“She’ll love that.”
There was lightning at the horizon later that night. She lay awake, letting the wind pour through the open windows and scatter pieces of paper around the room. After midnight there was a text from Naomi, the first in more than two weeks.
I’ll be there soon. Will be on the mainland at Ermioni. When are you leaving for New York?
She didn’t answer immediately. The idea of Naomi returning filled her with dread, but at the same time there was the companionship and the complicity, the easy exclusivity that they enjoyed between themselves. These were things she missed. But she wasn’t sure and she decided to sleep on it. In the morning Toby came with oppressive punctuality at ten and they walked to Vlychos in a terrible heat with their bathing gear. They climbed down to a rough beach and swam out into the pale-lime water up to the edge of the dark shelf. She thought he had been up all night for some reason, and she hadn’t slept particularly well herself. When they were back on the beach she snuggled up against him and they enjoyed what would likely be the only moment of cool in the day.
“I’m so looking forward to air-conditioning again,” she said.
“You can live without it.”
“I really can’t. If we come back next year, let’s stay at the Bratseras.”
She rolled onto her back and stretched out her arms until her fingers were driven into the loose shingle. She was even more sure that a fine, invisible sand was falling through that clear sky onto her body.
—
Four days later, Naomi sent another text. She asked Sam to get the morning ferry to Ermioni, a short crossing on the SeaCat, and to meet her on the dock in the middle of the village. Twenty minutes west of Metochi, it was the alternative landing on the mainland for day trippers. Reluctantly, Sam agreed. She could see why it would be a better idea not to be seen together on the island and Naomi knew that she was leaving at the weekend. She took the fast mid-morning ferry and came into the quiet and lovely bay of Ermioni, a place she had not visited during her time on Hydra, and there on the quay among a few fishing boats—but no obnoxious yachts—stood a thin and feverish Naomi in a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt and espadrilles. She looked changed. It was not for the better, but she was tanned and fit-looking nevertheless and Sam had the immediate feeling that she had already been in Ermioni for a number of days. So she was observing things from a safe distance.
They hugged and there was a sudden moment of tears as Naomi took her hand, as if taking charge of them both and pulling them into a patch of sunlight.
“We need coffee and sweets!” she cried.
Next to the port ran a single road. On the far side of it were the cafes and tavernas, most of them still closed. They found a bakery called Drougas with stools on the pavement, cool in the shade, where they sat with slabs of bougatsa filled with custard and covered with confectioner’s sugar and cups of Ipanema coffee. Bare-shouldered, they touched lightly; the frisson was still there. Naomi recounted the most recent events in London.
She told everything truthfully because she thought it was better that way. It was a way of expressing trust in Sam, because the latter would only react badly to a lie. The truth would make her loyal, even more loyal than she already was. She then said that she was renting a forty-euro-a-night room on the same waterfront and that she would stay there until the Haldanes left for America.
“So the investigator is dead?” Sam said.
“It seems like everyone is dead. It was all an accident.”
Naomi’s eyes were dry, but Sam thought she probably cried it all out of her last week.
“It doesn’t seem real,” Sam murmured.
Naomi agreed. “It doesn’t. But it is.”
“And your relatives went along with our story.”
“They had no choice.”
Sam nodded. “That’s how it is. They have no choice. But you can’t go back to the house.”
“Why not? I don’t believe in ghosts. I can’t sell it.”
“Why not?”
“The risk is too great. Someone might get it into their heads to dig up the garden.”
“So you’ll keep it.”
“Of course I’ll keep it. I’m going to live there. I’m going to repaint it.”
“And live—”
“Unhappily ever after. I guess you won’t visit.”
Sam shrugged. “Probably not.”
“I’d be sorry not to see you again.”
“I would too,” Sam said.
“But it might be for the best.”
Naomi cut a strip of bougatsa and held it up to Sam’s mouth on a fork.
“Eat, mummy says. Que será será.”
They walked along the road that led eventually to both Naomi’s temporary digs at a place called Xenophilia Ganossis and a peninsula covered with pine groves. It was the site of the ancient city of Hermionis, long vanished. The path went around its perimeter, the cliff to the left plunging down through fragments of ancient wall to the water. They passed a pile of dark stones. It was a Temple of Poseidon worn down to its elements. In the woods there were more stones, unmarked and unvisited, slabs laid into the ground. Collared doves called through the trees, and at the tip of the peninsula spearlike agaves stood at angles against the brilliant glare of the sea. At the far side of the water the mountains were layered against each other, dark with their own forests. They sat on a bench and looked out across the water. It was a moment of complete confusion. Sam thought she might say something about Toby, as if it was relevant, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. But perhaps a farewell was in order. She didn’t know. What she wanted to know was whether she was safe and the future was secure. Her future now depended in some measure on Naomi and her ability to keep up the secret. Mutual blackmail, she thought, but it was a vicious thought that wasn’t even necessary. They both knew what to do. But what was not decided was how long it would last. There was no possible term that could be set to the secret—and so it would last forever. That implied a bond that would also last forever. It was calamitous and sweet. Realizing it, then, at the same time, they turned to each other and there was the horror in their eyes, as bright as all the other buried feelings.
“It’s going to be horrible to be away from here,” Sam said, half truthfully. “But I can’t come back. There’s no way.”
“I know.”
But Naomi was smiling, she was forgiving. “We’ll find a way to meet again one day. Maybe in London if you ever come there.”
“I’d like that. But you know how it is.”
Sam had already begun to imagine a future without Naomi at all. They would never meet again, and it would be a relief that they didn’t. A summer was just a summer, and its dead bodies should remain confined to it.
Naomi took her hand.
“I know how it is. I’ll be here anyway. I’m going to take up painting. I may as well. It’s what I always wanted to do.”
“You told my mother you weren’t a painter.”
“That’s right, I did. But I wasn’t lying. I’ll make myself into one.”