Aphrodite’s Smile. Stuart Harrison

       SIX

      By the time I reached the house Irene was home. She told me that she had spoken to the priest at her church and that the funeral would be in two days’ time. Later we were having a drink on the terrace, watching the sun go down over the hills of Kephalonia across the strait when a white Mercedes raised a cloud of dust as it drove towards the house. When it pulled over the driver opened the passenger door for another man who looked up to the terrace and raised a hand in greeting.

      ‘Kalimera, Irene.’

      He was tall and thin with a fringe of white hair around his otherwise bald head. He regarded me with interest before his features creased into a friendly smile. ‘You have the look of your father about you. Kalos-ton Ithaca, Robert. Though I wish that I could welcome you under more happy circumstances.’

      Irene stood to meet him as he climbed the steps. She held out her hands and when he grasped them in his own she turned to me. ‘Robert, I would like you to meet Alkimos Kounidis. Alkimos and your father were great friends.’

       Kounidis kissed Irene on both cheeks then extended his hand to me. ‘May I offer you my sympathies? Your father spoke of you often, Robert. I hope you do not mind if I call you that? I feel as if I know you already.’

      ‘Of course.’

      We shook hands and then he turned back to Irene. ‘And you Irene? Iste kala?’

      ‘Ime entaxi,’ she answered. I’m OK.

      Kounidis joined us and Irene made him a glass of sweetened iced coffee, and one for his driver who remained by the car, sitting in the shade smoking a cigarette. Kounidis and Irene spoke about the funeral arrangements and then Kounidis began reminiscing about my father and the time they had spent together over the years. He told a story about a time they had gone to a nearby island after diving on a reef off the coast and had spent the evening eating and drinking in a taverna there.

      ‘Your father climbed up onto the table to sing us all a song, Robert. Even though many of us begged him to spare us. He would not listen and he sang a traditional ballad in its entirety but when he came to the most moving part at the very end, he lost his footing and crashed to the floor.’ Kounidis shook his head and chuckled. ‘There was much applause, though I do not think it was in appreciation of Johnny’s talent as a singer.’

      I had difficulty reconciling this gregarious image of my father with the one I carried of him. ‘It sounds as if you knew a side of him that I didn’t, Mr Kounidis,’ I commented.

      ‘I came to know him quite well I think. He spoke of you often, though of course I am aware that your relationship was not always close,’ he added tactfully.

      ‘That’s one way of putting it I suppose.’

      ‘Unfortunately this sometimes happens between fathers and their sons I think. Your father liked to remember happier times. He talked of when you were very young. I believe that you used to go with him on his archaeological digs in England.’

      ‘That was a long time ago.’

      ‘Time changes many things. Your father regretted that living here meant that he did not know you better. Even though he loved Ithaca.’

      I snorted derisively. ‘If he told you that, I’m afraid he misled you. The reason we didn’t know each other had nothing to do with the fact that he chose to live here. It was because after he left England he conveniently forgot that he had a child. I didn’t hear from him for almost two years. That’s a long time for a boy, Mr Kounidis.’

      ‘Robert, please,’ Irene interrupted.

      I held up my hands in mock surrender. ‘I know I don’t sound like the grieving son, but the truth is that my father had a talent for glossing over certain things.’

      ‘What happened to your father before he left England affected him very badly,’ Irene said. ‘It took him a long time to get over it.’

      I knew the scandal had ruined his career but I had heard this excuse before and I always had the same answer. ‘It didn’t stop him marrying you while he was busy getting over it.’

      ‘Forgive me,’ Kounidis interjected hastily, ‘I should not have brought the subject up.’

       Irene looked at me with a mixture of hurt and reproach, and I wished I hadn’t said anything. It was pointless going over this same old stony ground now that my father was dead and I knew it. I had never blamed Irene for any of it, though it had sounded as if I had, if only a little.

      ‘I’m sorry, Irene,’ I said. ‘You too, Mr Kounidis. Please accept my apologies.’

      He made a gesture as if to dismiss any further thought of it and I tried to divert the topic of conversation. ‘How did you come to know my father, are you also an archaeologist?’

      ‘Please, call me Alkimos. And to answer your question, I am afraid that unlike your father I was never a scholar. I am retired now of course, but for many years I was a simple businessman.’

      ‘Alkimos is being modest,’ Irene said, seizing on the change of direction. ‘He owned a very successful shipping company in Patras on the mainland.’

      ‘I had an interest in a few ships. It is not such a big thing.’

      I doubted that. I hadn’t seen too many people on Ithaca who drove around in large, nearly-new chauffeur-driven Mercedes. ‘Then you’re not from Ithaca originally?’

      ‘As a matter of fact I was born here, but I left when I was a very young man, after the war.’

      I was surprised. According to my quick calculation that meant Kounidis had to be at least in his late seventies, though he didn’t look it.

      ‘I went to sea,’ he went on, ‘and over the years I saved a little money. Eventually I managed to raise enough to buy an interest in a small freighter. I was fortunate to have a little success. Did you know that Ithaca has a great seafaring tradition, Robert? Some of the great Greek shipping families came from here. The Stathatos brothers and the Charalambis family to mention two. My own accomplishments were much more modest of course.’

      ‘You moved back here after you retired?’

      ‘Yes. I have had a house on Ithaca for many years. Like Odysseus I always longed to return home. You are familiar with Homer?’

      ‘A little.’

      ‘Alkimos helped your father with his work,’ Irene said.

      ‘I made small contributions towards the cost of some of his excavations over the years, no more. I was honoured to help. Unfortunately in Greece there is never enough money for such important archaeological work.’

      ‘Without