Page 15 of The Silent Sister

It wasn’t Tom who arrived at the taverna early one morning, but Eugenia holding Maia’s hand. She’d parked the truck on the quayside.

‘Can you and Eléni come outside? I’ve got someone there I think you’d like to see.’

Cassia ran upstairs to wake Eléni and get them both dressed. She looked out of the bedroom window. The truck was empty and the only person she could see was Eugenia herself walking back to her vehicle. Where was Maia? And who was looking after her?

‘Ready?’

Eléni nodded and held her arms wide, as if to ask what was going on. Michaíl, coming out of his bedroom, asked the same thing.

‘I don’t know myself. It was Eugenia hammering on the door. I’ll tell you later.’

Cassia and Eléni walked towards the truck. She could still only see her sister.

‘ Kaliméra , Kyria Makris.’

The voice she had been longing to hear! She spun around and Tom Beynon walked up behind her.

Eléni ran towards him and jumped up into his arms. Placing the little girl back on the ground, he embraced Cassia.

Her heartbeat raced. She’d told herself she wouldn’t cry when she saw him but tears spilled over, trickling down her cheeks.

‘I didn’t know when you’d be arriving,’ she said. ‘And how come Eugenia brought you here?’

Eugenia got out of the driver’s seat. Together with little Maia, who got out of the back of the truck, she joined them. ‘Did you enjoy your surprise? Mine wasn’t a surprise, more of a shock. A banging on the door after we’d gone to bed last night.’

Of course. It dawned on Cassia. Eugenia’s house was where he knew she and Eléni had last been living. It was where he’d addressed his letter.

‘I’m sorry if I scared you. I thought if I asked to sleep on your sofa last night, I could work out lodgings in Fiscardo today. I didn’t realise how late it was.’

Cassia couldn’t stop smiling. She had so much to tell her Welsh hero.

* * *

‘At six o’clock tonight, the boats will be lit for the first time.

’ Cassia nodded her head towards the quayside.

‘I can’t wait for you to see them in the dark.

’ She and Tom were sitting outside Taverna Zervas while Eléni played inside with the doll dressed in Maltese costume that he’d brought for her.

Michaíl had offered to look after her while they talked.

He’d winked at Cassia and whispered, ‘I think he wants you to himself.’

She explained to Tom about the long-held tradition of decorating boats as part of the Greek Christmas activities and how she wasn’t sure if it would be done this year.

‘It’s because Kefalonia is an island and Greece is a maritime country. Decorating boats is important for them. More important than decorating Christmas trees. It’s quite new here.’

‘But why December sixth?’ Tom asked.

‘Today is the feast of Agios Nikolaos, the patron saint of sailors and fishermen. They say he worked hard to save sailors from the angry seas. Nikos and I always celebrated his saint’s day, and we joked that the boats all being lit up were just for him. You arrived on the right day.’

‘But I don’t think there’s a Tom Day.’ They both laughed.

As they talked, Cassia relaxed. She didn’t think about money, or lack of it, or the dire state of the island once.

Instead, she enjoyed being in the company of someone who was interested in her .

It was obvious he was pleased to see her again.

He kept looking at her, smiling with his eyes, and every now and then when they remembered something from the early days when they’d met in Argostoli, he would give her hand a gentle squeeze.

Sophia and Eugenia’s words about him being in love with her entered her head for a second, but she dismissed the thought.

He told her about his work aboard HMS Daring and how it was coming to an end. When Tom told her, her skin prickled.

He took her hand. ‘Not for a time yet, though, but it’s what I do, Cassia. I signed up to join the Royal Navy and if it means going to an area of the world to protect my country, I have to do it. But let’s not talk about me leaving. I’ve only just arrived.’

They walked along the quayside watching the fishermen fix the lights for the evening and position their boats in a row. Larger vessels with masts were anchored further out in the bay.

‘Show me where you found a room to stay,’ said Cassia.

They left the harbour and walked up a narrow street to a house Cassia recognised. It was the one belonging to Kyria Galanos, the woman who had refused to let a room to her and Eléni.

‘I asked at a bar along from Michaíl’s and they sent me here. The old lady doesn’t speak a word of English. I don’t think she understands my feeble attempts at Greek when I try to speak with her, either. She seems very nice, but she could be swearing at me and I wouldn’t know!’

They both laughed.

‘You’d better not let her know you’re a friend of mine.’

Tom looked puzzled. Cassia explained how she’d been rejected and how Kyria Galanos had treated her with such disdain. ‘That was before I answered Michaíl’s notice. He, on the other hand, took us in because of Nikos. Fellow partisans.’

She and Tom had been in each other’s company for a short time and already, Cassia had laughed more in that hour than she had in weeks. Carrying on with their walk, Cassia pointed out places of interest, including where she had played as a child, and pointed in the direction of her parents’ house.

‘Do you want to tell me about why you don’t have anything to do with them anymore, Cassia? I know it was something to do with them not approving of Nikos.’

Cassia linked her arm with Tom’s as they walked. He deserved to know. She took a deep breath.

‘After the war ended, Greece was a divided country. Families were split, with some members on the side of the fascists and others were communists. My father was a typical Greek man whose word was law in the family. He fought in the war and was a very proud Greek. He supported the far right, but Nikos had played an important part as a partisan in the war and could not agree with my father. He and his partisan friends were communists wanting the best for the poor people who had nothing. Secretly, I began meeting him, and we fell in love. Once my father found out, he forbade me to see him. He made me choose between my family or Nikos. Said I was dead to him. In the end, we fled to Argostoli where we would not be noticed in a big town. We married in secret. Then one night, he did not come home to me. He’d been to a communist meeting and was killed on the way home.

’ Her voice cracked. ‘To this day, we do not know who did it. I still wonder if Georgios Papadatos was involved, but I have no proof. No one has ever been caught.’

Tom pulled her towards him and placed his arms around her. ‘That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

They walked on, the mood now sombre.

‘Come on, let’s talk about Christoúgenna.

Christmas.’ Cassia broke the silence, lightening the mood.

’I’ve tried to explain what it’s all about to Eléni.

She won’t remember last year, will she? Michaíl has been making some little wooden toys for her and a spinning top for Maia, carving and whittling them when she’s in bed, and I’ve made her some cloth teddies and teddy clothes.

Tell me about the Christmases you have back in Wales. ’

Tom told her about a typical Christmas and how, although his parents didn’t have much money, they always gave him and his brother a magical time.

‘I can still taste Mam’s Christmas cake now.

She used to let Glyn and me cover it with thick white icing.

Even during the war, she saved up her sugar rations so we could have an iced cake.

It looked like snow, and then we’d take turns putting miniature snowmen and Father Christmases on top.

And tiny Christmas trees. Do you hang up stockings in Greece?

We’d always have an apple and an orange in there with some nuts.

Oh, and a sugar mouse and some chocolate coins.

At the top of the stocking, or really one of my dad’s socks, there would be some toy cars or a few colouring pencils. ’

Cassia laughed at his enthusiasm. ‘You’ll have to wait and see what a Greek Christmas is like. Just less than a month to go.’

Tom stopped walking. ‘What do you mean? December twenty-fifth is less than three weeks away surely.’

‘Yes, that’s when Christoúgenna is, but we also celebrate St Basil’s Day on the first of January. New Year’s Day is when we also exchange presents.’

Tom’s face dropped. ‘But I’ll be back in Malta by then. I leave on the twenty-ninth.’