Angel of Death

If she was honest with herself, she was curious to see the interior of the house, and curious, too, about Alex Manoussi. She knew so little about him or his family. Even what she had thought she knew, had heard from Pandora and Charles, from Milo, was obviously not entirely true. They had left Alex out of the stories they told, and that made what they had said flawed, unreliable, as well as making her uneasy about them. As they had lied to her by omission, they were no longer the people she had believed they were.

‘Come along,’ he said softly, coaxingly, and took her elbow.

She could have pulled away, but she didn’t. She let him lead her into the house, although she was trembling inside, her head swimming with doubt and uncertainty.

He unlocked the front door and took her into a hall from which a flight of beautifully polished stairs rose into a shadowy first floor. There was a scent of summer flowers; roses and lavender mingled. A large green glass bowl of them stood on a heavy oak table by a fireplace whose blackened chimney bore witness to years of fires. Charles had said it was cold here in the winter; snow often lay on the ground for days, which was why the hotel now had central heating, although Pandora had laughingly said that in her childhood before the central heating was installed they had had huge fires of wood, perfumed by pine cones from the pines in their grounds.

Had she really meant the hotel, or had she been talking about this house?

‘Is the house old?’ she asked Alex, as they entered a large sitting room leading off the hall.

Alex let go of her and walked through the shadowy light to the windows, pressed a button which operated the shutters.

‘By English standards, no. It was built in eighteen sixty-one; Greece had a King, then, King Otto. He was driven out in eighteen sixty-two, just a year after this house was built.’

‘Did your family build the house?’

‘My great great grandfather, Philip built it.’ He pointed to a brightly coloured painting hanging on one wall. ‘That is him.’ She studied the proud, weather-beaten, hawk-nosed face.

‘I can see a resemblance.’

Alex laughed. ‘Thank you. He was fifty when he built this house. He had just married for the third time, a girl of eighteen called Helena. His first wife and child were killed in an earthquake in Athens. He married again, but that wife died in childbirth. Medicine was very primitive here in that era. It was bad luck. But he tried again, with my great great grandmother, and she had four children – two boys, two girls.’ He gestured to another painting of a similar-looking man with the same black hair, black eyes, flashing stare. ‘My great grandfather, Constantine, was the eldest. He was married at twenty, but his wife didn’t have a child for ten years, and then only had one, my grandfather, Basil. That’s him, that photograph over there.’

Miranda went over to look at the faded, monochrome photograph standing on a highly polished sideboard. The resemblance to Alex was striking; the family face was oddly uniform, they all looked much the same.

‘That was a very early photograph. Apparently my grandfather was a keen amateur photographer. He was too busy constructing his boat-building yard to get married. He finally chose a girl whose father was well-to-do; one of grandfather’s customers. My grandmother was beautiful, but we don’t have any photos or paintings of her here. There are photos taken by my grandfather, but a cousin of mine has those, in Athens.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Sophie. When she had a daughter first, she gave her the same name. My father was her third child and first son. She had seven children in all, but several of them died in infancy, which was not uncommon in those days.’

‘Did they live in Piraeus, near the boat yard, or here?’

‘Sometimes here, sometimes in Piraeus. Once children started to arrive, my grandmother chose to live here. I spent my childhood here, with my mother, while my father lived on the mainland and came over here at weekends.’

‘It must have been a difficult life for your mother.’

‘Yes, she missed my father when he was away, but she was a good wife and accepted the way of life he wanted.’ He turned to look down at her, his dark eyes glinting mischievously. ‘Greek women were very submissive then.’

‘Not now?’

‘We have feminists now. Life is not so easy for men as it used to be. Women argue back more than they did.’

‘Good,’ she said, chin lifted, and his mouth went crooked, half in amusement, half in derision.

‘Home life was much more peaceful in those bad old days, though.’

‘For the men – I wonder if women liked their lives much?’

‘They had their children, and their home to run. They were not powerless, not in their own homes.’

‘And you would like to go back to those times, I suppose?’

He considered her drily, then shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you can ever turn the clock back. No, I’m perfectly happy with the way things are now.’ He walked over to a drinks tray and lifted a glass. ‘What would you like to drink? White wine, retsina?’

‘White wine, please. Retsina is interesting but it is an acquired taste, a glass of it now and then is OK, but I wouldn’t want to drink too much of it.’

‘Nor would I,’ he agreed, pouring them both white wine.