Free The Sea Break by Antony Trew

van of that sort of exodus: she had no loyalties, no cause, only beautiful clothes, priceless jewellery and a thirst for pleasure which little Dimitri Stavropoulus, engrossed in expanding his millions, seemed to encourage, perhaps to expand the area of his own freedom.
    Widmark had met them in 1941 soon after his arrival in Alex., by way of a letter from his father, who handled Dimitri’s business interests in the Union. The Stavropouluses lived and entertained on the grand scale and Widmark had dined twice in the big house above Sidi Bishr. These had been large cosmopolitan affairs, men from the fighting services sprinkled with sophisticated locals: Greeks, Frenchmen, Levantines, Egyptians; smooth, clever bankers and stockbrokers, professional men, business men and their cultured decorative wives. Olympia, superb, robust, full bosomed, presided over these gatherings with vice-regal hauteur, capturing the men and subduing the women with the sheer scale of her physical magnificence. But Widmark, still obsessed with the events in the Kasos Strait and his mother’s death, paid little attention to Olympia or her friends. Then came the occasion of his third visit to the Stavropouluses’ house; the note inviting him could not have been briefer : “ Stephen dear, come and dine with us on Saturday .” And since her food was excellent and he felt pleasantly anonymous among the glitter of her guests, since Dimitri had a good billiard table and Napoleon that really was Napoleon, and because Widmark liked at times to get away from the Union Bar and Pastroudis, so full of the Services, he accepted. But when Saturday came and he was shown by an Arab servant into the vaulted drawing-room he found himself alone—that is, until Olympia arrived. If possible a more sumptuous, more statuesque Olympia, the elegant revealing frock making of her fine breasts more than if she had bared them.
    She was enormously surprised. What was he doing there?Dinner? Heavens, no! It was Saturday of next week. Had the note not made that clear? But how utterly stupid of her! And Dimitri away in Beirut, and the house practically servantless for she had been going to stay with her sister in Cairo and had given them all time off but for some reason she’d had to change her plans. She would not hear of his going. And, no, certainly not! She would not let him take her into Alex to dine. What a thought! Mahmoud would prepare a meal for them. It would be simple, of course—she shrugged her shoulders and they reminded Widmark of alabaster.
    The supper was exquisite; so were Dimitri’s wines and Dimitri’s Napoleon, and it was not until Mahmoud had gone—“… these dreadful Arab servants,” complained Olympia, “You may be sure, Stephen, that we shall not see him again tonight.”—that Widmark through a haze of euphoria began to suspect that neither the occasion nor the supper were extemporary, for Olympia’s importunings were remarkable. For the first time in his life he found the rôles reversed: the woman the seducer and he, the man, the defender, if not of his virtue at least of his person.
    Why he had so stoutly defended this he had never been quite sure: some mixture of intoxication, obfuscation, ebullience, boredom and shock, he supposed. Perhaps because she had been so tediously obvious—in any event he had decided suddenly that not only would she not get what she wanted, but that he was bored and wanted to get back to his ship.
    All that, he reflected, sitting on the veranda of the Polana, was perfectly understandable; but why had he been so rude, so brutally rude? He boggled at the recollection. Olympia like a felled giantess weeping noisily on the divan, her humiliation abject, and he lurching across the patio to the street, walking unsteadily through the blackout of the warm Mediterranean night. All terribly undignified. Then the “ clip-clop ” of a passing gharry which he stopped and hired for the journey to the harbour where he took a