Chapter 2: Coffee On The Quay

Freddie took a slow amble into the port of Agoras. He followed the dusty road that wound from the east of the island. It took him down from his villa, across the small valley where he'd first seen the girls and then staggered around the final bay into the clutter of white painted houses that was the island's only real town.

It was a quiet walk for the most part. It was early in the year. Later there might be the occasional tourist revving their way past on one of the barely functional motor scooters that were for hire in the town but for now his walk was only disturbed by the raucous hooting of a single dusty lorry as it passed him heading the same way. Freddie waved to the driver as it passed him; another load of marble from the island's one industry — the quarry.

He reached the port as the group of girls were piling their equipment in a barely ordered heap on the quayside outside Alexander's bar. The five of them collapsed into wicker chairs. Freddie took up a place at an adjacent table. Alexander was nowhere to be seen, as usual at this time of day. His sister, Andrea, a dark haired girl that looked as if she had stepped out of the decoration of a black figure work vase, emerged from the bar. She was running things as usual. Freddie nodded. She knew he'd take his regular metrios; the tiny cup with its black thick coffee and sufficient sugar to take away the bitterness together with a cooling glass of water.

Andrea turned her attention to the girls, waiting patiently while they debated the merits of the twenty different sorts of coffees available according to the menu. Freddie that knew they were wasting their time. Unless it was a Greek coffee, brewed in its own little briki, they would be getting Nescafe with or without milk.

Eventually the hubbub of ordering came to a conclusion and Andrea disappeared inside the bar. Freddie sat staring out to sea. The daily ferry was just appearing around the northern coast. The girls chatted on.

"So, B, what will be the first steps?" the one that had been holding the camera leant forward towards the mermaid smiling eagerly.

The mermaid shaded her eyes against the sun as she peered out towards the ferry. "I'd like you and Helen to map the site before we do anything. Then a resistivity survey, ground penetrating radar too, assuming Norah got the equipment from Athens. Then, if there aren't any other targets, I'd like to take a small trench across the edge of the enclosure and another across the centre on the seaward side to see if the enclosure was actually semi-circular or if half of it has been lost into the sea."

The mermaid was making no attempt to talk quietly so Freddie felt quite permitted to join the conversation. He turned towards the group. "An archaeological dig?" he asked. "Here on Agoras? I didn't think there was anything worth digging here."

The mermaid turned towards him and smiled, unconcerned by the interruption and apparently happy for the opportunity to hold forth on her favourite subject. "You'd be surprised," she said. "Agoras was at the cross roads in the Minoan and Mycenaean periods. Crete over there," she gestured to the south west. Egypt over there. The Anatolian Coastal kingdoms and the Hittite empire over there." She pointed towards the Turkish coast. "There's not much been dug here and precious little documentary evidence but we think there are things to be discovered."

"Well, good luck." Freddie smiled. Andrea emerged from the back of the bar carrying Freddie's coffee with its usual glass of water. "Ephcharisto," he thanked her as she put it down on his table. He turned back to the archaeologists. "Sorry, I should introduce myself. Freddie Clegg."

"Hi," the mermaid said. "Bethany Howes." She seemed disappointed when Freddie didn't react to her name but it meant nothing to him. "Maybe you saw my TV documentary on the cult of Diana at Ephesus?"

Freddie shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I don't get much time for television." Apart from which, Freddie thought, I've never been keen on the idea of worshipping women - quite the reverse in fact. He did, however, remember at least one thing about Diana from his history lessons at school. If you had to worship a women, one with many breasts was probably the best sort to choose. Freddie remembered fondly the adolescent banter of his fellow students when they'd found a picture of her statue. He would have been disturbed to learn that these days academic opinion favoured the idea that what appeared to be multiple breasts on the Diana statues were, in fact, representations of bull's testicles.

Andrea reappeared with a tray of coffees before the others could introduce themselves.

"So where is this dig?" Freddie asked, returning his mind from its contemplation of a many breasted Diana and the transfer of her remembered attributes to Bethany.

The others sorted out their coffees. Sharing them around with quizzical examination as they attempted to determine which might be latte and which cappuccino. There weren't really many clues in the cups. In the end they decided that the ones with chocolate dusting on were probably meant to be cappuccinos.

As Bethany leant forward to pick up her cup Freddie suddenly found it difficult to imagine her with more than the two rather nice breasts that she had.