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It was true, she was, her eyes brighter, her face mobile and excited. She had put on a loose, dark red linen kaftan embroidered around the neck in gold, and falling to her feet; the reflection of the colour on her skin gave her a healthy flush. That worrying listlessness had gone; she was alive and alert once more.
As they were getting into the car Elena walked over to them. ‘Going somewhere nice?’
‘Just for a drive,’ Charles said.
‘Well, have a good time. Tell me, when is Alex coming back?’ Was she waiting here until he did? thought Miranda bleakly.
‘He never tells us.’
They drove out of the hotel grounds five minutes later and headed into the hills to the little village Pandora had talked about, a few dozen pastel-washed houses – pale apricot, blue and yellow – surrounded with ancient olive trees, their silvery green leaves fluttering like butterflies in a gentle breeze, their great, gnarled trunks growing out of terraces marked off by low stone walls. In the centre stood the church, pale terracotta, with white-painted windows. The colours blurred and shone in the afternoon sunlight.
Charles parked outside the church and took Miranda inside, out of the hot, bright sun into the deep, cool shadows where the icons of saints glowed round the walls, silver and gold backgrounds to the faces.
‘The church was started in the eleventh century, but took many years to finish because whenever the village ran out of money they stopped work.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ Miranda said, staring at the offerings attached to icons, thank-yous for the saint who had cured a disease, helped a woman have a baby. She walked around the circle of walls, under the dome, to look at the Byzantine faces; strong and stern, St John, St Basil, the Apostles staring down, grouped around Jesus.
Her favourite was the Adoration of the Magi painted in gold, black and flame-like red, with a very plump baby Jesus waving a palm leaf at his mother who had a faintly bewildered expression, as if not quite sure who he was. Around them stood saints and kings whose faces were quite blank of expression except that they had great dignity and pride, enrobed in their magnificence, with golden halos round their heads.
Before they left, Miranda knelt in front of a dark, tender icon of the virgin and lit a candle for Pandora, as she had promised, praying silently that the baby would be born safely in due time. Charles also lit a candle, knelt beside her; she sensed that his prayer was the same as hers. It must be very hard for him too, this difficult pregnancy, especially, as Pandora said, when he was kept so busy running the hotel.
When they rejoined her, Pandora was leaning back in her seat, watching a small gecko on a stone wall near the car, his throat gulping, eyes closed as he absorbed the hot sun into his greeny-grey body.
‘I love lizards, don’t you?’ she whispered, then as they got back into the car a chestnut-headed little bird dived down out of the bright blue sky and flew off with the unfortunate lizard wriggling helplessly in his beak.
It all happened so quickly it made them jump.
‘A woodchat shrike!’ Pandora said, shivering. ‘Horrible birds, they impale lizards on thorns and keep them to eat later – you can see their larders in the woods. A row of pathetic little bodies waiting for dinner time. Ugh. Enough to make you turn vegetarian.’
‘Let’s go home now,’ Charles said, watching her anxiously. Her emotional reactions were too fierce; she was white again, trembling. ‘Don’t upset yourself, darling.’
‘I’m fine,’ she insisted obstinately. ‘Charles, I want to buy some rolls from the shop across there. I’ve been smelling the bread while I waited, it’s made me hungry.’
‘I’ll go,’ Miranda said. ‘It will give me a chance to practise my Greek.’ She had been working for an hour a day at the language, but reading it was one thing – speaking it another.
There were several women in the shop; tanned so deeply they were almost black, with headscarfs over their hair, all of them in well-washed cotton dresses. They stared and she shyly said good afternoon.
‘Ya soo, thespeenees.’ they chorused. Hello, miss.
She pointed at a wicker basket of rolls. ‘Psomakee, parakalo.’ Holding up her hands, counting off fingers, she indicated that she wanted six.
The shopkeeper shook her head and said, ‘Ne!’ Why did they always shake their heads and make a negative sound when they meant yes? Were they trying to be awkward, or trying to deceive any enemy watching? She did not know of any other people who did that.
As the rolls were put into a bag she noticed a bowl of fresh figs and asked for a kilo of them. The other customers watched her without comment or expression. Were they hostile, or simply being polite? The trouble with a foreign country was that you did not instinctively pick up the secret, subterranean language.
She paid and walked back to the car. Pandora immediately began to eat one of the golden rolls, taking bites out of a purple-black fig, too, from time to time as they drove along.
‘It’s odd, I’m suddenly hungry,’ she said.
/> ‘That’s good, you haven’t eaten much for days,’ her husband said, smiling.
The figs had glistening, sensuous pink flesh; Miranda watched Pandora’s teeth tearing at them. Her mouth watered. They looked so good. There were always figs on the buffet table at lunch in the hotel; she must have some tomorrow.
‘I really feel so much better,’ Pandora confessed, yawning. ‘Just having a change of scene, and some sunshine, and fresh air, has given my spirits a boost.’
‘Well, whenever you want to go out, just tell me, in future,’ Charles said, pulling in through the gates of the hotel grounds.
‘There’s Alex!’ Pandora gasped, leaning forward to stare.
