vegetables outside on the pavement – purple aubergines and sweet peppers that looked as if they were made of red and yellow plastic – and, in the shadowy interior, tins of things that you did not find in England:
hummus
and
tahina
and
taramasalata
. Flat loaves of pitta lay in a glass-fronted cabinet, like religious offerings. There was the smell of cumin and fennel.
In this shop they were greeted with surprising ceremony. A chair was put out for her. Orange juice was brought for Paula and thick, black coffee for Dee, along with a glass of water.
Glyki
, she learned: sweet.
Efharistó
: thank you. The owner – his name was Demetris – beamed at them. Dee only had to ask –
parakaló
: please – and things were brought, and packed into a brown paper bag. The youngest child would be dispatched with her to carry the purchases home, and she learned to give him a piastre tip, but learned also to keep it secret, for his father would have been cross. She discovered his birthday and bought him a small present, a plastic aeroplane. His name was Evangelos, which seemed too much for a young child to bear.
‘How d’you get on today?’ Edward would ask when he got back in the evening. If she had been out with some of the wives – perhaps Binty had picked her up to take her to a coffee morning or swimming at Lady’s Mile – then she would tell him all; but if she had spent the day alone then she would say little, because somehow it was her experience and no one else’s. Edward spent the day in the company of his colleagues in the offices of the Headquarters up on the cliffs at Episkopi. He lunched in the mess and talked and laughed and drank with hisown kind, immersed in a world that she visited almost like a foreigner whenever there was a party at someone’s house or a ladies’ night at the mess. It was on occasions like that, with the men decked out in mess kit, their chests gleaming with the medals they had won in Italy or the desert or Burma, that she wondered about Damien Braudel.
She first met Geoffrey Crozier at a party given by Binty and Douglas. He was rather older than Edward, a short, dapper man with Brylcreemed hair and a toothbrush moustache. ‘Crozier, as in bishop,’ he said, shaking her hand solemnly. There was an incongruous London edge to his voice, half-breathed aitches, glottal stops. He was a civilian among the military, a banker of some kind, although exactly what he did was not clear.
‘Can I open an account with you?’ Dee asked him.
‘It’s not quite that kind of bank, I’m afraid. The Levant Investment Bank. We’re a merchant bank.’
She was not familiar with the term. It had a raffish sound to it, as though it dealt with argosies and camel trains, traded in silk and spices. Geoffrey had, so he said when she asked about his family, managed to keep his wife in England. ‘The problem with Guppy is that she can’t stand too great a contrast between her body temperature and the surrounding air …’
‘But that’s daft. She must have a temperature of ninety-eight-point-four like any human being. So Cyprus would be better for her than England.’
Geoffrey laughed. His laugh was infectious, as sharp as a costermonger’s. ‘Guppy’s blood’s as cold as a fish’s. That’s why she’s called Guppy.’ The name conjured up an overweight and slatternly woman, wearing carpet slippers perhaps.
‘What’s her real name?’
He looked puzzled. ‘D’you know, I forget? Let me see … Veronica, that’s it.’
‘So why “Guppy”?’
‘Oh, she’s always been Guppy. Ever since she was in nappies.’
They were out on the terrace at the back of the house, a married quarter in Berengaria village. Berengaria was a military enclave outside Limassol, an imitation of an English suburb drawn in strange, foreign colours and alive with animal sounds – crickets, tree frogs, the mournful cry of a scops owl – that you would never hear in England. He asked how she liked the island.
She
hummus
and
tahina
and
taramasalata
. Flat loaves of pitta lay in a glass-fronted cabinet, like religious offerings. There was the smell of cumin and fennel.
In this shop they were greeted with surprising ceremony. A chair was put out for her. Orange juice was brought for Paula and thick, black coffee for Dee, along with a glass of water.
Glyki
, she learned: sweet.
Efharistó
: thank you. The owner – his name was Demetris – beamed at them. Dee only had to ask –
parakaló
: please – and things were brought, and packed into a brown paper bag. The youngest child would be dispatched with her to carry the purchases home, and she learned to give him a piastre tip, but learned also to keep it secret, for his father would have been cross. She discovered his birthday and bought him a small present, a plastic aeroplane. His name was Evangelos, which seemed too much for a young child to bear.
‘How d’you get on today?’ Edward would ask when he got back in the evening. If she had been out with some of the wives – perhaps Binty had picked her up to take her to a coffee morning or swimming at Lady’s Mile – then she would tell him all; but if she had spent the day alone then she would say little, because somehow it was her experience and no one else’s. Edward spent the day in the company of his colleagues in the offices of the Headquarters up on the cliffs at Episkopi. He lunched in the mess and talked and laughed and drank with hisown kind, immersed in a world that she visited almost like a foreigner whenever there was a party at someone’s house or a ladies’ night at the mess. It was on occasions like that, with the men decked out in mess kit, their chests gleaming with the medals they had won in Italy or the desert or Burma, that she wondered about Damien Braudel.
She first met Geoffrey Crozier at a party given by Binty and Douglas. He was rather older than Edward, a short, dapper man with Brylcreemed hair and a toothbrush moustache. ‘Crozier, as in bishop,’ he said, shaking her hand solemnly. There was an incongruous London edge to his voice, half-breathed aitches, glottal stops. He was a civilian among the military, a banker of some kind, although exactly what he did was not clear.
‘Can I open an account with you?’ Dee asked him.
‘It’s not quite that kind of bank, I’m afraid. The Levant Investment Bank. We’re a merchant bank.’
She was not familiar with the term. It had a raffish sound to it, as though it dealt with argosies and camel trains, traded in silk and spices. Geoffrey had, so he said when she asked about his family, managed to keep his wife in England. ‘The problem with Guppy is that she can’t stand too great a contrast between her body temperature and the surrounding air …’
‘But that’s daft. She must have a temperature of ninety-eight-point-four like any human being. So Cyprus would be better for her than England.’
Geoffrey laughed. His laugh was infectious, as sharp as a costermonger’s. ‘Guppy’s blood’s as cold as a fish’s. That’s why she’s called Guppy.’ The name conjured up an overweight and slatternly woman, wearing carpet slippers perhaps.
‘What’s her real name?’
He looked puzzled. ‘D’you know, I forget? Let me see … Veronica, that’s it.’
‘So why “Guppy”?’
‘Oh, she’s always been Guppy. Ever since she was in nappies.’
They were out on the terrace at the back of the house, a married quarter in Berengaria village. Berengaria was a military enclave outside Limassol, an imitation of an English suburb drawn in strange, foreign colours and alive with animal sounds – crickets, tree frogs, the mournful cry of a scops owl – that you would never hear in England. He asked how she liked the island.
She
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