The Years That Followed (7 page)

Calista smiles at him. “So am I,” she says.

She wants to return to the subject of his brothers, but Alexandros stops her. He places one finger on her lips, silencing her. “Follow me,” he says.

And she does.

* * *

Calista remembers how all those early days seemed to be infused with light. Her first thought each morning on waking was that Alexandros loved her. Her last thought at night was that Alexandros loved her. In between those two luminous moments, her day seemed to shimmer, filled with joy and promise.

“We will be together very soon,” Alexandros would whisper as they
lay in the narrow bed in his Dublin flat. “I just need to finish my time here to my father's satisfaction.”

“Do your parents know about me?” Calista asks timidly one afternoon.

Alexandros lifts her hand to his lips. “Not yet,” he says, kissing her palm. “But soon.”

Calista wants to ask, “How soon?” but she does not. She has already seen the way Alexandros's face clouds over when she says or does something that displeases him. Calista is never sure what it is that displeases him, and so she grows careful. She will do anything to keep the love in his green eyes, the tenderness in his embrace, the certainty of his hand in hers.

She worries, too, about being found out. They are very careful, she and Alexandros: they go together to parts of the city that María-Luisa and Timothy would never dream of visiting. But nonetheless, Dublin is small, tight. Everyone eventually knows everyone else.

In 1966, it is also a city without red sports cars. Calista is afraid that Alexandros's extravagance will get them noticed. But he waves away her fears. He will take care of things, he says.

Alexandros knows what he is doing.

* * *

Once, though, before the skein of lies unravels, they risk a public outing closer to home. María-Luisa and Timothy are invited to dinner somewhere in Rathgar, and Alexandros insists that the city center will be safe for Calista and him to have their first proper evening out together. He wants to show her off, he says. She is lovelier than ever, he tells her, and he is proud to have her on his arm.

Even her father has noticed a change. Somehow, the secret hours in Alexandros's bed have transformed Calista in a way that can be seen by others—even if they don't know what it is they're seeing.

“You're blooming, my dear,” Timothy exclaims, casting an appraising eye over his daughter. Calista blushes, terrified that her father can see right through her. María-Luisa, luckily, is not there. But Maggie is. In the midst of serving potatoes au gratin, she looks up sharply and catches Calista's eye across the table.

Calista looks away. “Thank you, Dad,” she says. “I think I caught the sun this afternoon.”

Afterwards, Maggie is waiting in the hall. She tugs at Calista's sleeve as she tries to make her way past. “You be careful,” she hisses, and her eyes are full of warning. “I seen too many girls where I come from bein' sent away for doin' the likes of what you're doin'.”

Calista wrenches her arm free from Maggie's grip. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she says, her tone more haughty than she has intended.

Maggie lets her go. “
I
know what I'm talkin' about,” she says fiercely. “I've been fendin' for myself since I was thirteen. I hear stories, all the time.” She pauses. “An' all those girls—they thought they'd never be caught out neither. Do you want to end up like them—locked away in a nuns' laundry, washin' other people's shitty sheets?”

Calista runs up the stairs, her anger simmering. How dare Maggie. How dare she. She throws herself on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Alexandros has told her not to worry, that he knows about such things. Nothing can go wrong. She can trust him, he says.

He will look after everything.

* * *

And now, Alexandros is waiting for her at the end of the street.

Calista watches until her parents' car has disappeared down the driveway. It is seven thirty; she has three full hours before she needs to make her way home again. She waits until Maggie has gone out into the back garden to put the vegetable peelings onto Timothy's compost heap. Then she eases open the front door and flees.

Calista can feel the thump of desire as she makes out Alexandros's dark head at the steering wheel. He leans over and pushes open the passenger door for her. “You look beautiful,” he says as she swings her legs in, knees together in one smooth movement, just as María-Luisa has taught her. Alexandros takes her hand and kisses her fingers.

“Where are we going?” she asks, breathless from running and from love.

“We are going to the Trocadero,” he says. “I have already booked the table. Do you know it?”

Calista shakes her head. She is glad she has taken extra care getting ready for this evening. Her maxi-dress is flower-patterned, swishy and daring at the neckline. It is yet another secret purchase; María-Luisa has no idea how her daughter's savings book has come
under attack. Calista removed it from her mother's desk, the desk at which María-Luisa sits to write letters to Madrid, to pay household bills, to sail her tightly run ship of domesticity.

Calista hopes her mother will not discover its absence for at least another couple of months. She refuses to think of this as theft; this is her money, her post office savings book in her own name. She's seventeen, after all. Surely she has the right to spend her own money in any way she wishes? So Calista has argued with herself.

Now she sees the way Alexandros is looking at her breasts. He can't take his eyes off her. The dress has been worth however much it cost. Calista feels powerful and sexy, grown-up and clever. She sits back in the passenger seat, pleased with herself.

* * *

Everything about the Trocadero restaurant thrills Calista: the unfamiliar ambience, the candles and white linen tablecloths, the deferential and unobtrusive waiters. She is sure, too, that she can spot several famous faces from the Dublin stage. Last week, Timothy had insisted on taking the family to the Queen's Theatre in Pearse Street to see
The Shadow of a Gunman
.

“Part of your heritage,” he'd said. “You should get to know O'Casey.” Calista thought María-Luisa had been bewildered by the play, but she and Philip had both been starstruck.

“But why?” her mother had asked at the interval. “Why must we see always the violence?”

And Timothy had looked exasperated. “The play is part of the commemoration of the 1916 Rising, my dear.” His voice had had an unaccustomed sharpness. “Our children need to understand the history of their country, violence and all.”

María-Luisa had been silent for the rest of the evening.

Tonight, Calista is amazed to find herself in a restaurant such as this, looking as though she dines out surrounded by famous people every night of her life. Looking as though she belongs. Alexandros smiles at her, amused.

The waiter arrives, murmurs a greeting, and places menus on the table in front of them. He starts to say something about the evening's specials, but Calista no longer hears him.

A young man has just approached their table. He is tall, fair-
haired, well dressed. He is also clearly tipsy. Calista can see him draw nearer over Alexandros's left shoulder. He leers at her, his unsteady gaze somewhere below her neckline. Calista blushes, looks away as he passes.

Alexandros is watching her. “What's wrong?” he asks, his hand covering hers.

She shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says. “It's just . . . I think that man is a bit drunk.”

Alexandros pats her hand. His eyes narrow as he watches the man move away from them. “Don't worry,” he says. “I will protect you.”

Some instinct makes Calista hold her tongue. She feels a crackle in the air, an electrical current that has turned into something as lethal as desire. The tipsy young man, walking back again, has just now stopped at their table. Calista does not need to look up. She can feel his presence like a cold sigh across her forearm. The hairs on her arm lift; she sees the instant arrival of gooseflesh. And she is afraid.

“My compliments,” the younger man slurs at Alexandros. “You are in the company of the loveliest woman in the room.” He reaches out one hand; his fingertips graze Calista's bare shoulder. She flinches, draws back from his touch.

Alexandros ignites. He suddenly towers over her, over the tipsy man at her side, over the waiter, and then things get confused. The table leaves the floor miraculously, scattering wine glasses, flowers, cutlery; shards of glass stun the air. And then there is blood, on her dress, on the white linen napkin that lies across her knees, on Alexandros's knuckles.

In the scuffle, Calista cannot tell who is who. The waiters hurl themselves into the fray; she sees them try to separate the two flailing men—although Alexandros's punches seem to land with a lot more accuracy than the younger man's.

And then she is at the door; they are both at the door, Alexandros's rage still flaming. He drags her back to the car. He says not one word until he has pushed her into the passenger seat.

“Don't ever, ever again look at another man while you are with me,” he says. His grip on her wrist is painful, a burning sensation that frightens her.

“I didn't,” she sobs. “I did nothing. One minute he was nowhere,
and the next he was standing there beside me—I don't even know where he came from.”

Alexandros releases his hold on her. He cups her chin with one hand, shakes his head, sorrowful at her lack of understanding. “This is how much I care for you,” he says. “How much I love you. No other man has the right.” He grips the steering wheel. “You must never do that again.” And he starts the car.

Calista cannot speak. So this is what love is; this is how true love feels. All that she has just seen now means something new, something that has been transformed, transmuted, translated into an exciting and unfamiliar language.

The fists, the blood, the brawl—these are now tokens of Alexandros's enduring love, of his protection, precious talismans of his devotion. Timidly, Calista reaches out and touches his hand. “I love you, too.”

Alexandros turns and looks at her, but his eyes don't seem to know who she is, or where she comes from.

Then he nods. “Remember,” he says. “You belong to me.”

* * *

Alexandros drives them both back to his flat. His driving is too fast, erratic; he wavers all over the road. Calista prays that there are no cyclists about for him to run over.

When they reach the bedroom, he doesn't even wait for her to undress. His kisses are almost savage; she feels that he is trying to devour her. But his endearments are passionate and poetic, even if she doesn't understand everything he says.
Mine
, she hears over and over.
My
. Alexandros does not take his usual care that night. Instead, he lies on top of her for a long time after he is finished.

Calista is anxious to go, to get home before her parents discover her absence. Finally, Alexandros seems to understand the urgency and pulls on his trousers, a careless sweater. He hardly speaks.

“Are you angry with me?” Calista asks. She hates the question, hates whatever the smallness is that she can hear in her own voice, but she cannot stop herself from asking it.

Alexandros smiles. “No, no,” he says, softly this time. “Not with you. But we must do something to make our situation more . . . ­appropriate.”

Calista doesn't ask what he means, not then; she needs to go, now, before her parents get home.

* * *

Maggie is waiting. Her expression is a mixture of fear and fury. “Where have you
been
?” she hisses, dragging Calista into the hall. Her eyes fall on the blood on Calista's dress, the smudgy black traces of tears on her face.

“Jesus Christ of Almighty,” she whispers. Her eyes search Calista's.

“It's not what you think,” Calista rushes to say. “There was a fight—it wasn't Alexandros's fault. I'm not hurt; this is not my blood.”

Maggie grips her wrist. “Go upstairs,” she says. “Change your clothes, have a bath, and wash your hair. I'll cover for you when they get here.”

* * *

Calista is discovered when María-Luisa runs into Sylvie at the tennis club. Sylvie is French; her daughter, Mireille, is in Calista's class. The humiliation, María-Luisa almost spits at her daughter, of finding out that you were not at the beach, or the library, or shopping with Mireille. You barely know Mireille; you have never once called to her house.

“Where have you going?” María-Luisa screams, her rage making her ungrammatical again.

Calista says nothing. She watches as Maggie begins to walk backwards towards the kitchen, her face white and anxious, suddenly smaller. Calista understands that Maggie is frightened that Madam's fury will soon be directed against her.

María-Luisa is shouting now. She turns to glare at Maggie. “Did you know about this—about the lies, the deceptions of my daughter?”

Calista's eyes caution Maggie over her mother's shoulder. She shakes her head in warning. “Maggie knows nothing,” Calista says. “Leave her alone. If you stop shouting, Mamá, I will tell you.”

Slowly, María-Luisa turns back to face her. The energy seems to have left her body. Her daughter's tone tells her all she needs to know. “Who is it?” she asks. “Wait.” She waves one hand in the air, stiffly, in dismissal. “You may go, Maggie.” Her eyes do not leave her daughter's face. “Calista and I will continue our conversation in the drawing room.”

And so Calista tells her. During the telling, the air shimmers be
tween mother and daughter. The room doesn't feel big enough to contain all that Calista now has to confess. And María-Luisa is relentless: she will know it all, unpick it all, down to the last detail.