Free Three Junes by Julia Glass Page B

thought I’d never get this picked up,” she says. “It would have been an absolute tragedy! The hours these merchants keep—or don’t keep—are jolly scandalous. I applaud their sense of leisure, but to a
point
.” Marjorie does not wait to be seated by the waiter who greets them but chooses a table right by the water, one which would almost certainly have gone to a local. “One—no, two,
dio
—of those wonderful ice coffees—
kafess tou pahgoo
. . . oh dear, I’ve probably asked for a pair of cold flannels. . . .” She then names, or tries to name, something else. The waiter smiles at her Greek, but kindly, and points to some pastries on a nearby table. “Yes, those, exactly. Thank you,” Marjorie says, nodding vigorously. She turns to Paul. “There. These boys are jolly nice, so long as you have a go at their language. However mangled your going at it may be!”
    They talk about the remainder of their trip: Santorini, Crete, a last night at some deluxe hotel in Athens. Marjorie can’t wait for Knossos; this, she thinks, will be the apotheosis of their journey. She hopes they’ll see dolphins on the ferry this time; so far, they haven’t. She wonders if this is a sign that the Aegean is hopelessly polluted. No one would tell them, of course, if it was. She talks on and on, and Paul listens.
    “I’ve bought so many beautiful things, but this is the pièce de
résistance. Let me show you.” She wrenches the twine from her box and opens it.
Out of the raffia she pulls a brightly painted ceramic bowl, crisscrossed with
orange, green, and purple patterns, an octopus painted inside. “Eight of these,
and a big one to match—each one has a different pattern, they’re so whimsical,” she says, insisting that Paul take the bowl and examine it. “Isn’t that a pleasing shape?”
    “Yes, very pleasing.” He hands it back.
    “And you, what are you taking back?”
    Paul sighs. “I’m not much of a collector.” More truthfully, he might have said that he had come here not to take memories away but to leave them behind, to bring some of the ones he already has and drop them like stones, one by one, in the sea.
    “A shame. You should see the marvellous things I’ve collected; I always take an extra suitcase for my loot. When I go back, I make exhibits in school for the children. Gives me a little tax write-off too.”
    Paul watches the boats tug their moorings and thinks of his fantasy on the way to Delos: setting himself adrift from island to island. Or choosing one and staying indefinitely. He remembers how he mentioned this to Fern and wonders if that’s when he made a fool of himself, if that’s when he suddenly looked his age to her. On the other hand, what a youthful, unlikely thing it would be for Paul to abandon the tour. He would be a deserter. He has never, after all, deserted anyone or anything. He has been a good lieutenant, a more-or-less obedient heir (at the very least producing three more), a patient husband; in all eyes but Fenno’s, perhaps, a dependable father. A shepherd, just as Fern suggested.
    Paul has acted, always, as if life must predict itself step by step or all hell will break loose. Is the wild dream so unreasonable—jolly scandalous, as Marjorie might righteously say? What if, after all these years, it’s circled back into reach?
    He remembers dinner last night: the looks on everyone’s faces when Jack bolted his food and left, claiming he had errands to run—errands at ten o’clock in a town where only the one discotheque and a few bars would be open for business. There were whispers of
scandalous
then. The quadruplets huddled and giggled and nudged one another with their sandaled feet. Ray said that he would complain to the tour company back in London. But Jack is Jack: he has probably got away with worse crimes than running off for a night to sleep with a girl. Some people have an inborn buoyancy, an immunity to being held accountable.
    Too easily, Paul sees