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One winter morning months after the war, when Louisa’s grown used to not bothering to hope for better things and has settled for being sincerely glad that life isn’t any worse, Larry comes home.
All of her other children are home for Christmas, which was already remarkable enough. Margo, Leslie, and Gerry are still asleep; she peeked in on each of them earlier and marveled at the way one’s children always look like one’s children when they’re sleeping, no matter how grown up (and often annoying) they are once they’re awake. It made this new house—and she still thinks of it as a new house, even though years have passed—feel more like a real home than it usually manages to.
When she swings the front door open, it’s to find her eldest standing there, thinner and more like a grown man than she’s ever seen him before, but still Larry. Behind him, the pearly morning sky is luminous with dainty wisps of snowfall.
“Good morning, Mother,” he says with deliberate casualness, a little smirking smile on his face.
“Oh, Larry!” Louisa pulls him into her arms, weeping in two seconds flat. There have been brief visits over the years, and letters rare and precious as gems, but never enough.
He doesn’t grimace at her mollycoddling, for once, and when they pull back from a very long hug, his eyes are bright and shining. She feels a flash of pride. He really does have a lot of emotional intelligence for such a pretentious pain-in-the-behind.
“What a Christmas gift,” she effuses, going in for a second embrace.
“Speaking of,” says Larry, politely peeling her off this time, “I’ve brought you something.”
“Have you? What good manners. You really have grown up. Oh, whatever it is, there’s no way it can match you being home.”
“Are you sure about that?” Larry says it in that knowing tone that has driven every Durrell to madness at some point or other, but there’s something gentle around the edges.
Louisa feels suddenly very awake. Dizzy, too, like she’s had too much coffee.
She steps to the window.
There, standing outside in the garden, is Spiros.
He’s staring at the light dusting of snow on the hedges with wonder. He looks a bit older—God knows she must, too—but more beautiful than ever before. The sight of him hurts, a glad ache that suffuses her whole body in a second.
He’s dressed in a good, solid winter overcoat and has a maroon scarf slung over his shoulders. Both coat and scarf look a little shabby; what doesn’t these days? All the same, she feels a swell of appreciation for her son for seeing to it that Spiros is well prepared for this new world he’s stepped into.
He’s holding his hat in his hand, dusting snowflakes off the brim. More to wonder at the snow than anything else, she thinks.
“Aren’t you going to go say hello?” Larry urges.
“Of course,” Louisa says, and doesn’t move.
“A bit rude not to, considering.”
“Considering what? Considering he abandoned Dimitra to come here with you?” That old feeling surges up after over five years in retirement, a mixture of panic and irrational fury that someone else had dared to marry her later-in-life soulmate.
“No, they split ages ago. Never reconciled after you left, as a matter of fact, except in matters involving the children.”
“And the children are all right?”
“The children are fine. Adolescents, really, now.”
“Oh, thank heavens. I was so afraid constantly. All that horrific news. It’s a wonder the place is still standing at all. And is he—”
“This is ridiculous,” Larry announces. “I’m not going to stand here and be interrogated about your long-lost boyfriend while Les and Margo and Gerry get to snooze the day away. Have any of them partaken in high stakes espionage in the name of king and country?”
“Well, no,” says Louisa, “but Margo did get very inventive in the kitchen thanks to rationing.”
Larry shudders. “I so don’t want to know.” He kisses Louisa’s cheek, giving her a quick squeeze of a hug. “Go talk to him.”
And, well. There’s no arguing with Mr. High Stakes Espionage.
She looks out the window again. Outside, Spiros shivers, unused to the cold. It must feel like the North Pole compared to home. (She still does that sometimes, mixes up ‘home’ and ‘Corfu’ in her head, no matter how long she’s been back in England.) She watches a small smile bloom on his face as he spots a robin hopping along the drive.
A sigh escapes her lips.
Then he turns and spots her. He drops his hat on the ground, which immediately becomes the strangest and best compliment she’s ever received. His face lights up in a grin that’s not a bit diminished by the glass between them.
“God, the windows are filthy,” she mutters with vague hysteria. She glances down at her skirt and sweater and thanks whatever deity will listen that she’d gotten dressed this morning instead of lounging around in her pajamas with her hair a mess.
And all right, yes, she would have preferred to be looking casually ravishing in an evening gown, but needs must.
She takes a steadying breath, runs her hands over her hair, then goes out the front door.
She doesn’t realize she’s forgotten a coat until she’s too far outside to go retrieve one. The cold air is hard to register even as it stings her skin. Each step toward him feels enchanted and impossibly delicate, like she might open her eyes at any moment and find herself alone in her not-very-big-but-too-big bed.
When she’s close enough that five more seconds of walking would put her into his arms, she stops. He’s here and very real and smiling softly at the sight of her, lips curved up. He’s grown a beard—a short well-kept one, not some Captain Creech monstrosity, and more gray than black— and the fact that she wasn’t there every day to witness this change in facial hair strikes her, absurdly, as the saddest thing imaginable. Her heart thuds in her ears.
She can’t believe he’s not dead. At the same time, she’s never believed anything else. Surely, surely (she’s prayed so many times over the years) God wouldn’t be cruel enough to put her through that awful fate twice. She’s probably kissed his few letters that made it to her more than all her children combined. It’s hard to muster any dignity when you’re heartbroken at war time.
“Here you are,” she says, her voice airy and ridiculous.
“Here I am.” His voice is warm and deep and sweet as it ever was.
Her stomach threatens to fly straight to the moon. In a panic, she waves an arm at the very Bournemouth morning around them. “What do you think? I imagine it’s not all you dreamt of: freezing to death before you kissed me hello. Not to suggest you’ve been thinking about kissing me. Obviously, there have been far more important things to think about. The war, for one thing. Though that’s over now, so I suppose it frees up a bit of brain space, but that’s not exactly going to catapult imaginary kissing to the top of the list— Oh, stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” He’s positively alight with suppressed grinning.
“Like you’re the debonair master of romantic reunions and I’m a chattering lunatic.”
“I don’t think I am looking at you like that,” he protests, taking a step closer.
Her heart leaps at the lessened distance. “Well, you can’t see your face. I assure you, it looks exactly like that.”
“You’re not happy to see me?”
“Obviously I’m thrilled,” Louisa says impatiently, “but I’m also very nervous, and I think I might—explode or something, because I’ve gotten very good at being English and repressed again and this is all quite a lot to take in. So can we please talk about the weather?”
He nods, affection bright on his face even after all that.
“I thought the snow would be thicker,” he says obligingly, staring at the tidy front gardens of the neighbors.
“It’s very odd that we have snow at all, really,” Louisa answers like a polite English lady. “Usually, it’s all rain here, no matter the season.”
“A little miracle,” he suggests. His eyes crinkle in fondness.
“Precisely that,” she agrees, slightly breathless.
They stand still for a moment, regarding each other, and then decide together somehow to move forward. The snow swirls around them like dust glowing golden in the sun the way it would on languid Corfu afternoons. Or pale confetti, maybe, dancing with joy to meet the air at a splendid party.
Either way, it’s exquisite in a way nothing has been in a long time. Not since she ran through the sand on a beach.
She reaches forward, meaning to brush tiny snowflakes from his shoulders, and laces her fingers in his hair instead. He gladly lets her pull him in, leaning in to kiss her. She sinks into him with such relief and hunger that her knees nearly give out. His arms circle around her, keeping her steady.
They pull apart when breathing becomes an inconvenient necessity and stare at each other’s faces, fascinated as Gerry would have been in his younger days by some species of tortoise.
Spiros gestures to the gray in his hair and beard. “I know. You’re thinking, ‘Who is this old man?’”
“And you’re counting the lines around my eyes and wondering what happened to the pretty young thing you knew in Greece. Well,” Louisa amends, “young-ish thing.”
“Impossible,” He presses a kiss feather-softly to the crease beside her right eye where she’s been counting new crow’s feet in the mirror on particularly sullen days. “You are lovelier than the first day I saw you.”
“So are you,” she declares, giddy.
He preens jokingly. “A regular gray fox.”
“It’s silver fox.”
“Silver fox,” he repeats, amused. His brow furrows like it always did before when he wanted to remember something she told him.
It’s this, for some reason, that makes the tears bubble up. She hugs him fiercely. “Oh, I’ve missed you, Spiros.”
“I missed you,” he says into her hair, his hand rubbing her back. “My Mrs. Durrells. Louisa.”
“This had better not be a dream,” she orders the universe aloud, pressing a hand to his cheek so she can examine his face again. She thinks she’ll never get sick of it. He gazes at her with just the same feeling. It seems the perfect opportunity for a great deal more kissing.
And then:
“Whoohoo!!” At first, Louisa thinks it’s some kind of feral animal—Gerry getting up to old tricks—but a bit of further investigation reveals Leslie hanging out of one of the upstairs windows, waving his fists in celebration. “All right, Mother and Spiros!”
“Lovebirds,” comes Larry’s contribution as he tries to shove Leslie out of view, “do refrain from tearing off each other’s clothes in the front garden, will you? England’s suffered enough losses without all our neighbors dying of scandalized heart attacks at eight thirty in the morning.”
“Hello, Spiros!” Margo calls, springing up between her brothers. “If you’d like to come inside to make love and spare the neighbors, we promise we’ll ignore any noises from Mother’s bedroom. We’ve got a lot of earmuffs and we’re ready to use them.”
“Spiros,” Gerry contributes, joined by the fuzzy head and forepaws of his new dog, “you’ve got to meet Stephanides. Once you’re done with all … that, I mean.”
“All right; that’s enough, idiots,” Larry informs his siblings. He points sternly at Louisa and Spiros. “You’ve been warned.”
The window slams shut.
“Not a dream, then,” Louisa mutters.
“I missed your crazy children, too,” Spiros says, laughing.
“Let’s see how you feel once you’ve spent five minutes with them,” Louisa huffs. Still, she can’t resist adding, “They are very missable, though, aren’t they?”
“They are. They must get it from you.”
“Were you always this big a flirt?”
“Maybe not quite.” He pauses to kiss her knuckles. “But I have to make up for lost time, no?”
She beams. “Good point.”
“I like the new dog. He is named for Theo?”
“The highest compliment possible, in Gerry’s estimation. He misses him terribly.”
“I’m sure Theo misses him too.”
“Now that the war is over, he’s planning on moving to England. Imagine the nature preserve that will erupt all around us with the two of them together in this country.”
“I can’t wait,” Spiros says sincerely. “So Roger …?”
“Is no longer with us. He lived a long, full life, for a dog. Gerry was devastated, of course, but he bore it very bravely.” After a moment, she can’t help confessing, “I cried for weeks after he died. Silly, during a war.”
“No,” Spiros says, holding her hand, “not silly.”
“It’s only,” she says, “that there comes a point where you wonder if you can bear to lose anything else and keep getting up in the morning.”
“I know,” he answers somberly.
It’s a relief to see in his eyes that he understands just what she means. There’s been no one like that in her life for a long time. “You would have been proud to see my children. They were so strong through it all. Margo was an absolute revelation with the evacuated children who stayed with us. They adored her. And even though Leslie couldn’t enlist—you can imagine how well he took that at first, I’m sure—he worked so tirelessly at the RAF factory, and Gerry—well, Gerry worked on a farm, of course, but he put his all into it. The world stayed so alive for them, in spite of everything.”
“It’s a good thing you left Corfu when you did,” Spiros surmises.
“Yes,” Louisa says, wistful. “I suppose it was. And … was it good that you stayed?”
She feels like a blundering fool as soon as she’s asked it. After all of the horrors that found her family’s poor, beloved paradise—the occupation, the bombings, the slew of death, news she followed from afar with sick helplessness—it seems oafish to call anything about it good. Sometimes she feels she’ll never be strong enough to go back, if only so she can keep the picture in her mind of the way it was.
“It was the right thing to stay,” Spiros says. His voice is steady, but she can hear the grief in it. “The only thing I could have done.”
“I’m amazed you weren’t shot at once,” she says, trying to make light of it. “You do love a good shouting match.”
“I can shut up, I have discovered. For my children.” This time, his smile is all weariness. “I kept them safe.”
She places her hand on his chest. “I knew you would.”
“Like you did yours,” he adds.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. They’re all grown up now. They didn’t need their old mother much. Except to complain to and occasionally toss dirty laundry at.”
“No, no,” he says, affectionately scolding as he presses his hand over hers. “The mother is the most important person, remember. They were strong because of you.”
“Well, if you insist,” she relents.
“I do. And I was glad to keep an eye on Larry when I could. That, at least, I could do for you, even once you had gone.”
“I hope he wasn’t too unbearable,” Louisa says, to keep from weeping. “When he really sets his mind to it, he can dial it down to being merely a nuisance.”
“He would have made you proud. His bravery and principles. I hope my sons grow up to be like him. Maybe not with the dirty book writing, but everything else.”
“He assures me the dirty book writing will really pay off one of these days,” she says with a watery laugh. “Thank you for keeping an eye on him.”
He strokes her cheek. “It was my honor.”
She leans into his touch, but can’t quite resist treading precarious ground. She won’t believe it until she’s heard it from him. “And … your sons’ mother?”
“Remarried. To an Englishman.”
“No!”
“Poor Basil gave her a taste for them, I think.”
“So your sons are—”
“Moving here,” Spiros says. “To the wild Hampshire countryside.”
“Golly. There’s a new adventure. Especially if you’re afraid of sheep.”
“They are not afraid of anything,” he says proudly. “I told them about four other brave young people who moved to a new land and found their wildest dreams.”
“I would love to meet them properly,” Louisa says, meaning it. It’s wonderful to think of his sons as something besides an obstacle.
“And they would love to meet you. It’s not too long a drive on your measly English roads.”
“Excuse me: measly?”
“Not enough cliffs. Where’s the daring?”
Louisa scoffs, then gets back to the matter at hand. “I would love to be your passenger again, and I’d love to get to know your boys even more. But would Dimitra … love that?”
“The war has changed her and I. Our old problems, they don’t seem so important anymore.”
“Really?”
Spiros grimaces.
Louisa clucks her tongue. “I thought so.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” Spiros says sagely. Then he checks, “Was that right?”
Louisa smiles. “It was perfect.”
“See! I am mastering all your English phrases.”
“Beautifully.” She pats his shoulder. “Well, that’s the last half-decade of hell sorted. Now what?”
“We go inside,” Spiros suggests.
“Are you hungry?”
“I’m not sure just now,” he says, all moony-eyed gazing again.
She tries not to feel too much like a smitten school girl, then decides to hell with it. She’s earned these butterflies, by God. “Charmer.” She slaps his chest lightly, and he chuckles. “Well, we don’t have a dazzling array, but Margo’s been practicing various delicacies in preparation for Christmas. Rationing is still in effect, of course, but she hasn’t let that stop her. Her latest attempt at murkey almost tasted like food.”
Sprios wrinkles his nose. “What is murkey?”
“God only knows. Some sausage and bread crumbs and whatever else she can find, molded into the general shape of poultry.”
“Well, now I’m starving.”
“Yes, I thought that would do the trick.” Louisa raises her eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re ready to face my band of rabid children? They’re capable of some dignity now that they’re all grown up, but you’ve got to give them a bit of advance notice.”
“You’re shivering,” Spiros points out. “You’re cold.”
“I’m shaking,” Louisa counters. Though, to be fair, she absolutely is shivering. It’s bloody freezing out here. “It’s the shock. I’ve re-gained a son and a lover in one fell swoop.” He ignores her and takes off his scarf, placing it around her neck with adorable concentration. “I can take a bit of December morning air. You forget I’m an Englishwoman.”
Still, she doesn’t fight in the least as he pulls her close, her chest against his, and wraps his coat around her.
“There,” he murmurs into her ear, sending delicious tingles through her. “All better.”
“So that’s a yes on giving all the neighbors heart attacks, then?” she teases.
“You’re the one who said ‘lover.’”
“A secluded beach was one thing, but we really are all but in the middle of the street. Mrs. Harrington next door gives me the evil eye when I don’t prune the rose bushes to her liking. This may drive her to murder.”
“If these English insist on being that English,” Spiros says, ”then we must bring the old Corfu spirit to them.”
“If you’ll recall,” Louisa says loftily, “I was quite notorious in Corfu.”
“And what are you here?” Spiros asks, tugging gently on a lock of her hair.
She considers his dear face.
“Much happier now,” she declares, brushing her fingers against his cheek.
“Me too,” he says, catching her hand in his, and smiles at her just as he always has. Like there’s no face in the world more worth smiling for.
They canoodle and murmur sweet nothings a little longer—it would be a shame to waste such warmth on a cold morning—before they decide that a cup of strong tea sounds heavenly and go into the house hand in hand.
“It’s no paradise by the sea,” Louisa says as he hangs up his dropped hat. She helps him out of his coat, feeling a tad embarrassed at the house’s utter ordinariness. “But there is running water.”
“Sounds like paradise to me.” Spiros tugs at the end of the scarf she still wears and kisses her cheek, then moves into the sitting room. She hangs up his coat beside his hat, liking the look of them beside all the winter things belonging to wayward Durrells, and follows. She decides not to take the scarf off just yet.
“Ah!” He points out the front window. “One neighbor is watching you already.”
Louisa fully expects Mrs. Harrington to be death glaring at her through the insufficiently polished glass, but what she finds instead is the robin from before hopping along the window ledge.
“Oh, hello,” she says, pressing a fingertip to the window. Unbothered, the robin keeps on investigating the ledge, leaving tiny tracks in the snow.
Spiros laughs, delighted. “It must know that this is a house of good people.”
“Maniacs, more like.”
“In Corfu,” Spiros says, watching the robin, “sometimes I would see creatures out in the wild. Birds, mostly. I would think, ‘That, that is one of Gerry’s. It has known adventure.’”
“And probably slept in my bed at some point while I was forced to the floor,” Louisa deadpans, striving not to seem moved. She can’t keep it up for long. Her heart full of odd hope, she asks, “Did you really see them?”
“I did,” he confirms, looking back at her with tenderness. “It always reminded me that underneath everything, it was still home.”
Louisa blinks back tears. Stiff upper lip be damned this morning, it seems. “Well, this isn’t home. Not in the same way, at least. But,” she adds, “if you do need a landlady again …”
He doesn’t pause. “I accept.”
“Of course,” she adds coyly, “this time the only bed I can offer you is mine.”
“How big is this bed?” he asks, and it fills her head to toes with love that he knows that last conversation by heart too.
“Not too big,” she replies, putting her arms around his shoulders. “I’m afraid we’ll always be touching.”
He smiles and just has the time to kiss her again before the rest of the Durrells come rumbling down the stairs. Then everything erupts into merry chaos, full of hugs for Spiros and exclamations of joy and Stephanides the dog pouncing on everyone and Margo dramatically waving around the letters that Larry brought back, which are apparently from nearly everyone in Corfu. (“Lugaretzia starts hers ‘Dear Leslie and the others’—can you believe that??” “We’ve been over this. It’s because I’m the best child.”)
“Welcome home,” Louisa says in sotto voice to Spiros while her family rollicks about. Then she feels a stab of guilt. Even now, it can’t possibly match Corfu. Not the way it was once. “Well. Not entirely.”
“Yes,” Spiros answers gently, steering Stephanides’ paws off his shoulders so he can take her hand, “entirely.”
She finds she can’t argue. In this pit of ebullient bedlam, Spiros’s fingers entwined with hers, the house really does feel like home at last.