One long table was reserved for the party in the restaurant. The meal was good, with roast chicken, beans, and the ubiquitous chips. Conversation was muted. Occasionally someone laughed, then looked abashed, as though an improper remark had been made. Patrick sat next to Gareth Hodgson, who took one end of the table; Jeremy went to the other end, and Patrick saw the thin young woman with the lank hair rush to sit next to him. The plump girl was following them when Mr Hodgson called her and invited her to sit on Patrick’s right. This was clearly intended as a privilege, and the girl, whose name was Celia Watson, blushed and looked pleased; she obeyed, but throughout the meal Patrick noticed that she cast jealous glances towards the foot of the table. By the time the meal ended he was sure it was her female friend, not Jeremy, about whom she was most concerned.
She taught history at a comprehensive school; the grammar school where Gareth Hodgson had been headmaster had been welded into it. They talked about teaching through the first two courses of dinner. Celia was an awkward, gauche girl, but she was interested in her work. Patrick was eager to turn the conversation towards the incident on Mikronisos but there seemed to be an agreement among the party to avoid the subject. In the end, while Mr Hodgson was answering some point about the journey home on Sunday raised by the elderly woman sitting on his left, Patrick asked Celia if she had known the dead man well.
‘Oh no. I’d never met him before this holiday,’ she said. ‘We don’t all come from the same study group at home.’
‘Was he married?’ There had seemed to be no grieving widow among the ladies he had met before dinner.
‘No. Or at least, maybe he was a widower.’
‘A sad business.’
‘Yes. It was dreadful. Until the accident, we’d been having one of our best days,’ said Celia. ‘It was such a good idea to hire a boat and go round to the quiet part of the island. Most visitors don’t go further than the harbour.’
‘I’m planning to go there tomorrow,’ said Patrick. ‘You recommend it, do you?’
‘Oh, certainly.’
The waiter came between them then, and Patrick glanced at the row of people facing them across the long table. They were all at least a generation older than Celia. Among them sat Arthur Winterton, steadily eating; he seemed concerned only with his food and was making no effort to talk to the grey-haired ladies on either side of him.
Patrick asked about Celia’s university career and dragged out of her the details of her good degree. He managed to keep her attention concentrated for a full five minutes before she looked towards the other girl and Jeremy again. Then she saw that Patrick had noticed her glance and blushed. The ugly pimples showed dark against her over-heated, sunburnt skin.
Later, with the two girls, Jeremy, and five of the others, he set out for the Acropolis. Arthur Winterton and Gareth Hodgson were among those who stayed behind saying they wanted an early night.
Outside the hotel, they stood on the kerb while the traffic tore past with screeching tyres and blaring horns, hoping to secure two taxis. A free one came along at last and stopped at their signals. Jeremy shepherded three elderly ladies into the back seat; then there was a discussion about who should go with them. There was space for another passenger beside the driver.
‘You come, Mr Vaughan,’ pleaded one old lady. ‘Please. We won’t be able to manage the money without you.’
Jeremy grimaced. By the end of two weeks, surely they could sort out a few drachmas?
‘All right,’ he looked doubtfully at Patrick.
‘We’ll find you up there,’ said Patrick, cheerfully. ‘Well meet you at the entrance.’
‘Right.’
Jeremy was about to get in beside the driver when the second girl, whose name Patrick could not remember, slid in under his arm and moved up behind the gear lever.
‘There’s room for me too,’ she said, and added rudely but truthfully, ‘We’re thinner than any of you.’
Unless they were to have three taxis, five of them must travel together. But Patrick, already turned away watching for another cab, saw the expression on Celia’s face as Jeremy clambered in next to the girl.
Celia saw that she had given herself away.
‘She’s so blatant,’ she said, scowling. ‘She runs after him all the time.’
They were both a little apart from their two older companions who were thankfully leaving to them the task of capturing transport.
‘I don’t think Jeremy’s noticed at all, if it’s any comfort to you,’ Patrick said, and stepped out into the road, gesturing, as another taxi appeared.
There were only a few people making their way up the steps at the start of the climb up the Acropolis when they reached it. Jeremy and his group were waiting for them by the gate through which the public were admitted, and they all began the ascent together. Wooden steps had been built under the great Propylaea since Patrick’s last visit; he felt a sense of violation as he walked on them; they might be safer, but they brought a utilitarian note to a scene that should not have one.
Pale in the moonlight, the columns of the Parthenon took on a new dimension; voices were hushed; figures looked spectral. It was easy to imagine the presence of Plato or of Sophocles.
Patrick found that the wretched Celia, sensing sympathy, something she must rarely attract, had attached herself to him.
‘I shouldn’t have said that, back at the hotel,’ she mumbled.
‘It’s all right. No one else heard you,’ he said. ‘Mind you don’t fall.’ He took her elbow as she seemed about to stumble over a lump of marble right in front of her. ‘Are you colleagues, you and—I’m afraid I didn’t catch your friend’s name?’
‘Joyce Barlow. Yes. We met at college,’ said Celia. ‘We always go on holiday together.’ She stared at the boulder- strewn ground. ‘It happens every year.’
What could he say to comfort her? Her life would always be like this.
‘Forget it now,’ he said. ‘Look around you. You’ll come to Athens again, I’m sure, but perhaps not when the moon is full.’
The miserable, spotty girl took a crumpled handkerchief out of her handbag and blew her nose. Then she made an effort to appreciate the scene.
‘It’s very fine,’ she said.
Patrick felt a sudden wish for the company of Ursula Norris, who had found irony at Phaestos. Now here was he, on the Acropolis of Athens in the moonlight, with a plain, fat, pimpled girl who seemed to have lesbian leanings. It was difficult to laugh at such things alone.
He managed gradually to manoeuvre Celia towards the others, intending to offload her if he could.
‘Oh Joyce, there you are, where have you been?’ cried Celia bossily when she saw the other girl. ‘Come and look at the eastern pediment.’
She’d never learn, poor creature, Patrick thought. Friendship was not enough for her; she must possess. And she seemed bent on masochism. He turned his back on them all and wandered away towards the Belvedere, where he stood gazing out across the lights of the city at Lykabettos, rising like a jewel above its floodlit diadem; it looked entrancing. He had been to its summit in daylight, never at night. He stood in silence; the air, cool now, brushed his face; there was always a breeze up here. Was he imagining that he could smell the scent of thyme from the hills? Could there be another place in the world as mysteriously compelling as this city of the old and new? If so, he had never been there, nor wished to find one.
He turned reluctantly away; he must join the others. People moved about slowly; it was impossible to recognise anyone from a distance. An American voice rang out, close by, discussing allergies. ‘My kid can’t tolerate talcum,’ he heard incongruously.
Patrick walked towards the great temple. Figures passed in and out among its columns and climbed up and down its steps. Two men wandered along together, talking. As Patrick passed them the moonlight revealed their faces. One, thick-set and middle-aged, was the man he had seen earlier in his hotel with Arthur Winterton; the second was the young man with a moustache who had been with Jill and Spiro aboard the Psyche.