hills and mountains while the dancing put Keith’s stamina to the test. Knowing of the Cretan custom for traditional dancing at weddings he tried his best to learn a couple of them and practised diligently, but there was no competing with the local men who were born and raised on the moves.
Since Keith’s new university post allowed him a month for the vacation, which as luck had it overlapped with the Orthodox Easter, he stayed with Eleni’s family after the wedding. On his return to London he immediately set about making arrangements for her to join him. He rented a little apartment near Mornington Crescent close to central London, booked a date at the register office for them to marry according to British law and then returned to Crete to collect his new bride.
Life in London was as exciting as Eleni hoped it would be, and Keith was as loving and supportive as she knew he would be. His job provided well for both of them, although Eleni was not content to stay at home. She was used to working and enjoyed it. She applied for a job at the Greek embassy and was taken on as a part-time receptionist. Her fluency in Greek was an asset and she soon made enough contacts to start giving private tuition to the children of compatriots living in the capital who wanted them to grow up speaking their language. This would keep her in work for many years to come – her calling as a teacher was ever useful. As her sister Froso had said, Eleni had a mind of her own; she was an enterprising young woman and managed to settle successfully into the life of the metropolis.
‘It’s a long way from my village,’ she told Keith one Sunday afternoon as they walked arm in arm in the park. ‘It’s hard to believe this is my home now! Thank you for bringing me here!’
‘I was afraid that you would miss the sea and the open spaces, and your family,’ Keith said, concerned for her.
‘So long as you are here with me, I’m happy,’ she replied, leaning closer to him.
‘I’ll always be here.’ He kissed the top of her head.
‘When I was little, I used to have these recurring dreams,’ she told him, her arm linked in his. ‘I was living in a busy place full of noise and buildings and cars, people I didn’t know all around me, yet I wasn’t scared at all.’ Eleni looked up at Keith and smiled. ‘I didn’t feel afraid because there was always someone with me . . . I didn’t know who, but I felt secure. I used to think that maybe it was my grandmother watching over me . . .’ she tightened her hold on his arm and looked up at him again. ‘I felt safe, like I feel now with you!’
‘You obviously had a premonition you were going to meet me,’ he smiled and bent down to kiss her.
‘I know! I did . . . it’s not a joke!’ she replied. ‘My mother always said I had some kind of gift of prediction . . . just like when I first met you. I had a feeling you would come into the shop, and then when I saw you, I knew you!’
It was through this gift of foretelling the future that Eleni believed she had known the very moment she had conceived. They had discussed having a family at some point and had agreed to wait a year or two, but not long after arriving in London she fell pregnant. Calli was born on the twenty-seventh of January 1982, which Keith discovered to his delight was the same date as the birth of his great hero Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – and of course he couldn’t help but announce it to all the nurses and to anyone else who’d listen. ‘What an act to follow!’ the midwife told him, laughing, as she placed baby Calli in Eleni’s arms.
Being in London in the depths of winter with a newborn, away from her family and friends, was hard for Eleni. But both she and Keith embraced parenthood wholeheartedly and counted themselves lucky. Thinking back to those days was another reason why, now, Calli’s rejection by James hit them both so hard. Neither of them could understand his motives and they struggled to see how he could turn his back on their daughter at such a time.