Unfrescoed

This house, like many others at the time of the destruction of the city, was undergoing repairs—one of the sides of the peristylium being left unfrescoed, the other being finished.

It was an old chapel, known to his father and his father's father. The unfrescoed walls still showed faintly the outlines of Popish statuary that had stood against them long ago, and the smoke of many candles had darkened the rafters to match the color of the lowering sky outdoors.

As the monastery grew in size and importance, the church was found too small and a larger edifice, also dedicated to St George, was raised in the early nineteenth century further up the slope. It is unfrescoed but possesses a fine collection of icons, a reliquary containing a drop of St John the Baptist's blood and two magnificent mosaic panels (portative icons) of the thirteenth century, representing St George and St Demetrius.

It reminds Nick of the baths in Greenwich where he learnt to swim: that mixture of closeness and distance; sounds of strangers echoing and dying across a cherubless, unfrescoed dome; and then the brothy smell of oxtail trickling from the drinks machine afterwards.