table and filled her glass. ‘You can imagine how hard that was. This is a very small village and in those days it was even smaller.’ She took a sip and continued. ‘But we managed it . . . you know what they say, if the heart is willing you find a way . . . We continued to see each other secretly for quite a few months until Kosmas finally decided he would go to see my father.’
‘How did Bappou react? Was he angry? Surely Yiayia Calliope was happy that you had found a suitor?’ Calli shot out one question after another without waiting for a reply. ‘What happened, Thia, tell me . . .?’ Calli asked, eager to know more.
‘I will, my girl, I will, but not tonight. Tonight, I would like to go to bed thinking of Kosmas as we were when life was filled with love.’
That night Calli lay in bed, her head swirling with all she had learned that evening. Earlier in the day she had expected to be lying awake thinking about Michalis, as he had made quite an impact on her. But the revelations of the evening had overridden the events of the day. It goes to show, she thought, you can never judge by appearances. All her life until then she had dismissed her aunt as of little interest and unworthy of her attention, while for ten years she had believed that James was highly interesting and her life’s partner, only to discover the reverse. The story her aunt had left unfinished had equally surprised her. Froso had apparently been quite a rebel, led by love and passion, contradicting all Calli’s preconceptions. She had always considered her aunt to be a quiet, conventional, rather meek and mild sort of person, yet apparently there was a far more dramatic hidden side to her character that her niece had never met. Why had nobody ever mentioned her early history before? Surely her mother must have known about her sister’s fated love . . . Calli eventually fell asleep that night eagerly anticipating the next instalment of her aunt’s story. The following morning she woke early and ran downstairs to the kitchen in her bare feet, hoping to find Froso ready and waiting to continue with her story. Instead she found a note on the kitchen table.
Gone to Heraklion with Eleftheria for a hospital visit. There are eggs and freshly baked bread on the table for breakfast and plenty of everything else in the fridge for your lunch. See you this evening.
Alarm bells started ringing in Calli’s ears. Was her aunt suddenly taken ill, had there been an emergency? She had been so caught up with her new friendships, her attraction to Michalis, and the intriguing love story that Froso was relating to her, she feared she had neglected her poor aunt and her health. She should have asked more questions, she should have gone to the hospital with her, she scolded herself. But Froso had been so dismissive and evasive on the subject of her illness, and Calli, out of respect, hadn’t insisted on more information. Guilt washed over her as she stood in the kitchen holding the note.
At a loss of what else to do and reassuring herself that the hospital visit was perhaps a routine check-up, Calli returned to her room, changed into her bikini and made her way to the beach for her early morning swim and to wait for her aunt’s return.
Monday mornings were glorious down by the shore with not a soul in sight and the water as warm as a tepid bath. She swam for a long while, before stretching out in the sun and lying on her towel, mulling over what she had heard the night before. She tried to imagine Froso as a love-struck girl, and young Kosmas, the amorous ‘heroic’ lover as she had described him; and her thoughts turned to those British boys she had interviewed the year before whose teenage love had ended in pregnancy and parenthood, prompting her to reassess her own life. Young love, she thought, had always existed, it wasn’t only a modern social phenomenon, and apparently it was always beset by problems.
The sound of her mobile in her beach bag made her start, interrupting her thoughts. She only carried her phone with her these days for taking pictures, to save having to take her camera to the beach; she never expected anyone to call.