The old song. A boat slipping by in bitter, smoke-filled darkness, the splash of oars, the city on fire. The dead woman’s skin in her grasp, her flesh and bones, this nameless one … I was Zoë Haggitiris; I am Zoë Valavani. She tells herself these things as she struggles backwards towards the grave. I lived in Bournabat. I had a pony. My mother was Mary, my father was George. My mother was Katina, my brother was Pavlo. There, next to the carrier, is a neat patch of earth, a large, dark rectangle in the brown grass. She drops to her knees at the edge of it, lets her hands sink in to the damp, stony soil. Efi, she thinks. And all you nameless ones. Feathers, even you. The grave, she knows, is bottomless. Pavlo is lying there with Mama, Mary and George Haggitiris, Vangeli, Marika. The famine dead, the shot, the hanged, the ones swallowed by fire. The stilled voices. The things the refugees knew, that are no longer to be found in this world. All of them under the earth.

She closes her eyes and sees that Tom Collyer is with them, grey eyes filled with earth. No more colours. No more heart beating against hers in the morning. She sits back on her heels and crosses her arms across her body, holding herself to calm the shivering, and lifts her head. She can only remember one song, but what other song has there ever been?

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Tom wakes after what seems like a second, travelling from black void to vivid reality with no warning. Instead of the observation post, he finds himself strapped to a stretcher that is cantilevered off the back of a jeep. The jeep is crawling along in a thick cloud of blue smoke behind a convoy of tanks. They seem to be pulling into Syntagma Square. The pink slab of the Grande Bretagne is just ahead, if it isn’t a hallucination. He remembers an explosion. He’d been waiting for it. But he is still alive. He opens his mouth and instead of words, a ragged shout spills out. The orderly driving the jeep yelps in surprise and brakes, hard. Tom is unbuckling the straps holding him to the stretcher with his good hand.

‘Let me off here,’ he croaks at the orderly, who has jumped out of his seat and is trying to restrain Tom.

‘Bloody hell, sir! I’m taking you to the hospital.’

‘I’m perfectly all right.’ He can barely get the words out.

‘Excuse me, sir, but you ain’t. I thought you’d already pegged out. You gave me one hell of a fright. Just lie down again and we’ll get you fixed up in no time.’

‘Look, Corporal.’ Tom’s vision is settling. He spits plaster dust onto the pavement. ‘This is my billet. There are doctors here. Lots of doctors. I’m not hurt. I just need a drink and my bed.’