"Yes, but Vonni might have friends and relations of her own there."
"Not to speak of." Vonni was crisp.
"Will I help you pack?" Maud suggested. "I could do some ironing or whatever you liked."
"No, I"ll just take a couple of things. Hand luggage. What you could do, which would be a great help, is to go and buy my ticket on the ferry for me, and go up to the hospital and say I"ll be away for a bit but that you will give them a hand."
"And will we say how long you"ll be away?" Simon wanted to be prepared.
"Just a couple of days. I"m not exactly sure ..." Vonni began.
"So we"ll just say ..." Simon said.
"That you"ll stay for as long as it takes ..." Maud finished and Vonni smiled at them gratefully. It was much easier to go away now that the twins were there looking after her business and her home.
They went down to the ferry to wave Vonni off. Andreas was there too, in his big leather boots. He had brought a little parcel of cheese and olives in case Vonni forgot to have lunch.
"Go well, Vonni, be home soon," he had said.
Maud and Simon watched with interest.
"Do you and Vonni have a special friendship?" Maud asked.
"Yes, that"s what it is, a very special friendship."
"Did you ever think of getting married to her?" Simon wondered.
"Yes, I did, but it was the wrong time. I should have thought about it and asked her earlier. It was too late when I had the thought." The old man"s face was far away for a moment, but then he cheered up.
"I have a good idea-my brother, Yorghis, is coming to dinner tonight, when he closes the police station. Maybe you could come too and meet him?"
"Yorghis?"
"The head of police?"
"Your brother?" The twins sounded like international criminals on the run.
Andreas looked from one to the other. "Yes, like me he is on his own. We often eat a meal together and look down on the lights of the town."
"Oh, please, Andreas, we haven"t done anything wrong!"
"The time we knocked the orange stall over, we spent hours hours gathering up all the oranges and dusting them for him. He was very happy and ..." gathering up all the oranges and dusting them for him. He was very happy and ..."
"... and when we went swimming in the harbor we didn"t know it wasn"t the right place because of the boats and we said sorry over and over and the harbormaster said To Pota, To Pota, which means it doesn"t matter ..." Simon was anxious to explain. which means it doesn"t matter ..." Simon was anxious to explain.
"So please don"t call Yorghis," Maud begged.
"We don"t want him to hear about us," Simon added.
"And Fiona would kill us; she said she would beat us with a stick until we bled all over the place!" Maud"s eyes were enormous.
"Fiona said this? Fiona?" Fiona?" He seemed taken aback. He seemed taken aback.
"Yes, do you know her?"
"I do-she was here one summer-but she didn"t seem the kind of person who would beat someone to death. Rather the reverse ..."
"Really?" Maud was very surprised. "She always seemed fairly frightening to me."
"And Declan, who is the son of Muttie"s friend, seems fairly anxious to please her."
Andreas had long lost control of the cast of thousands who figured in the twins" conversation. "So-Yorghis will be here about eight," he said, going back to something he did understand.
"If you don"t mind ..."
"We"d really prefer ..."
"We"ll be more careful in future ..."
"About orange stalls and harbors."
"I have no idea what you"re talking about," Andreas said eventually. "Just be at the taverna at eight o"clock."
Dear Fiona,This is just to explain that we met your friend Yorghis, the chief of police, socially last night. We want to stress it was a social meeting. He turns out to be the brother of Andreas, who owns the taverna. We had dinner there last night and Yorghis was very pleasant and not at all interested in the orange stall incident. The harbormaster had said nothing about our swimming in the wrong place, so I"d say that there are no problems there.We are having a wonderful time here and cannot thank you enough for telling us about this lovely place. It"s hard to believe that the henhouse was ever a henhouse: it has a window in the roof and paintings and plates on the wall. They must have been very comfortable hens.People say that you were very quiet when you were here. But then maybe we all change. They are all pleased to hear about your engagement.You have nothing to worry about. Our meeting with Yorghis was just social and he sang songs for us after dinner, which he wouldn"t have if anything was wrong.Vonni has gone to England on business, so we are looking after the shop. Maria, who lost her husband in a boating accident, comes in to work every day to speak real Greek to people, but mainly we are in charge.Thank you again.Love,Simon and Maud Fiona had completely forgotten having threatened the twins with serious beatings and the wrath of the police chief out in Aghia Anna, so she was mystified as she read their letter. And, like almost everyone who came in contact with Simon and Maud, she felt the world tilting slightly. Only one thing puzzled her. Vonni gone to England on business? Vonni didn"t have any business in England. What business would take Vonni to England?
They were very welcoming in the bed-and-breakfast where Vonni stayed. She told them she had never been in England before.
"Imagine! When you think how near it is to Ireland! But early in life I married a Greek and went off to the Mediterranean. And England didn"t figure very much."
The couple who ran the place were interested. "What an adventurous life!" they said in awe.
"It can be too adventurous," Vonni said sadly.
"Well, we can point you in the direction of some nice scenic attractions," the wife said, sensing a sadness here.
"No-the only scenic attraction I need to be pointed at is the prison," Vonni said.
And so they told her there was a bus that went right past their door and they asked her no more. They just refilled her mug of tea.
Restful people. She had been lucky to find this place.
The next morning, Vonni stood at the bus stop and watched ordinary people doing ordinary things. Girls were going to work in shops, women were taking children to school, men with worried faces were looking at their watches.
These were people with families-men, women and children who lived normal lives. They weren"t going with a briefcase full of certified checks to see a son now estranged for decades with the intention of bailing him out of prison. Their hearts were not heavy with anxiety as hers was. They knew what the day was going to bring, while she had no idea what was going to happen.
The heart clinic was going from strength to strength. Frank Ennis called by to tell them that there had been a wonderful article in a U.S. newspaper about the place. Apparently they had treated the wife of an American journalist who was spending three months in Dublin and had gone into heart failure and been cared for exceptionally well. Frank Ennis kept stabbing at the paper and saying that you couldn"t buy this publicity for any money.
Clara had been pleased but unimpressed. This was what they tried to do for everybody. It was of no more value because it had been done for a columnist"s wife.
"At least he said the place was clean, airy and well equipped, Frank!" Clara said. "If you"d had it your way, it would have been a poky dungeon ..."
Hilary was watching Frank"s face: it seem to fall a little. Hilary was beginning to think that Frank"s interest in Clara was more than professional. She had told this to Clara, who pealed with laughter at the very idea.
"Frank!" she cried in horror. "I would rather be a nun for the rest of my life." cried in horror. "I would rather be a nun for the rest of my life."
Hilary stuck to her belief. "He rings up to know are you going to be there, and he doesn"t bother coming if you"re not."
"You"ll need more skills than that if you are going to set up as a private detective or a psychologist!" Clara laughed.
Kitty Reilly was pa.s.sing by with Fiona, full of religious fervor. "I think there"s too much laughing in this clinic," she said disapprovingly.
"We never laugh about our work, Kitty," Clara apologized.
"But in your free time, you could have said ten prayers while you and Hilary were laughing there-and think what good that would have done."
"I know, Kitty, you"re probably right, but after after prayers a good laugh is all right, don"t you think?" Fiona had her hand to her mouth to control herself. prayers a good laugh is all right, don"t you think?" Fiona had her hand to her mouth to control herself.
Later she regaled Barbara with the story in the treatment rooms.
"This place is better than working in a circus sometimes," Barbara agreed. "What are you frowning about now?"
"I can"t think what Vonni is doing in England. She doesn"t know anyone in England except David. I wish I knew what she"s doing there."
Stavros shared a cell with Jacky McDonald from Scotland. Jacky was there over a misunderstanding as well. They had little in common apart from the unfairness of their imprisonment and the lack of anyone to post bail for them. So it came as a shock to them both when Stavros heard that there was a serious possibility that the funds were coming for his release.
"Who could it be? Your da?" Jacky asked enviously.
"It must be-but where he got the money I don"t know. Maybe my grandfather died. He owned some barbershops. There could have been money there, I suppose."
"You don"t know if he"s dead or not?" Jacky was incredulous.
"No-how would I?"
"What about your mother?"
"G.o.d, no, she"s a hopeless drunk, probably dead from drink now. Anyway, if she did get her senses back she wouldn"t help me."
"Why not?"
"Well, I got this awful drooling letter from her, way back, apologizing and saying she loved me. Jesus!"
"And what did you say?"
"What anyone would say. I said, You live your life and, please, let me live mine." No, it couldn"t be her."
Through all the formalities, they were very polite to Vonni. She even saw signs of sympathy in fairly impa.s.sive faces. They were making it easier for her and she was grateful.
"And will I get to see him?" she asked.
"We had instructions not to tell him who it was from. The lawyer in Greece was very adamant about that," a fatherly man told her gently. He was the kind of man who would never have understood the years of history between Vonni and her son.
"Yes, that"s right," she said.
"So now that we have checked the legitimacy of the funds, as we had to, we are just saying they arrived from Greece."
"Yes, yes, of course," Vonni said.
"So once he"s bailed he"ll probably get in touch with you."
"Not necessarily. It"s just that I live in Greece, and now that I"m actually in the place where he is, I thought I might see him."
"If you want to talk to him first and tell him you are putting up the bail...?"
"No-that would be blackmail. That would be saying that he must be grateful to me, he must see must see me." me."
"And would he not want to see you anyway? His mother?"
"I was a bad mother," Vonni said simply.
"We"re all bad parents. There"s no training for it, you see, like there is for a job."
"I"m sure you did all right."
"Not really. My son wanted to be a musician. I forced him to go and get a proper qualification. I thought I was doing the right thing. He met a girl, she got pregnant and they married. He"s still in a job he hates and it"s all my fault."
Vonni looked at him openmouthed. The English were meant to be reticent, and yet this man was telling her his whole life story. This man knew Stavros-maybe he was saying something to prepare her for disappointment.
Vonni was touched.
"I will leave my name and the phone number of the B and B where I am staying, with you. When he asks, perhaps you could give them to him."
" I Ijf he asks," the official said. he asks," the official said.
"You think he might not ask?"
"You never know."
"Well, when it"s all gone through, give him my information anyway ..."
"Certainly," the man said, and put the piece of paper in a letter rack on his desk.
"You mean it"s all signed and delivered?" Jacky looked at Stavros in disbelief.
"I know, isn"t it fantastic? I"m sorry it didn"t come through for you too," Stavros said.
"And who was it?"