fissures and it looked to be fifty or sixty feet tall, although Charlotte found it hard to judge this accurately and changed her mind every time she gazed at it.
The church was in front of the outcrop, tiny and colourful against the doleful grey of the rock face. Its walls were a startling white with blue edging, the roof a wash of the same blue. By squinting, Charlotte could just make out a door in the front of the building and a cross, set at the front of the roof. At night, the church was lit by a pale yellow light that flickered in time with the wind; Charlotte assumed that oil lamps hung around its exterior. The light made its walls shimmer and stand out starkly against the grey stone mass behind it. The mass itself loomed even more at night, rearing and blocking out the stars in the Greek darkness. It gave the impression of being man-made; the crags and fissures became the battlements of a castle, abandoned and decaying but resisting a final collapse with bleak force. It, too, appeared lit at its base by the same yellowing illumination. Charlotte never saw anyone light the lamps.
In fact, as hard and as often as she looked (and she spent long periods of time simply staring at the island, to Roger's irritation), she only ever saw one person at the church, and then only for a fleeting moment. A shadow framed in the doorway, seen in the corner of her eye as she turned away, that was gone by the time she turned back. It had to be a person, she told herself. Someone lights the lamps, and the church is well cared-for. Its sides (the two that she could see from her hotel balcony, at least) were the white of freshly painted stone or brick, and the blue roof and trim were neat and well defined. The low wall that surrounded the church corralled ground that was clear of plants or noticeable litter. It was curiously entrancing, this little blue and white building with its domed roof and dark doorway, and Charlotte studied it for hours.
It was Roger that put the idea in her head. 'Why don't you swim out there?' he asked on about the third day of their holiday. 'If you see it up close, you might stop staring at it all the time.'
Charlotte could hear the irritation in his voice, but also the joking tone. She knew he was simply trying to draw her attention back to him and their break together, but the idea took hold in her mind and would not let go. The next day, she said to him, 'It's not that far, is it? And the sea's fairly calm around here.'
'You're serious?' he asked.
'Of course,' she said, and couldn't help adding, 'It was your idea, after all.'
Charlotte planned the Great Swim (as Roger had taken to sarcastically calling it) for the second week of their break. It gave her time to get used to swimming in the sea, to feel the way it pulled and pushed at her. It also gave her the opportunity to ask around about the little church, but no one seemed to know anything about it. The holiday company representative merely shrugged, and the locals looked at her blankly when she asked. One said, 'It is just an old church,' and looked at Charlotte as though she were mad, but it
The path from the beach to the church was steeper than it had looked from the mainland and Charlotte had to scramble and grasp at plants and roots to support her on her ascent. The climb was more tiring than the swim and she reached the top grateful that she had not needed to go further. Grit had worked its way into her sandals and her feet felt hot and scratched by the time she reached her destination and her hands were grimy and sore. When she placed her hands on the top of the low wall and felt the heat of the sun on the rock and saw the church, however, all her aches were forgotten.
Close to, the building was even prettier than she expected. She wanted to walk straight to it, to marvel at its simple beauty, but before she could she had to deal with Roger. Standing by the wall, she turned back towards the beach. Across the strip of blue sea (I swam that, she thought proudly), the wedge of golden sand gleamed in the late morning sun. She located Roger's tiny, frail form by finding the hut that sold fresh fruit and cold drinks and looking just in front of it, the way they had arranged. There, besides a family group, sat Roger. She raised one arm in greeting and saw him do the same in return. At least now he would not worry and might even start to relax a little.
Ah, Roger, she thought, what are we going to do with you? Back home, his constant attentiveness was flattering. Here, its focus unbroken by time apart for work and without the diluting presence of other friends, it had become claustrophobic. She could not move, it seemed, without him asking if she was all right or if she wanted anything. The Great Swim had appealed, in part at least, because it gave her time away from him. He was neither a strong enough swimmer nor adventurous enough to want to do it with her, and although she felt a little guilty at taking advantage of his weakness, she revelled in the freedom that it gave her. She could not see their relationship continuing after they returned home and although this made her sad, it was a distant sadness rather than a raw grief.
Roger hopefully placated, Charlotte turned again to the church. The path up from the beach had brought her out directly facing the door, which hunched inside a shadowed patch surrounded by a neat blue border. There was a simple wooden step up to the door. Around it, the wall was plain, white-painted stonework. Instead of approaching, however (worried that she might find the door locked and that her little adventure would end too soon and in disappointment), Charlotte went around to the far side of the building.
As she came around the church's flank, Charlotte saw that one of her assumptions about the place had been wrong; she had expected that it was built on a little plateau (possibly man-made?) and entirely separate from the rocky outcrop that glowered behind it. It was not: the rear of the church was built up against the base of the natural cliff. Going closer, she saw that the mortar that joined the church's wall to the cliff was spread thickly so that no gaps remained. Under the skin of the paint, different sized stones had been used to ensure that the wall fitted as snugly as possible; she could see the irregular lattice of them.
The wall itself was plain except for a single dark window of quartered glass set just below the roof. The window was low enough for Charlotte to be able to see through if she went close, as the building was only single- storey. Along from the window, a metal and glass lamp hung from a bracket, and she gave a little private cheer. Her assumption about the night-time lights had, at least, been correct. She resisted the temptation to look through the window for the same reason that she had not tried the door; she wanted to save the inside of the building for as long as possible. Instead, she turned away from the church to look at the land around it.
It was beautiful. What appeared to be scrub from half a mile's distance was actually a thickly knotted tangle of plants and small trees. The air was heavy with the smell of jasmine and curcuma and other unidentifiable but equally rich scents. Butterflies chased each other around the branches and lazy bees drifted somnambulantly from flower to flower. Their buzzing came to Charlotte in a sleepy wave, rising and falling in pitch like the roll of the sea. Under it was the sound of crickets and grasshoppers, an insistent whirring that was at the same time both frantic and curiously relaxing.
The press of plants and insects, and the birds that darted and hovered in irregular patterns above it all, were held back by the stone wall surrounding the church. In places, the wall bulged and roots pushed their way between the rough stones. The only break in the stonework was a rusted iron gate. Past the gate, there was a gap in the flora and an earthen track that led away along the base of the cliff. Here, the dark green leaves and branches and the blooming flowers had been cut and pushed back so that they formed an archway over the gate and made living, breathing walls for the path.
Charlotte stood, breathing in the scented air and luxuriating in the quiet. If Roger were there, she thought, he'd be taking photographs, pointing out interesting creatures or sounds, asking if I was
Finally, Charlotte walked back around to the front of the church. She intended to try the door, but instead she carried on walking, going to the right side of the building. It was, as she expected, the same as the other side, only in reverse. The window was dark and the lamp's brass fittings were shiny with age. There was another gate in the surrounding wall, also rusted (although, looking closely, she saw that the hinges were well-oiled and clean) and another path along the base of the cliff. She wondered if it was simply the end of the path that started around the other side and which travelled all the way around the base of the great ragged cube, and decided that it probably was. She smiled at the simplicity of it and its unrefined, functional beauty.
Through the window, Charlotte thought she could see a light inside the building. She went close, brushing away a thin layer of sand and dust from the glass and peering through into the interior of the church. What she saw disappointed her.
