bottle of olive oil as an offering to Thia Froso in one hand and his Cretan harp in the other. Eleni found him as charming as her daughter had suggested and even more handsome. In the course of the evening her imagination ran away with her and she had Calli and Michalis already married with a couple of babies living in the old house with Froso.
‘What a nice guy! I really like him,’ she told Calli in the kitchen, lifting the heavy bowls of watermelon out of the fridge. ‘How well have you got to know him? I mean, are you sort of dating or just friends?’
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ Calli laughed. ‘We’ve been spending quite a lot of time together since we met . . . since I got here, actually. We are kind of dating, I suppose.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’ Calli laughed harder. ‘And nothing – we’re taking it slow, we are still sort of getting to know each other, no need to rush.’
‘You really are a different generation,’ Eleni laughed back. ‘In my day, if a man took you out twice, he’d be making his move . . . make his intentions clear.’
‘Mum! I could be making a move too, if I wanted to. It’s not just up to him, you know, it’s not like that anymore. We get on, and we like each other . . . We’ll see. You and Chrysanthi, honestly – what a couple of old matchmakers!’
‘I’m just saying . . . that’s all . . .’ Eleni said as they left the kitchen to join the babble of the throng, carrying trays of fruit and drink.
10
‘I like your mother, she’s fun,’ Michalis said a few days later when they met for their early morning swim. Calli had decided that Eleni and Froso needed to spend a little time together without everyone around them, so that morning she left them on their own. ‘We should invite your mum to come with us sometime when we go out,’ Michalis continued as they swam towards their private cove for a few minutes before he had to leave for work, ‘and Kyria Froso too.’
‘The feeling is mutual. I’m sure she’d love to,’ she replied – then thought that as much as she loved her mother, she could do without having her tug along with her and Michalis. ‘Perhaps next time we go out with Chrysanthi and Costis we’ll get Mum and my aunt to come too,’ she quickly added, with a twinge of guilt for her previous unkind thought.
‘Good idea. My brother is arriving soon so we’ll all go out together,’ he replied and reached for her hand to help her step out of the water, avoiding the rocks lurking at their feet. She loved the touch of his strong hand, making her own feel as small as a sparrow nestling in his palm.
They stretched out on the hot sand, giving up their limbs to the golden rays for a short while. Michalis soon had to swim back to start his day, but during that short time Calli reflected as she watched him through half-closed eyelids that the more she came to know him, the stronger her feelings grew for him. She liked his strong yet quiet demeanour, she liked his simplicity and his love of nature, and above all she liked how comfortable he made her feel when they were together.
She had always been sensual; physical attraction and carnal desire had been the primary component in all her liaisons. But her feelings for Michalis were different: although she found him alluring it was other qualities in him that attracted her most. He didn’t make her heart race with sexual tension as Paolo had done earlier that summer, but he made her feel secure; he made her feel that if she curled up in his arms he would shield her from any kind of danger, and that if she had a baby with him no harm could ever come to that child, it would always be safe. A sense of familiarity washed over her and a murmur carried by the wind drifted in her ears: ‘Don’t be afraid, Calli, I’m holding you. I won’t let go . . .’
She lay there on the hot sand next to him reflecting on this, and not for the first time – regardless of her protests and rebuffs to her mother that nothing very serious was actually going on between her and Michalis, such ideas had often passed through her head.