One Cretan Evening and Other Stories

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

About the Author

Praise

One Cretan Evening

The Pine Tree

By the Fire

The Warmest Christmas Ever

Aflame in Athens

Preview of
The Thread

Victoria Hislop read English at Oxford, and worked in publishing, PR and as a journalist before becoming a novelist. She is married with two children. Her first novel,
The Island
, held the number one slot in the
Sunday Times
paperback chart for eight consecutive weeks and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Victoria was the Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007 and won the Richard & Judy Summer Read competition. Her second novel,
The Return
, was also a
Sunday Times
number one bestseller, and her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Her third novel,
The Thread
, is published in autumn 2011.

To find out more, visit
www.victoriahislop.com
.

Praise for
The Island
:

‘A page-turning tale that reminds us that love and life continue in even the most extraordinary of circumstances’

‘At last – a beach book with a heart’

‘Passionately engaged with its subject . . . the author has meticulously researched her fascinating background and medical facts’

‘Hislop’s deep research, imagination and patent love of Crete creates a convincing portrait of times on the island . . . Moving and absorbing’

‘A beautiful tale of enduring love and unthinking prejudice’

Praise for
The Return
:

‘Aims to open the eyes and tug the heartstrings . . . Hislop deserves a medal for opening a breach into the holiday beach bag’

‘A vivid portrait of a country in upheaval . . . Sibling rivalry, thwarted love and an exotic Mediterranean setting’

‘Powerful stuff’

‘Like a literary Nigella, she whips up a cracking historical romance mixed with a dash of family secrets and a splash of female self-discovery’

T
HE TOURIST INVASION
was over now. The shop that made its living through sales of pink lilos and cheap bikinis from Taiwan was now shut until spring, its windows firmly boarded up. Roadside tables now groaned beneath mountains of grapes, and olives steadily ripened, ready for harvesting in December. The passing of summer brought new fruits, welcome rain and, for local people, this was the loveliest of seasons. They were alone again and the clear, sweet air allowed them to breathe.

The real machinery of this Cretan village continued to run well beyond the departure of the foreigners. The
zacharo-plasteion
still baked its daily quantities of sweet pastries and the best of the tavernas remained open even though the owners of the others had now gone to their winter homes. The priest conducted his services in the tiny chapel on the water’s edge.

Life resumed its quiet, ordered ways. Widows in black dresses, their fabric as densely ebony as the day they had begun to mourn, sat on their doorsteps, away from the men, who entertained themselves with backgammon. Dice gently tick-tacked against the side of the board as the players whiled
away the hours, moving counters from one triangular space to the next. Counters clicked together in conversation, more talkative than the men themselves.

Their knowledge of each other’s lives went so far back into earliest memory that these septuagenarians had little to say to one another. They almost breathed in unison. They would discuss some piece of local news, perhaps the election of a new deputy mayor or a birth or death, but the wider events of the world at large, a crisis in the money markets or an earthquake in Peru, did not touch them even for a moment. Their universe was this small seaside village, this square, the same one where their fathers and grandfathers had sat before them.

Only the elderly lived here now. Most young people had long since deserted, escaping to the bright lights of the island’s capital or Athens and only returning with the tourists for a week or two during August to remind themselves of where their ancestors had once lived.

Even now, with night falling, the men carried on playing and drinking their raki. There was a stillness in this moment. All day long, shadows of trees had danced against the pale faded walls and now the curtain had been drawn across their stage. Afternoon became night, as though a candle had been snuffed.

For the men outside the kafenion the transition of daytime into night went unnoticed. The tossing of dice, the refilling of small tumblers of the clear, syrupy fire water, the silent communication between them continued as before. Light or dark. It was all the same to them.

In spite of its almost noiseless arrival they were all immediately aware of the arrival of the taxi. For a moment their game of
tavli
ceased and they turned to stare as it passed.
More lovingly cared for than a millionaire’s limousine, the vehicle’s polished chrome wing mirrors reflected the gleam of the dim street lamps.

It was not a number plate they recognised. All the drivers from the nearest big town were known to them, but this one was from further afield, from Heraklion.

When it drew up further down the street, they watched as the door of the passenger seat opened and a man got out. He was incongruously dressed, as though for a funeral or wedding, a slim figure in a dark suit, and they could just make out the neat shape of his hair. More than that, they could not see. He was a figure in silhouette.

After summer, the arrival of a stranger was relatively rare. In July and August, tourists came and went leaving behind them their money and, less desirably, their carelessly discarded rubbish. Now, only the very occasional outsider appeared, wanting to experience some of the island’s legendary hospitality. By coming out of season they hoped to be welcomed in for raki, to be offered new olives and even invited to play backgammon.

The woman who owned the kafenion, Despina, came out to the front of the café and leaned against the doorway. She had heard the taxi and assumed it meant business. Clearly its passenger was not yet going to come her way. The old men shrugged and Despina retreated into the bar. Perhaps he would return later.

A thin stray of a dog had stirred as the man passed and now got up to follow him. The animal’s emaciated condition made him little threat and after a hundred yards or so the man dropped the stone that he had picked up to scare away this wasted mongrel.

Walking purposefully down to the end of the street, his fingers pressed against the smooth, cool contours of a key.

One of the old men looked up from the backgammon board.

‘Maria,’ he said quietly to the others. ‘Maria Makrakis.’

There was a muttering among them.

The man was aware of being observed and could feel the eyes of the village’s residents upon him, but he did not turn. He needed to find something and only then would he return to speak to them. The two-roomed house was at the end of the street and the door, once painted deep blue, was now back to the bare wood with only the odd patch of its original colour.

His hand sweated a little as he grasped the key. Now he was turning it in the lock, marvelling at the way this door, even after ten years or more without use, still opened. The mechanism seemed miraculously to clunk and turn and soon he was pushing open the door to be enveloped by the smell of the past.

In the gloaming he struggled to see his way across the room and flicked a cigarette lighter to guide his way. The shadows of a room untouched by time leaped about him and his memories were stirred to life by the shapes of a table, chairs and even the icons on the walls, though curiously he had never been inside this house.

The truth was that nobody at all had been inside this home for the decade since its owner had passed away. There had been no one to tidy her things, to air the room upstairs or to fold away the sheets that still lay askew across the bed. Though devout, she had been despised and unloved, her spinster state
making her an object of suspicion and derision. She had not grown up in the village and though she had lived there for nearly fifty years had always been regarded as a newcomer. This was how it had been in those days. No one could recall her having any visitors, or any friends; she was the outsider and the island’s famous hospitality had not even once been extended to her. The place smelled of abandonment and dust.

The man had been watched entering the house but no one stirred. They did not feel protective towards it. Their concern was no greater than it had been for the woman who had lived there, who had existed in the shadow of rumours that she could never dispel.

The men were whispering among themselves and the women too, though the two groups still kept their distance.

‘What’s he in there for?’ they asked each other. ‘How did he get a key?’

By now the stranger had looked in the bedside cabinet and underneath the bed itself and was going through every drawer in a small chest in the corner of the downstairs room. They were all empty except for the last, which contained a small prayer book. Opening the cover, he held up the small flame to read the inscription: