Читать книгу Apollo's Seed - Anne Mather, Anne Mather - Страница 8

MARTHA’S lips quivered. ‘I think you’re trying to frighten me, Dion,’ she said unevenly.

‘Do you think that?’

‘Yes.’

He shrugged, and while she watched, he slipped his hand into his inside pocket. For one awful moment she thought he was about to pull a gun on her. He had carried one occasionally in the old days, for protection only, when circumstances demanded it, and she had always been repelled by its cold, metallic accuracy. But, as her palms moistened in opposition to the dryness of her mouth, he drew out a narrow cigar case, and flicking it open, took out one of the slim panatellas he favoured. He put it between his teeth and then said calmly:

‘My sister is getting married on Friday. My father and I must return to Athens for the wedding. But I shall be back here on Saturday night, and we will continue this discussion then. It is up to you whether you choose to bear the cost of an hotel room, or make use of the villa in my absence. Either way, we will talk further on Saturday.’

‘But I can’t stay here until Saturday!’ protested Martha. ‘I—why—I have to get back. I have a job, and—and there are things I have to see to.’

‘You mean—the child?’ enquired Dion sombrely.

Martha licked her lips. ‘Among other things, yes.’

‘Cannot your sister—cannot Sarah cope?’

Martha hesitated. ‘No. No, she can’t.’

‘Why not? Is one child so hard to handle?’

Martha sighed. ‘I have my reasons.’

‘So.’ Dion drew an impatient breath, pulling out a lighter and applying it to the tip of his cigar. Then he glanced at his father. ‘It seems I must offer my regrets to Andreas and Minerva.’

‘No!’

Martha’s instinctive denial was only narrowly forestalled by his father’s, as Aristotle gazed disbelievingly at his son.

‘You cannot mean to deny your sister the happiness of your company on her most special day!’ he declared. ‘She would never forgive you. You know how much she depends on you—of all her brothers! I will not—I cannot beg you too strongly to reconsider, Dionysus.’

Martha felt an intense weariness overtaking her. This had all been too much for her. First Dion’s appearance, then his talk of divorce; the scene in his father’s study was almost too painful to consider, but it had happened, and now he was playing this cat-and-mouse game of secrets. Just what did he intend to do? How could she interfere in family matters? Aristotle was looking at her as if she was the only person capable of changing his son’s mind, but how could she stay in Rhodes when Sarah was depending on her to return?

‘I have to get back,’ she insisted unsteadily, avoiding her father-in-law’s reproachful gaze. ‘I’m sorry, but I must.’ Dion absorbed this for a few moments, drawing deeply on his cigar, then he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Poli kala,’ he essayed firmly. ‘You will fly back to London tomorrow, ne, and return here on Saturday, bringing the child with you.’

Aristotle was looking at his son now as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses, but Martha was shaken by the realisation that in a way she had played right into his hands. Panic soured the orange juice inside her, and bile rose in a nauseating surge to the back of her throat.

‘I—I can’t do that,’ she stammered, wondering desperately what the laws of paternity were in Greece, and whether, if she brought Josy here, she would be allowed to take her home again, but Dion was adamant.

‘Why not?’ he demanded, and only she understood the challenge in his words. ‘You said yourself that your sister could not cope with the child. I am offering you a solution, that is all.’

Martha shook her head. ‘I—I couldn’t possibly afford——’ she began, grasping at the expense like a drowning swimmer clutches at a blade of grass, but Dion had all the answers.

‘The tickets will be arranged for you,’ he said smoothly. ‘And now, if you are ready to leave, I myself will drive you back to the helicopter.’

‘No! That is——’ Martha gazed appealing at Aristotle Myconos, but he could not—or would not—help her. Dion was already moving towards the house, preparatory to summoning the car, when she realised she would have to use Sarah after all. ‘I can’t return to Rhodes, because Sarah needs me.’

She saw her husband’s expression change as she brought her sister’s name into it. Dion had never liked Sarah, and in all honesty, Sarah had not encouraged him to do so. In the beginning, Martha had found her sister’s attitude towards her husband rather irritating, but as their relationship foundered she began to see that Sarah had been right all along.

She and Sarah had been very close in those days before her marriage. Their parents had been quite old before they started their family, and after their father’s death twelve years ago, their mother had found it difficult to carry on. Consequently, when Martha was sixteen and Sarah was eighteen, they found themselves orphaned, and more dependent on each other than ever.

Nevertheless they were good friends, and once Martha had completed her secretarial training and got a job as a doctor’s receptionist, they had found no difficulty in keeping up the small house in Wimbledon, where they had lived all their lives. Until that holiday in Rhodes, which had altered everything …

Now, Dion removed his cigar from his mouth and said flatly: ‘I see. I should have known your sister would be involved in some way. Very well. Why does she need you? Because she is afraid of your becoming involved with this family again?’

‘Dion!’ Alex’s urgent voice interrupted them, and turning, Martha saw her husband’s brother beckoning from the open doorway. ‘Dion, Giorgios is on the telephone. He wishes to speak to you personally.’

The oath Dion uttered made Martha flinch, and she watched apprehensively as he flung down his cigar and ground it under his heel. Then, with a frustrated gesture, he strode across the patio, and disappeared into the house.

However, when Alex would have followed his brother, his father’s voice arrested him. ‘Martha is leaving,’ Aristotle said, the firmness of his tone belied by the unsteady movement of the hands he extended towards her. ‘That is what you wish to do, is it not?’ he adjured, waiting expectantly for her reply, and dry-mouthed she nodded. ‘Kalos! You will drive her to the helicopter, Alexander.’

‘But—my handbag——’

Martha’s words were faltering, her head curiously light at this unexpected reversal of the situation, and for a moment Aristotle’s impatience showed. Then, gesturing towards Alex, he bade him collect her belongings from his study, while he escorted his daughter-in-law to the car.