'I hear you are very good now with the old vases and things. One of these days Professor Cacouris will let you help with the frescos.'

'You hear a lot, Gin.'

'It is a bar. People talk.'

'It's pretty empty tonight?

'Don't you want to be alone with me?'

'Not in your present mood.'

'I am a woman.'

'You're needling me into getting drunk.'

'You could have done that on your boat'

'I never drink at sea.'

'You drink on land, though.'

'Sweet Jesus! Can't you stop bitching and leave me to drink in peace?'

'It's not peace you're after-it's passing out,

'Then you can put the body aboard the Orga.'

'Another horrid name?

'When I get bored by my lady tourists I call her the Orgasm. Scares 'em off or lures 'em on. Depends. Actually It's the name of the village in Cyprus where she was built.'

'Cyprus! Who's taking my homeland's name in vain?'

Relieved to get away from Gigi's needling, I swung round on my stool to greet the newcomer. Byron, the Greek – a needle-sharp, devious, sophisticated ex-tanker officer who (if you believed his stories) had been washed by many waters, from the Persian Gulf to Piraeus. His long coal-black hair and lush sideburns against a tanned skin (also visible past swelling chest-muscles nearly to navel level through an open mauve shirt) would have made him the envy of any male model. And he knew it. Women couldn't stay away from him: he knew that, too, and bore the burden stoically. He sailed a bigger boat than mine. What his cargoes were was anyone's guess. Mine was that they were arms and anununition. He had a pied-a-terre the uncharitable would have called it a 14 funkhole-in the town of Them, eight hundred steps up the cliff from the bar. We often drank together. He was witty and entertaining; the most delightful liar I've met.