Sofka Zinovieff - Putney

‘Ah, Daphne, thank God!’ It was Ellie. Her voice was thick. ‘My darling, I…’ The line crackled and hissed. ‘…Just left in his sleep. Very peaceful. But still, such a shock. Maro found him this morning when she went to make his coffee.’ Her mother’s voice rose in pitch, unable to prevent tears. Then she gave a loud sniff and continued. ‘She said he looks very handsome like in the old days. Yiayia is on her way back from Crete and I’ll fly out later today. Ed’s trying to get a ticket from Germany. The funeral will be tomorrow, in Athens. Ah, Daphnoula, at least you’ll be able to come.’

The line cut just as Ellie began asking her daughter a question. ‘Daphne, why…’ Ralph was leaning against the doorway, observing her, while kyria Lemonia was making herself busy in the kitchen, soaping cups in the marble sink. The gap in the conversation with Ellie was like a mischievous offering from the gods.

‘Quick. What do we say?’ she asked him, hopelessly incapable of creating a good excuse. ‘How do I explain that you didn’t go straight to Pelion? Shit.’

‘Shit, fuck, bugger, cunt,’ he whispered, biting his lip, mustering ideas. ‘I suppose we’ll say we left England earlier than we thought and…’ He paused, extemporising. ‘And you… you wanted to show me Aegina – just for one night. We’ll say we arrived in Athens yesterday and that we’d arranged that I’d drop you off with the cousins on Poros today or tomorrow – it was only going to be the day after that anyway. They’ll never focus on the dates, given what’s happened. What do you…?’

The telephone’s brash trill broke into his words. ‘OK? Don’t panic. Nobody’s going to worry about us. They trust me. This is a sideshow now – the attention is elsewhere. It’s all fine.’

‘Daphne, why are you at Yiayia ’s house?’ Her mother’s voice was sterner. ‘And where is Ralph? Has he gone to Pelion? Are you there alone with Jane?’

‘Uh, well, we thought… No, not alone. I wanted to show Ralph Aegina. I mean, he is here now and we… we were going to take the boat to Poros today or tomorrow and then he’s going to Pelion.’ She paused and changed tack. ‘How is Yiayia ?’

‘She’s a very strong woman. She’ll be OK. But Daphnoula, you should have told someone. I was so worried about how to find you.’

‘How did you know I was here?’ Daphne regretted the question immediately.

‘When Yiayia called me from Crete she said she didn’t know if you were there but she rang kyria Lemonia. Are there other people there too?’

‘No, just Ralph.’

‘So you’ve seen kyria Lemonia?’

‘She just came round. And she’d already left us some galaktoboureko and made up the beds.’ Daphne also regretted the word beds, but Ellie didn’t ask about sleeping arrangements.

‘OK, my sweet. Will you go back to Athens by tonight? We’ll all gather in Maroussi at Yiayia ’s house. Athena and the girls are already on the boat. The funeral will probably be tomorrow morning or early afternoon, but we’re waiting to hear from the priest. OK, agapi mou ?’ Daphne began to cry again, mostly because her mother was being so kind, calling her ‘My love’ and not cornering her with the flagrant irregularities in her story.

After she’d rung off, she and Ralph moved into the shadows at the end of the hall and he took her in his arms. She closed her eyes, feeling like a baby against its mother’s breast. Their experiment to create a miniature, private version of paradise was over. What had seemed an idyll, as contained as an island, was invaded on every side. They heard kyria Lemonia’s footsteps in the kitchen and broke apart.

‘You need to eat something,’ Ralph said in a public voice. ‘This is a shock to the system.’

Daphne felt sick and exhausted. There was a bloody sheet in the bathtub upstairs. It was like being caught in a net, caught in the act.

‘We’re going to leave later today, kyria Lemonia. I’ll put the key under the stone again, shall I? Thanks for coming round. I need to go and pack now.’ Daphne didn’t care if she sounded abrupt. This awful scene needed to be terminated. She wanted to go home, to get under the duvet in her cool, orange-tinged, Putney bedroom and forget all this.

‘Fucking shit,’ she said as soon as the interloper had left.

‘Bloody, bastard, bollocks, pools of poxy piss,’ he responded, the hint of a smile emerging as he looked into her eyes.

She managed to turn the bloodstain a faint beige colour and hung the sheet over some chairs on the loggia – it would dry quickly and then she would fling all the used sheets and towels in a pile. From the upstairs landing she heard Ralph call Nina and stood still to listen.

‘Yes, darling… Yes, Aegina, at Ellie’s mother’s house… No, but we’re leaving now because Ellie’s father died in the night… Tomorrow, in Athens… Yes, because we were able to leave earlier than we thought… Yes, yesterday. Sorry, but it was chaotic, I was exhausted, you know… In the end, I had to take her to Poros, so Aegina’s on the way…’ He laughed and replied, ‘Well you know what teenagers are like…’

Daphne scowled at the cliché of ‘difficult teenagers’, and pictured Nina in the house in Pelion. She’d stayed there with her family a year earlier and had witnessed Nina as a hostess – quiet but gracious and generous. Wonderful meals appeared, ‘As if from nowhere,’ Ellie had remarked in admiration. It was true that, in a group, she was unobtrusive. ‘A peahen to Ralph’s peacock,’ Ed said to Ellie, and they both chortled, unaware that Daphne was listening. ‘I’m not so sure,’ replied Ellie. ‘That bird has a glint in her eye. And she has him exactly where she wants. He might be preening his fancy feathers, but he needs her. She’s a marvellous mother. And she’s strong.’ Daphne had also perceived the underlying strength, even ferocity in her rival. While everyone else was sleeping, Nina got up at dawn to go and paint in the woods, returning before breakfast with incomprehensible but vivid, abstract pictures in a million shades of green. Nina might not gabble away like lots of grown-ups, but Daphne didn’t underestimate her power and avoided too much direct contact.

‘No, don’t come to Athens,’ continued Ralph on the phone. ‘There’s no need… Better to stay and be quiet. No, I’ll see what it’s like when I drop her off, but I don’t think so. I’ll check out the timetable in the late afternoon… No, thank you. I’ll make my own way from Volos. How are you coping with the heat? And our little man? I know… I can’t wait to see you both… Yes, me too.’

She noted Ralph’s easy lies, but also perceived the genuine tenderness; Nina was pregnant again. She walked slowly into the room which contained two unused single beds and flopped face down on to one. She wondered whether she was sad about Pappou and a tear rolled from her eye, but she knew the main cause of her misery was not due to this loss. Ralph’s division of life into different spheres came so naturally to him, but it wasn’t like that for her. There was no husband and child waiting for her.

When Ralph came upstairs, she was still lying spread-eagled. He sat at the end of the bed and stroked her feet, sweeping the dust from her soles and pulling each toe with matter-of-fact practicality. ‘I love you completely and utterly, Dafflings. You are my muse and my inspiration. Nothing can change that.’ She didn’t react, but lay breathing in the clean linen scent of the pillow. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t love Nina and Jason. They’re different.’ He patted her feet in rhythm with his words and appeared entirely confident with his system. ‘With you it’s another thing. We’re not bound by old-fashioned morality or small rules made by churches or by leaders who want to keep you under control. We’re free. You’re a free spirit.’