Sarah Fenton was worried. She had been concerned since her father’s strange phone call from Greece a week ago. When he asked her to keep a secret from her mother she had agreed, but on reflection she wondered if that was the right thing to do. She had always been especially close to her mother and keeping any secret from her did not feel natural.
It was not that she mistrusted her father. She knew well how intelligent he was and how forward thinking in everything he undertook. His determination was legendary. She remembered how he had fought to persuade his only daughter not to leave school and go out to work after secondary school. It had been a fierce contest of wills in which Stavros had battled with every force he could command, and he could command many.
Nonetheless, Sarah was adamant. She was determined to join the working world. She had already met her future husband, David, although her father did not know this. She wanted a family life without the stresses and strains her mother had endured and she wanted to start soon.
Sarah was well aware of the sacrifices it took to attend university and earn a sufficiently useful degree to guarantee a decent position in life. After all, she had watched her father go through that very process and despite his obvious talents it had been a difficult road at times. She had no desire to follow him into the world of academia. Indeed she had disdain for the faculty members who occasionally arrived at their home in Horam for wine, and intellectual conversation, that ranged far above the heads of mere mortals.
She had enormous respect for her father’s accomplishments but she still harboured a grudge about the way her mother had been sidelined in the rush to the top position he had obtained.
Sarah had fought her battle bravely and held her ground against all attacks until her father gave in. There seemed no point in pursuing it further. He finally recognized a personality as powerful as his own. His only child was not going to follow in his footsteps and that was that. In time he recovered from the disappointment. He did not allow it to diminish his love for Sarah. That could never happen.
Sarah had spent a day with her mother after she returned from the Easter trip to Greece and carefully quizzed her about the situation regarding their living arrangements once Stavros retired. To her surprise the answers she received were fuzzy at best. Her mother did not seem to have a clear idea of what was about to happen. Indeed, she seemed relieved to be back in England and happy to settle into her normal routines without much concern about the future.
Sarah worried even more. She knew her father was always one step, at least, ahead of the pack. He had the skill of planning out a range of clever moves so as to be prepared for any eventuality. He had the mind of an expert chess player; a game at which he excelled.
Much as she loved her mother, she knew this kind of planning was just not in her nature. Lynn Kyriakos was, if anything, too trusting, and Sarah feared the changes that were coming in her parents’ marriage if her father’s requests were any indication.
What did it mean if her mother spent months at a time in England while her husband was living in Greece? Was this the preamble to a divorce? Heaven forbid! Sarah felt her world rock on its foundation at the very thought.
Lynn bustled around the house happily. She usually spent hours arranging her home to suit herself when Stavros was teaching his summer courses. This included placing the TV remote on her side of the couch, organizing the kitchen cupboards so everything she needed when cooking was exactly where she wanted it and spending as much time as she wished outdoors in the garden just pottering around with seedlings and new plants. She took deep breaths of the air and felt as if she herself was a plant in exactly the right soil and the right location for full growth.
“This is my place,” she often murmured to herself.
Two things occurred to disturb her contentment.
The first was a simple request from her husband to retrieve an email from his home computer.
“I need the details about the number of students currently on the class list for the summer course, darling. Would you look it up for me? I am trying to arrange accommodations on Aegina and I need to know how many separate males and females I have to house.”
Lynn had done this kind of thing for Stavros before, so she followed his phone directions as she sat at the computer and soon tracked down the folder titled ‘Aegina Course 2012’. There was some debate about one adult student who Stavros remembered as ‘Joan’ while the class list stated ‘John’ but other than that, the task was soon completed.
“Thank you, my dear. How is England?”
“As glorious as ever, I am glad to say. When will you be coming home?”
“Not sure. I’ll be in touch. Must run. Lots to do here.”
Lynn was about to start the shut down procedure when she caught sight of an email folder headed ‘Students Aegina’. Thinking there might be a more recent email from students that Stavros had missed, she quickly opened it to scan the names. The list was similar to the one she had just studied although there were several from a Pauline James. This was probably the same Pauline who Stavros talked about with huge admiration. She was one of his best and most able students.
Without realizing it, Lynn had pressed the cursor on the line of Pauline Jeffries’ last email and it opened up to show a brief paragraph of text. Her eyes skimmed through it before the content had struck her brain.
At first the words did not make sense then she read it over again and tried to reject the sense she did make.
As I told you, the pregnancy is going well. The morning sickness has gone and I feel fit for future decisions, although the summer course may not work for me.
Don’t worry about us. I have so much to discuss with you, dear sir. This is an important point in both (all) our lives. Can’t wait to join you on Aegina.
Till then,
Your Pauline.
How odd for a student to send such a personal email, she thought. She must be in dire straits to involve a professor this way but she certainly seems concerned about the summer course in the heat of summer in Greece. She must be desperate to talk to Stavros. I wonder why?
Suddenly the thought struck Lynn that this Pauline could be involved with Stavros in more than a teacher-to-student relationship.
God forbid that Stavros was the father of this child! Surely not!
Her mind could scarcely grasp the implications of this conclusion. Her husband had been carrying on an affair in secret? He had deceived both his wife and this young girl whose career he had proclaimed as so promising?
Lynn sat back with a thump as errant thoughts invaded her mind. It would, of course be simple for Stavros to conduct an affair without her knowledge. Evening meetings, marking, and research demands at his college office, the summer courses in Greece; all of these provided ample opportunity.
Could she have been so blind as to miss the signs?
Could he have been so devious as to pull the wool over her eyes?
How long had this been going on? Who else knew?
Once the poison had entered her brain everything she knew began to be tainted. So this is why Stavros was so anxious to retire from his beloved job at the university. He could not risk being found out and losing his tenured position and all the attendant pension privileges.
The proposed move to Greece also became part of a self-preserving plan. Once established far from England he could choose to continue his affair or drop the girl and her child, safe from prying eyes.
Stavros’ reaction to her own refusal to fall in with his retirement plans now took on the mark of desperation. Of course he was shocked when she failed to meekly accept his ideas. His entire carefully-laid scheme was in danger of falling apart.
A red rage consumed her emotions. How dare he betray her trust in this way? After all she had sacrificed for this marriage, how could he turn her world upside down at the point when they should be enjoying the prospect of a leisurely life together with their family?
Anger drove her out of doors. She could not sit still as thoughts crowded her mind and her heart began to feel the pain of these revelations. A tiny voice whispered that she had no real evidence for her suspicions but she ignored it in the rush of emotions. She walked round and round the paths in the garden seeing nothing but the pictures in her mind and growing more and more sure of her conclusions.
A ringing phone eventually pierced her concentration and she responded automatically by running inside the house to answer it. As she lifted the phone she had the awful thought that it might be her husband calling and she almost dropped the receiver. The last person she wanted to talk to at this moment was her husband. She could not imagine what, if anything, she could possibly say to him.
She glance quickly at the caller display and did not recognize the number. Probably a sales offer. She would get rid of him quickly.
“Hello?” Even she could tell her voice was shaky.
“Is this Lynn?”
“Yes. Who’s calling?” She did not recognize the caller’s voice and was about to put the receiver down again when she heard something vaguely familiar in the accent.
“Look! It’s Philip here. Your brother? Am I calling at a bad time?”
You have no idea how bad, she thought, but good manners asserted themselves and she pulled herself together to sound semi rational.
“Sorry Philip, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. It’s been a while.”
“You are right, and I wouldn’t be bothering you now but I am having difficulty with the plans.”
“Plans? What plans are you talking about?”
“Your husband said it was all right to consult you about features and I couldn’t wait until later.
I have to get the house blueprints done now or the project will need to be cancelled.
Lynn? Are you still there?”
Lynn was standing by the phone with her mouth agape and not one single cohesive response in her brain.
Was it possible that in the space of a few minutes her whole world could collapse in this way? What else would she discover about her husband that she never suspected? Had he gone ahead with plans for the house on the bay in Paros without telling her, and, worst of all, had he already involved her brother without her knowledge?
“Philip, you will have to excuse me. I can’t talk right now. Please call back later.”
With that she slammed down the phone and burst into tears.
The rest of the afternoon disappeared in a fog of misery. Lynn could not move from the couch into which she had collapsed after her brother’s call. The shocks coming one after another were too much for her to deal with.
At some point, light-years later, she heard the phone ring again and jumped. She simply could not speak to her brother again and the same applied to her husband. She would ignore the phone but first she looked to see who was calling.
Sarah! Thank God! Of all the people in the entire world, Sarah was the only one she could bear to speak to at this moment. She picked up the receiver but found her throat too dry to answer.
“Hi Mum! Just want a word about next week. David and I leave for Paris on Wednesday but Mike won’t be home from his summer job until Friday night so you don’t have to be here until then.
How does that sound?”
Paris? What was that about? Lynn could not drag her concentration back from the dim dark place where she had been wandering for hours.
“Mum? Are you there? Mum, what’s wrong?”
“Sorry, love! I’m not quite in control at the moment.”
“Right! Stay where you are. I’ll be over immediately. Stay put and don’t move.”
There was something so comforting in the beloved voice of her daughter that it shook some sense into Lynn. I can’t let Sarah find me like this, she declared to the darkened room and she dragged herself up out of the couch and went slowly around the house clicking on lights, moving all the while like some bent-over, ancient crone devoid of muscle power and energy.
Despite her ambition to tidy herself up, she could not summon the strength to find a comb, so Sarah found her mother in such a disheveled, immobile state that she thought an ambulance would be required.
“Mum! What in God’s name has happened to put you in this condition? Have you been ill? Has someone broken in? Did someone hurt you?”
Lynn began to laugh at her daughter’s last enquiry. Assuredly someone had hurt her and that someone was Sarah’s father but how was she going to tell Sarah that her beloved father was a cheat and a lying manipulator.
Her mother’s slightly insane laughter was far more frightening to Sarah than her previous stunned condition. She moved toward her mother and held her until the wild laughter had consumed all her mother’s available oxygen and what was left was a pitiful dry sobbing that pained Sarah to hear, more than anything else her mother had ever done.
An hour went by and Lynn had not yet spoken more than a whisper to Sarah. She drank the welcome cup of sweet tea after first clutching it to her chest in an attempt to still her trembling arms.
Wild thoughts swept through her mind.
Tell Sarah everything and discredit her father forever.
Call Philip and cancel any prospect of Stavros’ house going ahead.
Get on a plane to Greece and confront her husband.
Call a lawyer.
Call the university anonymously and accuse Stavros of misconduct with a student.
Fall into bed, take sleeping pills and sleep for a week, or forever.
The last thought brought her to her senses abruptly. What was she thinking? Crazy thoughts or actions would not make the situation any better. This was a time for rational thought. Not today, perhaps, but soon. She must wait until the burning pain in her chest had calmed enough for her to think carefully about her next move.
Sarah had been talking quietly to her mother about trivial household items and her excitement about Caroline’s inclusion in the G(irls)20 Summit in Paris. She described the hotel she and David would stay in for a few days and thanked her mother over and over for agreeing to watch Mike and the house while they were away on this unexpected holiday.
All the while, Sarah was watching and waiting for her mother to respond. The idea of calling an ambulance was not far from her mind. It was possible her mother had had a small stroke or even a heart attack.
She continued looking for signs of trauma but saw colour return to her mother’s face and when she finally began to talk sensibly about the Paris trip, Sarah relaxed for the first time since she had left work so suddenly and driven to Horam like a maniac.
“Can you tell me what has happened, Mum?” Sarah accompanied this request with a keen eye on her mother’s reaction and two warm hands holding her mother’s cool ones.
“I won’t pretend I haven’t had a shock, my dear, but I can’t talk about it yet. I promise to speak to you privately before you go to Paris. Now, don’t worry! I will be fine. You have helped me enormously and I feel some hope that things will work out.”
Neither woman believed this last statement. Lynn because she had no clue how to proceed, and Sarah because she was more and more convinced that her father’s strange request for secrecy had something to do with her mother’s current distress. She decided not to press the matter. Her mother would reveal it in time. She would have to be patient but she vowed that whatever, or whomever, had hurt her mother so badly, she would be the tigress who would defend and support her through it all.