Read Online Songs of Blue and Gold by Deborah Lawrenson - Free Book Online

you were looking for?’
    Melissa looked up with a start.
    It was a moment before she registered who they were. Then she realised it was the couple she’d asked for directions on her walk. She hadn’t spoken to anyone else all day, apart from in the supermarket and here.
    â€˜Oh . . . no. No, I didn’t in the end.’
    â€˜Ah, well. Tomorrow’s another day.’ This was the man.
    They had been shown to the empty table next to hers. The taverna was filling up.
    Melissa smiled to be polite.
    â€˜All on your own?’ asked the woman, taking a rather beady inventory of her table settings. It may have been her long thin nose that gave the impression of a busy little bird.
    And perfectly happy, Melissa tried to convey with a nod.
    â€˜Do join us! We can’t have you sitting here, eating on your own, can we?’
    â€˜Oh, no . . . really –’
    They insisted. There was no way out. If she did not accept, there would be the awkwardness of continuing to sit there next to them, having rudely turned them down. Groaning inwardly, she took the chair he had pulled out at their table.
    â€˜David and Sheila Robbins,’ he said, the aptness of which made Melissa smile inwardly. They stopped short of shaking hands to seal the formal introductions.
    Sheila was a bank manager. ‘My business is people, not money!’ she trilled.
    â€˜I’m a retired police officer,’ said David. That made sense; the broadness of the shoulders and the easy, slightly authoritative manner with a stranger.
    â€˜What about you – what do you do, Melissa?’
    She took a deep gulp of wine. Typical of the British abroad, wanting to place you, get the measure of you, even though they might never set eyes on you again. Exactly why Julian Adie had chosen to live here all those years ago, when it was remote and the only road was impassable in winter: to escape the expatriates and their social investigations.
    â€˜I’m an archivist,’ she said.
    â€˜That sounds interesting,’ prompted Sheila, eager for more.
    â€˜What kind of archivist?’ asked David.
    â€˜Well . . .’ Melissa hesitated, wishing this had never started. ‘Most recently, government work.’ From the rapt expressions on their faces this was the wrong thing to say. ‘Nothing exciting, I’m afraid,’ she assured them. ‘I’ve been working for the National Archives – reams of boring minutesbeing transferred out of government offices to make room for more reams of boring minutes, mostly.’
    â€˜I’m sure it’s fascinating,’ said Sheila, giving Melissa the full benefit of her professional people skills. ‘Don’t you think so, David?’
    â€˜Oh, it must be.’
    â€˜We’re from Bucks,’ she volunteered. ‘Just outside Chesham.’
    They waited expectantly for her to pat the conversational ball back.
    â€˜London,’ she said eventually.
    Was there a flicker of suspicion in her husband’s eye, as if he’d caught her hesitation and was wondering what to read into it?
    â€˜Are you staying in Kalami?’ Melissa rallied with an attempt at brightness.
    She stood on the beach, letting the tension go. The bay was black. The curious iron street lamps along the broadwalk cast shifting columns of light, gold and silver, on to the dark water.
    She was relieved to be alone again. Sheila and David, friendly and well-meaning though they were, brought it home that for the past few days she had been living in a kind of limbo reality. It was hard to explain, but since she had arrived here she had pushed real life away, perhaps because it was so painful. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. There was a haunted quality to the island because every time she looked around, she was searching for signs of the past not the present and she wanted to immerse herself in that past, hoping always that would lead her to