The Sunrise (45 page)

Aphroditi wanted to be alone and told the carer that she could go home early.

She made her way slowly into the kitchen where the tray sat on the draining board. She picked up the velvet pouch, tipped the contents into her creased palm and studied the small, irregular object for the last time. Purposefully, she turned on the tap and slowly rolled it off her hand.

It briefly circled the plughole, then was gone. Within seconds it was washed away from the house in Southgate and flushed through several miles of underground drainage system before arriving at the sewage plant. It travelled on and eventually, after a long voyage, a tiny pearl found itself back in the sea.

News also travelled a long way to reach London from Cyprus. All these years later, Emine’s old friend Savina from the salon still wrote regularly. One of the significant things she kept her informed about was the work of the dedicated team of forensic scientists who now endeavoured to identify the bones from unmarked graves. Emine still hoped for news of Ali. Anything would be better than nothing.

One day a newspaper cutting fell out of the envelope. It was not about the missing; it was an article about the rise and fall of a hotel chain. When she began to read it, Emine realised that its owner was none other than Savvas Papacosta. A series of hugely ambitious loans and a change in the financial climate had led to his recent bankruptcy. It took her some time to get through the story (she rarely read in Greek these days, and Savina always wrote to her in English). When she turned the page over, there was a big photograph. It had been taken of Savvas Papacosta and his wife at the opening of The Sunrise. They were standing in front of the hotel’s name spelled out in flowers.

She put her hand over her mouth. It was a shock to remember how glamorous and beautiful Aphroditi had been. The long sparkling gown had been a sensation, and Emine remembered doing her hair in preparation for that night as if it were yesterday. She continued to read, quietly but out loud. There was a caption beneath the picture. It said simply: ‘Savvas Papacosta and his former wife, Aphroditi, who died last year.’

For a while Emine sat there looking into the pair of dark eyes that stared back from the page.

Since coming to London, the Georgiou family had read of the negotiations and subsequent stalemate, the changes to the texture and make-up of the island, continuous appeals from both sides to find missing relatives, the proclamation of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and then the opening of the border in 2003.

They were aware too of a failed plan to forge a compromise, and the economic crash in the south. All of these failures and disappointments lodged in their consciousness, but hope never went away.

In 2014, talks began once again. A Good Friday service was held inside a church in Famagusta’s walled city, and the US vice president went to visit. He was the most senior American politician to go to the island in more than fifty years.

To the surprise of everyone who had known her in Cyprus, Irini was contented enough in London. Christos, his English wife and their daughter lived with her, while Maria and Panikos were in the next street; their children were even married now.

The proximity of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren sustained Irini and gave her plenty to live for. Most days she still cooked an evening meal for them all, and her only concession to ageing was to take an afternoon nap, just as she would have done on hot days in Cyprus.

During their years in London, barbed wire, plastic netting and guard posts remained in place around Famagusta. The wind whipped through its streets and salty air brought slow destruction. Everything in the town had decayed. Several times a week Irini still woke up imagining herself there.

She was in her late nineties now. Her dreams were more intense these days and sometimes blurred with reality. Other things had faded with age: the dark chestnut brown of her eyes, the pigment of her hair and her physical strength. Her eyesight and hearing were not what they had been either.

One day she opened her eyes to a hazy light. It could have been dawn or dusk; she could not tell, so indeterminate was the glow that filtered through the net curtains. A figure was standing in the shadows of the doorway. It had to be her granddaughter, but her dress was old-fashioned, a white pinafore specked with roses, just as she had worn herself as a child.

‘Come and see! Come and see!’ Irini heard her call.

The small figure disappeared and Irini rose from her bed and went into the corridor outside. She was drawn to a room at the end where she could see a bluish light.

There on the television she saw Famagusta, its windows vacant, its concrete towers cracked. Supporting herself on the door frame, she gazed at the screen.

Although it looked like a military invasion, it was not tanks but bulldozers that she saw. Dozens of them were making their way through the sentry points in Famagusta.

After all these years, the moment that she had waited for had come. It seemed that rebuilding was finally to begin.

There was stillness in the house and her granddaughter was nowhere to be seen. She glanced over her shoulder. It was then that she noticed a crowd gathering behind her.

‘My dream!’ Irini whispered, as her knees began to give way beneath her. ‘This is my
dream
!’