The house on the cliff

double clouds of dust, would drive us to a nearby beach where we played in the shallows to cool off. Tákis’ mother, who I called Aunt Katie, would never let us venture any deeper. We would dig canal systems and build sand castles with the toddlers and collect shells and whatever else the sea brought. In the rock-pools we collected crabs and tiny shrimp, sea grass and other marine plants - Tákis always had something interesting to say about them. We would pick limpets off the rocks too, and bring them home in a bucket of sea water, to be cooked into a pilaf the doctor was partial to. I was scornful of this type of excursion in the presence of Daddy or the other boys, but to myself, I acknowledged what a good time we had together. It was nice to be part of a family. We would bring fruit with us for a snack, and wash it in the sea before eating. The sweetness of ripe fruit and the salt sea combined into one of my favourite summer flavours. When I was very little, Loxándra would accompany me on these expeditions to the sea. This, I found mortifying, as she would wade into the sea in her shiny black slip, her headscarf curtaining her face to protect it from the sun. She would remain in the shallows, splashing with her plump white arms and legs like some sort of giant seal. She enjoyed herself hugely and claimed sea bathing was good for her rheumatism. Me, I would stray as far away as I was allowed, and pretend not to know her. The Kokkínis family were our nearest neighbours, only twenty minutes’ walk from our house. In fact, a large portion of the land my great-grandfather, Sior Márkos had bought when he built the house, had belonged to them. They were from one of the oldest families on the island, ennobled by the Venetians. One of the four Corfiot galleys at the Battle of Lepanto, the Angel of Corfu, had belonged to the Kokkínis. The ones we knew were a secondary branch, (“if not tertiary” said Tákis) who had nevertheless managed to hold on to and keep in good condition, a good number of vineyards in the area. The grapes they sold to winemakers, and careless of the stain of commerce, which the other great families disdained, they had managed to maintain a quality of life suited to their ancient name. They were prosperous enough even to send the one and only son of the generation before mine to study medicine in Athens. This was our wise and sweet-spoken doctor, Tákis’ stepfather. Their house looked inland, part of an old-type Corfiot agricultural estate, with attached olive press. From the height of our verandah it appeared like an island bordered by cypress trees in a sea of vineyards. In the summers, the family lived in the piano nobile, the upper floor, reached by a stone staircase with a wide landing, adorned with stone spheres. The adults sat there in the evenings. The ground floor of the house held store-rooms, the wine press, and the stable. The estate’s wine had been famous, not long ago, throughout the Ionian islands, but there were now fewer than 25 acres of vineyard left, with second-rate grapes that went to wholesalers of cheaper wines. The great estate in our area belonged to (Kónte) Évgenios Fokás, the last of the island’s important landowners. I put the title of nobility in parentheses because the Kingdom of Greece had abolished