The High Places by Fiona McFarlane

Janet handed the key to Christos instead. Then he stepped away toward the road, discreetly.
    â€˜Do you know where it is?’ Janet asked Amy.
    â€˜I have the address. Christos knows how to get there. You must think I’m really something.’
    â€˜No, no,’ said Janet.
    â€˜I shouldn’t have brought you out. You should be locked up in an air-conditioned room, taking care of your nose.’
    â€˜I’m fine,’ said Janet.
    Amy’s face creased into a shape of exaggerated concern. Janet waved her blue-scalloped handkerchief, a little flag.
    â€˜I’m fine,’ she repeated.
    â€˜See you here at four,’ said Amy, and then she was gone and Christos was gone, and there was Athens. Janet couldn’t go home, or to the hotel. There were no men to meet in a café. She walked to Plaka, carefully, over the marble. Her nose ran. The streets were full of stores selling blue and white and yellow ceramics. She bought three heavy platters, then worried about how to get them home.
    *   *   *
    The minivan drew up to the hotel with the look of a bashful turtle. It was a generous vehicle, with room for many passengers, and Janet felt conspicuous as they drove away in it, as if the four of them had been abandoned by a crowd of friends and left to the Fates and to Mycenae. She felt a particular anxiety because today was her doing. Why had she suggested Mycenae? The night before, she’d pulled the National Geographic article from her suitcase. She was hesitant to sit on any surface; every object in the apartment was suspicious to her, although there were no clues to betray the afternoon’s activities. The photographs of Mycenae showed blank and barren hills and a spread of vaguely room-shaped rubble.
    â€˜Let’s call it off,’ said Janet. And tried not to picture Amy and Christos in the bed.
    â€˜No,’ said Murray, rubbing his weary feet. ‘She can’t have everything her way. This is the one thing you wanted to do, and we’re doing it.’ He was bold and aggrieved when they were alone; they also held hands in the apartment, as if to make up for their separation during the day. Janet was grateful, but she didn’t tell him about Christos. How else to protect him?
    So here they were in a bus, air-conditioned, on their way to Mycenae. They left Athens very early because of the weather – it was going to be the hottest day. Murray, anticipating the heat, had frozen bottles of water overnight.
    â€˜Couldn’t do this in a hotel,’ he said, with some satisfaction.
    Now the bottles were sweating cold liquid, staining their laps but still too frozen to drink, while Amy and Eric sipped at the bottles provided by the driver.
    â€˜You know, I’m excited about this,’ said Amy, inclining her attentive head toward the window. Eric sat in the front with the driver, and didn’t turn to look at her. No one else spoke, but Janet cooed a little, like a pigeon.
    The heat was worse at Mycenae. Janet saw with dismay that it was a hill with rocks on it. She said to herself, Agamemnon . Agamemnon . They abandoned the cool of the minivan and began to ascend. They could stay in the shade of the walls until they passed under the Lion Gate, but after that there would only be the sun.
    Eric walked kingly among the stones. The heat was similarly dignified. It lay impersonally over them all. It filled Janet’s lungs and pressed against her face whenever she stirred her head. And Eric walked unmoved among the stones. Janet watched him, and she watched as Murray picked his faltering way among the shaded rocks. He struck her as elderly, without being exactly old, and she felt an additional fondness for his vulnerable head. His bottle of ice rattled against his hip as he walked. Dizzy, she sat on a low wall and looked to see if Murray, ascending the slope – soon he would be completely exposed to the light – might turn to find her.