20

Past the clock tower at Ringwood Yannis turned off to the Mountain Highway that leads through Bayswater into the hills. Here the road takes on a semi-rural aspect and cars are fewer, but he actually reduced speed. At The Basin, when he came to the little wine saloon which he and Leo often visited, he stopped. It was a well-conducted place, quiet and countrified. The tavern was closed and the proprietor was digging in his front garden in the mild light of evening. He came over, carrying his spade.

‘Evening, John. Sorry we’re shut. But I’ll be glad to have a glass with you as a friend if you care to step in for a moment.’

‘Some other time, thanks. I’m going up to fetch my wife.’ Yannis was grateful for the delay, and suddenly there was no hurry. The saloon-keeper was wiping the sticky black soil from the blade of his spade.

‘And how is she?’ he enquired. ‘You’ll be a father any day, by the looks of it. Then your troubles will really have started.’

Yannis smiled. The peaceful silence after the long fretful drive was good. Across his friend’s paddock apple trees were spreading their fruit-heavy branches. On the fence there was a row of starlings. ‘I don’t mind troubles like that,’ he said.

‘They’re the best a bloke can have,’ the man agreed. ‘Try to make it a boy, though. They’re easier.’ He laughed. ‘Girls—they make a monkey out of you before they’re knee-high to a grasshopper. Sure you wouldn’t like to come inside for a minute or two? Bess will be glad to see you. I got some of that old-fashioned berry wine in, for an experiment.’

‘Maybe on the way back, if it’s not too late,’ Yannis said. ‘Could it hurt Anna?’

‘What? One of my small glasses? Make her sleep good, that’s about all. Give us a honk when you come by.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Yannis said, ‘and you guarantee not to make me drunk.’

‘She’ll be right! Can’t take risks now, can you? Well—see you some more.’ He raised his spade in salute and went back to his work.

‘That was wise of me,’ Yannis thought. ‘How quickly a man can make an idiot of himself! But people are good. It’s a good country.’ He was beginning to feel almost tranquil. The hills rose undulating towards the fading sky and the setting sun caught the windows of the faraway houses on the crest, making them flash like silver. That was Olinda. He turned right into the endlessly meandering Forest Road. A sweet, rather heavy smell kept him company for a few hundred yards. He did not know that it was the scent of boronia, tiny flowers that cling to the earth like brown snowdrops. His attention was wandering and he had to swerve when he saw what looked like a snake in the middle of the road. But it was only a bluetongue lizard; fat, heavy-tailed and innocent.

He turned into a side road and crossed under the railway bridge. The air was very still above the wide chimneys of the wooden houses. Smoke hung almost vertically. No one was to be seen in the Pavonis’ garden. He switched off the engine, put the ignition key in his pocket and walked through the gate that led to Criton’s unfinished house. The door stood open and he stopped for a moment and listened. Anna was singing. It was a song he had never heard, and it was not in Greek. He knocked at the window and went in.

They had not yet lit the lamp. When his eyes grew accustomed to the indoor twilight he saw that the room was in disarray: sheets of paper and parcels, odd garments, were strewn everywhere. Criton sat on the table, looking away from him. He turned his head.

‘Hello, Criton,’ Yannis said in a low voice.

Anna got up heavily from one of Martha’s old garden chairs. She had stopped singing. ‘Yannis?’ she said, and he thought he detected something more than surprise. ‘But I told Mrs Mac …’

‘I got your message. I didn’t want to eat alone; so I’ve come.’

‘We’ve had our tea,’ Criton said. ‘But I will ask Martha to get you something.’

‘No hurry.’ Yannis looked round. ‘Have you had an earthquake?’

‘He has been working and showing me his things,’ Anna said. ‘You have no idea.’ The roundness of her body was silhouetted against the window, the only one in the room.

‘I’ll get you a light and then go over and fix you something,’ Criton said. ‘I’m supposed to have had the electricity last week, but do you think it makes any difference that I work for the Commission?’ His match lit and there was a hissing as he pumped the primus. The fibre wick began to glow and suddenly a hard, white light filled every corner. Yannis screwed up his eyes.

‘What’s this thing?’ he said, pointing to a small object on a shelf that had once been an orange box.

‘It’s called the “Eternal Ideal”,’ Criton said, picking it up and giving it to him. ‘It’s only a small copy. A great French sculptor made it.’ He turned to Anna. ‘Perhaps you will go and see what Martha’s got, while I tidy up?’ Anna nodded and moved to the door.

‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ Yannis said.

He put his free arm round her and she kissed him. Her lips were warm and moist. Then she went out.

‘Criton,’ Yannis said, ‘it is you I wanted to see.’ He did not know how to make a beginning. ‘Is it true that you were a terrorist?’

Criton bowed his head. ‘Who told you?’ he asked. ‘Patricia?’

‘Patricia?’ Yannis said, unprepared. He was looking for somewhere to sit down. But an open suitcase stood on the chair, and apart from it there was only the garden chair where Anna had rested.

‘Yes,’ Criton said. ‘It’s true and also not true. But I was a boy then … Is it so important for you to know? Is that why you came?’

‘Not only for that.’

‘I will tell you, but not tonight. Anna does not have to know.’ He was endeavouring to shut the suitcase but it resisted, and he lifted it on to the table to free the chair. ‘Sit down. Someone has told you about me. But it’s not the way you think.’ Gathering up a dustcoat that lay on the floor he flung it over the easel.

‘What have you there?’ Yannis asked. ‘Can I see? Have you still not finished Anna’s picture?’

‘No, this is something else,’ Criton said. ‘Only an idea, so far.’

Yannis carefully put down the statuette and went up to the easel. Secured to it was a charcoal drawing of a woman. The head was indicated by only a bare oval. She was naked and far gone in pregnancy. Most of her belly was visible and above it the large, heavy breasts with their dark surrounds. Criton’s dustcoat was covering part of the sheet and Yannis pulled it away. Criton had been working on the arms. So far only lightly sketched, they extended like those of a scarecrow or of an uncompleted crucifixion.

‘I’ll kill her for this,’ Yannis said.

‘What are you thinking?’ Criton protested. ‘That’s not a posed portrait. Can’t you see? A painter is allowed, surely …’

Anna spoke from the open door: ‘Martha wants you to come over. There’s plenty left of everything.’

‘Come here,’ Yannis said.

She approached and stood beside him.

‘Very fine,’ he said bitterly. ‘Only he doesn’t like your face. He leaves it out, like in his other picture.’ His eyes travelled to the lower part of the sketch to a dark smudge that could be hair.

‘He believes it is you,’ Criton said into the stillness. ‘He has just asked me if I am a terrorist.’

‘A gunman,’ Yannis said.

Anna touched his arm and he pulled it away. ‘What do you say—a good likeness?’ He tapped the navel. Withdrawing his finger, he saw charcoal dust adhering to it and took out his handkerchief to rub it off.

‘I don’t like it,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve told him so.’

‘That’s very good; you have told him.’ Suddenly he felt like a man being choked. ‘Anna … get your coat.’ He thought he had spoken too quietly and repeated, shouting: ‘Your coat!’

Criton said: ‘Don’t yell. What are you yelling for? It has nothing to do with Anna. I was only showing it to her … I should not have. This is every woman. It is the gothic form, you understand? I’ll tear it up.’

He was already putting out his hand but Yannis stopped him.

‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘You can sell it, you pimp.’

Anna gasped. ‘Yannis … how does he deserve it?’

He looked at her unsteadily. ‘Come away. Now! We’ll talk at home.’ His voice rose again: ‘You can tell me then what he did to you in Williamstown. Does he do it better than I?’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Criton said. ‘I brought her back to you safely.’

‘It wasn’t him,’ Anna said. She looked at Yannis and he could not be sure whether she was about to cry or whether she was smiling.

‘Who then?’

She dropped her head. ‘I’ll tell you when we get home.’

‘When we get home,’ he said, ‘you will be sorry you were ever born.’

‘You are not beating her?’ Criton asked, incredulously.

‘Tell him if I do or not,’ Yannis prompted.

‘No,’ she said very quietly. ‘Only once.’

‘If you lay a finger on her,’ Criton said, no less quietly, ‘I will break your neck. She has done absolutely nothing. A man who won’t trust a wife like yours doesn’t deserve her. Sit down. Have a glass of water and think.’

‘You will break my neck if I beat her?’ Yannis said through his teeth.

‘For the love of God, man! Are you sick?’

Yannis raised his right hand and struck Anna on the cheek. Her head jerked back and he struck her a second time. His ring cut her lip and a drop of blood appeared.

Criton said, in a threatening whisper: ‘If you do that again …’

It seemed to Yannis that the blow had taken all his strength. ‘Anna, take your hand away,’ he ordered.

She had recoiled and was wiping her mouth when, with the back of his hand, he struck her for the third time.

‘And I thought you were a man,’ Criton said. He went up and pushed Yannis lightly. ‘Take care, bully.’

With a sob Yannis hurled himself on the other man. Criton held him off, stepped back and raised his fist.

Anna threw herself between them. Yannis was flailing out blindly, not seeing where his blows struck. She took them on her head, her shoulders, her neck. At last she seemed to sag and fell against the table. The suitcase was flung to the floor, spilling its contents. Yannis advanced after Criton and his foot pushed against something hard. He bent down.

‘So Alexis was right!’ he said. ‘You have a gun.’

Criton picked it up. ‘And if you touch her once more I’ll beat your brains out with it. Will you control yourself now and listen to the truth?’

‘What truth? Am I blind?’ He hit the younger man with all his force. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you can shoot me too. You are used to it, aren’t you?’

‘You can have it, you coward,’ Criton said. ‘Will it make you feel strong?’

‘No!’ Anna cried.

‘How handsome he looks …’ Yannis thought. He took the gun from the table on which Criton had dropped it and turned it over in his hand. For a moment the idea came to him that it would be best to point it at himself and draw the trigger.

‘Watch out,’ Criton said. ‘Give it back. The catch may be off.’

But it was on. Yannis held the weapon close to his own face. ‘This is the catch,’ he said, and released it with a click. He closed his eyes and from somewhere Anna’s voice reached him, bidding him to open them.

Criton came at him with outstretched hand. ‘Give it back! Quick. That’s not for children. Yannis …’

The bullet caught him in the mouth. He stood stock still, with his hand still uplifted, and his eyes, wide and questioning, looked at Yannis. Then he gave a short, gurgling cough. He was saying something but blood and spittle extinguished his words. The shot had ceased to reverberate when he fell.

Yannis was walking past Anna out of the room, still holding the gun. Someone was running across his path. It was Florrie and she was carrying something, a dishcloth or a towel. He stepped on to the grass, out of her way, and then through the gate into the street. He circled his car and, without any hurry, began to walk away from the house and towards the railway bridge. Against a telegraph pole lay a heap of road metal. He sat down.

Leo was briskly coming down the road. He stopped a few paces away. ‘Yannis,’ he said. ‘Are you listening, my friend? I want you to give me the revolver. It might still be loaded. Will you let me take it?’

Yannis nodded. Leo came up and sat beside him, dropping down lightly as on a park bench. Almost tenderly he received the gun. After what seemed a long time he said: ‘If you are ready, we will go back now.’