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a Greek believes or doesn’t believe in, birth and death are reasons for Orthodoxy.’
    ‘All very high-flown, the Orthodoxy bit. In between, the drudgery was left to you.’
    ‘Petros loved—he adored his child. But had to be away most of the time.’
    Couldn’t help hating this aunt’s smoky voice. When Papa loved. Adored. Fingers spilling seed from these little pods which fringe the sill do not hurt what they sow. If you could only hurt this hurtful Lockhart voice, bite it out from where the words came hurtling.
    ‘… away when you changed the nappy and powdered the rash in her little crotch.’
    ‘Petros was dedicated to a cause…’
    ‘Handy enough.’
    ‘… which I married into. Something that you, Ally, could never understand, living in a country which has always been causeless.’
    ‘I like to think we have a sense of duty towards our children.’
    ‘Would I have brought her here if I hadn’t felt it my duty?’
    ‘And do you love her, too?’
    ‘What an inquisition! Of course I—love—her.’
    Mamma’s fury is so fierce you can almost feel it burning from the other side of the sill. But do you, oh, Mamma, do you?
    ‘Do you, I wonder?’ Mrs Lockhart asks of anyone who has the answer. ‘No-one ever went off at such a bat after dumping her dumpling.’
    ‘The passage, I tell you—could I—in these days—refuse the offer?’
    Mamma is really suffering. She is suffering, has always suffered from anything she suffers. The lies people tell make her suffer, but she suffers most when she tells her own.
    ‘That was up to you—and the cause, I expect.’ The Lockhart voice is sucking on another cigarette.
    What you can’t see is hard to believe. To see is always better than to hear. If only to see them at it. There is this flowerpot lying collecting snails under the skirt of the sooty vine. Turned wrongside up you will have a footstool from which, if careful, you can see inside the room, from the back of the sill.
    Mamma’s sister looks old, older it seems than Great Aunt Cleone Tipaldou, from being too much in the sun like the peasants. Her skin is rough as bark, scaly as a hen’s legs. Mamma’s brown eyes, capable of keeping her own secrets are not related to this blue, accusing Lockhart stare blazing out of the burnt face, skin shrivelled most noticeably where it forks below the throat and sweeps away inside any old kind of crumpled cotton frock. Mountain slopes crack open like this at the height of summer. Above the cleavage she is wearing a blackhead like a brooch. Would love to give Aunt Ally’s blackhead a squeeze.
    She is stamping, and if smoke and drought had allowed her, would have been shouting at the top of her voice about what they had got on to ‘—expect there’s a man involved in it. You never ran out of men Gerry…’
    Anger and argument have filled the room with movement. Mamma consoling her smooth arms avoids her stamping sister. Mamma moves very beautifully.
    ‘I can’t deny someone is taking an interest. It would be hypocritical wouldn’t it?’
    (Would it?) Mamma’s eyes are as terrible in their own brown way as the accusing blue.
    ‘… and Aleko was Petros’ closest friend…’
    ‘… and the Cause plays at shuttle-cock…’
    They are going on at a great rate about principles. Neither understands the other. Perhaps in the end, nobody understands .
    The Lockhart is clutching her long carton of American cigarettes as though her life depends on them.
    ‘Well, Ireen can depend on me. Couldn’t have her in my own house … four boys—and Harold didn’t want to risk a girl—says he knows all about them. I reckon he must…’
    Mrs Lockhart’s skin is every moment shabbier while Mamma’s arms and cheekbones, her beautiful neck look waxed. Why are you not in bed, Eirinitsa? Mamma is crying as you stand in the door like a wax figure, eyes closed, leaving anger and discipline to Papa. You could feel Papa hated you, for that moment, anyway. Will Aleko, his