Chapter 5: Coming to Merounda

'I want you and David to enjoy your stay,' said Savvas Souliotakis, smiling at Emily. 'I want you to have a great holiday here. Anything we can do to make you at home. You'll ask for whatever you want, won't you, Emilia?'

She hardly dared to look at him, let alone answer, seized as always with that crippling sense of fear and shyness in front of strangers. However, when Mr Souliotakis had his eyes elsewhere she looked at him keenly. He was a big, tall man, middle-aged and with a generous paunch. His brown eyes were soft and kind, full of warmth and laughter. He gesticulated with his hands a great deal and spoke in beautiful deep tones. Voices were important to Emily. She felt that feet, hands and voices gave people away. They could control their expressions and smiles but not their voices or feet.

Souliotakis spoke perfect English and was gentle when he addressed her. She liked him and felt comfortable around him but still shy, lowering her eyes and staring at the floor when addressed. It was so hard to meet the eyes of strangers who looked , through the windows of one's soul, as it were, then glanced away as if bored or disgusted by what they saw. Mr Souliotakis didn't do that at all; his eyes seemed interested and understanding.

Petros was also tall but a good deal slimmer and extremely good-looking with the same, soft, serious expression in his brown eyes that his father had. His figure was wiry and energetic. No doubt his father had once looked like this but comfortable living had made him billow forth into a far more rotund shape, rather like those jovial Chinese Buddhas depicted with dozens of plump, merry children scrambling all over them. She could imagine Savvas Souliotakis like that with all those children. It made her smile thinking of it. As for Petros, he was so handsome it made her more feel nervous and ill at ease because she felt rather attracted to him. And that was something new for her.

'You really enjoyed that, didn't you?' asked Petros as she wiped her mouth with a napkin after eating oranges. She caught the questioning smile in his eyes and guessed he was intrigued by her deep concentration on the fruit as if the juice bursting in her mouth was a spiritual and wonderful experience – which for her it was. The sweet scent of the fruit oil filled the air.

She lifted her face up to him, turning those searching, deep blue eyes full on him. Petros reached out as if to touch her face gently, touch the soft, half-parted lips with his fingers, like a blind man feeling his way over a face, trying to make a picture of it for his heart to ponder on. Emily moved slightly away and he restrained himself.

'You will come with us to Merounda, won't you, Emily?' he asked hopefully.

'Yes, I will,' she said, adding with a shy laugh, 'I suppose you'll look after me?'

'Of course I'll look after you.'

'Just as well,' she said, glancing over at her brother, 'because David won't. He'll be too busy looking for girls.'

'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' said her brother with a shrug.

After a few days in Heraklion, Savvas's wife, Toula, began to pack their things and they prepared themselves for the trip to Merounda. Here they planned to spend the hot summer days with old Frosso Souliotakis, the grandmother who had a villa up in the hills. The weather would be cooler there than in the city and some beautiful beaches nearby would provide pleasant days for the young people. Savvas and Martin, left behind at Heraklion, could then do what they liked: stay at the dig, go drinking, eat off the floor, or so Toula reckoned with a shake of her head at them. The two men looked at each other and grinned like boys. No women or young people about! All the same, Martin had a pang of anxiety. He looked over at Emily. She seemed to have fitted into the family after all, smiling at Petros as he spoke with enthusiasm of the house up in the hills. Oddly it was David who looked like a fish out of water, flicking moodily through a German magazine which he now tossed aside with a sigh.

The little harbour town of Merounda was about twenty kilometres away from Heraklion. Toula assured Martin that if Emily started to be troubled or unhappy, she would drive her back and she could stay there with him.

'But she'll be fine, she'll be fine,' she said. 'We'll keep an eye on her but she'll have lots of freedom too. There's nothing at all that can happen to her. Petros will make sure she doesn't climb anywhere dangerous or swim out too far or any such thing.'

'I don't think you need be worried on that score,' said Martin. 'Emily can swim like a fish and climb like a goat.'

He felt reassured now and in his heart rather glad to have a break from his youngsters, love them as he did. He could go out with the other fellows, act as he liked, get properly pissed if he wanted. No one to notice, no one to mind, no one to set a bad example. Parenting was great stuff but there were times he just wanted to be himself. And there was such a lot of work to be done; he needed his mind clear of worries and anxieties.

It was a long, hot drive along the main road to Merounda. Eventually they came to a rough, bumpy track with large stones and the odd boulder lying in the roadside. Toula drove up it confidently, unperturbed by the bouncing and groaning of the car. A short way up the mountainside they came to a whitewashed villa with a large marble-floored veranda at the front and a glass door with an elaborate ironwork grille over it. Beautiful red bougainvillea and yellow honeysuckle were planted in huge pots painted red ochre and the tendrils of the plants clambered up the side of the porch, filling the air with sweet scents. It was most welcoming. Even more welcoming was the smell of freshly prepared food drifting from the open door.

'Smells like keftedes,' said Petros as he helped Emily out of the car. 'Yiayia makes them like no one else.'

'But what are they?'

'Little meatballs.'

'She won't eat them,' announced David, 'she's a vegetarian. All the more for us.'

'Yiayia knows Emily won't eat meat,' Toula said. 'She'll probably have made her hortopittes.'

'What's on earth's that?'

'It's a kind of vegetable pie,' Petros explained. 'The women gather all the greens round here on the hillsides. They're supposed to be really good for your health. People had to doctor themselves in the old days and knew all the properties of these weeds.'

'Rabbit food,' pronounced David. 'Just the ticket for Emily.'

'You are kind ...it must be a bother having someone like me,' said Emily, looking at Toula in the loving way she sometimes had. Toula smiled back and put an affectionate arm about her. Something warm stirred between them.

'Why a bother?' Toula patted Emily's cheek. 'Guests must be happy. I want you to be happy, Emily. Anyway, I don't eat much meat myself. I think it's lighter for the stomach not to have meat in the summer, and it's already starting to get hot. Summer comes early these days with all this climate change they keep talking about. But you know men! Men are carnivores. They can't live without meat.'

'Too right!' said David with a grin and Petros laughed and nodded in agreement.

They stood for a while on the veranda and admired the view while Toula went in to find them some drinks. Grandmother Frosso's little house nestled amongst olive groves and tall, dark cypress; behind it stood the towering range of the mountains, craggy and barren. The slope in front of the house, covered in scrub and olive trees, curved down to meet the National Highway beyond which were long, flat dunes that dipped down to the sea. The house was not too high up on the mountain; just high enough to have this splendid view. To their right amongst the trees were the little white houses of a nearby village. Beyond the main road was the small town of Merounda with its little harbour where several colourful boats were anchored against the jetty. Far in the distance, in the centre of the curving bay, was a small island that appeared to have a castle of some kind on its summit.

'It's so beautiful here,' murmured Emily, entranced.

Petros looked pleased by her genuine delight. He looked around him.

'It's the loveliest place in the world,' he said.

'What's that island?' asked David.

Petros looked away. 'Oh, nothing, just a little hump. It's nothing.'

David squinted at the view. 'Looks interesting. I like islands. Maybe we could get a boat out there.'

'No!' said Petros sharply. Emily looked at him, surprised. Petros seldom reacted that strongly to anything.

'But didn't you say your dad had a motor boat down in the harbour and you knew how to handle it?' persisted David.

'Well, yes, we do have a boat, a very smart one – but Dad doesn't like me using it when he's not around. It's annoying, because I'm perfectly capable with it. But what can I say? That's his orders. Anyway, that island isn't really an interesting place, you know. There are more interesting places we can go. Beaches with pretty girls.' Petros laughed and winked at David.

'Oh, right,' said David, winking back gleefully. 'But I do want to get in some diving,' he added.

'Don't worry, we'll get out into the bay and dive round there. We can hire one of the small fishing boats. That's all we need to make our way round the coast and over to the rocks and so on. There's plenty to see here, plenty of varied marine life. You're interested in all that stuff, aren't you?'

'I'll say I am! It's what I want to study. Maybe someday I'll train as a deep sea diver, look for long-lost treasure and old wrecks. Dangerous stuff, but so exciting. I've dived a lot round our coasts in Britain.'

'Well, a dive in the bay will be chickenfeed to you, I suppose,' smiled Petros.

David smiled back, 'It'll be great, Petros, thanks for the offer. Practice is practice. We'll go as soon as we can, shall we? I'm really looking forward to that. I brought my wetsuit and all the gear along with me.'

'Oh, you could have borrowed mine,' said Petros. 'I love diving too. But I'd certainly enjoy going with you.'

He seemed glad to have changed the subject and the two men began an intense conversation.

Glad to be ignored for once, Emily turned to look at the island once more and wondered why Petros was so set against going there. He reacted as if he was almost, what ...afraid of the place? That was mad. Surely he wasn't a person to be afraid of anything? His tanned, aquiline features had an air of courage and authority.

Toula brought them out some fruit juice and said, 'When you've drunk this, go and see Mother. She's looking forward to meeting the new guests.'

'Grandmother's nearly eighty and can't walk very far now,' explained Petros, 'but she still likes to cook and potter around the house.'