The New Collected Short Stories Read online

  Another difference between our two great nations is that it is quite unnecessary to hire a marquee or rent the village hall for the festivities, as the Greeks are unlikely to encounter the occasional downpour, especially in the middle of summer – about ten months. Anyone can be a weather forecaster in Greece.

  The night before the wedding was due to take place, Christina suggested to her husband that, as host, it might be wise for him to remain sober. Someone, she added, should keep an eye on the proceedings, bearing in mind the bridegroom’s occupation. George reluctantly agreed.

  The marriage service was held in the island’s small church, and the pews were packed with invited, and uninvited, guests long before vespers were chanted. George accepted with his usual grace that he was about to host a rather large gathering. He looked on with pride as his favourite niece and her lover were joined together in holy matrimony. Although Isabella was hidden behind a veil of white lace, her beauty had long been acknowledged by the young men of the island. Her fiancé, Alexis Kulukundis, was tall and slim, and his waistline did not yet bear testament to the fact that he was heir to a vineyard.

  And so to the service. Here, for a moment, the English and the Greeks come together, but not for long. The ceremony was conducted by bearded priests attired in long golden surplices and tall black hats. The sweet smell of incense from swinging burners wafted throughout the church, as the priest in the most ornately embroidered gown, who also boasted the longest beard, presided over the marriage, to the accompaniment of murmured psalms and prayers.

  George and Christina were among the first to leave the church once the service was over, as they wanted to be back at the house in good time to welcome their guests.

  The bridegroom’s rambling old farmhouse nestled on the slopes of a hill above the plains of the vineyard. The spacious garden, surrounded by terraced olive groves, was full of chattering well-wishers long before the bride and bridegroom made their entrance. George must have shaken over two hundred hands, before the appearance of Mr and Mrs Kulukundis was announced by a large group of the bridegroom’s rowdy friends who were firing pistols into the air in celebration; a Greek tradition which I suspect would not go down well on an English country lawn, and certainly not in the village hall.

  With the exception of the immediate family and those guests selected to sit on the long top table by the side of the dance floor, there were, in fact, very few people George had ever set eyes on before.

  George took his place at the centre of the top table, with Isabella on his right and Alexis on his left. Once they were all seated, course after course of overladen dishes was set before his guests, and the wine flowed as if it were a Bacchanalian orgy rather than a small island wedding. But then Bacchus – the god of wine – was a Greek.

  When, in the distance, the cathedral clock chimed eleven times, George hinted to the best man that perhaps the time had come for him to make his speech. Unlike George, he was drunk, and certainly wouldn’t be able to recall his words the following morning. The groom followed, and when he tried to express how fortunate he was to have married such a wonderful girl, once again his young friends leapt onto the dance floor and fired their pistols in the air.

  George was the final speaker. Aware of the late hour, the pleading look in his guests’ eyes, and the half-empty bottles littering the tables around him, he satisfied himself with wishing the bride and groom a blessed life, a euphemism for lots of children. He then invited those who still could to rise and toast the health of the bride and groom. Isabella and Alexis, they all cried, if not in unison.

  Once the applause had died down, the band struck up. The groom immediately rose from his place, and, turning to his bride, asked her for the first dance. The newly married couple stepped onto the dance floor, accompanied by another volley of gunfire. The groom’s parents followed next, and a few minutes later George and Christina joined them.

  Once George had danced with his wife, the bride and the groom’s mother, he made his way back to his place in the centre seat of the top table, shaking hands along the way with the many guests who wished to thank him.

  George was pouring himself a glass of red wine – after all, he had performed all his official duties – when the old man appeared.

  George leapt to his feet the moment he saw him standing alone at the entrance to the garden. He placed his glass back on the table and walked quickly across the lawn to welcome the unexpected guest.

  Andreas Nikolaides leant heavily on his two walking sticks. George didn’t like to think how long it must have taken the old man to climb up the path from his little cottage, halfway down the mountain. George bowed low and greeted a man who was a legend on the island of Cephalonia as well as in the streets of Athens, despite the fact that he had never once left his native soil. Whenever Andreas was asked why, he simply replied, ‘Why would anyone leave Paradise?’

  In 1942, when the island of Cephalonia had been overrun by the Germans, Andreas Nikolaides escaped to the hills and, at the age of twenty-three, became the leader of the resistance movement. He never left those hills during the long occupation of his homeland and, despite a handsome bounty being placed on his head, did not return to his people until, like Alexander, he had driven the intruders back into the sea.

  Once peace was declared in 1945, Andreas returned in triumph. He was elected mayor of Cephalonia, a position which he held, unopposed, for the next thirty years. Now that he was well into his eighties, there wasn’t a family on Cephalonia who did not feel in debt to him, and few who didn’t claim to be a relative.

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ said George stepping forward to greet the old man. ‘We are honoured by your presence at my niece’s wedding.’

  ‘It is I who should be honoured,’ replied Andreas, returning the bow. ‘Your niece’s grandfather fought and died by my side. In any case,’ he added with a wink, ‘it’s an old man’s prerogative to kiss every new bride on the island.’

  George guided his distinguished guest slowly round the outside of the dance floor and on towards the top table. Guests stopped dancing and applauded as the old man passed by. George insisted that Andreas take his place in the centre of the top table, so that he could be seated between the bride and groom. Andreas reluctantly took his host’s place of honour. When Isabella turned to see who had been placed next to her, she burst into tears and threw her arms around the old man. ‘Your presence has made the wedding complete,’ she said.

  Andreas smiled and, looking up at George, whispered, ‘I only wish I’d had that effect on women when I was younger.’

  George left Andreas seated in his place at the centre of the top table, chatting happily to the bride and groom. He picked up a plate and walked slowly down a table laden with food. George took his time selecting only the most delicate morsels that he felt the old man would find easy to digest. Finally he chose a bottle of vintage wine from a case that his own father had presented to him on the day of his wedding. George turned back to take the offering to his honoured guest just as the chimes on the cathedral clock struck twelve, hailing the dawn of a new day.

  Once more, the young men of the island charged onto the dance floor and fired their pistols into the air, to the cheers of the assembled guests. George frowned, but then for a moment recalled his own youth. Carrying the plate in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, he continued walking back towards his place in the centre of the table, now occupied by Andreas Nikolaides.

  Suddenly, without warning, one of the young bandoliers, who’d had a little too much to drink, ran forward and tripped on the edge of the dance floor, just as he was discharging his last shot. George froze in horror when he saw the old man slump forward in his chair, his head falling onto the table. George dropped the bottle of wine and the plate of food onto the grass as the bride screamed. He ran quickly to the centre of the table, but it was too late. Andreas Nikolaides was already dead.

  The large, exuberant gathering was suddenly in turmoil, some screaming, some weeping, w