Free The Santorini Summer by Christine Shaw Page B

baby was not what I had planned, but it was Christos’s child, and a way of holding on to him. The practicalities, however, overwhelmed me. The baby was due in April and my finals were at the beginning of May.
    When my condition became public knowledge I’d be kicked out, for sure.
    Maureen kept my secret loyally, but after weeks of fretting about how I would cope, she encouraged me to go and see the Professor.
    ‘Throw yourself on her mercy,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet she isn’t as straight-laced as she seems.’
    I was not at all confident about that; the Professor was a middle-aged spinster, who had never demonstrated passion for anything other than ancient history, but I needed some advice, and I hadn’t anyone else to turn to.
    In the event she was terrific, although it didn’t seem that way at first. As I haltingly explained that Christos and I had fallen in love on Crete, she frowned.
    I muttered miserably, ‘I realise that you must be disappointed in me for behaving in such a …’
    ‘Human way?’ she said, wryly. ‘My dear, I have been teaching young people for many years and nothing is more human than young men making young women fall in love with them. But I must have been remiss in my supervision to allow things to have gone so far.’
    ‘Oh, no, it … nothing … happened on Crete. It was when I went to Santorini.’ I was deeply embarrassed to be discussing such things with her. ‘There was an earthquake, and everyone was so scared…’
    ‘And feelings were running high? What were you doing on Santorini?’
    She listened with great interest to Christos’ belief that Santorini was the Atlantis that caused the downfall of the Minoan culture and we spoke of the different theories for some minutes, before we realised we were getting side-tracked.
    ‘We will talk of this again. But I don’t believe you asked to see me this afternoon to discuss ancient history, did you? Am I to understand that you are now, “in an interesting condition”, as they used to say?’
    After I had told my story and sobbed on her bony shoulder for several minutes, she said firmly, ‘There will be a way to manage this. You must graduate.’
    By the end of the Michaelmas Term anyone who knew me well could see I was pregnant. Professor Margerison could feasibly not have noticed, being well known for an academic blindness to physical appearances, but she could not pretend blindness after the Christmas vacation when I would be five months gone.
    ‘When you return in January, you will share a room in town with Maureen,’ she told me. ‘You will not attend lectures, obviously, but Maureen will bring you your lecture notes and you must do a lot of studying alone. If you cannot persuade your mother to show Christian forbearance, then you will need a nurse to help you after the baby is born. I shall help you to find the room and the nurse. You will take your exams in May and you will graduate. My best student will not be lost to academia simply because of human error.’
    She was true to her word. Before I went down for Christmas she had somehow found a small flat that Maureen and I could share. It had two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, and was within walking distance of College. How she secured it, when such properties were like gold-dust and fiendishly expensive, I do not know. But the rent we were asked to pay was manageable, so I didn’t ask too many questions. It occurred to me that the Professor might be funding the shortfall, but I knew her well enough now not to ask.
    That just left me with the problem of explaining my predicament to my mother. I dreaded the confrontation to come. Her views on promiscuity and illegitimacy had been made clear to me the day she tried to explain the facts of life, so I did not expect sympathy. Not only was I pregnant, but I would have to admit to deceiving her about my trip, about Christos, everything. I told myself that if she threw me out I could still go to my father