I shall stay here and work

But Justine sat in a heap, shaking her head as if her mother could see. Come home? She could never come home again. If she had gone with Dane he wouldn't be dead. Come home, and have to look at her mother's face every day for the rest of her life? No, it didn't bear thinking of. "No, Mum," she said, the tears rolling down her skin, hot like molten metal. Who on earth ever said people most moved don't weep? They don't know anything about it. "I shall stay here and work. I'll come home with Dane, but then I'm going back. I can't live on Drogheda." For three days they waited in a purposeless vacuum, Justine in London, Meggie and the family on Drogheda, stretching the official silence into tenuous hope. Oh, surely after so long it would turn out to be a mistake, surely if it was true they would have heard by now! Dane would come-in Justine's front door smiling, and say it was all a silly mistake. Greece was in revolt, all sorts of silly mistakes must have been made. Dane would come in the door and laugh the idea of his death to scorn, he'd stand there tall and strong and alive, and he'd laugh. Hope began to grow, and grew with every minute they waited. Treacherous, horrible hope. He wasn't dead, no! Not drowned, not Dane who was a good enough swimmer to brave any kind of sea and live. So they waited, not acknowledging what had happened in the hope it would prove to be a mistake. Time later to notify people, let Rome know. On the fourth morning Justine got the message. Like an old woman she picked up the receiver once more, and asked for Australia. "Mum?" "Justine?" "Oh, Mum, they've buried him already; we can't bring him home! What are we going to do? All they can say is that Crete is a big place, the name of the village isn't known, by the time the cable arrived he'd already been spirited away somewhere and disposed of. He's lying in an unmarked grave somewhere! I can't get a visa for Greece, no one wants to help, it's chaos. What are we going to do, Mum?" "Meet me in Rome, Justine," said Meggie. Everyone save Anne Mueller was there around the phone, still in shock. The men seemed to have aged twenty years in three days, and Fee, shrunken birdlike, white and crabbed, drifted about the house saying over and over, "Why couldn't it have been me? Why did they have to take him? I'm so old, so old! I wouldn't have minded going, why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been me? I'm so old!" Anne had collapsed, and Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat walked, slept tears.