The house on the cliff

Afterwards, presents were distributed to the children. My gift from the hosts was always a book by Enid Blyton, and two pairs of shoes imported from England, one pair of Clark’s sandals, closed with little cut-outs in the shape of daisies, and one pair of leather shoes with laces, for school. Some degree of communication must have preceded their annual arrival, for the the shoes were always the right size. Let me add here that my family had been, for two or three generations, firmly convinced that children’s feet were at great risk of permanent damage should they be shod in any footwear not manufactured in England. Afterwards, the adults would retire with their drinks, and I was sent upstairs to the nursery, for tea with Nanny and the little ones. The last Christmas I spent in Athens, Annie (Ánthimi) was four, Vicky (Victoría) was three, and Georgia was still a baby. They were dull, rather withdrawn little creatures, their fine, mousy hair held back with barrettes which were always sliding out, or coming undone. At all celebrations they would be put into little pastel-coloured smocked dresses, embroidered by the orphans at the Amalíon institution behind the palace, where Éva performed her philanthropic duties. The dresses were too long, for them to grow into. Each wore a brooch, a gold bar with an oval-cut turquoise in the middle, against the evil eye. In the baby’s case, this was pinned to the lace-covered padding of her crib. They lived in terror of Nanny Dobbin, and I confess that I too, saw her in my nightmares. She was a fleshy, red-faced, and unsmiling woman dressed in a starched uniform, her age unclear, and her origins somewhere in the North of England. Around the nursery table, she was in the habit of using me as a bad example, admonishing the girls to steer clear of my failings by saying, in her stern English manner “Though your cousin has begun eating her cake before finishing her bread-and-butter/put sugar in her milk/is licking her fingers you must not do the same. We do not do such things in England, isn’t that right, girls?” She was always complaining over the ill fortune that had condemned her to live in this country. Once, I heard her scolding Annie with the words “Don’t be so Greek!” Chloe, the rebel, had not yet been born. Thus, our formal yearly contact with my father’s younger brother. Once or twice I asked Daddy why things were so strained between the two of them but he looked so sad I couldn’t insist on an answer. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Anyone who knew him and heard me describe my father as sad would laugh in astonishment. The image most people had of him is the one he projected in public, of a jolly type who had failed in politics despite every advantage life had offered - a man who took nothing seriously, and who had stayed afloat despite making no particular effort by dint of his charm, easy manner, and good family. A man who had embraced the liberal politics that were in fashion in his youth and clung to them through the years more out of lassitude than conviction.