(11/20) Farther Afield by Miss Read Page B

the windscreen. At the summit, we drove across bumpy grass into a deserted forecourt.
    The wind buffeted us as we emerged from the car, and went towards the cliffs' edge. We stood on a headland, the dark sea hundreds of feet below us clawing with white foamy tentacles at the rocks below. Sea-birds screamed and wheeled, floating like scraps of paper in the eddies of wind. It was too rough to talk. The wind blew into our mouths, snatching words away, making us gasp with shock.
    There was no one in sight. A disused mill, sails gone, and one salt-bleached door hanging awry, stood nearby. At its footings, a dozen or so scrawny chickens scratched and pecked, scurrying away with clucks of alarm, as we struggled by them.
    It was more sheltered in the courtyard, but equally deserted. A verandah ran round the four sides, at first floor level, and large rusty tins were ranged at intervals. Once they had acted as window boxes, it would seem, but now, rust-streaked and battered, only a few dead stock plants protruded from them.
    Everywhere the paint was flaking, and the walls were streaked with the rain-trickles of many seasons. This famous Christian monastery, built by the Venetians 600 years earlier to withstand the assaults of the infidel Turks across the water, presented a pathetic sight close to, in contrast with the magnificence of its aspect when viewed from afar.
    We approached a door and knocked. There was no sign of life. We looked about us as we waited. Someone, somewhere, lived in this sad place. A tattered tea towel flapped from a make-shift wire line, destined never to dry whilst the misty air encompassed all.
    We knocked again, louder this time, but with the same result. Disconsolate, we began to explore further. A dark archway seemed to lead to another courtyard. A broom was propped against a wall. A bucket stood nearby. Were those potato peelings in its murky depths?
    We tried another door. This time we began to open it gently after our preliminary knocks had brought no answer. The handle was rough and gritty to our touch, eroded by the salt air, clammy in our palms.
    'May we come in?' we cried into the twilit room.
    There was a responsive rumbling, and the sound of a chair being pushed back upon stones. A monk, in his black habit, smiled a welcome. I suspect we had woken him from a nap.
    He spoke little English. We had no Greek, but he nodded and smiled, and led the way across the courtyard to the chapel. He was obviously very proud of it. His face was lined and tired, I thought, although he could not have been much more than forty, but it lit up with happiness as he conducted us from one ikon to another and stood back to let us study them.
    Truth to tell, the place was so dark, and the ikons so dimly lit that I am sure we saw less than half of the beauties with which he was familiar. But we admired them, and followed our guide on a further tour of inspection.
    It was uncannily quiet. Our companion was the only living soul we saw. Could the other monks be away for the day, or locked somewhere in meditation or prayer? We did not like to enquire, and in any case could not possibly ask for enlightenment in the primitive sign language we were obliged to use for communication.
    We followed him through a long room which reminded me so sharply of Fairacre's village hall that a pang of homesickness swept over me. Wooden chairs were ranged all round the walls. A billiard table took up the major part of the room, and photographs hung awry on the walls.
    Everywhere lay dust. The smell of sea-damp clung about the rooms, and the banisters and rails were sticky with the all-pervading salty air.
    Our host continued to smile and to point out objects of interest – a framed text, incomprehensible of course, to us, an archway, a window. At last we came back to the door where we had met him. What, we wondered, did we do about alms-giving? We noticed a wooden platter on a low shelf, just inside the door, in which a few coins lay. We put our