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old hand at travelling, always wearing just the right sort of clothes so that she would be chic and well dressed no matter where she was going or not going as the case might be. Today she had chosen a fine herringbone tweed dress of charcoal grey and over her shoulders a suede jacket lined in silver fox, with large revers of the fur framing her face. Black high-heeled alligator shoes matched her Hermès handbag.
    She had forgotten the way the Greeks conduct their lives in the streets and was delighted by the crowds rushing about. She realised after no more than a few minutes how much she had missed the Greek need to play at life, enjoy the leisure of long lunches and siestas, their inability to stay at home and be bored. She laughed aloud as she walked through the familiar streets and memories of the past came flooding in on her.
    Eden stopped at some of the old haunts where she had drunk with her friends of an afternoon. At Kolanaki, a square where everyone met to sit and watch the world go by over endless cups of coffee, ouzo or whisky, waiters recognised her and made a fuss over her return. Eden was enjoying herself but was relieved that she had not run into any old friends. She wandered the familiar streets alone and at ease with herself.
    In Plaka, she returned as she had done hundreds of times to one of the old tavernas where she was recognised by the owner and made to feel welcome. He behaved as if the absence since she had dined with them had been nothing more than a short interlude. She sat alone and dined on stuffed vine leaves, roasted peppers and aubergines, pan fried squid, a grilled fish smothered in herbs and lemon, and too much wine. Strangers at the next table raised their glasses in toasts to her and, finding it unbearable that she should be dining alone, tried to convince her to join them. Eden was saved by the tactful proprietor and they finally accepted she was not lonely for company. She sent a bottle of wine to their table and shook hands with them before leaving the restaurant to return to her hotel.
    Walking back from Plaka Eden was overcome with thankfulness that she had had the courage to step back in time and reassess the beauty and passion that had once been in her life. She understood that there was much work to be done now in order to live as fully as she had once done, chances to be taken. She would be fully visible once more.
    But where did she begin? Not by looking for a man, sexual affairs, love, she was certain of that. And even more so when she entered the Grande B and heads turned in admiration of this beautiful, vibrant woman with a clear will to be visible to theworld, one who demanded to be seen and admired. She was quite stunned at the vision she saw of herself as she passed a long mirror. Stunned enough to stop and admire herself. She laughed aloud then and walked from the lobby to the nearly deserted bar where she ordered a champagne cocktail and raised her glass in a silent toast to new beginnings.
    Eden’s mind slid back and she remembered another time in this bar. It had been a sunny afternoon in spring and she was there with an American writer, Charles Halderman, who’d thought she might like to meet Gore Vidal. That was the way Athens was then, writers and painters constantly passing through. It had been so easy to meet the famous, the talented and successful. In those days people were generous with introductions as long as you were either beautiful, talented, or someone fancied you as a quickie sexual liaison. Eden had been dazzled by Halderman’s talent and charm, and impressed by the fact that he’d had a critical success in London with his first novel. Few who knew him were not.
    How naive she had been about meeting the handsome, erudite, successful writer Gore Vidal! She’d thought he would be enchanted by her own youth and beauty, her musical genius, when he had clearly not been. Even now, all these years later, she could remember the look on Vidal’s face once he