Songs of Blue and Gold by Deborah Lawrenson Page B

are starting. His father and his grandfather always did it, and now it is his turn.’
    Melissa ignored all the questions that raised and asked directly. ‘Do you think he might let me go with him?’
    A pause. ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps not.’
    She stood up and went over to the desk and fetched a flimsy white paper from a small ledger. Melissa paid the thirty euros they had agreed. It was a slightly awkward parting. Melissa had the distinct feeling she saw a gleam in Eleni’s eye that said she was well aware of what she had wanted all along. In her over-sensitive state, it was enough to send Melissa’s spirits plummeting.
    Then, as Eleni was opening the door, she said, ‘I can ask him. Just . . . don’t expect. Do you have a telephone, a mobile?’
    Melissa gave her the number.
    She spent the rest of the day reading on the sofa in the apartment, her legs under a blanket she found in a wardrobe. The ache of loneliness and hurt whenever she thought about her mother and Richard had not subsided, but she was managing to push it a little further away. It helped to have other people, other lives, none of them perfect, to occupy her thoughts. It really did.
    When her mobile shrilled into life a few hours later, she almost jumped out of her skin.
    â€˜Hello?’
    â€˜Hello, is that Melissa?’ A man’s voice, but not Richard’s. The surge of anxiety cooled to the uneasy blend of relief and a disappointment she wished she did not feel.
    â€˜Ye-es.’
    â€˜This is Alexandros Catzeflis.’
    â€˜Oh . . . yes. Hello!’
    â€˜Eleni tells me you have been asking about the St Arsenius shrine.’ He sounded brusque.
    â€˜Yes . . . that’s right.’
    â€˜Why are you so interested?’
    â€˜I – I thought . . . it seems important if I’m visiting places that Julian Adie wrote about . . . He wrote about it so often.’
    Silence.
    â€˜This is part of your literary research?’
    So he knew about the questions she had already asked.
    She crossed her fingers. ‘Well, yes . . .’
    He was clearly reluctant. Under pressure from Eleni and Manolis too, maybe.
    But then, a sigh. ‘I suppose, in that case . . . I am going there tomorrow. To take oil for the . . . er, saint,’ he said, in the diffident way that was already becoming familiar. ‘If you would like to come along, I would be pleased to take you there for your . . . literary researches.’
    Was that an unnecessary emphasis, verging on sarcasm? Melissa decided to ignore it.
    â€˜I would like that very much. Thank you.’
    He hesitatingly ventured the news that the weather would change for the better by the next afternoon. In the light of that they made halting, mutually polite arrangements.

V
    THE SUN DID not rise the next morning until a quarter past eight. In strange citrus light, a vast flock of birds wheeled in silhouette around the bay, clustered in
pointillism
into the shape of a fish one moment, stretched into a sword the next. A lone black cloud smudged the sky’s fragile freshness.
    There was a cheerful scent of honeysuckle in the lane as Melissa went down to the shop to buy breakfast, hoping for fresh rolls.
    â€˜
Kalimera!
’
    She started. It was Christos, the Adonis of the tourist office. He stopped at the entrance to the shop, making it impossible for her to avoid him.
    â€˜How are you liking it here? What did you do last night?’
    â€˜I stayed in, reading.’
    â€˜Oh, no. That is not right.’
    â€˜It’s perfectly right. I’m having a lovely time.’
    Clearly it was his idea of hell. ‘Have dinner with me tonight.’
    â€˜Oh, no . . . thank you, but really I –’
    He put his head on one side and pressed his palms togetherin supplication. Melissa laughed and he winked. ‘You are a beautiful woman on your