Stuart Harrison - Aphrodite’s Smile

For Dale, who has to put up with me

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Part One

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Part Two

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Keep Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Author’s Note

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

French was drunk, which wasn’t in itself an extraordinary event. He wobbled slightly as he stood at the bar and, raising his hands in the air, surveyed the assembled crowd.

‘My friends,’ he began loudly, ‘in gratitude for the welcome you have extended to me during the years that I have been privileged to live among you, I will make a gift to the people of Ithaca.’ He paused for dramatic effect, and waited until he was sure that he had everybody’s attention before he continued. ‘This year the Panaghia will once again take her place at the head of the procession to Kathara.’

There were murmurs of surprise from those who had not heard the Professor, as he was known among the locals, make this same claim two nights earlier. Everybody on the island knew that the statue of the Holy Virgin had been stolen more than sixty years ago, and the Professor’s claim was greeted with interest or scepticism, depending on the listener’s point of view.

The bar was in a narrow street at the far southern end of the harbour around which the town of Vathy had been built, separated from the wharf by a row of run-down houses. Half a dozen zinc tables lined the footpath outside where old men played checkers and drank ouzo. Inside the air was thick with cigarette smoke.

French leaned against the bar to steady himself and peered around at a blur of faces, wagging a finger at nobody in particular. ‘I know there are those among you who will doubt me. I confess that for a time I myself thought that all of these years I have spent searching had been in vain.’ A slight wave of nausea momentarily overtook him and French belched softly.

Some of those present crossed themselves or briefly touched the crucifixes they wore around their necks, silently praying that the Professor’s claims weren’t merely the result of drinking too much wine. Before she was stolen, the statue of the Panaghia had been at the centre of the festival. After the procession to the monastery, the people would approach her one by one and silently pray for her blessing for the coming year. Perhaps if she was returned, the Holy Mother might send more tourists to the island so that it could prosper as its neighbour Kephalonia had. All summer long the charter jets disgorged their cargoes of package holiday-makers across the strait, though distressingly few of them made the ferry trip to Ithaca.

Spiro, however, was not among the more optimistic of those present in Skiopes bar that night. He had come to drink beer and forget his terrible day. To begin with, the engine on his boat wouldn’t start, and then, when he had managed to coax it into life and eventually put to sea, it was only to rip a hole in his main net after it became entangled with some piece of junk floating beneath the surface a mile offshore. In the end he had returned with barely enough in his catch to cover his costs and he was not in a good mood. ‘You talk too much,’ he muttered sourly to French, lifting his eyes from his almost empty glass.

Annoyed at having his train of thought interrupted, French frowned briefly. He was in full flight now, his imagination fuelled by the realisation of a dream he had pursued for almost a quarter of a century. ‘You will see, Spiro,’ he replied. ‘Even you will have reason to thank me, though of course gratitude is not what I seek, nor has it ever been.’

‘And pigs will fly,’ Spiro sneered. He was in the mood for an argument with somebody and this arrogant Englishman would do. He was sick and tired of hearing his crap anyway.

‘You are an ignorant man,’ French proclaimed. ‘You should stick to fishing, about which you at least know a little.’

There were a few chuckles around the smoky room, since it was common knowledge that Spiro was possibly the worst fisherman on the island. Spiro glowered from beneath heavy brows. ‘At least what I do is honest work, fit for a man. I do not waste my time with my nose stuck in books.’ He held up his hands for emphasis. His fingers were short and thick with calluses.

The Professor was an educated man, however, engaged in scholarly work, and for such men life was different. So though one or two heads nodded in sage agreement, most did not. Besides, Spiro had few friends.

French dismissed Spiro’s remarks with a wave of his hand. ‘I would not expect you to understand, Spiro, but some men, like myself, are destined not for the toil of workman’s labour as honourable as that may be, but rather we are driven to pursue knowledge through history, promoting understanding of ourselves through the understanding of our forebears. This work may look easy to you but it too has its difficulties, believe me.’

‘Difficulties!’ scoffed Spiro. ‘What do you know of difficulties? Do you put to sea every day even when the wind is howling from the south? When the waves toss the boats of poor fishermen like children’s toys and the cold freezes your fingers to the bone? Do you risk your life just to feed your family?’

Though it was an impressive speech, nobody in fact could remember Spiro risking anything worse than the possibility of a headache in the morning from drinking too much wine, and that alone would prevent him from putting to sea. French, however, barely heard him; he was addressing himself to a wider audience.

‘Consider the years of painstaking research that does not always bear fruit. Do you think that Sylvia Benton and her colleagues from the great British School of Archaeology in Athens simply stepped out one morning and made their discoveries in Louizos cave by mere happenstance? A site that is considered by many of my esteemed colleagues today to be the rival of Olympia and Delphi. Perhaps the very first site of panhellenic worship in all of Greece.’

Most people present had little idea of what precisely French was talking about, partly because he had a habit of slipping from Greek into his native English when he’d been drinking, though all of course knew of the cave at Polis Bay where a famous archaeologist from the thirties had discovered some pieces of ancient pottery. Nevertheless, to show their support a chorus of vocal approval rippled about the room.

But Spiro was not to be so easily beaten in an argument. ‘At least nobody can say that Spiro Petalas lives off the money his wife earns,’ he declared. ‘How can a woman respect a husband who cannot put food on the table, eh? And if a woman cannot respect her man, how can he satisfy her? Soon she will look elsewhere to find a real man, a man who can take care of her.’

It was true that French had lived for years primarily off the money that Irene earned and it was common knowledge that she had left him last year, as Spiro had indelicately reminded them. But though this might once have bothered him, it no longer did. ‘When the world learns of my discovery,’ French said, ‘there will be money. More than you can imagine. The tourists will come in their thousands and the whole island will prosper.’