Pani's Island by Tony Brown - HTML preview

Epilogue

Sometimes I daydream about what happened next. About how we all stood there on the beach exhausted, with no sense of elation, no swell of victory. How eventually, the authorities turned up with two launches and a helicopter, delayed by the storm, and the look in their eyes when they saw the debris. For weeks afterwards the village was subdued.

And I daydream about how my aunt and Irene Valeska completed Pani's errand and of the investigation that followed. About how dear Maria and Manolis were flown to Athens for her to be decorated with the Order of the Honour-Grand Cross by the President of the Hellenic Republic and how we were all their guests of honour there that day.

Sophia and Dorini and Faria are now protected as Designated World Heritage Sites. Alessandra Vasilerakis was invested with the curatorship. Alexis became a national hero. And when they married Aunt Agnes gave them the villa as a wedding present.

Nothing much else has changed, except that every Sophian home exhibits a piece of local antiquity displayed on mantle shelves, in back yards, in bedrooms and kitchens, in fact, wherever it will fit. Miniature amphorae of genuine Sophian soil were sent to emigrants scattered throughout the world so they would never be far from their native land.

Oh yes, and the village has a new school, The Pantelis Lambrakis Community School of Sophia. And I work there, in the library.

THE END

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