and he was not alone. There was a girl with him, dark and in her way as opulently beautiful as the car. She was smiling and talking to him animatedly, and at any moment the car would be past and gone, then Damon Leandros turned slightly to flick his cigarette out of the window, and his eyes met Helen’s across two lanes of traffic. She was thankful those two lanes existed, because as well as recognition and disbelief, she had seen the beginnings of anger in his face.
She glanced down the hill again, biting her lip anxiously. He was caught in the traffic, and couldn’t stop, and anyway this was a one-way street, yet something told her that he would be back.
A battered grey taxi swerved into the side of the road to discharge its passenger, and Helen leapt for the opening door, almost knocking over the indignant Athenian who emerged in her haste.
The driver was very dark and unshaven, and looked like a member of the Greek Mafia, but he seemed to understand that she wanted to be driven to the Acropolis, even if he displayed no real inclination to take her there. He put the car into gear with a gut-wrenching screech and hurled it into the stream of traffic, muttering all the time under his breath as he did so.
Helen, being bounced around in the back seat from one side of the car to the other, was almost numb with rage. Quite a few of the taxis she had noticed in the streets had had the same battered look, with bumps and dents, and sometimes even their headlights taped up, and if this was a sample of the way they were usually driven, she could quite understand why. She wished very much that she spoke Greek, because she doubted very much whether the conventional phrase books on sale would provide a translation for ‘Please stop driving like a maniac!’
Her only consolation was that when Damon Leandros returned to look for her, and she had not the slightest doubt that he would, she would have vanished, she hoped without trace.
The taxi stopped at last with a jerk which almost hurled her on to the floor, and she stared doubtfully at the mass of figures on the meter, wondering which one depicted the fare. The driver didn’t seem prepared to help. As she hesitated, he directed a sullen stare at her, and eventually she produced her purse, peeled off a number of notes and handed them to him. Judging by the slightly contemptuous smile he gave her as he pocketed them, she had given him far too much, she thought angrily as she got out of the car.
It was hotter than ever as she walked up the hill which led to the entrance, but near the car park was a large stall selling cold drinks and other refreshments. There were people everywhere, sitting under the shade of the trees as they ate and drank, most of them tourists, a lot of them students, propping themselves up on their bulging rucksacks. There were all sorts of accents, and Helen found she was eagerly listening for an English voice, as she made her way up the slope to the summit. She would have her cold drink later, she thought, because something told her that if she ever settled under the trees, her sightseeing would be over for the day.
The stone slabs she was walking up were warm through the thin soles of her sandals, and above her the rock towered away, crowned by a cluster of buildings. She stood there for a moment, staring up, conscious of an isolation that went deeper than mere physical loneliness, overcome by the thought of time, and the generations of feet which had trodden this way before hers—tyrants, philosophers, soldiers, slaves and conquerors—suddenly aware as she had never been of her mother’s Greek blood in her veins, and of a faint stirring deep inside her which went further than the ordinary excitement of the holidaymaker.
Following the small knots of people ahead of her, she made her way without haste through the Propylaea and out on to the vast expanse of bleached white rock which had served the city of Athens as a fortress and a religious sanctuary. The Parthenon dominated, as she supposed it had always been intended it should. Its great honey-coloured mass seemed to rear into the flawless blue of the sky, like some proud ancient lion scenting the air, Helen thought, and smiled at her own fancy.
She became aware that a group of people behind her were patiently waiting to take a photograph and stepped out of the way with a murmured word of apology. She knew that because of the wear and tear of the centuries, and more recently air pollution from the great city which circled the foot of the Acropolis, the most she could do was look and admire from a distance. Some of the buildings, she noticed, glancing round her, were already supported by scaffolding. It was a shame, but at least the authorities were doing their best to preserve them for further generations of feet to tread up the long winding route from the foot of the rock.
She sat down on a piece of fallen masonry, and filled her mind with images to carry away with her, because she doubted whether she would ever come back. She had agreed to undertake this journey of reconciliation because her grandfather was elderly and ill. It seemed quite likely that he was at death’s door, she thought sombrely, and once he was dead there would be no reason for her to return to Greece ever again. That feeling of fellowship with the past, of homecoming even that she had experienced earlier, had disturbed her. She didn’t understand herself. She had always regarded herself as English through and through, and wholly her father’s daughter. She had never ever looked Greek, she thought in perplexity.
After a while, she rose and walked to the edge, threading her way between the chattering groups with their clicking cameras. The view was stupendous. She thought she could even catch a glimpse of the sea in the distance.
She turned away at last, feeling a little giddy. The sun reflecting off the white rock she stood on was almost overwhelming, like some exotic moonscape. It would surely be cooler, more bearable indoors. She went down a brief flight of steps, past a large stone owl and into the museum. She found an unoccupied bench and sank down on to it, pressing her fingers against her forehead with a little sigh.
When the hand descended on her shoulder, she looked up with a start, thinking it was one of the attendants. Instead she found herself looking into the coldly furious face of Damon Leandros.
‘Oh.’ She stared up at him, her brows drawing together. ‘It’s you. How did you find me?’
‘It did not require a great deal of thought to deduce where you were going,’ he said icily. ‘I saw you enter the museum and followed. What is the matter? Are you ill?’
‘A slight headache, that’s all,’ she returned stiffly, and heard his exasperated sigh.
‘I asked you to rest for precisely this reason,’ he said after a pause. ‘I do not wish to present you to your grandfather suffering from heatstroke or exhaustion.’
‘Of course not, although I needn’t ask whether that’s prompted by concern for me or concern for your job.’ She pushed her hair back from her face with defiant fingers. ‘I suppose my grandfather might not be too pleased that you’d left me to my own devices.’
He gave her a long, hard look. ‘Your grandfather was perfectly well aware that I had business to attend to this afternoon, and that our departure for Phoros would be delayed for a few hours.’
‘Really?’ Helen smiled in spite of her pounding head. ‘I saw your—business beside you in the car. Nice work if you can get it,’ she added with deliberately airy vulgarity.
But the expected explosion did not transpire. When he did speak his voice was softer than ever.
‘Miss Brandon, did your father never beat you when you were a child?’
‘Of course not.’ Helen dismissed from her mind the memory of numerous childish chastisements. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Idle curiosity. There could, of course, be no other reason.’ His tone was silky. ‘Are you prepared to return to the hotel with me now, and rest?’
Helen
