The Disappearance of Ophelia Blue

Chapter 4

3

3Day woke to find that he had slept longer than Helen and she had already got up. He slid his hand across to the side of the bed that for so many years he had shared with no-one, and found it cold. He imagined her making coffee, or already drinking it on the balcony, or on the sofa in the main room. He indulged in a few moments of quiet contentment. He had always been happy with his own company, but when his relationship with Helen had changed from friendship to love, and she had quite suddenly become essential to his happiness, his life had become immeasurably better.

He reached out for his phone to see the time, despite knowing that this was irrelevant to his island existence. There was a new message from Maurice, his London agent, but it would keep for later. He got out of bed and opened the bedroom door.

“Morning!” called Helen. “Coffee nearly ready, but have your shower first if you like.”

He said he’d take a quick shower and found a clean shirt on his way to the bathroom. The warm water was insufficient to drench him, the water system being quite old, but it certainly completed the task of waking him up. He was not a morning person, although since living with Helen in Hampstead over the winter he had begun to improve. He quickly dried himself and was soon dressed and ready for the day.

Helen was sitting at the balcony table with a large cafetière of coffee, her hands round a cup. The morning was still cool, but the sun had just emerged over the hills to the east, banishing some of the shadows and creating new ones that stretched long and thin across the ground. In a few weeks the balcony would be warm at this hour, but for now she needed a jumper round her shoulders. Day put his hand beneath it and briefly stroked her neck.

“You’re up early, for you,” she murmured. “It’s only half past seven.”

“I missed you. Have you been up long?”

“A while. I was woken by the braying of a donkey somewhere, and I knew at once I was back in Greece. I’ve been watching the sun come up.”

“We’ve only been here a week and it already feels longer, almost like we never left. The island has enfolded us again. Do you feel that?”

She smiled. “Absolutely. Although I notice you haven’t touched any work yet, Professor Day!”

Day winced. He could never quite lose the ‘Professor’, which he had certainly never earned in any university, having acquired it when working on a documentary for a history channel. They had given him the title without consulting him. At some level, of course, he quite liked it. Cristopoulos had used it sometimes, but Day had never known whether he was being serious or not.

“You’re right. I shall start work this afternoon. I’ve just noticed a new message from Maurice on my phone - surely he can’t expect any results yet? Anyway I thought this morning we could go and see Vasilios and Maroula over at Paralia Votsala, if you like? We could get some food at the supermarket on the way before it gets busy.”

Day clearly had little appetite for starting work.

The supermarket was on the outskirts of Chora, just off the road from Filoti. There were already quite a few cars on the gravelled parking area, and fresh produce was still being unloaded from vans and stacked by the front door. A local hotelier was intercepting what he needed before it could even be laid out. Day and Helen had a system for food shopping. Helen would pick up the meat, salad and what Day called ‘cooking stuff ’, while he shopped for snacks and drinks. First he put a six-pack of mineral water into his trolley, not because there was anything wrong with the local water but because it was easier to chill it in the fridge. As Helen went to the meat counter and began to ask for what she wanted, Day walked directly to examine the wine, where he quickly became absorbed.

“Right,” he said when they met up again, “I have water, drinks, nibbles, lemons and that kind of thing. What else do you want me to get?”

“Coffee? Bread? I suppose it’s no use giving you the job of fruit or vegetables, is it? I’ll do that, and I’ll meet you at the till. Oh, you get the olive oil too.”

Day nodded; he loved a really good olive oil, mopped up with fresh bread or drizzled over rocket. He studied the shelves carefully, finally choosing a small tin of Cretan Extra Virgin which he hoped would be full of flavour and that tempting green colour that he associated with certain good oils. A packet of coffee and two bags of the delicious local flatbreads completed his task.

He looked with interest at the contents of Helen’s trolley as they waited at the till. There were packs of meat, hand-wrapped and labelled, and similar parcels from the cheese counter. He approved of the bunch of fresh rocket and the bag of dark red tomatoes, but he could never really understand why she bought so much fruit.

From the supermarket they drove north along the coast in the direction of Engares. As usual they had the road almost entirely to themselves. For most of the time the coast was out of sight, but after Engares they took a small road towards the sea that was signposted to Paralia Votsala, or Pebble Beach. A new sign had appeared that read ‘Elias House Accommodation’, replacing the older one to ‘Nikos Elias Museum’.

“Vasilios has been busy,” noted Day approvingly.

The Elias House, formerly the home of the historian Nikos Elias, now belonged to Day. He had converted it into visitor accommodation which, whenever possible, he rented out to scholars, writers or artists in keeping with its past. Day’s friend Vasilios, whose taverna lay at the other end of the bay, had accepted the job of looking after the property. It was an arrangement that worked well for them both.

The road down to the sea at Paralia Votsala ended abruptly in a T-junction, nothing ahead but a narrow strip of stony sand that fringed the water of the bay. Day paused here to glance left towards the Elias House. White and sprawling, it was tucked between the cliff and the sea, and even at this distance it brought back powerful memories. Helen let him gaze without interruption until he put the Fiat in gear again and turned towards the pretty taverna in the other direction. Aptly named Taverna Ta Votsala, it was the only other building on the bay. Despite its isolation it was never short of customers, and even now they could see a few cars parked outside and people sitting at the tables that stretched along the shingle under the tamarisk trees.

“My good friends!” called Vasilios, a smiling old man in a white shirt, coming towards them. He wrapped them each in a familial embrace. “It is so good to see you! Come in, take a seat, I will bring your coffee. You like the same as usual?”

He gestured them to a table flanked by blue-painted wooden chairs and turned away towards the bar. From inside the house a woman appeared, drying her hands on her apron, his wife Maroula.

“Martin, Helen, ti kanete? We’re so happy that you’re back with us again. Vasilio has been doing some repairs on the Elias House, and I have aired it ready for your first guests. I believe they arrive next week? They will find the house in the very best condition…”

ti kanete“I’m sure they will, Maroula, thank you!” said Helen. “Can you join us for a coffee?”

“Thank you, Eleni mou. I’ll come over in a few moments.”

She bustled back to the bar and Day looked at Helen. “Eleni? I think you’ve just become an honorary Greek. Or maybe you’ve been adopted. They both look well, don’t they? In fact, it feels like only yesterday that we were here. Except there’s a bit of storm damage over there on the side of their kitchen. Perhaps I should offer a bit of extra cash to Vasilios when the moment is right…”

He said no more because Vasilios appeared with the tray of coffee. He set it down on the table and stood smiling until invited to sit down with them. Maroula arrived with cups of Greek coffee for herself and her husband, and four pieces of homemade cake. During the exchange of news that followed, Helen nibbled her cake. Day was just giving her the little biscuit that had arrived with his frappé when Maroula took him by surprise.

“So, Eleni mou, you and Martin are now engaged?”

Helen laughed and nearly spilt her coffee. Vasilios glowered at his wife and began to apologise.

“Don’t worry, Vasili, we don’t mind being asked. The answer, Maroula, is that we’re not engaged, but we are … together.”

Briefly she wondered whether Vasilios and Maroula might disapprove of their informal arrangement, but her fears proved groundless. There was no outpouring of congratulations, but something better: gratified smiles suggesting that this was not a surprise, and nods of vindication and approval.

“Synharitiria! Congratulations! May you stay together on Naxos for ever!” said Vasilios. His wife patted his shoulder in agreement, and more coffee was offered.

Synharitiria!An insistent noise from Day’s pocket dragged him away from the idyllic prospect of life on Naxos. He took out his mobile and saw that it was a call from a UK mobile number. The ringing stopped before he could answer, and he put the phone on the table.

“Sorry,” he said, “it was a call from England, I expect it’s about work.”

Vasilios and Maroula strolled back to the bar so that he could return the call, and Helen went to visit the bathroom. Day looked at the number on his phone again, but it was not one that he knew. He pressed the call button and listened to the ring tone. When it stopped there was a woman’s voice at the other end.

“Hello, is that Martin?” she said. Day tried to understand how he recognised her voice. “Is this the right number for Martin Day?”

“This is Martin Day. Who’s that?”

“Ophelia. Ophelia Blue.”

“My god, Ophelia? How wonderful to hear from you. How are you? How did you find me?”

The woman at the other end laughed and said she was well. “We have a mutual friend, Alex Harding-Jones. We met in London and your name was mentioned. I told him our connection and asked for your number.”

“Brilliant. I can’t quite believe it even now. Are you still in London?”

“No, at home in Cambridge. I met Alex when I was at UCL for a conference. And you, Martin, you’re settled in Greece, I understand?”

“Yes, I moved to Athens some years ago and now I have a house on Naxos. I kept the small apartment in Athens, but frankly I love island life, especially in the summer. You know Alex got married last November?”

“Yes, he told me. You were there, he said, with your partner.”

“That’s right. Helen. So, what’s your news?”

“News? Well, life goes on in Cambridge much the same as when you were here. We can’t possibly catch up over the phone, you know, it must be eighteen years since we last met. That’s in a way why I’m calling you. I’m coming to Naxos. In fact I’ll be there early next week. It’s the university vacation and I’m taking a break. It would be good to meet you, if possible? I have something of a professional puzzle I’d like your help with.”

“It would be really great to see you, Ophelia. What kind of professional puzzle?”

“Much easier to tell you in person. Would you mind? I’m certain you’ll find it intriguing, and if what Alex told me is even halfway true, then you’re rather good at solving puzzles.”

Day grinned but decided not to comment, wondering what Alex had said about him.

“As you like. It really is so good to hear from you again. You must come and stay with Helen and me in our house in Filoti, one of the villages in the mountains. Helen will be very pleased to meet you.”

“That’s kind of you, I appreciate the thought, but I’ve booked myself into Yiasemi Villas near Agios Prokopios. I’ve stayed there before, they’re very friendly. Perhaps you can suggest a quiet bar in Chora where we could meet one evening?”

Day named his favourite bar, Diogenes, told her how to find it, and fixed the date and time. Ophelia said nothing more on the subject of her visit. She told him that she was still teaching in the same Cambridge department and saw his name occasionally on a book cover or a history programme, but he had the feeling that she wanted to close the call and save the real exchange of news for when they met. Far too quickly for Day’s liking, she hung up.

His surprise at her call had changed into excitement by the time Helen returned to the table. He was still working out their relative ages. He had known Ophelia during the last two years of his four year degree at Cambridge, when he would have been twenty to twenty-two. She had been older, a recently-qualified research assistant of twenty-seven, when their relationship had begun. Now he was forty, and Ophelia therefore forty-seven.

“Everything all right?” asked Helen, sitting down and slipping off her shoes, laying her bare feet on top of them to keep them off the stones.

“Absolutely. Slightly in shock.”

“Why? Who was the call from?”

“A woman called Ophelia, Dr Ophelia Blue, from my old Cambridge college. She met Alex recently and got my number from him. She said she’s coming to Naxos and asked if we could meet up. Alex has clearly told her I’m some kind of detective and Ophelia has a professional puzzle that she wants to ask me about. I don’t know anything more, she wants to tell me when she gets here.”

“How odd. Still, you sound pleased about it. How do you know her?”

“Ah. Well, I have to confess …”

“What?”

“I mentioned her before, that night when we went to the restaurant in the old town, just before we left for London. Do you remember I mentioned falling for a young lecturer at my college, but as she was a member of staff we couldn’t see each other openly? That was Ophelia.”

“Oh. And you say it didn’t come to anything?”

“Nothing very serious. We were on and off for a couple of years. She’d just had a very good relationship with a brilliant fellow classicist which had ended… and I was around, that’s all.”

“So you did have a relationship with her?”

“Yes. It had to be very discreet. Things were quite strict then. Just before I graduated we decided to end it anyway. That’s when I went to London to teach Ancient Greek to school children and thankfully met you - which was clearly the best thing I could have done. I heard Ophelia started to see somebody else soon afterwards, somebody much less naive than I was. I haven’t heard from her since.”

Helen smiled, rather to Day’s surprise. He was relieved, not only that she had accepted his explanation, but also that Ophelia had declined his impetuous invitation to stay with them. There was very little in his personal history that could possibly upset Helen, but his relationship with Ophelia had the greatest potential to do so.

“I’ve arranged a place and time for you and I to meet her…”

“Both of us?

“Yes, of course. We’ll meet her and find out what her conundrum is, and if it’s interesting you and I can work on it together. Ophelia’s subject is the history of the Aegean, so there’s every chance I’ll know something about whatever it is, or she wouldn’t have called me. I wonder what can be so important that she needed to come here in person? Maybe she just wanted a little holiday. I hope you like her, Helen. You will come along and help me, won’t you?”

“I expect so. Do I need to keep an eye on you, Martin? You do seem very excited.”

He shook his head ruefully and leaned towards her, kissing her lightly on the lips.

“Absolutely no need to worry, darling,” he said.