The Santorini Summer by Christine Shaw

around his mouth and swallowed. Then he grinned at me. ‘Wait until you taste this, Olivia. It is Assyrtico, a wine produced only here on Santorini. It is very, very good.’
    I would have drunk turpentine had it pleased him, but as it turned out it was delicious, cold and flinty-dry. As I sipped appreciatively, Christos leant across the table and questioned me urgently.
    ‘How was your journey, Olivia? Were you afraid? I was a brute to expect you to do it alone. I’ve been so worried. Were you troubled by anyone?’
    ‘Christos, it was fine. Really. I was excited. I couldn’t wait to get here. To see you again.’
    ‘And now? Now we are together, are you happy? Will you be content here?’
    ‘I shall always be happy when I am with you.’
    It was the simple truth. He nodded, satisfied.
    Our lunch arrived.
    I had no idea what I was eating or what it tasted like. I was drowning in Christos’ brown eyes, his smiling mouth, his loving words – absorbing every tiny detail. As we sipped our coffee, still too sweet and too strong, Christos assured me that we would be the happiest pair on the island.
    ‘You will love this place, Olivia. It is the most beautiful, wonderful place I have ever seen. We shall live like simple fisher-folk, and you will get brown and even more beautiful if that is possible, and totally fluent in Greek. Then we shall go to the dig and I shall become Marinatos’ right hand man – that is the phrase, is it not? – and after I graduate we will work together and become famous.’
    I could not tell whether the last “we” was Christos and I or Christos and Marinatos, but I did not care.
    We travelled to Oia on a donkey cart, sitting on a hay bale in the back whilst Christos pointed out the beautiful scenery we passed.
    ‘Santorini is so narrow that in places you can see the Aegean on one side and the caldera on the other at the same time.’
    ‘Tell me about your friend’s cousin. Do you like him? Do you work together? Do you like being a fisherman? Where do you live?’
    ‘His name is Niko. He works for his father-in-law who owns the boat. He is a young man, with a young wife. They have a little house down by the harbour they call Armeni, and I have a room with them. Irini is expecting a baby, and they are grateful for the little I pay them and the help I give Niko. They will love you, and you will like them. Irini will help you to be a Greek woman, and a good wife. And if you are not a good wife I shall beat you.’ He laughed and then ducked as I shied a pretend slap at him. Then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. It was our first kiss on Santorini, and I was reassured that I liked it every bit as much as I remembered.
    ‘Oh, Olivia, I cannot believe that you are here, and we have the whole summer together.’ He took my locket out of his pocket and fastened it around my neck. ‘Here is your hostage safely returned. I have looked after it well.’
    I loved him with all my heart.
    Oia had the same narrow pathways I had seen in Fira. Definitely not built for cars – a laden donkey could just negotiate the lanes, many of which were steep and twisting, but our cart was too wide to pass. So we were deposited in a little square in front of a church on the edge of the little town, and Christos grabbed my hand and my luggage and we set off walking.
    ‘In the nineteenth century’, he told me, ‘rich seamen built mansions in Oia, using the volcanic rock which is all around us. They are not like the traditional dug-ins which most people live in here. They are more like Italian villas, with a Venetian influence. You know that the Venetians were great sailors and had a huge empire at one time? You can see architecture influenced by them all over the Aegean and Adriatic. Such houses are an important part of Santorini’s history. Irina’s parents live in a Captain’s House, just around this corner…’
    Facing the sea, and set back behind a garden, was a large stone house, symmetrically