The Santorini Summer Read Free Page A

parents had given me an allowance to see me through my first year at Cambridge, but it was doled out to me on a monthly basis, and I was expected to keep accounts of my spending. My father’s “extra” meant I could make whatever purchases I liked without having to justify them and after nineteen years of my mother’s scrutiny, I relished the lack of restraint.
    I was nervous about the journey, particularly about my first flight, but pretended not to be, wanting my mother to feel that I was perfectly competent of making a journey abroad without her.
    We all met up at the airport, Professor Margerison in an old straw hat and large canvas coat, her luggage well-battered, while we students carried conspicuously new bags and macs (how ridiculous!) over our arms. There was no-one in the group I considered a good friend, but I knew them all slightly. Maureen Jarvis was in my tutor group; Melissa and Sarah were doing Ancient History too, and there were two second year Archaeology specialists, Tony Smith and Peter Goodwin. Tony and Peter had been to Knossus before, and now wore bored expressions to show us first-timers what experienced travellers they were.
    ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the Professor. ‘I shall pay you the compliment of assuming you all to be intelligent beings. Ensure you locate the sickness bags in the seat pocket in front of you. If you must be sick, please do so quietly and without fuss.’
    “Fuss” being one of Professor Margerison’s bêtes noires – we knew what was expected of us.
    The journey was long but uneventful, except for Maureen’s muffled hysteria on take-off. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it so tightly that I was sure I would bruise, whilst keeping her other hand clamped firmly over her mouth.
    I was too enthralled by the adventure to be scared. A family holiday in Normandy, where my mother perpetually complained about the taste and quality of the tea, was my only previous experience of going abroad and I was ready for something a little more exotic.
    Descending from the aircraft steps at Athens, I was almost knocked backwards when the oppressive force of the Greek summer heat hit me square in the face. The air was hazy, and we seemed to be walking through hot soup. Numbly, we followed the Professor as she made her way through the terminal like a ship in full sail to where a coach was waiting to take us to the port of Piraeus, where we would catch the ferry to Crete. Maureen and I gasped at the colour of the sea, which was the most mesmerising shades of blue that I had ever seen. ‘I thought the sea was grey,’ she said in wonder. ‘It always is in Whitby.’
    ‘If you feel queasy, stay up on deck. Do not, on any account, drink wine if it is offered to you. Greek wine is filthy,’ was the advice handed out for this stage of the journey.
    The Professor found a seat, took out a biography of Sir Arthur Evans, and dismissed us.
    Tony and Peter wandered off and Maureen, having taken an anti-sickness pill, went to find somewhere she could lie down, leaving the three of us to speculate about our accommodation, the food, the climate and the archaeology itself. We all had some experience of a dig, having spent a week with Professor Margerison in Bath in our first term, but Knossus was something else entirely. We knew we would be the lowest of the low, assigned only the most basic tasks; we knew the greatest crime we could commit would be to damage an artefact or its location. We also knew there would be other students from Greece and America at the camp, and we wanted the Professor to be proud of us.
    When I think back to the girl that I was then, really still a schoolgirl, I am amazed at how quickly and readily I left behind my traditional English upbringing and my mother’s exacting standards.
    We docked at Heraklion, where a dusty old bus was waiting to take us to the archaeology camp at Knossus. The “ladies”, we were told, had been found village rooms; the men were to