Eugenia held Eléni’s hand. ‘Oh, poor man. One thing is for sure, I know my sister loved you very much. She was even willing to marry Tom to have a better chance of getting you away. Let’s go inside and I’ll make you a drink.’
Eléni thought the comment about her mother being willing to marry her father was strange. But she remembered being surprised that her mother had writtenA MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCEover one of her diary entries and added,Perhaps Eugenia was right. Maybe that’s what it had been at the start, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that her parents loved each other very much.
The kitchen was much bigger than the previous one, but it was still a cook’s kitchen. Well-used pots and pans of various shapes and sizes were displayed on an overhead clothes airer suspended from the ceiling. The copperbriki,essential for making Greek coffee, took pride of place.
‘Would you prefer an iced coffee, a frappé or a lemonade? The lemonade is freshly made.’
‘Lemonade,parakaló.’
The large refrigerator doors were covered in children’s drawings. Eléni thought back to the time when she’d used drawings to communicate with her aunt and Maia.
‘Whose are these lovely drawings?’
‘Ah, they are my granddaughter’s. Eléni. She’s five.’
Eléni gasped. ‘My name!’
‘Yes. Maia named her after you. We often talk about you. They live in Patras now so I don’t see a lot of her, but Maia sends me lots of drawings. They remind me a lot of yours.’ Eugenia pointed to a framed photograph displayed on the dark wooden dresser. ‘That’s her there.’
Eléni walked over to take a good look. ‘She’s beautiful. She looks like Maia.’
Eugenia agreed and they went back outside. The mid-afternoon sun was still intense and Eléni was glad to sit under the shade of the awning. ‘I haven’t found my uncle, but with Simos’s help — him being an archivist — I have found out a lot about my birth parents. It was very sad to stand on the very spotwhere they and my grandparents were killed. My father was an artist. It’s what I do too.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Eugenia. ‘Your drawings were exceptional for a three-year-old.’
‘Ah, but my birth certificate says I was five. My full name is Iôánna Eléni Mouzakis. Simos says it was a tradition for baby girls to be named after their yiayiás, so he thinks I was known by my second name. It’s a bit more Greek than Beynon, eh?’
‘Your Greek is excellent. Your mother did a great job teaching you.’
‘Yes, I am very grateful for that. It’s made getting around Kefalonia a lot easier. She insisted my sister, Bronwen, and I both learned. I’m not so good at writing it, though.’
They continued chatting and the hour flew by. The bell rang and Eugenia let Simos in.
‘Have you both had a good catch-up? I visited my friend. It may not come to anything, but he’s going to look up some records at the orphanage for me.’
Eléni stood and hugged him. ‘That’s the best news.’ The fact he’d confided in his friend had to be a step in the right direction.
‘Efcharistó,Theía. It’s been so good to see you again. Please remember me to Maia. And I promise I’ll come to see you before I go back home.’
The two women hugged each other, neither one of them wanting to pull away first. But it was Eugenia who abruptly stepped back. ‘Did you say your surname was Mouzakis? It’s not common here in Kefalonia, but I’ve been racking my brain to remember where I’ve heard it before. Your father’s name wasn’t Andreas, was it?’
Eléni’s heart raced and she looked at Simos. ‘Yes, Andreas Spyros Mouzakis. The names of both my birth parents are imprinted on my brain. Why?’
‘In the school hall, artwork from well-known Kefalonian artists is displayed on the walls. I’m sure there is one by Andreas Mouzakis. It may not be him of course and I don’t want to build up your hopes.’
Chapter Fifty-One
Eléni couldn’t believe what was happening. Was she about to see an exhibition featuring art painted or drawn by the father she had no recollection of? Eugenia had said ‘well-known artists’. It was all Eléni could do not to break into a run.
The school would be closed as it was a Saturday, but her aunt had directed her to the caretaker’s house nearby. She hoped she could persuade him to open the school up for her. At the top of a stepped street, they found the salmon-pink house situated on the edge of the school playground. The gate into the yard was open and a man was sweeping the paved area next to the main doors.
Eléni and Simos crossed the yard and approached the man. ‘Kalispéra. My name is Eléni Mouzakis. Some of my father’s artwork is exhibited in the school hall, I believe.’ The man rested on his broom handle.
‘I do not look at the names. I do not look at the paintings. I have more important jobs to do around the school.’
He began sweeping again.
Eléni’s heartbeat raced. ‘My aunt, Eugenia Papadatos, wondered if you would let me see them,parakaló. You see he died in the earthquake, and I was too young to remember him.’
