‘Demis Kaladonis, I presume,’ Margaret put in.
‘Don’t be so literal, darling,’ Mrs. Thorne reproved her. ‘I must say I’m looking forward to meeting this young man if he’s all you say he is, Emily. I simply can’t understand how you came to meet him?’
Emily flushed, and Margaret supplied, ‘On a train!’
‘Hasn’t he got a winged chariot of his own to travel in?’ Peter said with sarcasm. ‘What a comedown for a Greek god!’
‘They’re more dangerous when they’re pretending to behave like other men,’ Mrs. Thorne observed. ‘Now that you have met him, Emily, you’d better marry him as quickly as possible before—’
‘Oh, Mother, really!’
‘It’s well known,’ her mother insisted, ‘that the Greeks, be they gods or men, have no morals when it comes to the opposite sex. But don’t worry, my dear, this one has me to deal with and I certainly shan’t allow him to leave you in the lurch!’
Emily could only stare at her open-mouthed. Was it possible that she had already forgotten that Demis Kaladonis was as much her invention as he was Emily’s own? It was she who had made him a foreigner and had said he had telephoned the house asking for Miss Thorne. Surely not even her romantic-minded mother could have convinced herself that it had actually happened and that this fictional being had a real existence.
This thought came back to worry her during the night. They all seemed to believe in Demis Kaladonis! There had even been a moment when she wished she could believe in him too, but wishes didn’t turn dreams into real men. And, in a way, that aspect of the situation concerned her most of all, for she had never indulged in idle dreams. Indeed, she could imagine few more uncomfortable experiences than being swept off her feet by the kind of person she had made out Demis Kaladonis to be.
By morning she had herself firmly under control and was able to ignore Peter’s barbed comments and the rest of her family’s fantastic flights of fancy with all her usual indulgence. As always when she was home, they left the cooking to her, her mother with a sigh of relief, and her sister with a long speech about how she had to sort out things with Peter as Emily would doubtless understand and was therefore going out with him for the rest of the morning.
‘Will you be back for lunch?’ Emily asked.
‘Probably,’ Margaret answered. ‘Unless something better turns up. It doesn’t matter, does it?’
Emily thought of the meal she was preparing and sighed. ‘No, do as you like. If you’re not here, Mother and I can make do with something else and we can have the pie for supper.’
‘Great,’ said Margaret. ‘I knew you wouldn’t care. See you later!’
Emily enjoyed making pastry. She could make better pastry than anyone else she knew and she invariably felt a glow of achievement when she placed her pies in the oven to cook, knowing they would come out exactly the right shade of golden brown and delectable to the taste.
She had just reached the stage of adding the water when the front door bell rang. She waited a moment to see if anyone else was going to answer it, but when it rang again, she wiped her hands on her apron and went out into the hall to answer it herself.
She opened the door wide, a smile of welcome on her face that died into a look of astonishment as she saw who was on the doorstep. She tried to shut the door quickly, catching her breath, but she was too slow to prevent him from putting a foot inside the hall.
‘Go away!’
He pushed the door open and came inside as though she were no more than a rag doll to be brushed out of his way. Emily hid her face against the door and clung to the latch as though her life depended on it.
‘Please go away!’ she begged.
He stood, looking at her for a long moment, then he put one hand over hers and firmly shut the door, before dropping his hand onto her shoulder and turning her round to face him.
‘Miss Thorne?’
‘Why won’t you go away?’
‘Why should you want me to? I have been to some trouble to come here, so why should I now go away?’
There was no answering that. ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked instead.
‘Did you expect me to forget it so soon?’
‘But we didn’t exchange names on the train,’ she objected. The warmth of his hand on her shoulder made her conscious of how close he was and she took a hasty step backwards, catching the skirt of her dress on the corner of the hall table. ‘Did we?’ she added more uncertainly. He must have found out her name from somewhere.
‘I do not remember doing so. It was not then that I learned your name.’
‘Then when—?’
The golden glow to his skin was very noticeable against the dark panelling of the hall. ‘I have always, known it,’ he said with a touch of arrogance that somehow forbade her to inquire further into the mystery. ‘But on this occasion I have come to see your father,’ he added.
‘He’s been ill,’ she told him. ‘I’m afraid he’s not getting up until this evening. Couldn’t you wait until after Christmas?’
‘After Christmas I am going home to Greece. You don’t have to be so unwelcoming, Miss Thorne. He knows I am coming.’
‘He didn’t say anything to me about it.’
‘No? Does he always discuss his business affairs with you?’
She took the implied rebuke badly. ‘Someone has to see he’s not bothered with commercial travellers and people like that on Christmas Eve!’
His eyebrows rose. ‘If it will put your mind at ease, I will tell you that your father asked to see me himself. His son-in-law telephoned to me this morning telling me to come at once. Now, will you please take me to him?’
She stood up very straight, not enjoying being put in the wrong so easily and with such finality. ‘What name shall I say?’ she asked stiffly.
A flash of amusement crossed his face. ‘Demis Kaladonis,’ he said.
Emily was quite sure she was going to faint. There was a terrible stillness in the hall and the blood drained away from her face, leaving her looking like a frightened ghost.
‘Did you say Demis Kaladonis?’ she breathed, hanging onto her senses with everything she had.
He held up his briefcase in front of her and she read the name in both Greek and Roman lettering on its side. It was the last straw! She must have seen it on the train, which was why it had come so easily to mind when her father had asked her the name of the man she was in love with.
‘But you don’t exist!’ she exclaimed. ‘I mean, of course, you do exist, but your name can’t be Demis Kaladonis! You’ll have to change it while you’re talking to my father. Can’t you have another name for an hour or two?’
He looked astonished, which didn’t really surprise her. ‘Miss Thorne, do you feel quite well?’ he asked her.
‘No! Oh, please couldn’t you be called something else? My father need never know—’
‘But he would know, Miss Thorne. This is not the first time I have met your father. We have done business together before.’
‘Oh no, it can’t be true!’ Emily groaned. ‘You’ll have to go, Mr. Kaladonis! I’ll never be able to look my father in the face again as it is! Go back to Greece, please do, until I’m safely back in London! By that time I may have been able to think of something—’
‘Do I really need explaining away?’
This was worse than anything. Emily stared at him in silence, crushing her hands together in acute misery. What would he think of her when he discovered the use she had made of his name? A strong hand covered both of hers and she winced away from him as if his flesh burned her.
‘You’ll never believe it!’ she gasped.
‘Try me,’ he invited her.
But she couldn’t find the words to tell him anything. And then, when she realised she would have to say something, anything, to keep him away from her father, her mother came floating into the hall, for some reason best known to herself in a long evening dress, and exclaimed with delight,
‘Mr. Kaladonis! How lovely to see you at last. I’ve heard so much about you. Don’t let Emily keep you in the hall, dear boy. My husband is waiting to see you, and I want to meet you properly too. Emily has never brought many boys home, and now that she has a real live fiancé it seems too good to be true!’
‘It is too good to be true,’ Emily said in a voice of doom. ‘Mother, I keep telling you—’
‘That it isn’t official yet. Yes, I know, darling, you don’t have to tell me again. But you wouldn’t have said anything at all if you hadn’t been sure in your own mind that Demis—I may call you Demis, mayn’t I?—is the right man for you! You’d better take him upstairs to your father before he thinks you don’t mean to introduce him to your family after all.’
Emily blinked. ‘Mother, what are you doing in that dress?’
Her mother executed a neat dance step round the hall, spreading her skirts around her. ‘Do you like it? I thought I might wear it tomorrow. What do you think? You’ll be coming too, won’t you, Demis?’
‘Thank you, kyria. It will be my pleasure.’
‘No, it won’t be!’ Emily burst out. ‘You must have made other arrangements for Christmas!’
‘No, no,’ he assured her blandly. ‘I changed my plans immediately I heard from your father, besides’—he gave her a droll look—‘tha efharistitho poll na sas ksanatho’
‘I speak a little Greek,’ she warned him.
‘Then you know what I said?’
She shook her head, anxious now to follow the strict line of truth even though it was now too late to do her any good. ‘Not exactly,’ she said.
‘I said I should be pleased to see you again,’ he told her. ‘It is never dull when you are about,’ he added with an edge to his voice.
‘It will get worse! For your own sake, you’d do much better to go away now!’
‘Emily!’ Her mother sounded completely scandalised. ‘You must learn to share your loved ones with a better grace,’ she reproved her. ‘Your family has a right to be interested in what you do. Take Demis up to your father at once, dear, and try not to make out that we’re all ogres waiting to pounce on him.’ Obediently, Emily began to mount the stairs. The nightmare was closing in round her, and it should have been some comfort to know that nothing worse would ever happen to her than what was happening now.
‘What are you seeing my father about?’ she demanded abruptly as she gained the landing.
Demis Kaladonis’ eyes glittered dangerously in the shadows behind her. ‘That is my affair,’ he answered. ‘But you can answer a question for me. Why don’t you share your life with your family, thespinis?’
‘I do! What there is to share—’
‘A woman should not be too independent, I think. Not in her emotions at least.’
‘My emotions are my own business!’ she snapped.
‘One day they will be your husband’s business. Have you thought of that?’
No, but she thought he was the most impertinent man she had ever met. She would have told him so too, if she hadn’t been aware that she had been a great deal more than impertinent as far as he was concerned. And there was her father to be considered also. She opened her eyes very wide.
‘Kyrie, my father thinks—they all think—would you mind very much not denying anything until after Christmas? You can say what you like to me, but my father is recovering from a heart attack and he may have a setback if he knew—I don’t know how it happened, and I’m most frightfully sorry, but there’s nothing to be done about it now, is there?’
‘I will answer that after I have seen your father,’ he said quite gently. ‘He and I understand one another very well. You may safely leave him in my hands.’ She summoned up all the courage she had left, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘You know, don’t you?’
‘I think so,’ he admitted.
‘It wasn’t as you think! I didn’t mean—’
He permitted himself a faint smile. ‘In Greece we know better than to leave it to young girls to arrange these things for themselves,’ he told her. ‘They will always make everything into a big drama if one allows them to do so. Such matters are better left in the hands of men, ne?’
‘Me? I make a big drama?’ She gasped with sheer, burning indignation. ‘I don’t dramatise things!’ she denied hotly. ‘I leave that sort of thing to my mother, and Patrick, and Margaret. I’m the quiet one of the family!’
He raised a brow, considering her dispassionately. ‘You think so? I think you are destined to be the Thorne in some man’s flesh, more so than either your brother or your sister. You are the most demanding of the three, are you not?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘Is it necessary that you should shout so that the whole house can hear what we are saying?’ he asked, affably enough. ‘To hear raised voices is more likely to disturb your father than anything I may say to him. Afterwards, I shall take you out in my car and you can shout all you like—’
‘I never shout!’
He raised his eyes heavenwards and took a step towards her. Quite what she thought he was going to do, she didn’t know, but a shaft of fear went through her and she turned with a rush towards her father’s bedroom door, wrenching it open and practically flinging herself inside in answer to Mr. Thorne’s gruff command to come in.
‘Father, may I present the Kyrios Kaladonis? Kyrie, this is my father.’
Her father took in her raised colour and he exchanged glances with the younger man. ‘Come and sit down, Demis. I hope Peter explained to you why I have to receive you in my bedroom and not downstairs? It was good of you to come so quickly.’
‘I was glad to do so.’ Mr. Kaladonis remained standing by the door, holding it open for Emily to make her exit before sitting down.
She determined to put off the moment. ‘Father, shall I bring up some coffee or—or something stronger?’
‘No, dear. I have some ouzo over there on the table and I’m sure Demis won’t mind pouring it out. You’d best leave us to talk.’
‘But—’ she objected.
Demis Kaladonis put a peremptory hand on her arm. ‘Do as you are told, thespinis. Your father and I have things to say to one another. Parakald piyene!’
‘Yes, leave us, Emily,’ her father added in English, amused by her obvious irritation.
‘Grigora!’ Mr. Kaladonis insisted. ‘Go quickly!’
He shut the door firmly behind her and she rubbed her arm where he had held her, sure that he must have hurt her and annoyed to discover that he hadn’t. It was nonetheless outrageous that he should handle her in such a way. Worse still was the way he had looked at her, as though he had the right to study the intimate details of her shape, almost as if he owned her! He had done just the same on the train, she remembered, making her acutely conscious of some unnamed need in herself that she would have preferred to have known nothing about. If she had had the courage she would have looked back at him in the same way and seen how he liked it! Only he already knew all there was to know about his manhood and nothing could undermine his masculine confidence in himself, whereas she—she had seldom thought of herself as a woman before all else, needing to respond to the initiative of some man before she could fully come alive.
The door opened behind her and she scuttled down the stairs, her heart beating at twice its normal rate in case he should discover her still on the landing and jump to the conclusion that she had been trying to overhear what the two men had been saying to each other.
The unmade pastry in the kitchen came as a surprise to her. She had completely forgotten that she had been in the middle of getting the lunch when the doorbell had rung. Automatically, she finished making the pie and put it in the oven, washed her hands at the sink and pulled off her apron, all the time trying to think of some plausible explanation she could give the man when he finally came downstairs.
‘What a lovely man!’ Her mother’s voice brought her back to what she was doing. ‘Very Greek!’
Emily shive
red. ‘I wish I hadn’t told him I understood some Greek,’ she said. ‘He can be so much nastier in his own language!’
Her mother laughed, a soft, knowing laugh that made Emily feel thoroughly uncomfortable. ‘You’re behaving very badly, Emily dear, but I expect he knows you well enough to realise that you don’t mean half of what you say.’
‘He doesn’t know me at all!’ Emily sat down on the nearest chair, her eyes kindling as she saw her mother's bland expression. ‘We invented him between us—and now look what’s happened!’
‘Including his name and the scar on his jaw?’
‘At least you might admit that he never phoned to me here,’ Emily went on. ‘You could tell the truth about that!’
‘But he did ask for you, dear. He wanted to speak to Miss Thorne. He was quite clear about it.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Emily said flatly.
A shadow crossed her feet and she looked up quickly to see Demis Kaladonis standing over her. She jumped visibly. The stricken look on her face reflected her inner feelings. Yet he didn’t look angry.
‘You may believe her, koritsi,’ he said from a great way off. ‘I did telephone you here. Put your coat on, Emily, and I’ll take you out to lunch. We can talk after we have eaten, ne?’
She felt as though she would never want to eat again, but she nodded her head and went to fetch her coat, allowing him to slip it up over her arms and even to turn her round to face him and do up the buttons for her.
‘Did Father tell you—? Is he all right?’ she asked awkwardly.
‘Quite all right. We came to a very amicable agreement, so you have no need to worry any more. Are you ready?’