Songs of Blue and Gold (10 page)

Instead, she spread the various books around on the sofa and got a pen for notes. Julian Adie was a womaniser, an ‘emotional expeditionary' he called himself once. But did he pin his own life out like a butterfly on a board when he wrote? Or did he allow only glimpses of himself for others to interpret in the light of their own experience?

Watching, listening, snooping outside the door of Julian Adie's life, she was seeing light occasionally like the twinkle of a supernova, millennia after the explosion.

She read some more of the poems, and passages she'd marked in the biography. Maybe it was not words but a mathematical flow, a mysterious algebra that had to be solved in order to answer the question. Why do men behave the way they do?

ELENI WAS CARRYING
two large empty baskets when Melissa bumped into her the next morning on the village road.

After a broken night full of unwelcome thoughts, the worst night since she'd arrived, she was intending to swim again while the sun was warm in a windless sky. Heading over to the bay with the rock, hoping the sea would calm her as it had before, she was staring down at the suede of dust and pine needles on the path. Melissa didn't see her before she called a friendly greeting.

Eleni had come out of the turning by the boat office, her broad smooth face alight with purpose. Wrapped around her buxom body was a vast and unflattering form of apron in green canvas, which was badged with a huge array of pockets in differing sizes. Her dark hair was tied back with a purple scarf.

A boy was with her, aged about seven, thin with big grazed knees and dirty hands. In that way that sometimes happens on holiday, Melissa had all but lost track of the days. It struck her that it must be Saturday because he was not at school.

‘How is Manos's tooth?' she asked.

‘He is fixed, but still he complains,' Eleni laughed. ‘But it is normal – he is a man.'

They exchanged smiles.

‘I'm going to collect some herbs. Then we will make him some natural cures and make sure he uses them properly this time.'

‘Are you in training to be a wise woman too then?' Melissa was teasing her gently, but Eleni took it entirely seriously. ‘No. That is a gift. But with some help from Manolis's mother I have become interested in a different kind of helping. You have heard of aromatherapy?'

Melissa nodded.

‘It is very old, here in Greece. But now the people who come here have heard of it. This year I have started a little business for the tourists in summer. They like it very much, especially when the sun is very strong and they need some cooling for the skin. It's very natural.'

‘You collect wild herbs?'

‘Sometimes, of course. But I have a special place where I grow what I want from seeds. And we have some secrets that give us success.'

Melissa was intrigued.

‘You want to come and see?'

The day seemed set fair, another October glory. There would be plenty of time for swimming.

‘Why not?' she said.

The boy ran ahead impatiently as they crossed the iron bridge over a dried-up stream bed coming down from the mountain.

‘He is Nikolaos,' said Eleni proudly, ‘The other one is Petros. He is already with Alexandros. I can't keep them away from his place.'

It seemed unlikely that two boys would be that fascinated by the growing of herbs, but Melissa fell into step with her. They bore left by an olive tree so twisted and gnarled it could have been hundreds of years old, and took a dusty track upwards.

‘It's the animals,' said Eleni, walking at a pace. ‘Alexandros always has so many he is looking after, and Petros loves animals,' Eleni went on. ‘Now he's saying that he wants to be a doctor for animals when he is older. That would be many years of study, but a good job, yes?'

‘Very good.'

‘He says Alexandros will teach him! He doesn't quite realise . . .'

Melissa wondered what awaited them at the top of the path, remembering the day before with the Kiotzas family. An eccentric old shepherd, or perhaps an old-style hippy with views on alternative lifestyles. She wondered whether he had been here long enough to remember Julian and Grace, whether there would be any chance of asking him, with Eleni translating.

They approached the house through olive trees, some with the familiar black nets curled against them, others with small hammocks of brighter colours. The land was terraced, but the top two strips of land had been made into what looked like crowded vegetable gardens. Despite the luxuriant growth, there was a sense of rigid order, and many plants were tagged with small white labels.

The substantial two-storey stone house was divided into
two parts, each differently configured. It looked like a great domino balanced on its side. At a blue-painted door which was open on to a patio, Eleni listened, then put her head inside.

‘Alexandros?'

All was quiet.

She put her baskets down by the patio wall where pots of pink and red geraniums were still blooming. ‘Come, we will find them.'

Leading the way, Eleni pointed out a great pitted millstone propped against the side of the house. ‘This was once used to press the olives on this farm.'

‘Is Alexandros a farmer?'

‘No, he is a . . . a history man.'

Melissa didn't have a chance to ask what she meant because at that moment Eleni pointed at three figures lying face down in the scrubby grass, three dark heads together. Nikolaos was one of them, another was an older boy she presumed was Petros, and the third was a man with a magnifying glass.

Eleni put a finger to her lips.

The man was handing the instrument to the younger boy when he became aware of visitors. ‘Ah!' he said, looking up. Then, in excellent English, ‘We may be having a . . . er, breakthrough!' before murmuring something in Greek to the boys who were still rapt in whatever it was they were studying on the ground. ‘Nikolaos told me you were coming up.'

He sat back on his knees and then stood up, unwinding a tall spare frame as Eleni made the introductions. Patches of dusty earth clung to his shirt. ‘This is Melissa,' said Eleni, ‘and here is Alexandros.'

They shook hands formally.

Alexandros held her gaze, steadily but shyly, with dark brown eyes. Deep laughter lines scored his face, but his expression was earnest now, the smile polite rather than wide.

‘Melissa – a . . . Greek name,' he said.

‘Is it?' For some reason she felt awkward, wrong-footed by imagination which had made him a grey-haired sage.

‘Melitta is another form, I think. And it is the name of a herb, too, the lemon balm.'

‘Melissa for memory,' added Eleni.

‘I thought that was rosemary,' said Melissa.

‘That is a stimulant version. Melissa can be used when the body and mind need to be calmed. It is supposed to have, ah, sedative qualities, so can be used as a cure for . . . er, nervous tension, insomnia, that kind of thing,' said Alexandros, hesitantly but warming to his theme. ‘It would free the mind in certain circumstances, perhaps . . . um, allowing memories to surface where they had been suppressed . . .'

‘Funnily enough, that's—' she began, then stopped herself.

‘What?' prompted Alexandros.

Melissa shook her head. ‘What are you doing there?' she said instead, nodding over to the boys. ‘It looks interesting.'

Alexandros visibly relaxed.

‘Ah, well, yes, it is. We are working on trying to find some . . . er, organic solution to the olive fly problem, to detect a smell or a parasite that will keep the flies from laying their eggs. In the same way that it's well known that marigolds will keep slugs away from vegetables due to their very powerful and particular scent, or that certain lice . . . er, recoil at the smell of geranium oil, I have been trying to find a herb or plant essence that will deter this pest, or even attract a
fly-eating predator. And thanks to the herbs that Eleni is growing here—'

‘For the aromatherapy,' she interjected.

‘—we find we have plenty of variety to experiment. As a matter of fact,' he frowned in concentration, ‘the . . . ah, citronella component of the lemon balm might well be a valuable addition that we haven't tried as yet . . . This morning we have been painting some leaves with a distillation of pelargonium and bitter orange, and several species of insect have turned away in disgust!'

He laughed, and began to brush the crumbs of earth from his chest, as if he had only just realised he was dirty. His enthusiasm made him suddenly ageless despite the silvery glints in his black-brown hair, a mop long enough to curl with a wildness that implied there was more to him than seriousness under the nervy exterior.

He and Eleni exchanged a few words in Greek.

‘I am going to cut my plants now,' she said, producing a pair of secateurs from a skirt pocket. ‘Beautiful plants – thanks to the ladybirds and moths Alexandros has lured into them to eat the aphids. And of course, they are never treated with chemicals.'

They followed her round to the gardens at the front.

‘You speak incredibly good English,' Melissa said to Alexandros.

‘I, ah, spent a few years studying in London.'

‘I see.'

‘Also, I love to read in English. But mostly, I travel a lot for my job. Quite often my work is done in English too.' She was about to ask him more, but he turned the subject away from himself. ‘We are having . . . um . . . real problems here
with the olive harvest,' he began, waving his arms to indicate a state of generality.

‘Chemical spraying has been . . . er, banned by the European Union – it was always sprayed from planes to control the olive fly. It lays its eggs in the developing olive which is then consumed by the growing grub, thus destroying the fruit. If more than one per cent of olives in a grove are infested, then the olives cannot be used as table olives, and if more than ten per cent are gone, then the crop cannot be made into olive oil.'

‘Why did they ban it?'

‘The chemical that was used is also a . . . um, mosquito deterrent, which has recently been banned in the USA. Personally, I feel there must be a better solution than that one anyway. We have to find a new one, at least, or the farmers, and the families who have always cultivated these groves, will simply think it is not worth their efforts – it is back-breaking work to tend and harvest a good crop of olives, and to nurture the trees. They simply will not do it any more. As it is there is little enough money in these tiny groves.'

‘Would it matter, if they just left the trees?'

‘It matters in that they might feel that they would get a better return by selling their groves for building development. That is something hardly anybody in the village wants and neither, I think, do the tourists.'

‘I'm sure you're right,' she said.

‘There are various scientific studies around the world that I have been following that might have an application here. It is a question of understanding the climate, and the land and vegetation. It's a delicate balance. But there is a method which I am quietly rather hopeful will prove useful here, involving a parasitic wasp . . . the wasp larva will live inside the fly larva
and hatch out of the pupa after killing it. I must say that early signs are more than encouraging . . .'

His voice trailed off. ‘Sorry, I must be . . . er, boring you with all this.'

‘No. Not at all.' She meant it. His intelligent melodious voice was easy to listen to when he found a topic he was comfortable with.

But he suddenly seemed embarrassed. ‘It has been nice to meet you,' he said abruptly.

He held out his hand, and they shook again. Then he loped across the patio and into the house without another word.

Feeling as if she had been summarily dismissed, Melissa wandered over to where Eleni was filling her baskets, and sat on the wall to wait. The sea was Indian sapphire between the trees, but incongruously, a warm breeze was wafting winter scents of wood smoke over the hill. In the olive groves on the headland she had already seen farmers pruning, cutting the branches for winter fuel. Now they were burning the dead twigs and leaves. One of the old olive stumps on a lower terrace was alight; red flames flickered inside the lacy trunk like a Halloween lantern.

It was peaceful in this warm garden with autumn coming: the late grapes puckering on the vines, shrubs bolting after the early rains. Eleni went about her business rustling and clipping. It made Melissa think of the garden she would have loved to have made in England. She closed her eyes and pushed that aside.

So she thought about Alexandros instead, and the disconcerting extent to which her imagination had pulled her in the wrong direction, had made her expect a much older man. For
all the old-fashioned manners, he was probably in his late thirties, maybe early forties. He wore a wedding ring and Melissa wondered idly what his wife was like, where she was this Saturday morning.

‘You like Alexandros!'

Melissa started round, caught off guard.

Eleni had come up silently. ‘Yes?'

She had meant it as a question, or so Melissa took it.

‘He is very nice – seems a very interesting man,' she replied.

The difference between Alexandros in reality and the image which had immediately sprung into her mind was a timely reminder not to jump to conclusions. It was one thing to make a mistake that could be so easily rectified but quite another when there was no way of proving how much about a person was fact and how much conjecture. She would have to draw on all the professional detachment she possessed if she was to draw a picture of Julian Adie and her mother with any accuracy.

Eleni pulled at bunches of leaves so they were not so tightly packed in the baskets. Then she looked up.

‘He is sad too,' she said simply.

It took a while for Melissa to realise she was talking about Alexandros. Unsure how to react to that, she kept quiet.