Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach (24 page)

They met in the play area, where Ray could have fancied that the faces on the equipment were grinning at a secret. The youngsters were being kept ignorant about their grandmother—that was where his sense of the unspoken came from. The silence seemed to grow more awkward as everybody crossed the courtyard of the Sunny View, until Julian said "What do you have to say, William?"

"I'm sorry if I woke anybody up."

"Your mummy did that," Sandra said. "Not that we're complaining.

"No, in the night. When I made a fuss."

"I wondered if I heard something," Ray said. "What was wrong, William?"

"I saw someone in our room."

"You didn't quite say that, did you? Tell grandma and grandad what you told us." When the boy looked embarrassed if not nervous Natalie prompted "Not in the room, in..."

"He was in the room." Just as stubbornly William said "Then he went in the window."

"Explain to everybody what you mean," Julian said.

"I expect you're saying he went out of it, are you?" Sandra said. "But we know it must have been a dream. I had one last night too."

Ray was hoping she wouldn't describe it when William said "It wasn't, gran."

"That's all it could have been." With dwindling patience Julian said "You still have to say what you mean by going in the window."

"Like in the church. The pictures in the glass."

"Stained glass, do you mean?" Once the boy nodded Ray said "That's a dream if I ever heard one, William. Real people can't go inside glass."

"He did, and he was watching Jonquil. Then he sank."

"What do you mean," Julian objected, "sank?"

"Like the window was water, and then he wasn't there any more."

"And you don't think that was a dream?" When William was silent Julian said "Tell everybody who you thought he was."

"The man Jonquil was dancing with by the fire."

"Stop it, William," Jonquil said. "You know he couldn't have got in our room."

Julian turned from frowning at the Paradise Apartments to stare, but not at William. "Is he getting on your nerves? Then I hope you're satisfied."

Her voice took on more of an edge. "Why are you saying that?"

"Because I don't think there's any question who's responsible for William having these dreams."

"I don't think so either," Natalie said.

"Then we're in agreement, which is as it should be," Julian said and looked askance at her sigh. "Isn't that the case?"

"Julian, I wish occasionally you'd listen to someone besides yourself. I think you're giving William these dreams."

"Perhaps you'd care to explain how," Julian said and sucked his lips in to rid them of their pout.

"You've been harping on about Jonquil's boyfriend for days now. You even did it at the beach."

"He's not my boyfriend," Jonquil protested, though Ray thought he heard a hint of nervousness. "I've got one at home."

"All I'm saying," Natalie said, "is I'm surprised you aren't having dreams like William."

If Jonquil meant to speak, Julian didn't wait for her. "Any other complaints while I'm in the firing line?"

"You might like to remember we aren't just proud of William."

"I'm not aware of having said that was the case."

"You don't have to say, but you know you did. You told Jamie yesterday he was the pride of the family. As far as I'm concerned my daughter is as well."

"Don't you mean our daughter?"

Ray thought several people were suppressing their answers, but Sandra murmured "Do you want to say anything, Jonquil?"

"I try to be."

"Appreciated," Julian said. "I hope that's mutual."

Ray was on the edge of urging both of them to say more when William said "It isn't daddy's fault."

"I never said it was," Jonquil protested.

"Mummy did. It isn't fair."

"William, what I was actually saying—"

"You said daddy made me see the man in our room. Daddy didn't bring him there. I don't know who did."

Before Ray could judge how much the boy was striving to defend his father Julian said "William, would you prefer not to go on the train?"

"No, daddy," William said in dismay.

"Then kindly stop this nonsense. Everybody's had their fill of it. The train is to help you to forget all about it," Julian said and strode so fast towards the road train waiting in the square that he might have been determined to leave behind anybody's chance to speak. A few passengers were already seated in the open carriages, and their presence would inhibit any discussion of the kind the family had had or almost had. All the same, Ray heard Julian mutter to Natalie "If it needs to be dealt with tonight I promise you I will."

***

As the train set off, the guide with the microphone introduced herself as Irene and the driver as Mikos in English and German and French. Her English was enthusiastic if somewhat ramshackle, which Ray suspected was the case with the other languages as well. By the time she finished speaking in them she hardly paused before starting the next section of her commentary in English. At least this helped to make it less apparent that Natalie and Julian had little to say to each other and were being ponderously polite. If their silences hadn't been infectious Ray might have pointed out that Irene was concentrating on the landscape the train was passing through—olive groves, depleted streams, hills decorated with goats—while neglecting the history of the island. He could have felt that the unspoken was an unacknowledged passenger on the train, and very close to him.

Might William lose interest in the ride when it was accompanied by so much language that he didn't understand? At least whenever it passed through a village he devoted himself to waving at everybody in the narrow convoluted streets. When the family joined in Ray thought William's parents were trying to outdo each other, which made them look as if they'd reverted to their son's age. William appeared to have communicated his zest to the villagers, who waved with such vigour that they might have been greeting royalty if not someone even more important to them.

The first stop on the outing was a vineyard. Once Irene had talked all three nationalities through the processes of making wine and raki, everyone had a chance to sample them. William seemed happy to be given a large bunch of grapes after Natalie had washed them at a sink. "Try some if you like," she told Jonquil, indicating the queue for drinks, and Julian said nothing at all. "Drink enough and you will sleep tonight," Irene told the girl, and Ray hoped William would do the latter.

Next on the tour was a ceramics factory. Russet jugs and varicoloured vases occupied a multitude of shelves, and Ray had never seen so many pottery depictions of the sun, ranging from red to a white that looked less radiant than drained of colour. Quite a few had faces, and of course their smiles couldn't seem anything other than fixed. A potter demonstrated shaping a vase and delighted William by letting him help with another, though the man was less successful at showing how to make a sun. He appeared to be distracted by more than one member of the audience—Ray couldn't tell who. The rays of the ceramic sun might have been the violent spikes of an explosion, while the smile the potter gouged wasn't too far from a grimace. "No good anyway," the man declared, crumpling the clay into a shapeless lump.

The excursion moved on to an embroidery workshop, where Ray was disconcerted to observe how many of the patterns resembled elaborate cobwebs. Had this been the case in Vasilema Town? When William said "Spiders." Ray thought he was being fanciful until he saw the boy didn't need to be. Any number of the intricate white cloths pinned to the walls were hiding spiders in their designs, as if the creatures were so inextricable from their webs that they could hardly be distinguished from them. "Why the spiders?" Doug asked the guide.

"They are emblem."

"An emblem of what?" Pris said.

"Our island."

"In that case," Julian said, "I'm surprised it isn't on a flag."

"It is to see when you are here."

"It might put people off coming, you mean?" Pris said.

Before Irene could answer, though she seemed uncertain how to, William said "Is it what the saint killed?"

The guide bowed her head as if to bring it closer to his meaning. "Saint, you say."

"St Titus," Doug said. "Will thinks we saw pictures of him fighting spiders."

"Or something like them," Pris said.

"Something." As Ray took this for a species of agreement Irene said "It has to be legend. He would not come back."

"No fight." This was contributed by a woman at a loom, whose black dress put Ray in mind of the priest on the beach. "Too much past now," she said.

"There you are, William," Julian said as Ray thought of asking Irene what either woman meant. "It was just a story, an old legend."

Ray supposed it was better for William to be concerned with this rather than his dream. Or could one have led to the other—the carvings on the trees by the path to the cave helping to inflame his imagination? Ray had lost the chance to question Irene, who was speaking to a solitary German couple in their language. He could have thought she was relieved to say "When we are all ready it is time for lunch."

They ate at a taverna next to a miniature waterfall and encircled by the stream it fed. The glade set with tables could have been the garden of the small house next to the taverna. The trees across the stream were as vitally green as the forest near the monastery of St Titus was black. A brawny woman welcomed everyone with sweeping gestures of her muscular bare arms, and brought brimming jugs of water to the tables. "Water your friend," she told William.

When he giggled at whatever he thought she meant she gave him a stern look and indicated how the stream surrounded them. "Water," she insisted. "Friend for life."

Ray thought Pris was saving the boy from any further misinterpretation as she said "Everyone's so friendly here."

"We need."

"That's your way, isn't it?" Doug was determined not to be puzzled by her response. "That's Greek," he said.

"Our way," the woman said and glanced at Sandra and the teenagers, who'd sat in the shade of several trees. "Yes."

She was moving away when Julian said "May we see the menu?"

"No menu. Freshest fish. You catch, we cook."

A wire mesh dammed an outlet from a large pool at the lowest section of the stream, trapping at least a dozen fish. Nets on poles lay on the stone rim of the pool. "Maybe boy don't like," she conceded. "I tell you other food."

"I like fish," William protested.

"Good boy. Grow up fine man," the woman said, ruffling his hair.

"We're a fine family," Julian said and nodded at Jonquil. "Both of them."

William was the first to pick up a net, and just as eager to wield it. "You can choose mine for me, Ray," Sandra said.

"Someone get mine too," Tim said, and Jonquil added "Please for me as well."

Ray caught their host sending all three a doubtful look. If they were comfortable where they were, he didn't see the problem, and why should he compound the anxiety that had become his constant companion? He watched William net a struggling fish, which the brawny woman took to the kitchen. Soon everybody's lunch was caught, and she brought out bowls of salad. "Do you live here, then?" Doug took the chance to ask.

"All the year."

"With your family?" When her gesture identified them as the waiter and the chef at the grill, Doug said "Doesn't it get lonely in the winter, all the same?"

"No visitors," the woman said, swinging her hand in a wide circle. "No problem."

Before long she and her son brought the grilled fish. Ray thought William might be dismayed by the blind head of his, but the boy seemed untroubled. "It's different now," he said calmly enough.

"That's because they've made it delicious for you," Sandra said, having sampled hers.

"It's dead," William declared as if this needed to be made plain. "It can't move any more."

"Of course it can't," Natalie said as she set about stripping the flesh from the bones for him. "Nothing can then, William."

Was the boy doing his best to look convinced? At least he seemed to enjoy his meal, even if he didn't match Sandra and the cousins for voraciousness. Ray kept growing aware of the perpetual monologue of the waterfall, which sounded like a meditation on endlessness. Despite its lack of words he could easily have fancied that it had some message for him, especially given their host's farewell to her English guests. "Water is good," she said with some force.

"Better than good," Pris said. "It's the best we've had."

Did Ray glimpse frustration in the woman's eyes? As Sandra and the teenagers stood up she gazed at them. "You remember."

"We do," Sandra assured her. "We make sure we don't get dehydrated."

This time Ray was sure she looked misunderstood. "Thank you," Sandra said as the woman turned to the German couple, but she didn't glance back. As the train left the taverna behind, the staff moved together to watch from just inside the watery boundary, and Ray wondered how often they crossed the stream. For an instant he felt close to grasping some point that the woman had tried to convey, and then it was gone.

Soon the train stopped at an olive oil factory. Irene showed everyone the massive old stone wheel that had been turned by four men or a quartet of donkeys, and then she led her party inside the factory for an extended look at the hydraulic equipment now in use. There were varieties of oil to sample, and Sandra might have been competing with Tim and Jonquil to prove who could dip the most bread. When Irene mentioned that olives were harvested in November, Doug said "What else happens in the winter? We've often thought we'd like to retire to an island like yours,"

"I do not think so. You would find dead."

"It can't be as dead as all that, can it?" Pris objected. "Don't some places stay open for the locals?"

"Just enough to feed."

"That's enough then, isn't it? What else do you do till the spring?"

"Wait for sun."

"You'd have to do a lot of that round here." When this fell short of amusing her Doug said "There must be something to keep you on the island."