Body and Soul by Roberta Latow

and walked down a path towards the port to her favourite taverna. Set in a garden several streets in from the moored fishing boats, it boasted the best Greek cooking on the island. After a bear hug from the proprietor and a turn around the kitchen where she looked into every pot and chose her dinner, Eden sat by the open fire on a rickety wooden chair at a table that wobbled with every slash of the knife as she cut the roast lamb on her chipped white plate.
    Well into her meal she was unaware of the man watching her until the table stopped wobbling and she looked up to see who it was who had fixed the offending leg. He straightened up and Eden felt a glow of happiness warm her through and through. It had been years since she had seen handsome Sebastian Morrell. He was still, in his late-sixties, a big man in every way. Time had not bowed him. Tragedy had not marked him. Ever since that first day she had met him in Alexandria she had known that his good looks, charm, the openness with which he lived, his appetite foradventure and will to live life to the fullest, were too strong for her to handle in any relationship but strictly no strings attached for either of them. He had been in those heady days of youth a womaniser, irresistible to women. She could see that nothing had changed. She wanted him now as she had wanted him then. She had not envisaged accidentally encountering one of her old lovers on her travels but here was one in the flesh.
    They smiled at each other. He raised her hand and lowered his head to kiss it. She was aware that whatever the years had brought him, Sebastian had not changed. His entire life was still bound up with the sexual passion he loved to arouse in others. His sheer physical presence was overwhelming: the strong, masculine, Greek god-like face. He was like the more-than-life-size bronze statue of Poseidon, absurdly powerful, as if he too had just risen from the sea. It had been too long since Eden had felt the dynamism of such a man.
    ‘You look as lovely as ever. But I would have expected that of you,’ he told her.
    Without asking he took the empty chair at her table and moved it round to sit next to Eden.
    ‘Sebastian – so many years. I can hardly believe we’re sitting here together.’
    ‘You came to Hydra and didn’t expect to see me? I’ve never really left the island. Yes, I’ve lived in other places for work, for the sake of my wife and daughter, but my heart was always here. It always will be.’
    ‘How are Betty and your daughter? Are they here with you?’
    ‘Betty and I made a big mistake but out of it I gained my daughter, something better than marvellous. I love her with all my heart though she’s dead now, and with her part of me died. So I returned here to Hydra to live out what’s left of my life. Marisol would understand that. I never lied to either her or Betty.’
    Eden thought about Betty who had trapped Sebastian into marriage with her pregnancy and suffered tortures from his infidelities ever afterwards. That had been their deal. He had lived as he wanted to live, adored his daughter, played the part of husband for a few months of the year to keep Betty quiet. Sheknew it, as did everyone who knew about that marriage, even though he had been discreet and never flaunted his private life in his wife’s face.
    Eden wanted to bite out her tongue for having asked after them. She had in fact heard that his adored child, Marisol, had committed suicide while Sebastian was in the Far East on business. No one had had the slightest idea that she had been depressed or unhappy. No note had been left. Her death broke Sebastian’s heart. It was the tragedy of his life. He left Rome where they had lived then and retreated to Hydra. He also left Betty who, when she learned he was making a life without her in Greece, promptly committed suicide, using the same gun their daughter had. That was eighteen months ago. Eden had even sent a note of condolence to Sebastian at the