(11/20) Farther Afield (12 page)

'Imagine then, the horror when he calmly asked Aunt Winifred if she would kindly remove herself as he wished to bring home "
a very lady-like girl" -
I can hear my poor Aunt Win mimicking his tone to this day – whom he hoped to marry as soon as he and Aunt Winifred could get a divorce.

'I was not present, naturally, at this scene, but heard all about it from my aunt some time later.'

'What on earth did she do?'

'You'll be amazed. As amazed as I was, all those years ago, I expect. She told me this with a smile of such self-satisfaction on her face that I was rendered speechless at the time. It seems that she had been left a small legacy by a godfather not long before. Something in the region of two hundred pounds. When she was telling me this, I remember thinking: "Oh, what a good tiring! She could make a start somewhere else!" But I realised that she was telling me that she decided to use the money "to win him back". She proposed to ignore his suggestion completely, but do you know what she did?'

'Bought him back with two hundred?'

'As near as! She blew the lot on having her hair dyed and re-styled. She bought masses of new clothes. She had a face-lift and heaven knows what else. Then she calmly waited for him to fall in love with her all over again.'

'And did he?'

'I think not. He was even more subdued after that little escapade; but she did succeed as she intended to do.'

Amy sighed.

'You can imagine my feelings on hearing this tale. I was absolutely furious. At that age I thought I should have let the man have his way, and gone off myself, rejoicing in the two hundred which would keep me going until I found a suitable job. To crawl around trying to get him back was the last thing I should have done. I was so shocked by my aunt's attitude that I said nothing. Perhaps it was as well.'

'And how do you feel now about it?'

Amy looked at me steadily.

'I'm thirty years older and wiser. I know now how Aunt Winifred felt. To put it at its lowest level first – why should she give up her bed and board, and all the settled ways of a lifetime simply because he wanted to opt out of a solemn contract they had made? Why should she – the innocent party – shatter her own life simply because he wanted to be unfaithful?

'On a slightly less material plane, she realised, I know, – and now that I'm facing the same problem I know how much it hurts – that one can't just destroy a shared life by walking away. The memories, the experiences, the influences one has had on the other, have simply made you what you are, and they can never be completely wiped out.'

Amy reached for a piece of grass and began to nibble it thoughtfully. Her voice was steady, her eyes dry. It seemed to me that this outpouring was the fruit of much suffering and tension. One could only hope it would give her relief, and I was glad to be able to play the role of passive friend.

'And then, of course, Aunt Winifred was a religious woman and took her marriage vows seriously. When she was told that God had joined them together and that no man, or woman, should put them asunder, then she believed it without a shadow of doubt. I'm sure she stuck to Uncle Peter as she did because she felt sure he would be committing a mortal sin and must be saved from this truly wicked temptation. She told herself – as God knows I've told myself often enough – that this was a kind of madness which would pass if she could only hold on.'

Amy threw away her ruined grass stalk.

'And she did, and the marriage held, and I don't think she ever chided Uncle Peter about the affair. But for all that, it no could never be quite the same again. You can't be hurt as much as that and get away without the scars.'

There was a little silence, broken only by the mewing of a seagull, balancing in the air nearby.

'And will you hold on?' I ventured.

Amy nodded slowly.

'I've learnt that much from Aunt Winifred. In the end, the outcome may not be the same, but I've more sense now, than I had thirty years ago, than to fling off in high independence and precipitate things.'

She turned to me suddenly and smiled.

'And another thing, I'm so awfully fond of the silly old man. We've shared too much and for too long to be pettish with each other. I'm not throwing that away lightly. That's the real stuff of marriage which you lucky old spinsters, with your nice uncomplicated lives, can't appreciate. It's an enrichment. It's fun. It's absorbing – more so, I imagine, if you have a family – and so you just don't destroy it, but nurture it.'

She sprang to her feet, took my one good hand in hers and heaved me upright.

'Come along, Nelson,' she said, as I adjusted my sling. 'Toplou is some way off. Think of those fortunate monks who have no such problems as mine!'

We piled the remains of our picnic into the basket, and picked our way back to the car.

Amy's spirits had recovered. She chanted as we headed eastward:

'
And miles to go before I sleep
'
And miles to go before I sleep.
'

11 Toplou

T
HE
monastery of Toplou stood like a fortress silhouetted against the grey sky. We approached it by a tortuous road, snaking up the hillside.

The wind grew stronger as we ascended, and a fine drizzle of rain misted 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 own upon them, looking questioningly at our guide, who nodded and smiled and bowed.

He held our hands in farewell. His were cold and bony, and with a rare maternal urge I wished suddenly that I could cook him a luscious meal and build a good fire, to keep out the desolation of the place.

We retraced our steps. I was chilled to the marrow, and would have been glad to climb back into the car, but Amy strode across to a white marble war memorial hard by the deserted mill, and I followed her.

The monastery itself had been forlorn enough, but here was the very essence of sadness. Against the foot of the cross was propped a wreath of brown dead laurel leaves. Above it, the inscription was streaked with brown stains. Dead grass shuddered in the wind from the sea, and nearby an old fruit cage, its wire broken and rusty, protected nothing but a jungle of tall grass bleached white by the salt winds, and rustling like the wings of a flock of birds.

Another chapel stood beyond it. It too was deserted, some of the windows broken and boarded. On this magnificent headland, in its proud position as one of the bastions of Christianity, it was infinitely sad to see this once-loved, splendid place, so desolate and forlorn.

We returned in silence to the car, too moved to speak, until we had wound our way down the great hill and reached the road again.

This experience had made us pensive, and I reflected, as we drove in silence, upon the life of the monk, living in chill discomfort, in that remote place high above the sea. For once, my smugness at contemplating the single life was shaken. I felt again the touch of the cold thin hand in mine, the gritty dampness of the surrounding walls, the dust, the darkness.

And, for a moment, I looked upon a lot which might well be mine and other solitary old people's in the future, where loneliness and bleakness stalked, and even the light of religious beliefs could do little to comfort.

I shivered, and Amy patted my knee with a warm hand.

Thank God for friends, I thought gratefully.

***

Our spirits rose as we took a roundabout route back to the hotel. The clouds lifted, and the blue Cretan sky was above us again.

We stopped in Kritsa, a village we had grown to love, a few miles from our hotel. It lay in the hills among olive and carob groves, and there were wonderful walks nearby, as we had discovered.

We sat on a log on the side of the hill, our feet in the damp grass. In the distance we could see a woman on her balcony busy spinning wool on a hand spindle. Nearer at hand, another woman dragged branches of carob tree towards three splendid white goats, who strained at their chains bleating madly. Their stubby tails flickered with excitement and anticipation, and as soon as the greenstuff was near enough they fell upon it, crunching the bean pods with every appearance of delight.

We walked down the hill and revisited the church. This was freshly whitewashed, and as spruce inside as out. Two dark-eyed children jostled each other as they rushed towards us, a bunch of wilting flowers in their hands, hoping for custom.

There were two letters for me when we returned, which I welcomed with cries of joy. Why is it that letters when away are so much more satisfying than those that drop through one's own letter box?

One was from the kennels assuring me that Tibby had settled down well, was eating everything put before her, including the dried food which is spurned at home, and seemed well content.

How typical of a cat, I thought sourly. At home, she will reject anything from a tin, and all forms of dried cat food. Rabbit, from
China
not
Australia,
is welcomed, preferably still warm from her personal casserole, raw meat cut very small, and occasionally poached fish. Her tastes are far too extravagant for a teacher's budget, but I weakly give in. Now, it seemed, she wolfed everything in sight, and made me appear an even bigger ass than I am.