(11/20) Farther Afield Read online

  'If you ask for my opinion,' she began heavily, (I hadn't, but was obviously going to get it) 'then I should say you was very unwise indeed!'

  She folded her arms across her cretonne-clad bosom, and settled down to a good gossip.

  'I take it this place is in the Mediterranean?'

  I said that it was.

  'Then don't touch the fish,' said Mrs Pringle, warming to her subject. 'The pollution out there's something chronic, and the fish don't stand a dog's chance, if you follow me.'

  I nodded.

  'And keep the water off of that arm of yours – no bathing or any of that lark, or you'll be writhing in agony from germs'

  'Oh really – !' I began to expostulate.

  'Furthermore,' went on Mrs Pringle ruthlessly, 'lay off the fruit and veg. unless they've been cooked. An aunt of mine had a very nasty rash from eating raw fruit in Malta. Disfiguring, as well as irritating. Never looked the same after, and she had been a nice looking woman when made up.'

  I said that I should take all reasonable precautions, and rose, hoping that Mrs Pringle would take the hint.

  'And another thing,' said she, not budging, 'you'll be flying, I take it?'

  'Yes. It only takes four hours or so.'

  Mrs Pringle gave a short bark of a laugh.

  'If you're lucky! This aunt I told you of, spent eight hours getting to Malta. First, the aeroplane needed mending, and when they started off two hours late, they found something else wrong, no petrol or one wing off – something of that – so they landed again for another two hours.'

  'There's often some delay –,' I began, but was brushed aside.

  'Mind you,' said Mrs Pringle fairly, 'they give 'em something to eat while they waited. Spam and sardine sandwich – '

  'What? Mixed?' I exclaimed in horror.

  'That I couldn't say,' responded Mrs Pringle heavily, after thought, 'but they didn't have to pay a penny for it.'

  She now made a belated foray to the dresser drawer to find a duster. Her face brightened.

  'It'll keep this place tidy for a bit longer, won't it, having you away?'

  Happiness comes in many guises, I thought.

  Mrs Partridge, the vicar's wife, was more enthusiastic, and told me not to miss Knossos on any account – she would look out a book they had about it – and would I please take plenty of pictures so that I could give a talk or, better still, a series of talks to the Women's Institute when I returned.

  Mr Mawne said that there was a particularly rare hawk indigenous to Crete, though he doubted if I should see one, as the Cretans probably shot every bird in sight like the blasted

  Italians. Strange, he mused, that such warm-hearted people, positively sloppy about their children and so on, should be so callous in their treatment of animals. Anyway, he hoped I should enjoy myself, and if I were lucky enough to catch sight of the hawk then of course a few close-up photographs would be invaluable.

  Mr Willet said it would do me the world of good to have some sea air and sunshine, although Barrisford would have been a sight nearer and less expensive. His cousin had been in Crete during the last war, but hadn't cared for it much as the Germans overran it while he was there and his foot was shot off in the upset.

  'Still,' he added cheerfully, 'it should be nicer now the fighting's over. I don't doubt you'll have a very good time out there.'

  'Crete,' mused Mr Lamb at the Post Office. 'Now would that be the one up in the right-hand corner, shaped like a whelk?'

  'Cyprus,' I said.

  'Ah, then it's the one with the famous harbour, Valetta!'

  'Malta,' I said.

  'That so? Well, I must be getting nearer. It's not that triangular one off the toe of Italy, is it?'

  'Sicily,' I said.

  'Don't tell me,' begged Mr Lamb, 'I'll get it in the end. It's not one of that lot like a hatful of crabs hanging off the bottom of Greece?'

  'You're getting nearer.'

  'It's the long thin one,' he shouted triumphantly. 'Am I right? With some old city a chap called Sir Arthur Evans dug up with his bare hands? Our scout master told us all about it one wet evening when the cross-country run was washed out.'

  'I don't know about the bare hands,' I told him, 'but the rest is right enough.'

  Mrs Coggs, who had been waiting patiently to collect her family allowance, while this exchange was going on, hoped I'd have a lovely time and come back sunburnt.

  Joseph, who was with her, looked alarmed.

  'You are coming back?' he asked.

  'Joseph,' I assured him, 'I'll be back.'

  The next few days passed in a flurry of preparations. Amy fetched me one afternoon for a last-minute shopping spree in Caxley, as I was still unable to drive my car.

  She had a wan, subdued look about her, so unlike her usual energetic manner that my heart was wrung for her. She mentioned James only once, and then simply to say that they had seen each other once or twice, and now proposed to think things over and have a discussion after the holiday.

  'At least, I'm supposed to think things over,' said Amy bitterly. 'As far as I can see, his mind is made up. How this chit of a girl could have managed to get such a hold on someone as intelligent as James, I simply can't imagine!'

  We were flying from Heathrow at a little after eleven in the morning, so that we did not have to make one of those dreadful journeys by car in the small hours which so often add to the traveller's discomfort.

  It was one of those cold grey summer days when Amy came to collect me. A chilly wind whipped round corners, scattering a few dead leaves and wreaking havoc with our newly-arranged hair.

  'I've got one of those net things with little bows all over it,' confessed Amy when we had finally stowed our baggage in the boot, and checked, yet again, passports and other documents. 'But I look like a culture-vulture from the mid-west in it, and am too vain to wear it, although it does keep one's hair tidy.'

  I said I had a silk scarf if the wind became too boisterous, but I looked more like little Mother Russia in my headgear.

  'Besides,' I said, 'it grieves me to pay a pound to have my hair fluffed out and then to see it flattened in five minutes.'

  Rain began to fall as we approached the airport.

  'Won't it be marvellous to leave all this murk behind?' crowed Amy. 'Just think of the blue skies waiting for us, and all that lovely sunshine.'

  Our spirits rose, and remained high throughout the leaving of the car, the taxi ride through the tunnel, and the slow shuffle through to the departure lounge.

  We found a seat, disposed our hand luggage around us, and settled down to watch our fellow travellers, and to look at the magazines we had bought to pass the time.

  It was while we were thus engaged, that it suddenly dawned upon me that Amy was looking uncommonly nervous. It was the first inkling I had that she might suffer from the fear of flying.

  'Do you mind flying?' I ventured.

  'I loathe it,' replied Amy with some of her old energy. 'In the first place, it's dead against nature to have that great lump of metal suspended in mid-air, and no amount of sweet reasoning is going to budge that basic fact from my suspicious mind.'

  'But think of the thousands and thousands of people who fly all over the place daily.'

  'Lucky to be alive,' said Amy firmly. 'And think of all the hundreds who died in air crashes. I always do.'

  'You shouldn't dwell on such things.'

  'If you hate flying you can't help dwelling on such things! Then think of all the thousands of screws and bolts and rivets and so on, supposed to keep the bits together. How can you be sure every one of them is reliable? And what about all-over metal fatigue? Not to mention having so little time, or enough mechanics, to service the thing properly between flights.'

  Amy, warming to her theme, was much more her usual forthright self, and I was pleased to see that, for a time anyway, James was forgotten.

  'And then there's fire. I don't feel at all happy about all that petrol being pumped int
o the thing before you start off.'

  'Better than forgetting it,' I pointed out. Amy ignored me.

  'How does one know that there is not some ass with a cigarette drifting about nearby, and we won't all be burnt to a cinder on the tarmac?'

  'There are fire tenders.'

  'I daresay. With the crews in the canteen swilling coffee, and you frizzled before they can stick their axes in their belts.'

  At this point, a confused noise came from the loud speakers. Someone with his head in a blanket was evidently honking down a drain-pipe. The message was quite incomprehensible to my ears, but an alert young man nearby spoke to us.

  'Gate Nine, evidently.'

  We collected our baggage and joined the queue.

  'Well, here we go,' said Amy resignedly. 'I wonder if the pilot is a dipsomaniac?'

  We settled into our seats, Amy insisting that I took the one by the window. Through it I had a view of the rear side of the wing, and beyond that the grey expanse of the airport, with only the brightly coloured tankers and aeroplanes to enliven the scene.

  'Thank heaven it's daylight,' said Amy, 'and we shan't be able to see the flames shooting out of the exhausts! I face death every time I get into a blasted plane.'

  'It's a quick one, I believe.'

  'I wonder. I always imagine twirling round and round like a sycamore key, with one wing off.'

  'Caught in the enemy's search-lights, I suppose? Amy, you've been watching too many old war films on television. Have a barley sugar, and think of Crete.'

  The engines began to roar, and the aeroplane began its interminable trundling round the airport, bumping and bumbling along like some clumsy half-blind creature looking for its home.

  Amy had closed her eyes, and both hands were clenched in her lap, resting on the glossy cover of a magazine which had blazoned across its corner: 'Australia: Only A Day's Flight Away'.

  Suddenly, the pace of the engines altered, the roaring was terrifying, and we started to set off along what one sincerely hoped was the correct runway, and the path to Crete.

  Buildings rushed past in the distance, the grass dropped away, the wing of the aeroplane dipped steeply, and far below us, tipped at an absurd angle, the streets and parks, the reservoirs and rivers of Middlesex hung like a stage backcloth.

  Excitement welled in me. Amy opened her eyes and smiled.

  'Well, we're off at last,' she said, with infinite relief in her voice. 'Now we can enjoy ourselves.'

  The adventure had begun.

  Part Two

  Farther Afield

  8 In Crete

  OUR first glimpse of Crete was in the golden light of early evening for we had been delayed at Athens airport. It would have given Mrs Pringle some satisfaction.

  If we had known how long we should have to wait for the aeroplane to Heraklion we could have taken a taxi into Athens and enjoyed a sight seeing tour. As it was, we were told at half-hourly intervals that the mechanical fault was almost repaired and we should be going aboard within minutes. Consequently, we were obliged to wait, while Amy and her fellow-sufferers grew more and more nervous, and even such phlegmatic travellers as myself grew heartily sick of cups of tepid coffee, and the appalling noise and dust made by a gang of workmen who were laying a marble floor. It was infuriating to be so near the cradle of western civilisation and yet unable to visit it, tethered as we were by the bonds of modern technology, and a pretty imperfect technology at that.

  But our view of Crete from the air dispelled our irritation. There it lay, long, green and beautiful in a sea so deeply blue, that the epithet 'wine-dark' which one had accepted somewhat sceptically, was suddenly proved to be true.

  Below us, like toys, small boats were crossing to and from the mainland, their white wakes echoed by the white vapour trails of an aeroplane in the blue above.

  We circled lower and lower, and now we could see a white frill of waves round the bays, and white houses clustered on the green flanks of the hills. Away to the west the mountains were amethyst-coloured in the thickening light, with Mount Ida plainly to be seen.

  By the time we had gone through customs, and boarded a coach, it was almost dark, and we set off eastwards along the coast road to our destination.

  It was a hair-raising ride. The surface of the road – probably one of the best in the island – was remarkably rough. The coach which had met us rattled and swayed. Seats squeaked, metal jangled, windows clattered, and the driver kept up a loud conversation with our guide, only breaking off to curse any other vehicle driver foolish enough to cross his path.

  We soon realised how mountainous Crete is. The main ridge of mountains runs along the central spine of the island, but the coast road too boasted some alarming ascents and descents. Part of our journey was along a newly built road, but there was still much to be done, and we followed the path used by generations of travellers from Heraklion to Aghios Nikolaos for most of the way.

  The last part of the journey took place in darkness. The headlights lit up the white villages through which we either hurtled down or laboured up. Occasionally, we saw a tethered goat cropping busily beneath the brilliant stars, or a pony clopping along at the side of the road, its rider muffled in a rough cloak.

  Every now and again the coach shuddered to a halt, and a few passengers descended, laden with luggage, to find their hotel.

  'I wouldn't mind betting,' said Amy, with a yawn, 'that we are the last to be put down.'

  She would have lost her bet, but only just, for we were the penultimate group to be dropped. Two middle-aged couples, and a family of five struggled from the coach with us and we made our way through a courtyard to the doorway.

  We were all stiff and tired for we had been travelling since morning. A delicious aroma was floating about the entrance hall. It was as welcome as the smiles of the men behind the desk.

  'Grub!' sighed one of our fellow-travellers longingly.

  He echoed the feelings of us all.

  School teachers do not usually stay in expensive hotels, so that I was all the more impressed with the beauty and efficiency of the one we now inhabited.

  The gardens were extensive and followed the curve of the bay. Evergreen trees and flowering shrubs scented the air, lilies and cannas and orange blossom adding their perfume. And everywhere water trickled, irrigating the thirsty ground, and adding its own rustling music to that of the sea which splashed only a few yards from our door.

  Amy and I shared a little whitewashed stone house, comprising one large room with two beds and some simple wooden furniture, a bathroom and a spacious verandah where we had breakfast each morning. The rest of the meals were taken in the main part of the hotel to which we walked along brick paths, sniffing so rapturously at all the plants that Amy said I looked like Ferdinand the bull.

  'Heavens! That dates us,' I said. 'I haven't thought of Ferdinand for about thirty years!'

  'Must be more than that,' said Amy. 'It was before the war. Isn't it strange how one's life is divided into before and after wars? I used to get so mad with my parents telling me about all the wonderful things they could buy for two and eleven-three before 1914 that I swore I would never do the same thing, but I do. I heard myself telling Vanessa, only the other day, what a hard-wearing winter coat I had bought for thirty shillings before the war. She didn't seem to believe me, I must say.'

  'It's at times like Christmas that I hark back,' I confessed. 'I used to reckon to buy eight presents for college friends for a pound. Dash it all, you could get a silk scarf or a real leather purse for half a crown in those days.'

  'And a swansdown powder puff sewn into a beautiful square of crêpe-de-chine,' sighed Amy. 'Ah, well! No good living in the past. I must say the present suits me very well. Do you think I'm burning?'

  We were lying by the swimming pool after breakfast. Already the sun was hot. By eleven it would be too hot to sunbathe, and we should find a shady place under the trees or on our own verandah, listening to the lazy splashing of the waves on t
he rocks.

  On the terrace above us four gardeners were tending two minute patches of coarse grass. A sprinkler played upon these tiny lawns for most of the day. Sometimes an old-fashioned lawn-mower would be run over them, with infinite care. The love which was lavished upon these two shaggy patches should have produced something as splendidly elegant as the lawns at the Backs in Cambridge, one felt, but to Cretan eyes, no doubt, the result was as satisfying.

  For the first two or three days we were content to loll in the sun, to bathe in the hotel pool, and to potter about the enchanting town of Aghios Nikolaos. We were both tired. My arm was still in a sling for most of the time, and pained me occasionally if I moved it at an awkward angle. Amy's troubles were far harder to bear, and I marvelled at her courage in thrusting them out of sight. We were both anxious that the other should benefit from the holiday, and as we both liked the same things we were in perfect accord.

  'We'll hire a car,' Amy said, 'for the rest of the holiday. There are so many lovely things to see. First trip to Knossos, and I think we'll make an early start on that day. It was hot enough there when I went in April. Heaven knows what it will be like in August!'

  Meanwhile, we slept and ate and bathed and read, glorying in the sunshine, the shimmering heat, the blue, blue sea and the sheer joy of being somewhere different.

  Now and again I felt a pang of remorse as I thought of Tibby in her hygienic surroundings at the super-kennels to which I had taken her. No doubt she loathed the comfortable bed provided, the dried cat-food, the fresh water, and the concrete run thoughtfully washed out daily with weak disinfectant by her kind warders.

  Where, she would be wondering, is the garden, and my lilac tree scratching post? Where is the grass I like to eat, and my comfortably dirty blanket, and the dishes of warm food put down by a doting owner?

  It would not do Tibby any harm, I told myself, to have a little discipline for two weeks. She would appreciate her home comforts all the more keenly when we were reunited.