‘You should have seen the last light this evening,’ Kikitsa’s voice would soothe, ‘you should have seen the dove-coloured light, chryso mou, all the doves in the world huddling together on the shores of the Gulf. And the violet shadows. Athens is ashes and violets at dusk. Before it is burnt right out. Have you looked? Have you ever noticed?’

She did not altogether care. In any case, she was telling him. As they strolled she would twitch the silk of her trailing skirt.

Then there were the moments when Kikitsa’s voice would rasp out harsh, thrillingly, across Aleko’s mind. There were the days when she would decide:

‘We cannot afford not to go out.’

The light was almost verdant.

‘Somewhere. Into the country,’ she mumbled.

On such occasions Kikitsa would be roaming round the rooms, her mouth full of pins, binding her hair with a scarf.

But restless.

Once she surprised herself calling:

‘In case we are late, Anthoula, see that you put their milk.’

Immediately she retrieved her voice, but not before shocking, even frightening her husband. She herself was palpitating.

Ordinarily the Alexious made their way uneventfully by bus to the villages which lie behind the seashore. They walked by the gritty paths and lanes. Reeds clattered, and the black cypress pointed a finger at the last way of escape. Whitewash was scaling from the walls. Sometimes voices hung suspended in the air, singing.

Or the people would come out of doorways: old, benevolent women, their pregnant daughters-in-law, old men whose faces had been cured for ever in brine. The old people would call caressingly to the couple strolling in the byways, almost as though they hoped to coax the strangers to remain.

‘Come,’ the villagers would call, ‘here we have the purest water.’

Sometimes there were strips of bitter orange, or glasses of black wine.

Then the two strangers would advance lazily, nonchalantly – it was their right, it seemed – between the rows of stocks, always rubbing against each other. The woman’s skirt would brush against the club-headed stocks, dragging the perfume out of them. Nothing could have made drunker. The man and woman were more than ever in need of each other’s support.

The villagers were so pleased, they would caress the travellers with civility and glances.

On one occasion, emerging on a road, the Alexious came across a car hesitating at a turn. The big parti-coloured monster was so unmistakable, it was surprising the linked couple stood there staring at it with a certain indecision.

‘Fancy their finding their way out here,’ Kikitsa remarked.

‘They have covered all the roads in Greece. Now they are combing the lanes,’ Aleko suggested.

The great car backed, advanced, slithered, and almost jumped. The Attic light was threatening its ephemeral shell.

‘Well, there are your Alexious,’ Spiro said. ‘Our thoughts have taken shape.’

But Maro was annoyed.

‘Speak for yourself, Spiro,’ she said. ‘Nothing was farther from my thoughts than the Alexious.’

She was irritated, too, by the irregular motion of the car. Her husband might have lost his skill.