The Collected Short Stories Read online

  Deirdre stopped and stared into his deep blue eyes for a moment, but said nothing. Her companions stepped out into the cobbled road and quickened their pace, pretending it was not them to whom the stranger had spoken. Deirdre smiled at him as he stood to one side, allowing her to continue on her way. Arnold had warned her never to engage in conversation with the natives.

  When they reached the restaurant at which they’d arranged to meet for lunch, the three ladies found their husbands drinking imported lager at the bar. Arnold was explaining to the major and Malcolm why he had refused to pay his subscription to the Conservative Party that year. “Not a penny will I part with,” he insisted, “while they can’t get their own house in order.” Deirdre suspected that his unwillingness to pay had rather more to do with his recent defeat when he had run for chairman of the local branch.

  Arnold passed the next hour offering his views on everything from defense cuts to New Age travelers to single-parent families, all of which he was resolutely against. When the bill for lunch was finally presented, he spent some considerable time working out what each of them had eaten, and therefore how much they should contribute toward the total.

  Arnold had already resigned himself to the fact that he would have to allocate part of his afternoon to bargaining on Deirdre’s behalf, now that she had finally found the dinner service she had set her heart on. Everyone else had agreed to come along and watch the born entrepreneur at work.

  When Arnold entered the House of Pétros, he had to admit that Deirdre seemed to have “located the correct establishment.” He kept repeating this observation, as if to prove that he had been right all along to insist that she wait until their final port of call before the big decision was taken. He seemed blissfully unaware of how the price of pottery had increased from island to island, and Deirdre made no attempt to enlighten him. She simply guided him over to the “Delphi” service displayed on a large table in the center of the room, and prayed. They all agreed it was quite magnificent, but when Arnold was told the price, he shook his head sadly. Deirdre would have protested, but she, like so many of the bank’s customers over the years, had seen that look on her husband’s face before. She therefore resigned herself to settling for the “Pharos” set—excellent, but unquestionably second best, and far more expensive than comparable sets had been on any of the other four islands.

  The three wives began selecting the pieces they would like to buy, while their husbands gravely reminded them how much they could afford. The choices having been made, Arnold spent a considerable time haggling with the shopkeeper. He finally managed to get a 20 percent discount on the total. Once the figure had been established, Arnold was dispatched to find an English bank at which he could change the necessary travelers’ checks. With passports and signed checks in hand, he left the shop to carry out his mission.

  As Arnold stepped onto the sidewalk, the young man who had approached Deirdre leaped into his path and asked, “You English?”

  “Naturally,” replied Arnold, sidestepping him and marching on briskly in order to avoid any further conversation with such a scruffy individual. As he had told the major over lunch, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.” It was the one snippet of Latin he could still recall from his schooldays.

  When he had selected a bank, Arnold marched straight into the manager’s office and changed everyone’s checks at a minutely better rate than the one displayed on the board in the window. Pleased with his saving of fifty drachmas, he headed back to the House of Pétros.

  He was displeased to find that the young man was still loitering on the pavement outside the shop. Arnold refused to favor the unshaven ruffian with even a glance, but he did catch the words, “You want to save money, Englishman?”

  Arnold stopped in his tracks, as any born entrepreneur would, and turned to study more closely the loutish youth who had addressed him. He was about to continue on his way when the young man said, “I know where pottery is everything half price.”

  Arnold hesitated once again, and looked through the shop window to see his companions standing around waiting for his return; on the counter stood six large packages, already wrapped up and awaiting payment.

  Arnold turned back to take a closer look at the inarticulate foreigner.

  “Potter comes from village called Kalafatis,” he said. “Bus journey only half hour, then everything half price.”

  While Arnold was digesting this piece of information, the young Greek’s hand shot out hopefully. Arnold extracted a fifty-drachma note from the roll of money he had obtained at the bank, willing to speculate with the profit he had made on that particular transaction in exchange for the information he had just acquired—the act of a true entrepreneur, he thought as he marched triumphantly into the shop.

  “I have made an important discovery,” he announced, and beckoned them all into a corner to impart his inside information.

  Deirdre did not seem at all convinced, until Arnold suggested, “Perhaps we might even be able to afford the ‘Delphi’ set you hankered after, my dear. In any case, why pay double, when the only sacrifice you need to make is a half-hour bus journey”?

  Malcolm nodded his agreement, as if listening to sage advice from senior counsel, and even the major, though grumbling a little, finally fell into line.

  “Since we set sail for Athens early this evening,” declared the major, “we ought to take the next bus to Kalafatis.” Arnold nodded, and without another word led his little band out of the shop, not even glancing toward the packages that were left behind on the counter.

  When they stepped out onto the street, Arnold was relieved to find that the young man who had given him the tipoff was no longer to be seen.

  They came to a halt at the bus stop, where Arnold was a little disappointed to discover several passengers from the ship already standing in the line, but he persuaded himself that they would not be heading for the same destination. They waited in the hot sun for another forty minutes before a bus eventually pulled up. When Arnold first saw the vehicle, his heart sank. “Just think of how much money we’ll be saving,” he said when he noticed the looks of despair on the faces of his companions.

  The journey across the island to the east coast might well have taken thirty minutes had it been in a Range Rover with no reason to slow down. But since the bus driver picked up everybody he saw along the way, without regard to official stops, they eventually arrived in Kalafatis an hour and twenty minutes later. Long before they had clambered off the ancient vehicle, Deirdre was exhausted, Joan was exasperated, and the major’s wife was developing a migraine.

  “Bus goes no further,” said the driver as Arnold and his companions filed off. “Leave for return journey one hour. Last bus of the day.”

  The little band gazed up at the narrow, winding track that led to the potter’s workplace.

  “The journey was worth it for the view alone,” gasped Arnold, as he came to a halt halfway along the path and gazed out over the Aegean. His companions didn’t even bother to stop and look, let alone offer an opinion. It took them another ten minutes of determined walking before they reached their destination, and by then even Arnold had fallen silent.

  As the six weary tourists finally entered the pottery, what breath they had left was taken away. They stood mesmerized by shelf after shelf of beautiful objects. Arnold felt a warm glow of triumph.

  Deirdre immediately went about her business, and quickly located the “Delphi” dinner service. It looked even more magnificent than she remembered, but when she checked a little label that hung from a soup tureen’s handle she was horrified to discover that the cost was only a little less than it had been at the House of Pétros.

  Deirdre came to a decision. She turned to face her husband, who was toying with a pipe stand, and declared in a clarion voice that all could hear, “As everything is at half price, Arnold, presumably I can go ahead and buy the ‘Delphi’?”

  The other four swung around to see how the great entrepreneur would react. A