The Santorini Summer Read Free

‘It is amazing that they manage to produce so much wine in these conditions, so we mustn’t grumble about the price.’
    ‘Is it very expensive then?’
    ‘Even here, at Nikolas’s, which is renowned for its good value.’
    ‘Is this a favourite place for you?’
    ‘I haven’t been here for many years. But nothing has changed.’
    I’m seized by memories. Christos choosing a bottle of Assyrtico to demonstrate the quality of this little known wine, the waiter pouring it with great ceremony and waiting for us to proclaim our satisfaction.
    Suddenly, I take Alexa’s hand. ‘Is there someone special, Alexa? Someone you’d follow anywhere?’
    My passionate outburst has startled her.
    ‘No, Nan. All the men I know are either NBDs or EBD.’
    ‘You’ll have to explain.’
    ‘Nice but Dim, or Exciting but Dangerous.’
    ‘Ah. You must wait for someone who is nice and exciting. They do exist, although rare. And when you meet him, you must treasure him. For you may not meet two in your lifetime.’ And you may not have long to be together .
    She is touched, and asks gently. ‘Is that why you never married again, Nan? After my grandfather died?’
    Married again? She doesn’t know. How astonishing.
    ‘I have never been married, Alexa. What did your father tell you about your
    grandfather?’
    She looks bewildered. ‘He told us that his father died before he was born. But that was all.’
    ‘But I have never been Mrs . Didn’t you wonder about that?’
    ‘I’ve only known you as Professor Carter.’
    ‘But our surname? Carter is hardly Greek.’
    ‘ Greek ? ’
    ‘Good heavens, you know nothing. I’m surprised your father hasn’t told you about this. It’s a long story.’
    She looks mystified, but the bread and wine arrive, and we begin our meal.

 
    Chapter Two
     
    My poor father was made to feel that his selfish actions would ruin my life. In fact, the opposite was true. I owe everything, everything that matters to me, to my father’s mid-life crisis. Had he not borrowed Susan Ferris from the typing pool when Mrs Gardner had flu, had he not suffered his coup de foudre with the lovely Susan beside the filing cabinets, I should probably have lived the same sort of life my mother was living before she suddenly found herself abandoned. A small, respectable, matronly, middle-class life, with a husband in the city and a pair of Anglo-Saxon children.
    Divorce in my mother’s circle being a great scandal, she was only too relieved when I made my request to visit Greece. Packing me off to Crete for the summer meant I would be protected, so she thought, from all the gossip and unsavoury detail; otherwise she would never have let me go so far away without her. A phone call to Professor Margerison reassured her that the party would be properly chaperoned, the purpose respectable and the outcome would be a socially polished daughter who had undergone a modern version of The Grand Tour. Possibly she recalled, from my Induction Day, the Professor’s whiskery chin and nascent moustache, and assumed that no such woman could be anything less than responsible and serious.
    The matter of clothing was dealt with briskly: ‘A pair of stout Clarks sandals, some Aertex blouses and two pairs of culottes, Mrs Carter. I find culottes the perfect answer for archaeology. They are both comfortable and decent,’ the Professor assured her.
    So my wardrobe was purchased. The culottes had to be made for me by my mother’s “handy woman” since they were not readily available in Dickens and Jones or John Lewis.
    My father was given to understand that he would be financing my trip.
    ‘The least he can do,’ sniffed my mother. Although to be fair, he was perfectly willing to pay for me and actually added an extra sum, privately, ‘so you can buy…things’ he told me, when he met me to say bon voyage . I was not sure whether he meant books, cosmetics or lingerie, but I was delighted to be given some financial freedom.
    My