Читать книгу The Meaning of Friday - Vanessa Gordon - Страница 15

6

Day was washing up their morning coffee cups. “We need to get petrol today. Shall we go on to the Elias house afterwards and take a quick look?” he called from the kitchen. “I haven’t managed to get hold of the custodian yet, but we can arrive like tourists and take a look around. The museum opened to the public on the first of May, apparently. Maybe we could get a coffee somewhere before heading back.”

Day didn’t eat breakfast, nor did he usually bother with lunch when he was on his own. Helen, who quite liked meals, sometimes pretended not to want breakfast when she was in Greece with Day. It soon became her normal routine. When she heard the plan for the morning, she resigned herself to the thought that a second coffee would have to do, and she might even order a pastry.

They drove to Chora to fill the Fiat’s tank at a small garage on the outskirts of town, then headed north on the coast road in the direction of Engares. Traffic was light. Small roads led occasionally towards the sea on their left, roads serving only a small group of houses, a single hotel or an isolated beach. After half an hour they saw a sign saying Paralia Votsala, or Stony Beach, and another that advertised the Nikos Elias Museum. The road was unsurfaced but in good condition, and soon descended sharply. At the bottom of the road was the beach, a narrow strip of shingle which stretched two hundred yards in each direction. At the extreme left of the road was a sprawling white house against the cliffs. To the right, the road stopped at a headland, beneath which the tables of a taverna overflowed onto the shingle. It looked very inviting. Day, however, was focussed on the white house of the late Nikos Elias.

“That’s the place, I think,” he said, pointing left. “Let’s take a closer look, shall we?”

He drove with care towards the archaeologist’s old house, avoiding the occasional ruts in the road. Another sign in tourist office colours announced the Nikos Elias Museum. Day parked in front of the building and peered over the steering wheel. The place seemed closed. They got out and walked to the main door. A handwritten notice was pinned there, framed by a small bougainvillea, the roots of which were wedged in a rusted barrel. The notice said, ‘Temporarily Closed to Public’ in Greek, English and German.

There was only one thing to do, which was to get a coffee at the little taverna. Day parked the Fiat next to two hire cars which closely resembled his own. Day had, after all, bought an ex-hire car himself.

The taverna owner waved from the shingle beach where he was wiping sand from the tables.

“Kalos irthatay! Welcome!” he called.

“Kalimera. Are you serving coffee?”

“Of course! Please, take a seat!”

They chose a table in the shade of a tamarisk tree at the edge of the beach. The owner, a Greek of about Day’s age, returned with menus that offered a selection of drinks, sweet snacks and toasted sandwiches. His wife appeared with a tray bearing two chilled glasses and a bottle of cold water with the condensation dripping from it. Day and Helen did not need the menus to make their coffee order.

“A frappé for me, please,” said Day.

“Cappuccino, please, a double.”

“Cold?”

Helen felt very English when she insisted on hot coffee. Day loved the tall, iced coffee preferred in Greece during the summer, but Helen held to her English tastes. She was rewarded with a large, hot coffee with a homemade biscuit on the teaspoon. Day stirred his frappé thoughtfully with the straw, and gave Helen his biscuit.

“Well, interesting that the house is closed,” he said. “I’ll have to ask around and see when it will open. I’m sure it will. This is Greece, everything happens at the right time.”

“I hope so, because you’re going to have a problem if it doesn’t.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will open soon. Elias’s companion still lives there. It’s his home, and anyway he wrote to me to confirm my visit. By the way, did I tell you Elias wrote some quite decent poetry? And he has an amazing library of Greek literature, I’ve heard. He seems quite a character.”

“A library, in that house? They must have a problem with the damp in winter. It’s really close to the sea.”

“Mmm, maybe. I’m looking forward to seeing Elias’s books, anyway; he might have collected some interesting bits and pieces.”

“Do you know much about the contents of the museum?”

“There are local finds, his papers, his personal writings, maps, drawings. I don’t know exactly till I get inside.”

“Is the poetry published?”

“Don’t think so, not sure. I’ve never come across it, but it’s not my thing really.”

“I know! And his companion, who’s he?”

“To my shame, I don’t know the first thing about him. Not in the field, I think, not an archaeologist. His name’s Petros Tsifas. He’s been the registered curator of the museum since Elias’s death, but I haven’t read anything about him. It’s an interesting set-up. There’s no funding for the upkeep of the place from the Greek State, but Elias seems to have been wealthy and I think the local tourist board pay Tsifas something to open for visitors.”

“The tourist board won’t be pleased that the museum’s closed, will they?”

“Indeed. I wonder what’s happened.”

They drank their coffee and Day looked at his phone. Helen looked out to sea. There was nothing to look at except the water and the horizon. So few gulls here, so few boats today. This was the rocky, exposed side of the island, facing the north-westerly winds. Lovers of solitude lived on this coast. So why was there a taverna here? Where did their customers come from? Despite the other cars, there appeared to be nobody here apart from themselves.

After ten minutes she got up to visit the bathroom, mostly an excuse to look around. The inside of the taverna was spacious, with a bar against one wall and a chill cabinet against another in which desserts, beers and cold drinks were on display. Photographs of Naxian fishermen from long ago, mending nets or standing proudly by small boats, hung behind the bar. An old Greek flag was propped proudly in one corner of the room.

At one of the tables sat the owner and his wife. He was reading a newspaper with one eye alert for customers, and she had a bowl of vegetables on her lap and was preparing them with a sharp knife. When Helen returned from the toilets she paused near them to exchange courtesies. Remembering that a cool day is regarded as excellent weather by the Greeks, she opted for a safe conversational gambit.

“Very good weather today, isn’t it?”

“Very good! Are you holidaying on the island?”

“My friend has a house near Filoti, but I’m staying here on holiday, yes. I arrived yesterday for the summer.”

“Oh, Kyria, you will have a very good summer on Naxos. I’m Vasilios, this is my wife Maroula. I hope you’ll visit us often. And if your friends come to see you, we have rooms here, good rooms. As you can see, it’s very beautiful in Paralia Votsala.”

“It certainly is! You say you have rooms here? Do you get many visitors?”

“We do well enough, in June and August particularly. We are quite inexpensive, and we find that archaeologists and their students stay with us while they explore the island. We also have some visitors who come with metal detectors, who hope they will have a lucky find along our beach. There’s nothing there to find, of course, but they enjoy themselves. And my wife cooks them an excellent dinner afterwards.”

His wife lifted her head from her vegetables and spoke in a sad tone. “We have two rooms, Kyria. When my husband says that many people stay here, he means a few.”

“I suppose the Elias Museum attracts them,” said Helen, diplomatically. “We notice it’s closed today. Do you know when it might open again?”

“Of course!” answered Vasilios. “Petros lives there, it’s his home. He had to go to the mainland on family business, but he’ll be back soon. I keep an eye on the house when he’s away.”

Helen thanked them and returned to Day, who had closed his phone and was staring at the sea.

“I love it here,” he said, not turning to look at her. “I did the right thing buying the house.”

“You did indeed.”

“How were the facilities?”

“Very clean. You go past the right-hand side of the taverna and turn left. I just had a little chat with the owners, actually. They’re a nice couple, called Vasilios and Maroula. Keen to tell me they have two rooms which they hire out to visitors, students and archaeologists mostly, and people with metal detectors looking for things on the beach.”

“Seekers after antiquities?”

“Just the usual hopefuls, I imagine. Vasilios said there was nothing around here to find.”

“There certainly can’t be anything of great age still undiscovered on Naxos, at least not lying about on the surface. But it explains how the taverna can possibly survive out here.”

“They said the Elias Museum will open soon. They seem friendly with the owner, Petros. It seems he’s visiting the mainland on a family matter.”

“Excellent.” Day slapped at an invisible insect on his neck and put his phone in his jacket pocket. “Well, shall we go home for lunch? I must just inspect the facilities first.”