Twelve Red Herrings

Timeo Danaos…*

Arnold Bacon would have made a fortune if he hadn’t taken his father’s advice.

Arnold’s occupation, as described in his passport, was “banker”. For those of you who are pedantic about such matters, he was the branch manager of Barclays Bank in St Albans, Hertfordshire, which in banking circles is about the equivalent of being a captain in the Royal Army Pay Corps.

His passport also stated that he was born in 1937, was five feet nine inches tall, with sandy hair and no distinguishing marks although in fact he had several lines on his forehead, which served only to prove that he frowned a great deal.

He was a member of the local Rotary Club (Hon. Treasurer), the Conservative Party (Branch Vice-Chairman), and was a past Secretary of the St Albans Festival. He had also played rugby for the Old Albanians 2nd XV in the 1960s and cricket for St Albans C.C. in the 1970s. His only exercise for the past two decades, however, had been the occasional round of golf with his opposite number from the National Westminster. Arnold did not boast a handicap.

During these excursions round the golf course Arnold would often browbeat his opponent with his conviction that he should never have been a banker in the first place. After years of handing out loans to customers who wanted to start up their own businesses, he had become painfully aware that he himself was really one of nature’s born entrepreneurs. If only he hadn’t listened to his father’s advice and followed him into the bank, heaven knows what heights he might have reached by now.

His colleague nodded wearily, then holed a seven-foot putt, ensuring that the drinks would not be on him.

“How’s Deirdre?” he asked as the two men strolled towards the clubhouse.

“Wants to buy a new dinner service,” said Arnold, which slightly puzzled his companion. “Not that I can see what’s wrong with our old Coronation set.”

When they reached the bar, Arnold checked his watch before ordering half a pint of lager for himself and a gin and tonic for the victor, as Deirdre wouldn’t be expecting him back for at least an hour. He stopped pontificating only when another member began telling them the latest rumours about the club captain’s wife.

Deirdre Bacon, Arnold’s long-suffering wife, had come to accept that her husband was now too set in his ways for her to hope for any improvement. Although she had her own opinions on what would have happened to Arnold if he hadn’t followed his father’s advice, she no longer voiced them. At the time of their engagement she had considered Arnold Bacon “quite a catch”. But as the years passed, she had become more realistic about her expectations, and after two children, one of each sex, she had settled into the life of a housewife and mother — not that anything else had ever been seriously contemplated.

The children had now grown up, Justin to become a solicitor’s clerk in Chelmsford, and Virginia to marry a local boy whom Arnold described as an official with British Rail. Deirdre, more accurately, told her friends at the hairdresser’s that Keith was a train driver.

For the first ten years of their marriage, the Bacons had holidayed in Bournemouth, because Arnold’s parents had always done so. They only graduated to the Costa del Sol after Arnold read in the Daily Telegraph’s “Sun Supplement” that that was where most bank managers were to be found during the month of August.

For many years Arnold had promised his wife that they would do “something special” when it came to celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, though he had never actually committed himself to defining what “special” meant.

It was only when he read in the bank’s quarterly staff magazine that Andrew Buxton, the Chairman of Barclays, would be spending his summer sailing around the Greek islands on a private yacht that Arnold began writing off to numerous cruise companies and travel agents, requesting copies of their brochures. After having studied hundreds of glossy pages, he settled on a seven-day cruise aboard the Princess Corina, starting out from Piraeus to sail around the Greek islands, ending up at Mykonos. Deirdre’s only contribution to the discussion was that she would rather go back to the Costa del Sol, and spend the money they saved on a new dinner service. She was delighted, however, to read in one of the brochures that the Greeks were famous for their pottery.

By the time they boarded the coach to Heathrow, Arnold’s junior staff, fellow members of the Rotary Club, and even a few of his more select customers were becoming tired of being reminded of how Arnold would be spending his summer break.

“I shall be sailing around the Greek islands on a liner,” he would tell them. “Not unlike the bank’s Chairman, Andrew Buxton, you know.”

If anyone asked Deirdre what she and Arnold were doing for their holidays, she said that they were going on a seven-day package tour, and that the one thing she hoped to come home with was a new dinner service.

The old “Coronation” service that had been given to them by Deirdre’s parents as a wedding gift some twenty-five years before was now sadly depleted. Several of the plates were chipped or broken, while the pattern of crowns and sceptres on the pieces that were still serviceable had almost faded away.

“I can’t see what’s wrong with it myself,” said Arnold when his wife raised the subject once more as they waited in the departure lounge at Heathrow. Deirdre made no effort to list its defects again.

Arnold spent most of the flight to Athens complaining that the aircraft was full of Greeks. Deirdre didn’t feel it was worth pointing out to him that, if one booked a passage with Olympic Airways, that was likely to be the outcome. She also knew his reply would be, “But it saved us twenty-four pounds.”

Once they had landed at Hellenikon International Airport, the two holidaymakers climbed aboard a bus. Arnold doubted whether it would have passed its MOT in St Albans, but nevertheless it somehow managed to transport them into the centre of Athens, where Arnold had booked them overnight into a two-star hotel (two Greek stars). Arnold quickly found the local branch of Barclays and cashed one of his travellers’ cheques, explaining to his wife that there was no point in changing more, as once they were on board the liner everything had already been paid for. He was sure that was how entrepreneurs conducted themselves.

The Bacons rose early the following morning, mainly because they hadn’t been able to get a great deal of sleep. Their bodies had continually rolled to the centre of the lumpy concave mattress, and their ears ached after a night resting on the brick-hard convex pillows. Even before the sun had risen, Arnold jumped out of bed and threw open the little window that looked out onto a back yard. He stretched his arms and declared he had never felt better. Deirdre didn’t comment, as she was already busy packing their clothes.

Over breakfast — a meal consisting of a croissant, which Arnold felt was too sticky, and which in any case fell apart in his fingers, feta cheese, which he didn’t care for the smell of, and an obstinately empty cup, because the management refused to serve tea — a long debate developed between them as to whether they should hire a taxi or take a bus to the liner. They both came to the conclusion that a taxi would be more sensible, Deirdre because she didn’t want to be crammed into a hot bus with a lot of sweaty Athenians, and Arnold because he wanted to be seen arriving at the gangplank in a car.

Once Arnold had settled their bill — having checked the little row of figures presented to him three times before he was willing to part with another travellers’ cheque — he hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to take them to the quayside. The longer than expected journey, in an ancient car with no air conditioning, did not put Arnold into a good humour.

When he first set eyes on the Princess Corina, Arnold was unable to mask his disappointment. The ship was neither as large nor as modern as it had appeared in the glossy brochure. He had a feeling his Chairman would not be experiencing the same problem.

Mr and Mrs Bacon ascended the gangplank and were escorted to their cabin, which to Arnold’s dismay consisted of two bunks, a washbasin, a shower and a porthole, without even enough room between the bunks for both of them to be able to undress at the same time. Arnold pointed out to his wife that this particular cabin had certainly not been illustrated in the brochure, even if it had been described on the tariff by the encomium “De Luxe”. The brochure must have been put together by an out-of-work estate agent, he concluded.

Arnold set out to take a turn around the deck — not a particularly lengthy excursion. On the way he bumped into a solicitor from Chester who had been innocently strolling with his wife in the opposite direction. After Arnold had established that Malcolm Jackson was a senior partner in his firm, and his wife Joan was a magistrate, he suggested they should join up for lunch.

Once they had selected their meal from the buffet, Arnold lost no time in telling his new-found friends that he was a born entrepreneur, explaining, for example, the immediate changes he would make to improve efficiency on the Princess Corina had he been the chairman of this particular shipping line. (The list, I fear, turned out to be far too long to include in a short story.)

The solicitor, who had not had to suffer any of Arnold’s opinions before, seemed quite content to listen, while Deirdre chatted away to Joan about how she was hoping to find a new dinner service on one of the islands. “The Greeks are famous for their pottery, you know,” she kept saying.

The conversation didn’t vary a great deal when the two couples reunited over dinner that evening.

Although the Bacons were tired after their first day on board, neither of them slept for more than a few moments that night. But Arnold was unwilling to admit, as they bobbed across the Aegean in their little cabin, that given the choice he would have preferred the two-star hotel (two Greek stars), with its lumpy mattress and brick-hard pillows, to the bunks on which they were now being tossed from side to side.

After two days at sea the ship docked at Rhodes, and by then even Arnold had stopped describing it as a “liner”. Most of the passengers piled off down the gangway, only too delighted to have the chance of spending a few hours on land.

Arnold and Malcolm beat a path to the nearest Barclays Bank to cash a travellers’ cheque each, while Deirdre and Joan set off in the opposite direction in search of a dinner service. At the bank, Arnold immediately informed the manager who he was, ensuring that both he and Malcolm received a tiny improvement on the advertised rate of exchange.

Arnold smiled as they stepped out of the bank, and onto the hot, dusty, cobbled street. “I should have gone into futures trading, you know,” he told Malcolm as they sauntered off down the hill. “I would have made a fortune.”

Deirdre’s quest for a dinner service didn’t turn out to be quite so straightforward. The shops were numerous and varied in quality, and she quickly discovered that Rhodes boasted a great many potters. It was therefore necessary for her to establish which of them was the most highly regarded by the locals, and then find the shop that sold his work. This information was gained by talking to the old women dressed in black who could be found sitting silently on the street corners, about one in ten of whom, she discovered, had some broken English. While her husband was at the bank saving a few drachmas, Deirdre managed to find out all the inside information she required.

The four of them met up at a small taverna in the centre of the town for lunch. Over a plate of souvlakia Arnold tried to convince Deirdre that as they were visiting five islands in the course of the trip, it might perhaps be wise to wait until their final port of call, so they could purchase the dinner service at the last possible moment.

“Prices will undoubtedly fall,” declared Arnold, “the closer we get to Athens.” He spoke with the air of a true entrepreneur.

Although Deirdre had already seen a thirty-two-piece set she liked, at a price well within their budget, she reluctantly agreed to Arnold’s suggestion. Her acquiescence was largely brought about by the fact that it was her husband who was in possession of all the travellers’ cheques.

By the time the ship had docked at Heraklion on Crete, Arnold had vetted all the British nationals on board, and had permitted a Major (Territorial Reserve) and his spouse to join their table for lunch but only after discovering that the fellow held an account at Barclays. A dinner invitation followed once it had been established that the Major occasionally played bridge with Arnold’s area manager.

From that moment Arnold spent many happy hours at the bar explaining to the Major or to Malcolm — neither of whom actually listened any longer — why he should never have taken his father’s advice and followed him into the bank, as he was after all one of nature’s born entrepreneurs.

By the time the ship had weighed anchor and sailed from Santorini, Deirdre knew exactly the type of dinner service she wanted, and how to establish quickly which potter she should trade with as soon as they set foot in a new port. But Arnold continued to insist that they should wait for the bigger market as they approached Athens — “More competition, forces prices down,” he explained for the umpteenth time. Deirdre knew there was no point in telling him that prices seemed to be rising with each knot they covered on their journey back towards the Greek capital.

Páros only served as further proof of Deirdre’s suspicions — if proof were still needed — as the prices there were noticeably steeper than they had been on Santorini. As the Princess Corina steamed on towards Mykonos, Deirdre felt that although their final port of call would probably be able to supply her with a satisfactory dinner service, it would surely no longer be at a price they could afford.

Arnold kept assuring her, with the confidence of a man who knows about such things, that all would be well. He even tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. The Major and Malcolm had reached the stage of simply nodding at him to indicate that they were still awake.

Deirdre was among the first down the gangplank when they docked at Mykonos that Friday morning. She had told her husband that she would carry out a recce of the pottery shops while he did the same with the banks. Joan and the Major’s wife were happy to accompany Deirdre, as by now she had become something of an expert on the subject of Greek pottery.

The three ladies began their search at the north end of the town, and Deirdre was relieved to find that there was a greater variety of shops in Mykonos than there had been on any of the other islands. She was also able to discover, with the help of several black-clad ladies, that the town boasted a potter of genuine fame, whose work could only be purchased from one shop, The House of Pétros.

Once Deirdre had located this establishment, she spent the rest of the morning inspecting all the dinner services they had to offer. After a couple of hours she came to the conclusion that the “Delphi” set which was prominently displayed in the centre of the shop would be a prized possession for any housewife in St Albans. But as it was double the cost of anything she had seen on any of the other islands, she knew that Arnold would dismiss it as being out of their price range.

As the three ladies finally left the shop to join their husbands for lunch, a good-looking young man in a grubby T-shirt and torn jeans, with a couple of days’ stubble on his chin, jumped out in front of them and asked, “You English?”

Deirdre stopped and stared into his deep blue eyes for a moment, but said nothing. Her companions stepped out into the cobbled road and quickened their pace, pretending it was not them to whom the stranger had spoken. Deirdre smiled at him as he stood to one side, allowing her to continue on her way. Arnold had warned her never to engage in conversation with the natives.

When they reached ρέγγα κοκκινη, the restaurant at which they’d arranged to meet up for lunch, the three ladies found their husbands drinking imported lager at the bar. Arnold was explaining to the Major and Malcolm why he had refused to pay his subscription to the Conservative Party that year. “Not a penny will I part with,” he insisted, “while they can’t get their own house in order.” Deirdre suspected that his unwillingness to pay had rather more to do with his recent defeat when he had stood as Chairman of the local branch.

Arnold passed the next hour offering his views on everything from defence cuts to New Age travellers to single-parent families, all of which he was resolutely against. When the bill for lunch was finally presented, he spent some considerable time working out what each of them had eaten, and therefore how much they should contribute towards the total.

Arnold had already resigned himself to the fact that he would have to allocate part of his afternoon to bargaining on Deirdre’s behalf, now that she had finally found the dinner service she had set her heart on. Everyone else had agreed to come along and watch the born entrepreneur at work.

When Arnold entered The House of Pétros, he had to admit that Deirdre seemed to have “located the correct establishment”. He kept repeating this observation, as if to prove that he had been right all along to insist that she wait until their final port of call before the big decision was taken. He seemed blissfully unaware of how the price of pottery had increased from island to island, and Deirdre made no attempt to enlighten him. She simply guided him over to the “Delphi” service displayed on a large table in the centre of the room, and prayed. They all agreed it was quite magnificent, but when Arnold was told the price, he shook his head sadly. Deirdre would have protested, but she, like so many of the bank’s customers over the years, had seen that look on her husband’s face before. She therefore resigned herself to settling for the “Pharos” set — excellent, but unquestionably second best, and far more expensive than comparable sets had been on any of the other four islands.

The three wives began selecting the pieces they would like to buy, while their husbands gravely reminded them how much they could afford. The choices having been made, Arnold spent a considerable time haggling with the shopkeeper. He finally managed to get a twenty per cent discount on the total. Once the figure had been established, Arnold was dispatched to find an English bank at which he could change the necessary travellers’ cheques. With passports and signed cheques in hand, he left the shop to carry out his mission.

As he stepped onto the pavement, the young man who had approached Deirdre leaped into his path and asked, “You English?”

“Naturally,” replied Arnold, sidestepping him and marching on briskly in order to avoid any further conversation with such a scruffy individual. As he had told the Major over lunch, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.” It was the one snippet of Latin he could still recall from his schooldays.

When he had selected a bank, Arnold marched straight into the manager’s office and changed everyone’s cheques at a minutely better rate than the one displayed on the board in the window. Pleased with his saving of fifty drachmas, he headed back to The House of Pétros.

He was displeased to find the young man was still loitering on the pavement outside the shop. Arnold refused to favour the unshaven ruffian with even a glance, but he did catch the words, “You want to save money, Englishman?” Arnold stopped in his tracks, as any born entrepreneur would, and turned to study more closely the loutish youth who had addressed him. He was about to continue on his way when the young man said, “I know where pottery is everything half price.” Arnold hesitated once again, and looked through the shop window to see his companions standing around waiting for his return; on the counter stood six large packages, already wrapped up and awaiting payment.

Arnold turned back to take a closer look at the inarticulate foreigner.

“Potter comes from village called Kalafatis,” he said. “Bus journey only half hour, then everything half price.”

While Arnold was digesting this piece of information, the young Greek’s hand shot out hopefully. Arnold extracted a fifty-drachma note from the roll of money he had obtained at the bank, willing to speculate with the profit he had made on that particular transaction in exchange for the information he had just acquired — the act of a true entrepreneur, he thought as he marched triumphantly into the shop.

“I have made an important discovery,” he announced, and beckoned them all into a corner to impart his inside information.

Deirdre did not seem at all convinced, until Arnold suggested, “Perhaps we might even be able to afford the “Delphi” set you hankered after, my dear. In any case, why pay double, when the only sacrifice you need to make is a half-hour bus journey.” Malcolm nodded his agreement, as if listening to sage advice from senior counsel, and even the Major, though grumbling a little, finally fell into line.

“As we set sail for Athens early this evening,” declared the Major, “we ought to take the next bus to Kalafatis.”

Arnold nodded, and without another word led his little band out of the shop, not even glancing towards the packages that were left behind on the counter.

When they stepped out onto the street, Arnold was relieved to find that the young man who had given him the tip-off was no longer to be seen.

They came to a halt at the bus stop, where Arnold was a little disappointed to discover several passengers from the ship already standing in the queue, but he persuaded himself that they would not be heading for the same destination. They waited in the hot sun for another forty minutes before a bus eventually pulled up. When Arnold first saw the vehicle, his heart sank. “Just think of how much money we’ll be saving,” he said when he noticed the looks of despair on the faces of his companions.

The journey across the island to the east coast might well have taken thirty minutes had it been in a Range Rover with no reason to slow down. But as the bus driver picked up everybody he saw along the way, without regard to official stops, they eventually arrived in Kalafatis an hour and twenty minutes later. Long before they had clambered off the ancient vehicle Deirdre was exhausted, Joan was exasperated, and the Major’s wife was developing a migraine.

“Bus goes no further,” said the driver as Arnold and his companions filed off. “Leave for return journey to Khóra one hour. Last bus of the day.”

The little band gazed up at the narrow, winding track that led to the potter’s workplace.

“The journey was worth it for the view alone,” gasped Arnold, as he came to a halt halfway along the path and gazed out over the Aegean.

His companions didn’t even bother to stop and look, let alone offer an opinion. It took them another ten minutes of determined walking before they reached their destination, and by then even Arnold had fallen silent.

As the six weary tourists finally entered the pottery, what breath they had left was taken away. They stood mesmerised by shelf after shelf of beautiful objects. Arnold felt a warm glow of triumph.

Deirdre immediately went about her business, and quickly located the “Delphi” dinner service. It looked even more magnificent than she remembered, but when she checked a little label that hung from a soup tureen’s handle she was horrified to discover that the cost was only a little less than it had been at The House of Pétros.

Deirdre came to a decision. She turned to face her husband, who was toying with a pipe stand, and declared in a clarion voice that all could hear, “As everything is at half price, Arnold, presumably I can go ahead and buy the ‘Delphi?’”

The other four swung round to see how the great entrepreneur would react. Arnold seemed to hesitate for a moment before he placed the pipe stand back on the shelf and said, “Of course, my dear. Isn’t that why we came all this way in the first place?”

The three women immediately began selecting items from the shelves, finally gathering between them one dinner service, two tea sets, one coffee set, three vases, five ashtrays, two jugs and a toast rack. Arnold abandoned the pipe stand.

When the bill for Deirdre’s purchases was presented to her husband he hesitated once again, but he was painfully aware that all five of his shipmates were glaring at him. He reluctantly cashed his remaining travellers’ cheques, unwilling to bring himself even to glance at the disadvantageous exchange rate that was displayed in the window. Deirdre made no comment. Malcolm and the Major silently signed away their own travellers’ cheques, with little appearance of triumph showing on either of their faces.

The goods having been paid for, the six tourists emerged from the workshop, laden down with carrier bags. As they began to retrace their steps back down the winding track, the door of the pottery was closed behind them.

“We’ll have to get a move on if we’re not going to miss the last bus,” shouted Arnold as he stepped into the centre of the path, avoiding a large cream Mercedes that was parked outside the workshop. “But what a worthwhile excursion,” he added as they trundled off down the track. “You have to admit, I saved you all a fortune.”

Deirdre was the last to leave the shop. She paused to rearrange her numerous bags, and was surprised to see a number of the pottery’s staff forming a queue at a table by the side of the shop. A handsome young man in a grubby T-shirt and torn jeans was presenting each of them in turn with a small brown envelope.

Deirdre couldn’t take her eyes off the young man. Where had she seen him before? He looked up, and for a moment she stared into those deep blue eyes. And then she remembered. The young man shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Deirdre returned the smile, picked up her bags and set off down the path after her companions.

As they clambered onto the bus, Deirdre was just in time to hear Arnold declare: “You know, Major, I should never have taken my father’s advice and settled for the life of a banker. You see, I’m one of nature’s born entre…’

Deirdre smiled again as she looked out of the window and watched the good-looking young man speed past them in his large cream Mercedes.

He smiled and waved to her as the last bus began its slow journey back to Mykonos.