Justin stopped on the third step and looked up. The staircase wound its way up the slope between low walls. Herbs grew in the cracks of the pale limestone; though not quite crushed beneath his shoes, they gave off their scent: thyme and basil. Above them lay the villa. Warm light spilled out of the open doors onto the terrace. Behind it, shadows moved, slowly, in an orderly fashion. Above the villa, the chapel braved the wind.
Justin could only see it obliquely, between the cypress trees and the steep line of the cliff. A single light burned there, and the white stone reflected the moon’s light, making it appear bluer than the garden walls.
“Right,” said Emmett behind him. “I take back everything I’ve ever said about over-the-top Catholic properties. Or no, I won’t take anything back: I’m soaking it all in.”
Brian came to a halt two steps below. He had one hand in his trouser pocket; the other held his cigarette loosely, which he’d lit after landing. His gaze didn’t go to the chapel first, but to the villa, to the open doors, the lanterns, the balustrade, the silhouettes of the people above.
“That’s not a house,” he said. “That’s a branding strategy.”
Emmett placed a hand on the balustrade. “A very good one. Stone, sea, chapel, candles, old women with jewellery, a church dignitary who’ll hopefully smile even if I breathe wrong. I feel underinsured.”
Justin was still looking up. “It’s beautiful.”
“That’s perfect marketing,” said Brian.
“Or unmarketable beauty.”
Emmett laughed softly and squeezed past them onto the next step. He was wearing a light-coloured suit that was almost too conspicuous in the moonlight, and a shirt whose pattern would have kept one in good spirits even if everyone else had already died. The wind tugged at his tie.
“I think we should at least pretend to be civilised guests,” he said. “Jussie’s run off ahead of us anyway, as if she were up there preparing an apology for us. And then there are her other friends, who’ve gone ahead of us in the boat.”
“Those nutshells can only take four people at a time,” said Justin.
The boat below them didn’t set off. The boatman stayed on the jetty, smoking and waiting.
He turned towards the water once more. The darkness beneath the steps wasn’t black, but full of movement. A reef stood out as a restless, lighter line where the moonlight broke on the waves. For a moment, it wasn’t Greece.
Jilib.
He didn’t know the place. And yet a black, salty image lingered in his mind: a black reef, hot wind, a sky devoid of any gentleness. Greek wine and these distant waters had nothing in common, and yet they touched somewhere inside him, as if these two places shared a secret kinship that his mind would only come to accept later.
“Justin?”
Brian’s voice brought him back to the present. “You were lost in thought.”
Emmett turned round at the top of the first flight of steps. “If either of you starts talking about the transmigration of souls, sea levels or European melancholy now, I’ll throw myself dramatically into the bougainvillea.”
“You’d have to find some first,” said Brian.
“I’ll settle for rhododendrons too.”
Justin carried on walking. The stone was still warm from the day, even though the night was turning cool. To his left, the view opened out onto the terrace. He saw Jussie standing up there, slightly ahead of the others, as if she’d already ushered her friends’ arrival into the room before she’d said a word herself. The three actor friends whom Jussie had briefly introduced to them at the harbour were standing slightly to one side, not yet part of the group and yet already noticed by her.
The matriarch was easy for Brian to spot. She was the woman in the black dress, with a green stone around her neck that, from this distance, looked like a small, cold eye. The grandmother stood beside her, upright and composed, the matriarch’s dutiful sister-in-law. Jussie’s mother looked down the stairs. Justin didn’t know whether she was looking at him, Brian or Emmett, but he could feel her scrutiny.
“There’s a lot of family waiting up there,” he said.
Brian followed his gaze. “Family is a social experiment.”
Emmett raised both hands. “There are no experiments on this island: everything we see here has stood the test of time for centuries. You’re on a Greek island, in Europe for the first time, with a bishop who apparently owns enough glasses to supply a small monarchy. You’re allowed to be amazed.”
Brian stopped and looked up at the villa. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he stubbed out his cigarette in a pot containing a small citrus tree. “Europe only makes an impression when someone pays me to see it. The Kingdom of Italy, Spain, Portugal — there must still be plenty of people there who don’t know how to sell luxury without looking like a perfume bottle in uniform.”
Emmett pulled the cigarette butt out of the pot and put it in his pocket after wrapping it in his handkerchief. “You can’t poison lemon trees with tobacco, you plant-abuser!”
“You’re dreaming of advertising contracts whilst we’re on our way to a memorial reception?” sighed Justin. “Show some solidarity with Jussie!”
“I’m dreaming of expansion at the same time; that’s not a lack of solidarity.”
“I dream of crowns,” said Emmett. “Political and decorative. Crowns, medals, sashes and court balls where everyone is dressed as colourfully as I’d like to be. People who receive invitations on thick paper to make them seem more important.”
Brian smiled. “I’m thinking more along the lines of advertising landscapes.”
“Landscapes don’t need advertising.” Justin looked at him. “Italy, Spain and Portugal. They’re not just kingdoms. For the painter, they’re coastlines, mountains, cities, islands, dry light, damp light, plains, old stones and new harbours. And then there’s Greece here — everything looks as if it’s been tossed about by Aphrodite and Ares in the heat of passion.”
“You get a week in Europe and you immediately turn poetic. I had no idea you knew anything about mythology,” Emmett sneered. Justin pressed a tender kiss to Brian’s temple.
“I get ten minutes on a flight of stairs and I do my best.”
Emmett stopped again. “I just want to say that I’m very disappointed to be travelling with people who, when it comes to monarchies, think only of advertising budgets and landscapes. I, on the other hand, think of the Crown Jewels and whether any duke has a ballroom that can be hired for weddings.”
They carried on walking. The voices from above grew clearer. Jussie wasn’t laughing; she was speaking quickly, in a way that might have sounded like laughter if you didn’t know her. The Mexican actor replied with the sort of warmth that could make even a flight of stairs seem welcoming. The Polish Russian from Berlin uttered a short sentence that Justin didn’t understand. The Korean woman said nothing, but Justin saw her as they drew nearer. She stood so still that the whole terrace around her seemed all the more restless.
Emmett leaned towards Justin. “How Catholic is that man in the black dress?”
Justin looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean: Catholic as in merciful, Catholic as in opulent, or Catholic as in ‘please don’t hold hands whilst the roast lamb’s still warm’?”
Brian answered before Justin could. “We’ll find out.”
Justin took the last few steps more slowly, wanting to savour the moment: the sea behind him, the villa ahead, Brian two steps below him, Emmett with his fluttering tie, Jussie up there in the light. It was all too beautiful to be harmless. But he wanted to see it anyway.
The host, standing with his back to the stairs, was taller than Justin had expected, or perhaps he just seemed that way because the gown gave him a different silhouette. Black, with a red hem, calm in bearing – a man accustomed to people straightening their posture at his appearance.
