Free Follow a Stranger by Charlotte Lamb

awed to speak.
    “I was talking to him on the telephone this morning,”

    he said lightly. “He asked me to sail over there tomorrow.
    Would you like to come?”
    “I couldn’t,” she stammered, torn between delight and
    awe. “He wouldn’t want to meet a stranger ...”
    “I told him about you,” Marc went on, “asked if I might
    bring you. He said it would be delightful to meet a pretty
    girl.” He grinned at her, his grey eyes alight with wicked
    amusement. “Spiro loves the company of pretty girls and
    he has been shut up on Epilison for weeks, writing a new
    concerto. He jumped at you like a hungry trout jumping
    at a fly.”
    Kate flushed. “I’m sure he didn’t,” she protested.
    “Wait until you meet him. You’ll see I am telling the
    truth. You’ll come?”
    “If you’re sure ...” she said nervously. “Are Pallas and
    Sam going, too?”
    “No,” he said firmly. “Too many people would irritate
    him. He hates a crowd.”
    “Pallas is a pretty girl,” she suggested innocently, her
    eyes on his face.
    He grinned at her. “Spiro has known her since she was
    knee-high to a cicada—he would squabble with her. There
    is something childlike about him, you know. He and
    Pallas always quarrel, but they are fond of each other.”
    Kate excused herself early, pleading fatigue, and he
    stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching her. “If your
    back is aching I have some liniment that might help,” he
    offered, seeing her involuntarily holding her back.
    She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you.”
    “I promise not to kiss the sore place again,” he offered
    teasingly.
    Red and furious, she did not answer, but ran quickly
    up the stairs.
    Next morning she was downstairs early for breakfast,
    wearing blue denim jeans and a loose matching jacket.

    Her thick, white ribbed sweater gave her a boyish look,
    emphasised by the fact that she had tied her blonde hair
    at the back into a ponytail. The severe style gave a new
    vulnerability to her face, of which she was unaware.
    Marc was sitting at the table, eating rolls and dark
    red jam. He eyed her lazily. “You look about seventeen,”
    he commented.
    Kate took a boiled egg from the silver covered dish and
    came to sit down opposite him.
    He leaned over and teasingly cut a slice of toast into
    thin strips for her. “Little girls like to have soldiers to dip
    into their eggs, don’t they?”
    She gave him a dignified frown. “What time do we
    leave?” she asked forbiddingly.
    He laughed aloud, his mood clearly relaxed and
    carefree this morning.
    They walked down to the small quay a quarter of an
    hour later. Marc helped her to climb aboard his neat little
    yacht, cast off and jumped on board himself. The wind
    took the sails and Kate looked up at them with pleasure
    as, white and free, they slapped to and fro above her.
    “Watch your head,” Marc ordered curtly, and she
    ducked down at once as the beam swung round.
    The wind blew behind them all the way to Epilison, the
    neighbouring island on which Pyrakis lived. They made
    the crossing in an hour and a half.
    The island looked beautiful as they skimmed closer.
    Blue, shadowy hills, golden sands, white houses,
    shimmering in the early morning sun, in an unreal
    beauty which reminded her of a postcard come to life.
    They tied up at a small jetty and walked up, along
    narrow village streets, past the untidy white houses

    whose doors all seemed to stand permanently open. Old
    women in black sat on some of the doorsteps, shawls over
    their grey heads, their wrinkled, tanned faces smiling at
    Marc as he walked past. He paused to speak to each one,
    gallantly, teasingly, and they giggled at what he said.
    Fishermen mending nets waved to him, little boys
    begged for drachmae. Everyone seemed to know him and
    like him.
    They paused at the very top of the hill and he pushed
    open high iron gates set in a flinty wall which ran around
    a charming, untidy garden, set with cypress and