serious damage. They were tired and bruised, and the older boy had a broken arm — this had made him unable to balance for the jump when the boats were first alongside each other, and his sister had refused to leave him; but otherwise they were well enough. They were all in great distress, however, about another girl who had been on board the yacht and had been swept overboard about twenty minutes earlier. The skipper knew that by this time she must certainly have drowned; but he put out a call on the radio, asking any shipping in the area to be on the lookout for her. When at last they put in at Parga he reported her missing, with no idea that she was tucked up safe in bed at the house of their friend Stavros — safe from drowning, at any rate, said the skipper, leering horribly over his walrus mustache.
The story, as you will gather, was related by the fishermen in a very casual and light-hearted manner, as if it were the sort of trifling adventure that happens to everyone once a month or so. I should make it clear, however, that what they had done was nothing at all of that kind, but a most remarkable piece of seamanship, such as one rarely hears of, and involving greater risk to all of them than one would readily undertake, especially for a stranger and with small hope of success. I accordingly asked the crew, to show that this was our opinion, to invite them to have a round of Metaxa with us, seven star if possible. After this — I don’t know why, you will think I must already have drunk too much retsina — after this I burst into tears.
There was no seven star Metaxa to be had in the taverna — it was a very simple place; but we ordered a bottle of five star and drank it between us.
At some stage when we were talking of Camilla’s remarkable escape I asked whether anyone knew if she had been wearing a safety-harness. Andreas became suddenly very angry, spat on the floor, and began calling someone (according to the crew’s translation) “a pack of bloody murderers.”
It turned out that he was referring to the manufacturers of Camilla’s safety-harness. She had indeed been wearing one (over the black silk negligee) when she went overboard; but the shackle had snapped. There was, said Andreas, no question about it: he had seen the broken shackle with his own eyes — Stavros still had the harness and had shown it to him that morning. I felt some sympathy with his view of the manufacturers: one doesn’t often have to depend on a safety-harness, but when one does it’s probably for one’s life, so a faulty shackle is something worse than careless.
It was late, I need hardly say, when we returned to the
It’s very odd about Camilla’s safety-harness — they don’t usually break. I’m glad we resolved our doubts over the other business — one might otherwise feel inclined to find the whole thing rather sinister.
With very much love, Selena.
CHAPTER 12
The suggestion had been made by some of my colleagues that I should participate in the marking of the summer examinations which in Oxford we refer to as Schools. Much as I was honored by the proposal, I had felt obliged to decline: who am I to sit in judgment on the young? Moreover, the marking of examination scripts is among the most tedious of occupations. I had accordingly explained that the demands of Scholarship — that is to say, of my researches into the concept of
The effect of this, I now discovered, was to make life in Oxford quite impossible during the first weeks of the summer vacation. I could not absent myself for five minutes from my desk in the Bodleian Library without meeting reproachful and accusing glances from other members of the Law faculty. It was more than could be endured: I sought refuge in London and Timothy’s hospitality while I considered my plans for the summer.
It was thus that I found myself again in the Corkscrew an evening or two later, when Julia opened a letter bearing at its head the address of Dorothea Demetriou and her distinguished husband.
Villa Miranda,
Near Casiope,
Corfu.
Tuesday morning.
Dear Julia,
Please note with suitable astonishment the address from which I write. Be patient and I will tell you how we come to be here.
The sea was smooth and the sky cloudless when we weighed anchor for Corfu; but after so many stories of shipwreck and disaster we were careful to see that everything was in good order and the
We came without further misadventure to the island which I call Corfu, which its inhabitants call Kerkira, which ancient historians call Corcyra, and which Homer calls Scheria, the land of the Phaecians — never try to tell me that the Greeks don’t do this on purpose. It is roughly the shape of a tadpole, with a broadish head to the north and a long tail wriggling southwards parallel to the mainland coast. The landscape is one of curves and soft contours, with olive-covered hills rising over gently rounded bays. There are also a great many flowers, very colorful and highly-scented.
The principal town of the island is on the east coast, approximately at the point where the head of the tadpole joins the tail. We did not put in there, but continued northwards, running goose-winged before a light south-easterly breeze and going so smoothly that we hardly seemed to be moving, though in fact I think we were making about three knots. The crew, very pleased with these conditions, lay in the cockpit and read me the passage in Homer which tells of Odysseus arriving shipwrecked on the coast of Corfu: it is at this point (said the crew) that Odysseus emerges from the world of myths and magic and stumbles, naked and destitute, into the world of reality.
Our own landing had no such traumatic qualities. We anchored at Casiope, at the northern end of the island, a little before six o’clock, and went ashore to drink ouzo in one of the pavement cafes.
I noticed that not far away some boys were playing street cricket, with a wicket marked in chalk on the wall behind the batsman, and was gratified by this sign of enduring British influence, (Corfu, as I dare say you know, was under British rule for a period of about fifty years in the nineteenth century: here, as in other parts of our Empire, it was our enlightened policy to prepare the inhabitants for self-government by teaching them to play cricket.) I was unable, however, to attend closely to the game, since the crew thought this a suitable moment to make a certain suggestion — namely, that I should marry him.
“Sebastian,” I said, “you have said in public, and on several occasions written, that marriage is a bourgeois and degrading institution designed to reduce women to the status of mere chattels.”
“So it is,” he said. “But with you and me it would be different.”
I could not help thinking this a rather unprincipled attitude in a man well regarded in feminist circles for the soundness of his views on the question. Moreover, “With you and me it would be different” is tempting to believe; but we do have several friends, don’t we, who yielded to similar persuasion and found afterwards that it wasn’t quite different enough? Still, a measure of tact is needed when rejecting such a suggestion: I took care to explain that my reluctance was due to the idyllic perfection of our existing arrangements, which made me feel that any change must inevitably be for the worse. I wondered if it might not be sensible, in the hope of avoiding further argument, to be a little hurt that Sebastian was not of the same view.
