Mrs Pargeter 03; Mrs Pargeter’s Package

∨ Mrs Pargeter’s Package ∧

Two

“Could I have your attention, please?” The tour rep, who had identified herself in a fulsome English girls’ public-school accent at Corfu Airport as ‘Ginnie’, shouted above the groaning of the coach’s engine.

It took a moment to get the attention of all the party. After the discomforts of their journey, and in spite of the lurches of the coach, a good few had dozed off. Keith and Linda, the young couple from South Woodham Ferrers in Essex, who had just got their eighteen-month-old Craig off to sleep, complained of the interruption. Mrs Pargeter, who had provided Craig with an unwilling target for airline-food-throwing practice during the three-and-a-half-hour flight, also regretted his return to consciousness.

“Sorry,” said Ginnie, in a voice that didn’t sound at all sorry. Presumably she too was feeling strained after five hours waiting for them at Corfu Airport. “I just wanted to say that we are very nearly there. In a couple of minutes, we turn off the main road down to Agios Nikitas. I should warn you, the track down to the village is pretty bumpy.”

“What, bumpier than this one? Must have more bumps than the mother-in-law’s car,” said the retired man in the beige safari suit, who at Gatwick check-in had appointed himself the life and soul of the party. Mrs Pargeter had decided at the time that a little of him would probably go a long way; the total lack of reaction to his latest witticism suggested that ten hours in his company had brought everyone else round to the same opinion. Even his weedy wife, in matching beige safari suit, was unable to raise the wateriest of smiles.

“Anyway,” Ginnie continued, “because we’re rather later in arriving than we expected…” – grumbles of the you-can-say-that-again variety greeted this – “and you may be hungry…” – this was endorsed with varying degrees of enthusiasm – “when we get to the village, some of you may want to go and have something to eat, and others want to go straight to your accommodation. So what we’ll do is stop first at Spiro’s taverna and offload those who want to eat, while the coach’ll take the rest to their villas.”

“And what’ll happen to the luggage of the taverna party?” asked Mrs Safari Suit.

“It’ll be delivered to the villas. Be quite safe there till you’ve finished eating.”

“That’s a relief,” said Mr Safari Suit, and then slyly added, “Cor! Phew!” The pun had elicited only minimal response when he’d first used it in the Gatwick departure lounge. Now, on its eleventh airing, it got no reaction at all.

“Er, excuse me, Ginnie,” asked Linda from South Woodham Ferrers, “you mention Spiro’s, but there is more than one taverna in the village, isn’t there?”

“Oh yes, there’s Spiro’s and there’s The Three Brothers and there’s Costa’s and the Hotel Nausica. Try them all by all means, but, er, the general consensus of clients who have been here over the years is that the atmosphere at Spiro’s is the best. And the food, actually.”

“Do they all have Greek dancing?” asked the Secretary with Short Bleached Hair.

“Yes, there’s Greek dancing most nights, and then each taverna has a party night every week. Special menu, dancing displays and so on. Costa’s has his on Friday, the hotel on Saturday, Spiro on Monday and The Three Brothers on Wednesday.”

“Oh, right, we’ll try Costa’s tomorrow,” said the Secretary with Short Bleached Hair to her friend.

“And are there any nightclubs?” asked her friend, the Secretary with Long Bleached Hair.

“Not nightclubs as such. Not in Agios Nikitas – though of course things go on pretty late in the tavernas. If you want proper nightclubs, you have to go along the coast to Ipsos or Dassia.”

“Oh, right, we’ll try that Saturday,” said the Secretary with Long Bleached Hair to the Secretary with Short Bleached Hair.

Having fielded this flurry of questions, Ginnie turned to the coach driver and said something in fluent Greek. He laughed, though whether at the expense of his passengers or not was hard to tell.

“God, I hope we get there soon,” muttered Joyce, as the coach lurched off the main road on to a pitted, stony track. “I’m desperate for a pee.”

“Won’t be long now,” said Mrs Pargeter, in her comforting, slightly Cockney voice.

“And for a drink,” said Joyce. Her small face was tight with anxiety beneath its spray of blonded hair.

The desperation for a drink sounded greater than that for a pee. Mrs Pargeter had a moment of worry. She knew that anything offering temporary oblivion was seductive in the first bleak shock of widowhood, but her friend did seem to be giving in too readily to the temptations of alcohol. Joyce had kept going with gin and tonics through the long wait at Gatwick and taken everything she had been offered on the plane.

And then there had been that strange business with the package… Before they went through to the departure lounge, Joyce had suddenly asked Mrs Pargeter if she had room in her flightbag to carry something for her. “Not that it’s too heavy or anything, Melita, just don’t want to be over the limit if I’m stopped by Customs.”

The package that had been handed over, and that still resided in the flightbag under Mrs Pargeter’s seat, had been stoutly wrapped in cardboard and brown paper, but the way its contents shifted left no doubt that it contained a bottle. The need to take her own supplies into a country where alcohol was as readily available as Greece suggested that maybe Joyce did have a bit of a ‘drinking problem’.

But her caution about the Customs had not been misplaced. The grimly-moustached officer at Corfu Airport had singled out the fifty-five-year-old Joyce, along with a couple of more obvious student targets, and insisted on her opening suitcases and flightbag. Despite a detailed search, he found nothing that he shouldn’t and the suspect was allowed to go on her way.

It did seem strange, though… And now Mrs Pargeter thought about the incident, she realised that the Customs officer had not found any other bottles in her friend’s luggage. So why had the package been given to her? What had Joyce meant about the danger of being ‘over the limit’? That was even stranger.

Mrs Pargeter was interrupted by Ginnie’s voice before she had time to ask Joyce for an explanation. “Right, everyone, as we turn the corner here, we’ll be able to see over to Albania. Nobody quite knows what goes on in there, so a word of advice… if any of you are renting out boats during your stay, don’t go too close to their side, OK?”

The passengers turned to look out over the void of sea to the distant lights. A large brightly-illuminated vessel moved slowly up the centre of the channel. The atmosphere in the coach changed. Now they were so close to their destination, excitement rekindled for the first time since that distant half-hour at Gatwick before they had heard about the flight delay.

“And down the bottom of the hill there you can see the village.”

They rounded the last corner. Light spilled from the seafront tavernas and villas on to the glassy arc of a little bay. Reflected bulbs winked back from the water to the strings of real bulbs above them. At their moorings bobbed motorboats, four carbon-copy yachts from a flotilla, and sturdy fishing boats with large lamps on the bows to attract their night-time catch. Some of the older fishing vessels had eyes painted either side of their prows, luck-bringers designed to outstare the Evil Eye, a phenomenon which still had its believers on Corfu.

The road ran between the buildings and the sea. Wooden piers thrust out into the water opposite the taverna entrances. At one a stout blue caique was moored.

The coach scrunched to a halt outside a large rectangular stone building over the front of which a striped canvas awning was stretched. Beneath this, tanned holiday-makers in T-shirts and shorts sat over drinks and food, paying no more than desultory attention to the new arrivals. The sound of recorded bouzouki music, together with a smell of burning charcoal and herbs, wafted in through the coach’s windows.

“At last,” said Ginnie. “Welcome to Agios Nikitas.”