Page 127 of Summer in Greece

‘Welcome. Please follow me,’ the old abbot said, lifting his head enough for them to see a clean-shaven chin and a kind mouth below his cowl. They followed him through the most beautiful church with cream marble columns and stunning murals on the walls that depicted religious scenes. After the church, they passed through cloisters to a row of monks’ cells, and Shelly noticed one with the door slightly ajar. ‘Please go in,’ the abbot said.

Harry held his arm out, inviting Shelly to enter first. Her nerves jangled.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ Harry said as she peered at the wizened monk sitting in an armchair, inside. ‘Shelly Summer, I’d like you to meet your grandfather, Adam Smith.’

Shelly gasped. ‘My grandfather, Adam? Gran Gertie’s son? Oh, my goodness!’ Completely overwhelmed, she felt her tears rise as she dropped to her knees at his feet. ‘Grandad Adam, this is a miracle, to meet you after all these years of wondering what happened to you.’

Suddenly, she realised the truth. Gertie believed this was her punishment, to have her son taken from her. To believe he was dead, and then discover he had become a monk.

Shocked and confused, she turned to Harry. ‘How did you find him?’

‘I didn’t. I’ve always known him, but didn’t make the connection until I heard Gran Gertie’s tape. I told you an English architect saved my father’s life by pushing him out of danger, but the architect was badly injured himself.’ Shelly nodded. ‘That man was Adam. He was in a coma for a long time, and had no memory when he finally regained consciousness. The monks adopted him, and as he recovered, some of his memory slowly returned over the years; then, he decided to join the order.’

The old monk nodded. ‘My mother came to visit me, long ago,’ he said quietly with a distant look on his face. ‘She said I had a daughter, Margarete, and a granddaughter, Shelly, and one day, when I was better, they would come here. They never came. I’ve been waiting so long. So long.’

‘Dear grandfather, I am Shelly. My mother would have come, but Gran Gertie died before she told anyone that she’d found you. I’m sorry, but my mother was killed in a car accident more than twenty years ago. Gran Gertie, your mother, told me so much about you. How you loved maths at school and that you became a great bridge builder. She said you were very handsome, like your father, Manno. I’m so pleased to meet you. Did you know, although your mother named you Adam, your father named you Hephaestus, blacksmith of the gods?’

He stared for a moment, and then smiled widely. ‘No, I didn’t know.’

‘Your father, Manno, sold his father’s fishing boat to the mayor of Kea and with the money, bought a ticket to England to see you just after your birth.’

‘Why didn’t they marry?’

‘Well, they sort of did marry, actually. It was their intention, and Manno did put a ring on her wedding finger, it was shaped like a dolphin. Wartime, and the distance between them, made everything difficult. When the mine injured Manno and he knew he wouldn’t live, he sent your mother a gold wedding ring, via carrier pigeon, and got the priest to write his wedding vows. He wrote a letter to you, too. Wait, I’ll read it to you.’ Suddenly overwhelmed, she turned to Harry. ‘I can hardly speak. Thank you. Can you pull up a tape on your phone? I think it’s side twenty.’

She sat on the edge of Adam’s bed and took his wrinkled hand in hers. ‘This is your mother’s voice, a few years before she died. Harry nodded and passed her his phone and she pressed play. They all listened.

‘We went to Syros for a holiday. This was because nobody minded where we went, apart from me. That island, and the one afternoon I spent there in the arms of my darling Manno, had shaped my life, so I wanted to return, one more time, before I died.

‘We all went to Syros, and it was on that holiday that I finally found my son, my precious Adam. I loved that boy so much, and wished things could have been different, but of course they could not. I had to do penance for my crimes because I did not want the sins of the mother to be passed onto her child. My boy was everything to me, and I pray I will see him in heaven one day.’

‘I don’t have a recording of your father’s voice, but I do have the original letter with his wedding vows that he sent her when he was dying, and his heartfelt words to you. Gosh, it must be a hundred years old now.’

‘A hundred and three,’ the old monk said.

Shelly blinked at her wizened grandfather. ‘Let me try to remember what it said.’

‘I’ve got it,’ Harry said. ‘You took a photo of it and sent it to me. Wait . . . yes, here it is.’

He passed the phone back to her again, And Shelly read it aloud.

Adam’s face was hidden by his hood, but Shelly felt the splash of a tear on the back of her hand. ‘I fear we’ve overtired you. We’ll leave you in peace, and come back tomorrow, if that’s all right?’ She leaned forward, dipped under his cowl, and pressed her face against his wet cheek. ‘I’m so glad I found you, Grandfather.’

*

That night, Shelly stared into the dark. Meeting her grandfather had changed her. She couldn’t explain why. She didn’t know him, had never met him before, or missed him in any way. Yet, after her visit, she felt complete, as if the last part of her jigsaw had fallen into place.

She wondered if her grandfather felt the same. Her answer came the next morning at breakfast, when the receptionist approached their table with a note that said she had to go up to the monastery.

‘He simply didn’t wake this morning,’ the abbot explained. ‘There was a note at the side of his bed and I’m sure it was meant for you.’ He passed it over.

Shelly looked at the single word, written in Greek. ‘I’m sorry, what does it say?’

‘It simply says, “Thank you,”’ the abbot said.

CHAPTER 51

GERTIE