The Venetian House, page 18
Waves were pluming above the rocks, sending up great fountains of spray when it suddenly occurred to Victoria that she would have considerable trouble landing. Worse – what if she managed to land but hadn’t the strength to moor the boat properly? It was as though an electric current had been passed through her, giving her such a jolt that she literally jerked – and came to her senses.
But with sense came fear. What a fool she was! What on earth had possessed her? No good even attempting to get on the island today – the sooner she turned for home the better. Perhaps she could get back before anyone discovered that in her unbalanced state of misery she had attempted such a pointless and foolhardy expedition. She knew it would be much slower and more difficult going back with a head wind, rain and the sea becoming rougher by the minute. As she struggled to turn the boat against the waves she wondered if Jake was awake yet, had perhaps pattered into her room to snuggle into her bed as he often did if he woke early – and found her gone. Jake! Have I gone completely and utterly mad? she thought, in horror. How could I have done anything so reckless? Real terror now took over.
She became aware that the engine seemed to be firing unevenly, stuttering and then racing, but she had no idea what this signified or what to do about it. Dear God! Don’t let the engine fail, she prayed desperately. Help me! Save me! Save me for Jake. And she started to bargain incoherently with the unknown deity whose very existence she had so recently started to doubt. She thought of the Vrahos icon and found herself babbling all the childish prayers she had been taught by Evanthi years ago, desperately invoking the two saints depicted on it – both famous miracle workers – repeating their names over and over again. She was already soaked to the skin and she was quite oblivious to the tears that now poured down her face and mingled indistinguishably with the rain and spray that lashed her cheeks.
It was at this moment that the engine cut out completely.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a terrible moment when Guy sighted the Vrahos pilotina, bucketing drunkenly about in the open sea at a terrifying angle, the stern already awash. There was no one in it.
‘Did she have a life jacket on?’ asked Petros.
‘God, I hope so.’
Guy knew that Yannis kept one stowed away on the boat but whether Victoria knew this, or in her present state of mind would have put it on, he didn’t dare to think. He trained his binoculars on the bay and then handed them to Petros.
‘Look,’ he said. There was definitely something orange on the one small beach where it was possible to land. Neither of them spoke. As they got closer they could make out a figure in a life jacket – but it was impossible to tell what sort of state it might be in. As Petros brought the boat in as close as he could, Guy flung himself overboard and waded ashore. The water felt arctic.
‘Vicky!’ he shouted as he ran up the beach. ‘Vicky! We’re here. It’s all right.’
Victoria was slumped against a rock, absolutely still with her eyes shut. There was clotted blood on her forehead and she made no movement. Although she must have been conscious enough to drag herself a short way up the beach at some stage, for one awful moment he thought she was dead. Then he detected a faint pulse. He held her to him, chafing her hands, rubbing her back and speaking urgently to her. He didn’t think the wound on her forehead looked deep, but she was like a block of ice and quite as unresponsive.
‘Come on, Vicky, come on – speak to me,’ he said urgently. ‘Wake up. Can you hear me?’
She let out a moan and her eyelids flickered. Then she opened them and stared at him.
‘Jake?’ she asked faintly. ‘Jake?’
Jake’s fine. Are you hurt?’
‘D-Don’t think so – don’t know. I c-can’t remember.’ She seemed thoroughly confused, closed her eyes and appeared to drift off to sleep.
‘Wake up,’ said Guy again. ‘Try to tell me what happened?’
She opened her eyes but for a moment looked quite blank. Then she seemed to be making an effort to concentrate. ‘I th-think I hit my h-head trying to crawl ashore. I couldn’t – couldn’t land – then the engine f-failed. The boat f-filled up with water and I th-thought it was going to s-sink.’
It didn’t seem the moment to remind her of the golden rule that you should stick with your boat until it actually sinks. Her teeth suddenly started to chatter violently – a good sign, Guy knew. The relief was overwhelming. Together Guy and Petros got her into his boat, wrapped her in a blanket and forced some brandy down her throat.
‘Better go to Kryovrisi,’ suggested Guy. ‘We’ll never get her up the path to Vrahos if we go to the bay.’
Petros nodded. ‘I’ll run you home in my car. It will be quicker.’
Guy suddenly felt furious with Victoria – all his pent-up anxiety surfacing now that the crisis was over.
‘What the hell did you think you were playing at?’ he demanded, only just restraining himself from shaking her. ‘You bloody, irresponsible little fool. How could you do such a stupid thing?’
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘S-So sorry. I must have been m-mad.’ She closed her eyes again and leaned against him. ‘I feel a bit muddled,’ she murmured.
‘It’s all right,’ he said gruffly, the anger draining out of him as he looked down at her. ‘We’ll talk later – but oh, Vicky don’t ever, ever give us a fright like that again.’
Later Guy came to say goodbye to Victoria before Yannis drove him to the airport to catch an early evening flight to Athens. He thought she looked very slight and fragile in the great bed, her face as white as the big square pillows against which she was propped, her dark, almost black hair and eyes emphasising the pallor of her skin.
The doctor had been earlier and checked her over, dressed the cut on her head, which luckily, he said, was not deep, but added that since she had obviously lost consciousness for a short time and must have been concussed, she should stay quiet in bed. He announced that he would look in again the following day to check on her. Dora had packed hot-water bottles round her and Victoria had drifted in and out of sleep most of the afternoon. Now Jake was curled up beside her like a puppy.
‘I must say, you two look very cosy,’ said Guy with an attempt at cheerfulness that he did not feel. ‘Jake, Nonna wants you to go down to have tea with her in the little drawing room.’
‘Can’t I stay and have it with Mum?’
‘I think Nonna would be disappointed – she wants to play spillikins with you after tea. She says you beat her on your last visit here before she was ill and now she’s so much better she wants her revenge. You can come back to Mum later. I’ll come and see if you’re winning before I go. Off you go – there’s a good chap.’
‘I’m very, very good at spillikins so I expect I’ll win,’ said Jake modestly, climbing off the bed. Then he suddenly turned and clutched Victoria in a violent bear hug that made her wince. Her head throbbed and she felt dreadful. She stroked his cheek. ‘Run along then darling,’ she said. ‘But come back and see me later.’
‘You won’t go away again, will you?’ he asked from the doorway.
‘I promise,’ she said, horribly conscious that she had multiplied his insecurities.
Guy closed the door after Jake and came to sit on the edge of her bed in his place. They looked at each other in silence for a minute, both conscious that there were many things that might be said, but neither of them wanting to be the first to speak.
Then Victoria said in a low voice, ‘When the boat started to sink I absolutely willed you to come and rescue me – and you did. How did you know where I’d gone?’
‘Because I’d wanted to go there too,’ he answered. ‘To look for answers and try to make sense of things. Call it a sixth sense or a lucky guess but all that matters is that you’re all right.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I must have been crazy – completely out of my mind. What you told me came as such a terrible shock. I’m haunted by how desperate Richard must have been to do such a terrible thing, and yet I still feel so bitter with you both. I don’t know how I’m going to come to terms with it.’
‘Have I lost you, Vicky?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Will we ever be able to get back to how things were?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know, Guy. I’m truly thankful to you for saving me but that’s as far as I can go at the moment. I can’t take in that Richard was really someone quite different from the husband I thought I knew so well – I simply can’t get my head around that at all. Last night I went over and over our marriage, trying to look for signs that should have warned me – trying to bring Richard back. Wondering when it all went wrong and why I didn’t see it years ago. But all I could focus on was that Richard wasn’t real – that our relationship, all our years together, were a fake and that you knew it all along. But I hate myself too. It doesn’t bear thinking of that I risked what blighted my own childhood happening to Jake – losing both parents!’
She put her hands over her eyes as though to blot out an unbearable sight, then moved her head on the pillow and winced again. She said, ‘I’ve been lying here trying to dredge up every detail about my mother and father – something I hardly ever do now. When I was Jake’s age I used to conjure them up every night before I went to sleep, although it was almost too painful to bear. I was always terrified that one day I might try to take them out of the private place in my head only to find they weren’t there any more, and had faded away like watercolours exposed to too much light. It was a horror I could never tell anyone – not even Nonna. Now I can’t find Richard in my head and even if I did, I wouldn’t any longer know what was real and what was my imagination. It’s a nightmare.’
Guy took her hand but it lay, limp and unresponsive in his. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
‘How well do you remember my parents?’ she asked.
‘Oh, very well. Don’t forget I was nearly twelve at the time of the crash. I suppose I didn’t see them that often but they made a huge impression whenever they came over to stay with us, or if we all overlapped here. Your mother was wonderfully pretty and I was as susceptible as most small boys to charm. And Uncle Constantine always seemed incredibly dashing and funny. I longed to be like him – I clearly remember that.’
‘You’re very like him to look at now,’ said Victoria. ‘You even smile and move like him. I know you do because just before Christmas last year when we’d gone over for Sunday lunch at Durnford, Toula had been turning out the attic and come across a box of old cine films – oh, of lots of things, like her and Uncle Anthony’s wedding, and you when you were little, and suddenly there were Pappa and Mamma with me as a baby. Jake was watching the film with us so I pretended I was thrilled to see it all, but afterwards when we’d got home I started to cry and simply couldn’t stop. Richard was awfully bothered but I couldn’t help it. Of course I’d seen ordinary photographs before, but it was different to see them moving and laughing and waving … and, and holding me. It was the most extraordinary shock.’
Guy could see she was reliving the moment. The drowsiness must be wearing off, he thought, because the words now seemed to be pouring out of her in a feverish sort of way – but at least she was speaking to him again.
‘D’you know what I still mind most?’ she asked. He shook his head. ‘That I never said goodbye to them. Isn’t that strange after all these years? And now Jake and I couldn’t say goodbye to Richard either.’ She gazed at him with a haunted look in her eyes.
‘When do you mean to come back to England?’ he asked at last. ‘I don’t imagine you’ll be up to travelling for a bit. Will you stay out here for Easter?’
She pleated the sheet between her fingers. ‘I might not come back this summer at all,’ she said. ‘Not just because of what happened this morning but because of lots of other things too. I suppose you could say I’d be running away.’
‘No, of course not. I think it might be right for you. Nonna would adore it. Look, Vicky – you can’t escape from what’s happened wherever you are, so you should be in whichever place helps you cope best. Stay out here all summer – and then review the situation.’
‘I’m not sending Jake back without me.’
‘Jake’s half Greek anyway. What’s wrong with him living in this country for a bit? I think it would be good for him – a break with the past, but in familiar surroundings. Why don’t you send him to school in Kryovrisi with Angelo for the summer? He’d pick up the language without even trying – children do. We did. You don’t need to take any long-term decisions yet.’
‘The Cunninghams won’t like it. Can you imagine what Meriel and June will say – they’ve always been darkly suspicious of my “foreign blood”. I might come from Mars, as far as they’re concerned. They never thought I was the right sort of wife for Richard – Meriel didn’t, anyway – but while he was alive they had to accept me. I dread all their criticism now. And what about poor Bill?’
‘The ugly sisters will have to look after him. Poor chap, he has to cope with his grief in his own way too – we all do. With the best of intentions you mightn’t be much help to each other at the moment. And it’s not as if you’re proposing to keep Jake away from him for ever. Bill could come out and see you both here, if he wanted to.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I hate leaving you,’ he said reluctantly, ‘but I have to go. I daren’t miss this flight because I have that big interview to do first thing tomorrow.’
‘I know you do,’ she said dully. ‘You told me.’
He wondered sadly if the precious, almost telepathic, bond there had always been between them would ever return.
‘Will you still come and stay with me … with us … in London?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Then, with an obvious effort she said: ‘Give … give my love to Francine. And, Guy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Tell her I’m pleased for you both about the baby.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll do that. That’s very generous of you. One day, you and Francine might even get to like each other better than either of you thinks possible now.’ He added wryly, ‘You’re the only person I know who makes her really nervous. Quite an achievement.’ She gave him an unfathomable look.
He got up. ‘I must say goodbye to Nonna before I go. Forgive me if you can, Vicky.’ He bent over to give her a farewell kiss but she did not respond. ‘Take as long as you need to lick your wounds – and then start living again. I think the wind is going to change for you.’
She watched him go. At the door he turned, hoping for her usual smile – but she turned her face away. Then she heard him running downstairs and a few minutes later the slam of a car door. The wind had dropped as suddenly as it had got up earlier that morning, and the house seemed strangely quiet after the racket of the storm. She wondered from which direction the next wind would blow and whether she would welcome the changes it might bring.
She thought it was typical of Guy to dash off and leave so much unresolved. She lay straining her ears to hear the sound of the car driving off – taking Guy away from her. Taking him back to his wife.
Chapter Seventeen
Patrick reread the letter on his desk, took a decision and picked up the telephone. Then he went to look for his wife.
She was in the drawing room writing letters and he stood looking at her for a moment.
‘Darling?’
‘Mmm?’ Rachel turned round, her pretty face marred by the look of discontent that his presence seemed to invoke nowadays.
‘I’ve just made a plan. I hope you’ll approve.’
‘What sort of a plan?’ Rachel immediately looked defensive.
‘A plan for a holiday. I can’t go on putting off this trip to Greece much longer, but more importantly I think we all five need to get away together for a break. I think we could combine the two things. How about taking the Marshalls’ house on Corfu for a week over Easter? You know what fun we had there when we went with them – one of our most successful holidays with the children.’
‘Oh, Patrick! It’s far too short notice. Anyway, I shouldn’t think for a moment it would be free over Easter.’ Rachel was at her most dampening.
‘It is free,’ said Patrick levelly. ‘I’ve just rung Maggie on the off chance – they’re not going there themselves till June and by great good luck the people they’d let it to for Easter have cancelled.’
‘You’ve talked to Maggie about it without asking me first?’
‘I’m asking you now. You wouldn’t come with me on your own five weeks ago so let’s all go together and make it a proper family holiday. I could go on to mainland Greece and possibly Italy later but it’s this old Venetian House on Corfu I really want to see first and I’ve just heard from Winterton’s that they’ve got permission for me to photograph it – but Saphira thinks I ought to buck up and get on with it because old Evanthi Doukas, who owns it, is pretty frail.’ Saphira Winterton was Patrick’s agent. ‘What do you say?’ he asked. ‘Saphira says the old lady’s agreed to give me an interview provided she’s well enough. It seems such a marvellous opportunity.’
‘I’ll have to think about it. I’m not sure it suits my plans. Anyway what makes you think Sam and Sophie would want to come? It was great when they were younger but they’d probably rather head off somewhere with their own friends now. We can’t expect them to keep on wanting to go on holiday with us.’ Coming from Rachel, who always made endless objections whenever any of her young wanted to branch out and do something in which she had no hand, Patrick thought this was a bit rich.
