Cheese and Chalk

Following on from 'Four's Destiny', this novel follows the lives of two of the minor characters introduced in that book, Chalky White and Lizzie Jenkins.

The former learns to climb and to sail as a boy, goes through the war, joining the SOE where he trains Godfrey (from the first book) and sees the "Olga" sunk in Leros, with his friend on board. He goes on to serve with the Levant Schooner Flotilla (LSF). There he meets a Greek man, Tassos, who is from Leros and later becomes an archaeologist. After the war he has a rather disastrous marriage and traumatic divorce.

Meanwhile, Lizzie, after leaving school, goes to Paris to learn French during her gap year. There she meets a German lady, Irma, with whom she has a relationship. The war breaks out and, rather than taking up her offered place at Somerville, Oxford to study Greats, she ends up in the SOE as a radio operator, parachuted into France during the allied invasion. She has the misfortune to be recognised in Paris by Irma, now in the German army, and is arrested. As the Allies close in on Paris, to save her from being deported to be executed in Ravensbr"ck, Irma helps her escape Irma but she is then tortured by the French who believe she was a Nazi collaborator. Freed by her Resistance friends, but deeply traumatised, she returns to England and takes her place at Oxford, where, as a virtual recluse, she subsequently becomes a Don, deliberately dressing in "mannish" clothes.

Tassos invites his friend Chalky to meet him in Oxford, where he is participating in an archaeological seminar at Somerville. As they attend a dinner in the college, Lizzie hears them speaking Greek and joins in. Chalky, who, from her style of dress had thought her a young man, is amazed to discover that she is his old school friend, Godfrey"s, sister. They immediately hit it off and he and Tassos persuade her to ditch her austere dress. The two become lovers and marry.

In 1963 they visit Leros at Tassos" invitation and Chalky sees the old caique he had sailed in the war pulled up on the beach. He is able to buy and restore it and he and Lizzie move to Leros and start a business sailing guests from island to island where she shows them around ancient sites and he regales them with wartime stories.

The novel ends with Chalky at the age of 70, suffering from cancer, sitting quietly watching the view over his beloved island towards the Castle. He notices four young men in old-fashioned uniforms coming towards him. One, whom he vaguely recognises, waves as he, contentedly, closes his eyes for the last time.

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