11

The Saturday immediately preceding the examinations was a very busy day for Kennedy. At ten o’clock he was entering Willey’s room; the latter had given him a key and left the room vacant by previous arrangement — in fact he had taken Olivia on another house-hunting trip. The question papers were on the table where Willey had left them, in thick brown-paper envelopes cross-stitched along the top with thin but strong white thread. Kennedy had come provided with a razor blade, a needle and some white cotton thread. It did not take him long to open the envelopes, the one marked ‘Translation’ and the other ‘Composition’, and abstract from each a single question paper. Sewing up the envelopes took longer, but by half past ten he was finished. They did not look quite the same — the original stitching had been done by machine — but they would do; no one but Willey would be handling them anyway. Locking the door carefully behind him he made his way as quickly as he could back to Kitty’s, where the real labour still awaited him: he had to make six copies in longhand of each paper, and one of the translation passages was in Greek, which made things even more difficult.

It took him the best part of four hours to complete the copying. It could not be rushed as his clients would naturally insist on legibility. However, it was finished in the end. He had a quick salami sandwich and a glass of beer at a nearby bar. Then he began on his rounds. He had notified all the people concerned of the probable time of his arrival, so that not much time should be spent over each transaction. Ten minutes at each house, he had calculated; to demonstrate the authenticity of the papers, hand them over, collect the cash, utter a little homily he had prepared in advance, round it off with some appropriate general sentiments, and depart. Altogether a miracle of planning, he told himself as he set off. His straw hat was set at a severe and business-like angle.

Since Mr Logothetis had given him the idea in the first place, it had seemed to Kennedy only fitting to begin with him. Also, the Logothetis apartment was nearest. To his disappointment Veta did not come in answer to his ring, nor did she appear at all during his visit. He was conducted on this occasion not into the salon, but into a small room containing bookshelves and a filing cabinet and safe, and a large desk behind which sat Mr Logothetis, dressed in the same way, smiling in the same way. Before him on the desk, and immediately securing Kennedy’s whole attention, was a bottle of Scotch, two glasses, a soda-syphon and a large white envelope slightly bulging.

‘Ah, Mr Kennedy,’ Mr Logothetis said, rising to shake hands. ‘I hope I find you well?’

‘You do, yes,’ Kennedy said. He had bought a newspaper to serve as a holder, inside it reposed the papers, copies and originals. ‘Here it is,’ he said, patting the newspaper. ‘As per ordered.’

‘So your friend was able to oblige you?’

‘He was, yes.’ Kennedy handed over first the two originals, allowed Mr Logothetis to glance through them, and then took out the longhand copies. ‘They are exact copies, as you see,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes.’ Mr Logothetis had put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and now compared the passages carefully for some minutes. During the silence Kennedy began quite uncontrollably to sweat. Mr Logothetis looked up finally, smiling. ‘I congratulate you,’ he said.

‘I want the originals back, if you don’t mind,’ Kennedy said.

‘Yes, of course. Now if I had what they call a photographic memory, I shouldn’t need to pay you at all, ha, ha, eh, Mr Kennedy?’

‘No, ha, ha,’ Kennedy said, taking out his handkerchief.

Mr Logothetis took the envelope from the desk and handed it to Kennedy. ‘There are ten thousand drachmas there,’ he said. ‘For your friend.’

‘Thank you,’ Kennedy said. ‘Do you mind if I check?’ Rapidly he thumbed through the large, muddy-coloured notes. Ten of them, each worth about twelve pounds. Now that he was actually touching the money an almost incredulous delight possessed him. ‘All present and correct,’ he said, striving to keep his self-possession.

‘And now,’ Mr Logothetis said, ‘a drink on it. You don’t take anything with your whisky, as I remember.’

‘No, that’s right, nothing.’

Mr Logothetis poured out a full, indeed a brimming, glass for Kennedy, putting much less in his own and filling it with soda.

‘To absent friends,’ said Mr Logothetis, with the suspicion of a wink.

‘Happy landings,’ Kennedy said, taking a swallow of his vast drink. The other’s harping on friendship verged on the offensive, but he was too pleased with the smoothness of the transaction to care much about this now. It was time for his speech. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘it would be most unwise of your daughter to take any written material into the examination with her. They are most particular about this, and they would disqualify her at once if it were discovered. She must memorise the answers beforehand.’

‘My dear Mr Kennedy, of course.’

‘It wouldn’t affect me, particularly, you know,’ Kennedy said laughingly. ‘I’ve been paid. But it might mean you had wasted your money.’

‘Ha, ha, yes, quite so.’

‘Also, the less said about this the better, as I’m sure you realise. Discretion is the better part of valour, Mr Logothetis. Warn your daughter against any sort of gloating before or after the examination. Some envious little friend of hers would be sure to report it.’

‘We shall maintain a silence of the grave.’

‘It only remains for me,’ Kennedy said, passing easily to the general sentiments part of the business, ‘to wish your daughter every success, in the examination, and in life as a whole.’ It occurred to him suddenly that he was falling behind his schedule. He must have been here twenty minutes at least. He finished his whisky in a series of quick gulps. ‘Goodbye, then,’ he said. ‘And all the very best.’

Going down in the lift, he felt dizzy. He regarded his exultant face in the wall mirror. I drank that whisky too fast, he thought. He took the money out of the envelope, folded it neatly and put it in his hip pocket.

A person called Courcoulakos, who lived in Sina Street, was the next client on his list, a tall spare man with a brigand moustache, who owned an asbestos factory and whose twenty-year-old son, an elegant and vivacious youth, had the distinction of having already failed the examination four times. This man’s English was rudimentary and he took much longer to satisfy himself that the copies were genuine. When he was so satisfied, however, he became very expansive, gave Kennedy his money in another large white envelope, patted him on the back.

Kennedy rose to his feet. He was still worried about his schedule. ‘I must be pressing on,’ he said. ‘By the way, it would be most unwise …’

‘No go yet,’ Mr Courcoulakos said. He disappeared for a few moments then returned with a large tumbler of amber-coloured fluid. ‘Sigeia,’ he said. He did not seem to be drinking anything himself.

‘Cheers!’ Kennedy said. It was rum, he decided, slightly diluted with something or other. ‘And tell him,’ he said rather later, ‘not to take anything with him into the examination room, they’ll have him out of it quicker than that, you can say what you like about the British, but they’ve got their standards. They’ve got their standards. I wouldn’t like to see you wasting your money. There’s some I wouldn’t mind seeing wasting their money, but I don’t count you among that number, no. …’

‘Efcharisto,’ said Mr Courcoulakos, who seemed to be getting the gist. ‘Sigeia!’ he said again.

‘And the same to you,’ Kennedy said. He squinted at his glass. There was still quite a lot left in it. How long had he been here now? Half an hour? His sense of time was getting blurred.

‘Reconsidered my position and yours,’ Jennings said. ‘Your valuable work through the years …’ The late afternoon sun slanted through the window, glittered on Jennings’ glasses, mellowed the marble sneer of the dignitary. Golden motes swirled slowly. ‘Allow me to congratulate you,’ Jennings enunciated, averting his head. ‘Let us hope for a fruitful collaboration in the years ahead …’ And so it had been borne in upon Willey that he was being offered a permanent post, permanent, pensionable, carrying annual increments. He had emerged at last, stony-faced, jubilant but frightened too, because his deprivations had constituted a way of life, after all, and now everything was changed, Olivia awaited him, and the rock garden. …

Mitsos waited until Kikki and Alexei had gone to bed, then went quietly down and took Alexei’s Home Doctor book from the shelf. There was a diagram of the male anatomy on it, in colour, showing the skeletonic structure and the organs beneath. The heart had tentacles of veins, like an octopus. Below the rib cage the knife would have to enter, an upward thrust. He practised upward thrusts some time before the mirror, trying to fight the tendency to close his eyes at the last moment. At about half past four he replaced the book, wrapped the knife loosely in a table napkin, put it inside his jacket with the point tucked into the top of his trousers, and left the house quietly.

‘No, no, not in that way,’ Mr Andronakis said. ‘Aspro kato,’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Kennedy said. This was his fourth visit, he had no idea what time it was, and didn’t care any longer. His hat was on the back of his head, and the top button of his shirt had come off. His hip pocket bulged with money.

‘Aspro kato means white bottom,’ Mr Andronakis said.

‘In that case I’m all for it,’ said Kennedy, whose behaviour was steadily deteriorating. ‘But what has it got to do with ouzo, that is the point at issue, that is the point I am trying to get over to you. This is ouzo, isn’t it? Ouzo.’

‘Malista.’

‘Well then,’ Kennedy said. ‘Well then.’ Behind them on the balcony the eccentric canary broke suddenly into fervent song.

‘Sing, sing for Mr Kennedy,’ said Andronakis. ‘No, you not understand. When we are drinking ouzo and I say aspro kato, you must drink all at one time, not putting glass two, three times or more to your face.’

‘Right,’ said Kennedy. ‘Aspro kato then.’ He drank the remaining ouzo in his glass.

‘No, no,’ Mr Andronakis said. ‘We must do it again. The glasses must be full up.’

‘Jesus, Kennedy said. ‘Listen,’ he said slowly and carefully, ‘don’t take any papers into the examination or you will be disqualified.’

‘What means “disqualified”?’

Kennedy passed his tongue over his lips. ‘You will be out on your arse,’ he said. ‘You will be given the old boot. Keep it all up here, Mr Andronakis.’ He tapped his right temple with a forefinger, then paused for a moment, looking solemnly at Andronakis, trying to remember the things that remained to be said. ‘Don’t tell a bloody soul,’ he said, ‘and it only remains for me to wish …’

‘Understood perfect,’ Mr Andronakis said. ‘The future is forward. Aspro kato.’

‘Aspro kato.’

From this point onwards the afternoon became disorderly, fragmented; his joy was constant, however, his sense of the growing bulge of drachmas at his hip. In the street, clutching his newspaper and the few remaining question papers that were folded inside it, he swayed a little, and sang ‘Speed Bonny Boat’ quietly to himself. Attempting to find a short cut to Pattission Street where his fifth client lived, he lost himself among narrow cobbled streets. At one point he fell full length, his hat rolled off and his papers were scattered. He was helped to his feet and dusted down by a greengrocer and his papers were gathered up again by several competitive children, getting somewhat crumpled in the process. Thereafter he travelled by taxi. Dranas, whom he had left to last, received the most soiled and damaged copies, but did not seem to mind. He offered to make coffee, but this Kennedy refused with hauteur.

By six o’clock it was finished; the papers were all distributed; he had forty-five thousand drachmas in thousand-drachma notes in his pocket. He took a taxi back to Kitty’s, knowing through his drunkenness that the events of the afternoon had changed him, magnified him, enlarged his sense of his own potential, like a first experience of love. After such a coup he could never be the same again. Dazzling prospects opened up before him. There was a career in it. Millions of people wanted to learn English. All over the globe they were striving to obtain certificates and diplomas, everywhere over the face of the globe there would be Cultural Centres, running examinations, following more or less the same system. He could make a packet wherever he went, from Bombay to Brisbane … No, not Brisbane, they spoke a sort of English there, but certainly far-flung, he told himself sagely. Certainly far-flung. Now that he knew the ropes he would be able to plan more elaborately, extend the scale of his operations. Widen his net. You are made, old boy, he told himself. Absolutely made. All tax-free too.

He did not want to be alone just now in the first flush of his success, so he went directly to Thorne’s room where he found, in addition to Thorne, Simpson and an enormous smiling blonde girl. Simpson was holding a bottle of cognac, two-thirds empty. When he saw Kennedy he raised the bottle high in the air. His face was damp, and he was continuously stiffening and relaxing his upper lip, which kept his nostrils in perpetual motion. ‘Compensation!’ he shouted. ‘I got my compensation for the easel. Six thousand drachmas, paid on the nail.’

‘There really was an easel then,’ Kennedy said. ‘How about a drop out of that bottle?’ He was somewhat put out. Simpson had not exactly stolen his thunder, since he could not make his own success public; but he did not care that they should be co-beneficiaries of the gods this evening.

Simpson said, ‘I want you to meet Miss Bodilsen. Miss Inge Bodilsen.’ The girl smiled at him in silence. Her eyes were ox-like, enormous. ‘From Scandinavia,’ Simpson said, smiling meaningfully at Kennedy.

‘How do you do?’ Kennedy said. He was having some difficulty in focussing. The correct thing to say came to him suddenly. ‘Mr Simpson has talked a lot about you,’ he said.

‘Too bloody true,’ Simpson said.

‘Have you got any more glasses, Roland?’ Kennedy said to Thorne. ‘Why don’t you get one for yourself? It’s quite an occasion, Simpson getting his money.’

‘You look as though you’d had a few already,’ Thorne said. ‘Your suit is all dusty, too. All right,’ he added surprisingly, ‘I will have a drink.’ He got the glasses and Simpson filled them up, which left the bottle nearly empty.

‘Don’t worry,’ Simpson said, ‘I have two more bottles.’

‘Are you staying in Greece for long?’ Kennedy said to Miss Bodilsen, with a glazed courtliness of manner.

Miss Bodilsen smiled once more. She had very strong white teeth. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said. ‘All here very good peoples.’

‘Have another drink, Roland,’ Kennedy said, giving her up abruptly. ‘I’m bloody well going to.’

‘Yes,’ Thorne said. ‘I will have another.’ His face was quite flushed. He approached Kennedy and said in low tones, ‘Do you think she’s suitable? He’s going to Denmark with her, now that he’s got his money. I knew he’d go, of course, I mean I knew he’d go away. He doesn’t seem to me to respect her at all. Surely there must be respect.’

‘Good God, I don’t know,’ Kennedy said. ‘Do you think she respects him? Look at him now.’ Simpson had begun to execute a sort of rubbery Charleston. ‘Simpson will end up in the gutter anyway,’ Kennedy said. ‘He might as well get as much as he can now.’

Thorne looked affronted. ‘That’s my tie you’re wearing, by the way,’ he said coldly.

Kennedy broke into loud laughter. ‘So it is,’ he said. He raised his hand to his neck with a wide clumsy gesture and pulled the tie loose. He had a sudden dazed realisation, the first time his new wealth had taken concrete form in his mind, of the rows of resplendent ties he could afford to buy now. ‘Here you are,’ he said, and looped the tie round Thorne’s neck.

‘I say, steady on!’ Thorne said. ‘You don’t care, do you?’

At this moment the bell rang and when Thorne opened the door there was Willey. He hovered at the threshold a few moments blinking somewhat affrightedly at the cavorting Simpson who had now begun to sing ‘Beautiful, Beautiful Copenhagen’, using the empty brandy bottle in an obscene phallic way behind Miss Bodilsen’s back. ‘You weren’t in your room,’ he said to Kennedy, ‘and I heard these voices. … Can I have a word with you?’

‘Come in, come in,’ shouted Kennedy. ‘My comrade-in-arms,’ he said to Miss Bodilsen, who smiled and said: ‘Thank you very much.’

‘Everything went off all right then?’ Willey muttered to Kennedy.

‘Like a bloody dream. Any developments your end?’

‘Yes,’ Willey said. ‘I signed the contract this afternoon.’ He looked into the other’s sweating face, fixed now in a broad ecstatic smile, and thought how strange it was that there should be anything like complicity between himself and this person.

‘Congratulations, old boy,’ Kennedy said. ‘You let me get at the papers before any definite offer was made to you. I’ll never forget that.’

‘That’s all right.’ Once he had agreed it had ceased to matter whether he got anything in return. Useless to tell Kennedy that, of course.

‘My friend Willey,’ Kennedy said loudly to everyone in the room, ‘has just had a bit of good luck, I mean a bit of good news. He has made an upward step in his career. I think we should congratulate him in the traditional way.’ He stood for a moment looking bemusedly round the room, shirt-front gaping widely open, fair hair falling into his eyes. Then in a slow and raucous voice he began to sing ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’. Simpson, abandoning his by-play with the bottle, joined in almost immediately and after a few moments Thorne too, in a surprisingly tuneful tenor. The three men sang loudly but with serious expressions, looking steadily at Willey; and the elemental affirmation of the chorus gave them all for the moment a sort of sincerity, which Willey found unexpectedly moving.

He was attempting to sustain his smile of acknowledgment, and they were entering on the chorus for the third time, when a sharp knock was heard on the door, and a moment later the door was opened and Kitty’s fleshy but nobly curving nose appeared, and her Byzantine eyes, filled now with accusatory fire. What was the reason, she wanted to know of Mr Thorne, for all this tapage? She had always thought of the English as a people sérieux. Now other guests were complaining. And in Mr Thorne’s room too, he who had always comported himself so well in the past. … Kitty’s abundant form quivered, beneath the pink flannel, with the agitation of her feelings.

‘We were just having a little drink,’ Kennedy said. He adjusted his shirt hastily and did his best to reduce his smile to sober dimensions. He liked Kitty. Her perpetual quest for propriety appealed for some reason to his imagination. He had an idea she might have whored it a bit in the past. ‘We were celebrating the good fortune of our friend here,’ he said. ‘He has obtained a bonne situation in Athens. He is a professeur.’

‘Ah,’ Kitty said, mollified immediately by this presence of a professional man in her house. A certain calm descended on her flesh. ‘Soyez le bienvenu,’ she said. ‘I was myself at the French School in Constantinople. Chez les soeurs, you understand.’

‘As a matter of fact,’ Kennedy said, ‘we were just on the point of inviting you to join us in a drink. Sans façon, you know.’

‘It is not with me a habitude,’ Kitty said, ‘but on this special occasion …’ She smiled richly at Willey.

‘When I was young,’ she said, halfway through her second glass, ‘I had a voice très forte. When I sang I could clearly be heard at great distances. Even now …’ She raised her head and sang mi — mi — mi in a somewhat clotted but still powerful contralto. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘Ça pénètre, n’est ce pas?’

‘It does indeed,’ said Willey, in whom the cognac was effecting a perceptible thaw of reserve. ‘An extremely powerful voice,’ he said, to no one in particular.

Thereafter they passed on to other things, but as she was coming to the end of her third glass Kitty reverted to the topic. ‘This gift,’ she said, ‘was of use to me during the war. I was returning to Greece on a passenger ship when we were attacked near Rhodos by Italian planes. I saw the first plane diving towards us, monsieur. I knew he was about to release his bombs. I lifted my head and sang up to the aeroplane in the sky.’ Kitty raised her head and flung wide her arms in a gesture of supplication. Sounds of astounding volume broke from her open mouth: ‘Perche, perche, signore? Siamo Italiani, Italiani!’ In the hush that followed she looked from face to face, her bosom heaving slightly. ‘They heard and believed, those pilots,’ she said. ‘The planes departed. The lives of all were saved.’

‘That is amazing, truly amazing,’ Willey said.

Kennedy frowned at Simpson, who had begun obscenely wielding the bottle again, unnoticed as yet by Kitty. ‘There’s one thing I would like to know,’ he said. ‘And that is, why was the man who had my room given the boot? Why was he given notice, I mean? What did he do?’

Kitty paused a long time before replying to this. She finished the rest of the brandy in her glass. ‘It is a painful topic,’ she said at last. Then she seemed to come to a decision. She drew closer to Kennedy and said in a rapid whisper, ‘Le scélérat, il a pissé au dessus du balcon.’

‘Good God!’ Kennedy said. ‘In full view?’

‘Ah, no, moniseur, there is the baseness of it. He stood within his room and from there he directed his sale urine. Over the top. And an acquaintance of mine, an elderly lady who makes lampshades, who was passing at the time, had her head wetted by it.’ The recollection of this horror had given Kitty the trembles again. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I gave him notice sur le champ.’

‘I should think so,’ Kennedy said, with a soothing intention, but Kitty had distressed herself, and after a few moments took leave of them.

Willey followed soon after. Olivia is expecting me,’ he said.

‘The best of British luck!’ Kennedy called after him, ‘to you and yours.’

Outside it was very dark. Willey decided to walk back, to clear his head. The brandy and the noise had given him an illusion of solidarity with those people, but this rapidly faded as he walked. He thought again of the chorus they had sung for him. Quite ridiculous, of course, but at the time … Very primitive thing, altogether, singing. He remembered student songs full of ingenious anatomical reference, and other, jollier songs of remote camping holidays. All sexual, of course — young men reminding one another of their intention to undo the whole female population. Only the young could sing in just that way, before they had understood how few women they were ever going to have, when reciprocity could still be taken for granted, and the permanence of their own desires. … Young girls too did not know their limits, that was what made them so touching, so poignant. There was a time in a young girl’s life when she felt herself to have a complete licence. Merely by moving her limbs they assaulted the senses, knowingly, innocently … inviting what was still unimaginable. … Once, one Easter, when he had already been teaching some years, he had gone on a solitary walking tour through the Quantock Hills. He had come into the outskirts of Taunton in the early evening, a golden evening, the first really warm weather of the year. His memory had not retained the sense of any buildings, only a long straight avenue planted on either side with some sort of miniature trees with slender, pointed leaves, rowan trees perhaps. A light breeze stirred the narrow leaves continuously and at intervals along the avenue, like something precious and ephemeral brought out by the sudden warmth, groups of young girls, talking and laughing. No buildings, no traffic, no other sound. Only the long avenue, dead straight, the trembling leaves, the clusters of girls like flowers on the pavement, in light cotton dresses, summer dresses, for the first time in the year probably, and not yet accustomed to this thin covering, after the coddling wools of winter. … And just as the leaves on the trees were in constant agitation, the girls themselves were never still, they were chattering and laughing, they were looking at themselves, raising arms or legs to be inspected, sometimes revolving their bodies quickly, causing their skirts to swirl briefly and subside, occasionally clutching themselves in a sort of embrace as though in self-protection against the mild air, the sunshine, the promise of the spring. Helplessly, helplessly, in every movement and gesture they invited some violation. …

Willey, as though looking down a long tunnel at some framed image at the other end, saw again the trees, the sunshine the laughing groups. He had passed by awkward, ungainly in his heavy walking shoes, of no account to them, containing his impure admiration; and the avenue had closed behind him like a track in water or sand, impossible to find again, except in memory. … Quite suddenly, as he walked steadily on through the darkness, Willey felt his eyes filling with tears.

‘Did you hear that?’ Kennedy said to Simpson. ‘He pissed right over the balcony railing. Standing inside the room. It must be a good four feet. And then he’d have to clear the railing too. I wish I’d known him.’

‘I think it’s disgusting,’ Thorne said.

‘That’s as may be,’ Kennedy said. The look of ecstasy had returned to his face. ‘I’m going out now,’ he added. ‘I have to see a man about a dog.’ He recovered the straw hat which had fallen to the floor and been somewhat trampled during Simpson’s dance.

He met Veta, as he had arranged, at the corner of Lysistratus Street. On the way there he found himself inclined to stagger, as much from fatigue as drunkenness: it had been an exciting day and he had eaten little. He had planned to take Veta into the Plaka. They would have supper at a taverna, during which, at an appropriate moment, and with a few well-chosen words he would hand over the drachmas.

‘Ça va?’ Veta said. She was chewing again.

‘Ça bloody va all right,’ Kennedy said.

They walked down Lysistratus Street, Kennedy steadying himself by putting an arm over Veta’s shoulder.

‘I am going to give you that money tonight,’ he said. ‘You will see that Kennedy is a man of his word.’ He took a pace away from her and attempted to tap himself on the chest, but staggered badly. Veta took his arm and held him steady. She was very strong. She looked for a moment, intently, at where his breast pocket would be, below the hairy tweed.

‘How do you like my hat, by the way?’ Kennedy said.

‘Please, Bry-an,’ she said, ‘give me the money now.’

‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘First things first. Let’s do the thing properly.’ He was determined to have his little ceremony. ‘I’m going to buy a couple of suits,’ he said. ‘First thing in the morning.’

‘It is with you, the money?’

‘Oh yes.’

She looked sideways at him for a long moment, as though trying again to gauge something about him, the degree of his drunkenness or his veracity. Then her substantial shoulders moved in a slight shrug. ‘Very well,’ she said. She continued to support him into the narrower and darker streets of the Plaka.

Mitsos waited at the corner of the square. The knife was inside his jacket, pressed against his side. It was half past nine. He had been standing there for two hours. He had watched George watering his flowers, watched him settle down with his newspaper, seen the kiosk shuttered and locked. Several people had passed through the square, most of them entering the taverna, but it was very dark where he was standing and he did not think he had been noticed. Certainly no one could have seen his face. He had about twenty minutes left if he was going to kill George this evening — the other was very regular in his domestic habits in spite of his variable days, and always went indoors a few minutes before ten, usually remaining there, but occasionally re-emerging and making his way to a brighter and more populous square, where he sat in a certain café playing tric-trac for a couple of hours. Mitsos had no thoughts except an awareness of the evening — the coolness, the dark, his own body motionless there, waiting; not lonely, no longer lonely, because his intention allied him with all the things that waited for night with purpose …

George had abandoned his belt tonight and was wearing narrow red braces. Even at this distance it could be seen how grateful his corpulence was for the coolness. Ten minutes or so. Suddenly Mitsos knew that he was going to do it tonight. He reviewed in these moments the long illness his life had been since he had first seen George in the Cathedral Square. The sight of that face had stricken him. Diseased thus, as though seeking medicaments, he had followed this man about the city, for how long now? Past monuments, through streets and squares that repeated themselves, were always the same squares and monuments and streets, one scene endlessly reiterated against which George, the carrier, stood or walked and he, plague-spotted, watched and followed. Tonight would begin his convalescence, restore the city’s multiplicity. He slipped his hand inside his jacket, rested it on the handle of the knife. He felt no doubt, as though the responsibility for the decision was not his, but someone’s much wiser. At the last moment it occurred to him to wonder briefly whether George was really the same man, but of course that didn’t matter now. … He took a few steps forward, passed under the light at the corner of the square, entered the alley.

And as he did so a voice from somewhere in the darkness behind him, quite close, an English voice, a voice he knew, shouted, ‘Hey there, old boy, a word in your ear.’ He saw George look up from his paper, raise his spectacles over his eyes to peer down the alley. He wheeled, passed once more under the light, which there was no avoiding and walked quickly away into the darkness at the side of the square.

‘No you don’t!’ Kennedy shouted. Oh no you don’t!’

If it had not been for the altercation over the rose Kennedy and Veta would have passed some minutes earlier and then Mitsos, still standing in the dark, would not have been seen. They had been walking quite at random through the streets, looking for a promising restaurant. Gradually, imperceptibly, they had found themselves in a less-frequented district, where the streets were darker and narrower, passers-by rare. A gypsy girl had stopped them, holding out a white rose. Ten drachmas she wanted for it. A rose is a thing beyond price, she had contrived to suggest merely by the gesture of offering it, and besides to lovers money shouldn’t matter. Her face worked while she cajoled them, with supplicatory yet insolent grimaces, the facial equivalent of a whine. Kennedy would have paid at once, what was ten drachmas to him now? But Veta had been outraged by the price, ten drachmas for a single rose. In the end she got it for seven, and pinned it to the front of her dress. Then they had reached this square, seen the taverna with caged birds on the wall. ‘Looks a bit scruffy,’ Kennedy had said. ‘But I’m too hungry to care.’

And at this precise moment he had seen the Greek chap pass under the lamp at the entrance to the alley, start off down the alley, then turn and scuttle away into the dark. ‘No you don’t,’ he said again. He plunged into the darkness. He could see Mitsos’ face and his white shirt-front. By going directly across to the wall he was able to intercept Mitsos, get in his way. Even then the other would have rushed past him, but Kennedy seized his arm, forced him to stop. ‘You’re always trying to dodge me,’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘Aren’t you? Did you think I was going to ask you for money again?’

‘Take your hand from my arm,’ Mitsos said.

‘A man with my assets,’ Kennedy said, keeping a tight hold on the other. ‘What were you up to in the alley?’

‘I was simply passing by,’ Mitsos said, beginning to tremble.

‘Balls,’ Kennedy said thickly. ‘That’s a lot of balls.’

‘Let me go,’ Mitsos said, ‘you interfering fool.’ He thought of George, folding up his paper now, preparing to go indoors. Rage rose within him. He saw in the darkness the broad outline of the other’s face surmounted by the hat; smelled the liquor on his breath. ‘You’re drunk,’ he said.

This simple truth enraged Kennedy. ‘Who are you calling names?’ he said. ‘Here, let’s have a look at your face under the light.’ He began tugging at Mitsos, pulling him towards the lamp at the entrance to the alley. Mitsos felt himself drawn helplessly several paces forward. Kennedy was holding the upper part of his left arm, in a painful grip that threatened at any moment to unclamp it from his body. Behind him Veta was saying something over and over in a frightened voice, but Kennedy took no notice. He was intent. Some innate brutality had been roused in him by the other’s slightness, his lack of muscular power. Through the mists of drunkenness he groped for further pretexts.

‘You said Athens was a village,’ he said. ‘If Athens is a bloody village, why haven’t I come across Mrs Pouris, tell me that?’ He pulled Mitsos closer towards the lamp. ‘Tell me that,’ he repeated. They were almost under the light now. Mitsos felt his arm being forced away from his side, the knife slipping down. He thrust his right hand under his jacket and grasped the handle. ‘Come on, let’s have a look at you,’ Kennedy said, still tugging. ‘And don’t tell me you don’t know who Mrs Pouris is, we were on the same …’ His last sensations were over too quickly for him to register them fully. He saw Mitsos’ right hand emerge, saw the gleam of metal as the blade was lowered quickly, grabbed at the other’s wrist and missed, felt a sudden violent blow under his ribs. There was the intimation of a terrible, an irreparable, hurt done to him, but no pain. He clutched Mitsos a moment longer, then the night darkened and he fell down at the other’s feet. He seemed to settle himself for a moment on the pavement with a slow writhing movement, as though seeking some ease for his limbs. This ceased, and he did not move again.

Mitsos stood for perhaps ten seconds looking down at the man who had taken George’s place. The girl was strangely silent, but of course that was right, before such an appalling mistake no sound could possibly be uttered, there was no response in the human register. He looked at her indifferently for a moment, then back to Kennedy’s body. Someone would be coming, he should go away as quickly as possible. He should take the knife and go. But he could not believe there was any urgency in this now. He felt immune. The complete accuracy of that blind blow implied an intention beyond his own. He stooped over Kennedy with the idea of taking out the knife, but one of the other’s hands was curled loosely round the handle. Something helpless and childlike in the curl of those large blunt fingers which would never grasp again suddenly horrified Mitsos. This was clay now, however marvellously moulded. He straightened himself quickly and turned and walked away into the darkness, walking faster and faster, but without purpose, for, of course, he had nowhere to go now, nothing to do.

Veta watched him walk away. In spite of her shock and terror, a certain process of reasoning was going on in her mind. Watching that writhe on the pavement, and the stillness after it, she had known that Kennedy was dead, and the knowledge had kept her silent. Soon someone would come and find Bry-an lying there. They would get the police, and she would say what had happened, and perhaps they would catch the man. In that case, all Bry-an’s things would be taken and sent to England to his nearest relative. She would get nothing. But there was this promise he had made to her, which no one would ever believe. He had promised her fifty gold pounds. Nothing else much in their brief acquaintance mattered. Her virginity any doctor could restore for a hundred drachmas, sew up the hymen, so that her husband could shed a little blood, be satisfied. But fifty gold pounds would take years to get. And she would soon be twenty-one. …

Kennedy lay on his back, legs splayed out in an attitude of dreadful ease. His eyes were not open but not completely closed either, the lamplight elicited a gleam from below the lids. One hand rested loosely round the protruding handle of the blade, the other was outstretched, palm upwards. Several feet away the straw hat had come to rest, upturned on the pavement, as though inviting contributions while its owner slept.

Veta came to the only possible conclusion. Her eyes were dry now. She leaned over him very carefully, slipped her hand inside the jacket and took out the wallet. She felt its bulkiness in her palm. She had intended to count it out, the sum due to her, but now that she was actually holding the wallet a panic filled her to get away. They would say she was stealing. She lowered herself still further and kissed Kennedy on his forehead. Then she rose and began to walk rapidly back the way they had come, holding in both trembling hands Kennedy’s glowing testimonials, while slowly blood from his wound welled up round the plug of the knife-handle, ran over the curve of his belly and flank and stained the outer edges of the thick bundle of notes in his hip pocket.