‘Bravo!’ Batis roars. Then Pavlo bursts out laughing. The tension in the room evaporates. He jumps off the stage and throws his arms around her.

‘My sister!’ he shouts.

‘You’re drunk!’ Zoë says into his collar. She is melting with relief.

‘I’m not drunk! Well, perhaps I am a little bit drunk. Why aren’t you drunk? Come and sing with us!’

‘Orpheus, but in reverse,’ says Apostoli, who has appeared from a back room. ‘Here, koritsa.’ He puts a glass into her hand. ‘Drink. It’ll warm you up.’ It is ouzo, watered down only slightly, and she coughs and makes a face. She isn’t used to strong drink, but it does warm her, and she drinks some more.

‘Come,’ Batis says. He brings over a chair from one of the tables. ‘Move over, Stellakis.’

Perpiniadis scrapes his own chair sideways to make room next to Pavlo. ‘There. Sit with us.’

Batis picks up his baglamas and spins the little instrument between his fingers, grinning his gap-toothed grin. He looks, Zoë thinks, like the Devil himself. Still, she lets him help her up onto the platform.

‘Ready, boys?’ Batis nods, grins, raises the baglamas high over his head and plays a long, rattling note. Apostoli chuckles. Semsis bows at the waist, and when he straightens, his violin has picked up the note. Stellakis takes a breath. ‘Ahhh! If your mama won’t give you eighty shares, And the same in cash, forget your hopes.’ Pavlo begins to pick out the rhythm under Stellakis’s words. Heavy, deliberate, another zeibekiko.

Dourou dourou, dourou dourou,

In the square at Koumoundourou …

She has sung here many times before but this is still Mama’s place, her chair in the centre, and at first she feels uncomfortable. Little by little, though, the music wraps itself around her and she relaxes. Micho brings her another drink. As the ouzo sinks into her, she watches the water pipes go round the tables, the men smoking and flicking their beads. One of the women, much younger than the others, her round face white with powder and framed by stringy yellow ringlets, comes over to put a lit cigarette between Pavlo’s lips as he plays. Zoë scowls at her but she just stands there, gazing at him, until the song changes.

‘Who’s she?’ Zoë hisses to Pavlo.

‘Her? That’s just Anastasia.’ Pavlo giggles. ‘She likes me.’

‘She’s making me nervous,’ Zoë says. The girl is pretty but she looks like a wax carving left on a sunny windowsill: her features are softened, blurry, except for her pale eyes, which stare, unblinking, at her brother.

‘Don’t be so stuffy, Zozo.’ Pavlo takes her hand and lifts it to his lips. Zoë drops her head and smiles despite herself. She can never be upset with Pavlo for very long. But still she wishes that the girl would go away.