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THE RETURN FROM LESBOS from the novel: Prayer to Aphrodite.

Balmy evenings were spent strolling along the seashore, occasionally finding some secluded cove where they could make love undisturbed; or sometimes the couple would just gaze up at the clear night sky as they lay down together on the sands. On one occasion two days before the end of their holiday Amy tried to count the stars. "You'll never do it," said Clare, there are more stars in heaven than all the grains of sand on all the world's beaches."

"Clever clogs - who told you that?"

"It was my Uncle Bernard. He was into Astronomy - Stephen's got his old telescope. Who knows? He could be up there somewhere looking down at us right now - they say there's a new star in Heaven every time someone dies," she said thoughtfully.

Clare, in spite of her new found attachment to Amy remembered her promise that she would emulate Sappho and pray to Aphrodite, Goddess of love, that Rachel would return her affection, but she still had no intention of mentioning it to Amy.

One sultry afternoon the two women hired a car in the hope of discovering some more of the island, further away from the immediate vicinity of their hotel. They found the remains an ancient temple at Agia Paraskevi. "Oh, this looks interesting " Clare said, knowing that Amy too, who considered herself a Grecophile, would be happy to explore it and marvel at the accomplishments of a bygone civilisation.

Stopping a while to take photos and enjoy the rural landscape, far from the usual tourist haunts, they shared a simple picnic lunch of bread, wine and some feta cheese purchased from a roadside store. Clare then headed off on her own under the pretence that she wanted to take further photographs.

"Don't be too long, it's a long drive back, remember, and it looks like there's a thunderstorm brewing up over there." Amy said, pointing to the threatening black clouds drifting in from the coast. "I'll sit in the car and read the map."

As soon as Clare arrived at the ancient holy site she uttered her prayer as intended. It wasn't perhaps as poetic as Sappho's but at least it was spoken from the heart.

It began to rain rather suddenly and Amy, wondering where Clare had disappeared, was about to go and look for her, when she appeared at that moment, soaked to the skin.

"What on earth were you doing all that time?" she said curiously. "Were you praying for the rain to stop? It says here that this temple is supposed to be dedicated to Apollo the Sun God" she laughed, waving

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