Irini and Niko live down here, close to the harbour’, continued Christos. ‘You shall have my room, and I will stay with Niko’s crewmate, Dimitrios.’

After a year apart I did not want to be away from Christos any more than necessary. ‘Can’t you stay with us, too?’

‘There is no room for both of us there.’ He blushed. ‘And the village would be scandalised if we shared a room. I shall only be two doors away.’

Niko and Irini lived in a dug-in house close to the little harbour. It had the distinctive barrel-shaped roof and it was painted white, with door and window frames bright blue. Old olive oil cans planted with flowers sat either side of the door. It was small and neat and well cared-for.

Niko welcomed us first, Irini hanging back shyly, her arms crossed protectively across her pregnant belly.

‘Christos was not exaggerating after all. You are as beautiful as he said, Miss Olivia, but you are too pale. Santorini will cure that. Come, come inside.’