Rosie Thomas - The Potter’s House

Xan had already disentangled himself from the staggering bodies. He ran to pull the man off.

‘Oh, bollocks,’ Christopher muttered and flicked his cigarette past the tamarisk tree before going to help.

‘Yannis, Yannis,’ Xan shouted.

Christine Darby was pinned on her back by an inert body. Her arms and legs flailed helplessly. Xan hauled the man up by his shirt, exposing a thick mahogany-brown torso matted with black hair. The man muttered thickly as Christopher added his efforts to Xan’s. Together they propped him back on his feet while Mrs Darby gave a series of thin shrieks.

Olivia knelt over her.

‘It’s all right. He won’t hurt you, he’s just drunk.’

Brian Darby came out of the knot of onlookers, only a second or two belatedly, with his fists jerking like a wound-up toy. He took a cocky swing at the mumbling Yannis and missed the side of his head, and Yannis made a surprisingly swift counter-swing that did not miss. There was a soft smack as his massive hand connected with the other man’s nose. Darby fell like a sack into the arms of two other guests as Xan and Christopher pinned Yannis’s arms behind his back. Xan put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

Olivia swung from Mrs Darby to the woman’s husband, who had been lowered by his supporters into the nearest chair. The man’s nose was bleeding. A carmine stream ran down his chin and dripped on his mint-green Lacoste shirt. She caught the flow with the nearest screwed-up paper napkin and tipped his head back. His mouth flapped open and shut as he gasped like a landed codfish.

‘Here,’ she called over her shoulder to Christine who was now vertical again. ‘Hold this while I get some ice.’

Out of the shadows across the square a little posse of men came running to Xan’s whistle. They man-handled Yannis’s now unprotesting bulk out of the light and towed it away.

Xan wiped the flat of his hands down the sides of his jeans and dropped his shoulders.

‘Okay, everyone. Drama over now. Let me see how it seems, Brian.’

Olivia came back with ice cubes from the kitchen fridge.

‘Bloody well assaulted me,’ Mr Darby puffed. His nose, when Olivia manipulated it, appeared not to be broken. ‘I want to report him.’

‘Of course you do, I understand that. I’m so sorry this happened. But he’s been drinking, you know. Yannis and his wife have been friends of mine for many years, they have had some troubles …’

Xan was soothing. His big warm hands turned the man’s chin from side to side as he explored for signs of further damage. Olivia put her arm round Christine’s shoulders. The other guests murmured in a circle, telling each other exactly what had happened, enjoying the excitement. Darby had not been an especially well-liked group member.

Christopher had followed the village men and their cargo but he slipped back now and gave Xan a tranquil nod. Evidently Yannis had been made safe for the night.

‘I want to call the police.’

Xan pressed the ice pack over the bridge of the man’s nose.

Mrs Darby seemed fully recovered. She squeezed Olivia’s hand and let go of it, then peered down into the upturned dish of her husband’s face, with no sign of appetite.

‘You punched him first, in fact.’

‘He assaulted you. What should I do, shake hands with him?’

‘I don’t think he meant to …’

‘I’m certain he didn’t,’ Xan said. ‘He’s the gentlest of men, normally.’

Brian pushed aside the ice pack and forged to his feet. The bleeding had stopped, but there was a rusty patch on his chin and a crust in the groove beneath his nose.

‘I know what’s right,’ he bellowed. ‘Whose side are you all on?’

Xan and Olivia were shoulder to shoulder, with Christopher under the tamarisk branches a yard away. At the same moment two of the men who had led Yannis away rematerialised at the outer rim of the lantern light. The men looked around. ‘I see. Stick together, you island people, don’t you? Suppose you have to, in a place this size. Marry each other’s sisters. Or your own.’

‘Brian …’

He cut his wife short. ‘I’m going to wash my face, then I’m going to bed.’

After he had gone Christine said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked embarrassed and unhappy.

‘It was Yannis’s fault. But he meant no harm, I can promise you.’

She followed her husband, out of sight around the blue wall of the house to the studios.

Xan picked up the brandy bottle. ‘I’m so sorry about all that. Would anyone like another drink?’

But it was clear that the party was over. Olivia glanced up at the shutters of her sons’ room. If either of them had been woken by the raised voices, they might be afraid.

‘I’m just going to see …’ She whispered to Xan.

The room was faintly barred with light that came through the cracks in the shutters. It was scented with skin and damp, sweaty heads. Georgi was sleeping on his back with one arm flung above his head but Theo’s bed was empty.

The bedsheets were rumpled, still slightly warm. She knelt on the splintery floorboards and looked under the bed, but there were only a few clumps of dust and a plastic toy soldier. The one cupboard was empty except for clothes and toys. She whirled round, soundlessly for Georgi’s sake. The window was open but the shutters were securely latched behind it. Outside in the corridor there was darkness and only the light from downstairs throwing a dim glow that just reached the top of the stairs. The door to her bedroom stood ajar; the white bedcover was stretched smooth, the curtain that hung across an alcove to make a wardrobe revealed nothing but clothes when she drew it aside. Theo was not in here either.

Olivia fled to the last door on the upper floor.

The door stood open. This was a little boxroom, with one tiny window looking away from the sea. It had been Olivia’s darkroom, or that was the original idea when she and Xan had first bought the house. But she took very few photographs now: there was too little spare time. It was used mostly as storage space for art supplies. She stepped into the thick darkness and immediately she knew that Theo was here.

Carefully she knelt down and stretched out her hand. Her fingers connected with a warm curve of pyjamaed body. She gave a sharp exhalation of relief and patted him, quickly exploring the small shape. He was fast asleep, curled up on the floor between the door and the wall. He had been sleepwalking again, had found their bed empty and had wandered on in search of his mother and father.

Olivia crouched down, breathing unarticulated snatches of gratitude and relief. She scooped the child into her arms and held him against her, one hand cupping the back of his head. Then she trod back to his bedroom and laid him down under the covers. She sat for a few minutes on the floor beside the bed, listening to his easy sleep and breathing in the smell of him. A yard away Georgi gave a small sigh and turned over. They were fast asleep, both of them. She stood up and hovered for a minute longer. Theo had always been a light sleeper, troubled by nightmares that were the dark side of his vivid imagination. He didn’t yet have the words to express his ideas and the frustration came out as tantrums or clashes with his brother, or in his sleepwalking. She didn’t know why this frightened her so much.

Max and she had been the same, she was thinking, only she had been the volatile one and Max had obediently followed where she led. He climbed the garden walls after her and dug burrows to hide in, and stole penny sweets from the corner shop under her direction. They made their own world of hierarchies and escape routes, clothing them from the dressing-up box and living outside what they didn’t yet understand to be their parents’ compromises.