Читать книгу The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus - David Price Williams - Страница 28

have to put up with, so we rarely spoke. At meal-times I tended to eat in silence and at other times in the house she was too busy ordering our maid Irene around to care about me and what I might be doing. Irene on the other hand was a city girl who had earned her manumission from slavery and she felt harassed by this jumped-up village hoyden, but she couldn’t say anything. Irene used to tell me quietly how miserable she felt, being bossed around by this nobody. When she wasn’t doing that, Calista spent her time flirting with Chronos, a strapping young man who was my father’s apprentice. I often heard them giggling together in the tablinum, our dining room, when my father was out haggling prices in the market.

“That Chronos is up to no good!” Irene would say. “He’s far too interested in Calista, if you ask me. Your father should watch out for him.”

But I felt unable to speak to him about it. To him I was only ever someone who would know nothing of the trials and pitfalls of married life. So I kept quiet and just watched and listened. One afternoon, I must have been in my early twenties, I came back early from the city. The sky was a bit overcast that day and there was a storm brewing out at sea. The harbour had shut up shop early against the bad weather, so there wasn’t much going on. I was in the atrium at home and I heard voices the other side of the tablinum door.

THE JOURNEY