Aftershock by Bernard Ashley Page A

couldn’t he start, and get it over with? Wild thoughts of freedom in Regent’s Park and a ship at the docks came into his head again. How far away was that door?
    And then he saw his mother. She was nodding her head slightly, looking across the table at him with that confident smile she’d always had when it was Spiros Magriotis holding the Gibson, ready to play. But tonight it would be—
    â€˜Makis Magriotis!’
    Mr Laliotis was introducing him. Makis pushed back his chair with a squeal from the floor, his hand holding tight to the mandolin’s fret.
    â€˜A young friend from our tragic island of Kefalonia, welcomed into our community here in London.’ Mr Laliotis looked around the room. ‘Would you like me to ask him to play a song from his island, to finish our concert?’
    The audience – especially Sofia Magriotis – made sure the applause went on until Makis had found his place on the platform; where he gave a hurried bow and sat down next to Mr Laliotis. As he settled, the musician took his mandolin from him and quickly tuned it to the atmosphere of the room. Makis quietly wiped the plectrum dry on his handkerchief. And with the mandolin back in his hands, the final piece began.
    The balalaika introduction, a nod to Makis, and with a catch of his heart, Makis began to play the beautiful melody, ‘To Taste the Assos Honey’. Like drizzled honey itself, together they played a verse, then the chorus, and in the hushed room – not a sound from cutlery or plate or glass – they played; and baritone and alto, they sang the words of Makis’ sang Sofia’s island song.
    I cross the blue Ionian Sea,
    the blue stripes flying at our stern,
    but when my sands are running out
    to Kefalonia I’ll return
    to taste the Assos honey.
    There was silence as they finished. Looking out over the hall, Makis could see heads nodding and eyes being wiped. And then the whole hall stood to clap them. Makis stood, too, and bowed in time with Mr Laliotis.
    â€˜One more bow,’ the musician muttered, which they gave. ‘Stand straight and still.’ They did. ‘No encore. Walk off.’ And to claps, whistles, and shouts of ‘Bravo!’ they carried their instruments from the platform. ‘It’s always best that they want more than want less,’ Mr Laliotis whispered under his breath.
    At their table, Makis’s mother was still clapping, straight-backed and modest and proud. Her eyes were wet, but tonight more with joy than sorrow. She kissed Makis on the forehead, and breathed in deeply.
    â€˜Tonight you made the Gibson truly yours, Makis. I bless it, and I bless you.’ She took the mandolin from him, stroked it where it was chipped, and gave it back.
    And had it not been for a stabbing thought of Denny Clarke, Makis would have considered himself the happiest boy in the world.

Chapter Seventeen
    Makis woke up feeling frightened. He heard his mother humming the Assos honey song in the kitchen, but he wanted to push past her and out into the yard to breathe some fresh air. His nerves the night before in the Acropolis had shown themselves in a lack of breath and freezing skin. But the fear of being hurt is different from any other fear. Imagining a pounding from Denny Clarke had all Makis’s insides churning, and he felt that at any moment he might be sick.
    Denny Clarke! This morning after Cathedral he was going to have to fight the boy – who was bigger all round than he was, and had fists like the rocks on Alekata beach. Makis looked at his own hands; his plectrum hand, and his fret hand. To some, he might have seemed a coward, but he had deliberately put off the fight long enough to keep those hands in condition for the concert with Mr Laliotis. But now they were going to be used for fighting.
    He couldn’t eat breakfast, hid his toast, and got ready for going to the Cathedral, keeping his eye on the mantelpiece clock. Two