Lisa Constanopoulos

Lisa Constanopoulos is an ancient Greek woman whose visit to Myfanwy Thomas turns a social call into a warning about betrayal and impending disaster. Though Myfanwy initially cannot identify the guest from the description of a Greek woman thousands of years old, Lisa’s age and apparent prophetic ability make her a consequential, unsettling presence: she predicts that a member of Myfanwy’s Court will betray her and that Myfanwy will lose everything.

Identity and Arrival

Lisa is introduced indirectly, through a message that an unnamed Greek woman—thousands of years old and known for an unspecified ability—is coming to be entertained. Myfanwy, distracted at first, asks who the visitor is; the description alone does not identify her. The name supplied to the organization is Lisa Constanopoulos, though Ingrid explains that it is a recent acquisition. Lisa is therefore presented as someone whose identity, like her longevity, exceeds the ordinary markers by which people are known.

The preparations for her arrival are hurried. Myfanwy has Ingrid obtain Lisa’s name and arrival time from Gubbins’s secretary, learning that she will land at Heathrow in half an hour. Assistants arrange two limousines, drivers, an itinerary for a day of entertainment, and an honor guard. Their efficiency contrasts with Myfanwy’s uncertainty: she is expected to host a visitor she cannot place, in a world where extreme longevity is not enough to make a description unique.

Appearance and Social Presence

Myfanwy expects an ageless beauty with the composure of someone who has lived through centuries. Instead, Lisa appears to be around forty, is Myfanwy’s height, and wears peroxide-blond bouffant hair, red lipstick, large sunglasses, and long crimson fingernails. She has arrived from Milan, accompanied by a young man and two other people, including an elderly woman and a large Aboriginal Australian man. Her contemporary fashion and conspicuous accessories sharply unsettle the grand, timeless image Myfanwy had imagined.

Lisa is immediately familiar and physically demonstrative. She calls Myfanwy her darling and greets her with kisses on both cheeks, leaving lipstick marks. Her accent moves among European and South American inflections, while her many rings contribute to her extravagant appearance. During the visit, she speaks freely about her long life, including the many babies—and some grown men—who have suckled at her breast. These details establish her as socially uninhibited and difficult to fit into a decorous ceremonial role, though the evidence does not explain the circumstances behind her stories.

Prophecy and Warning

The decisive encounter occurs over lunch, when Lisa tells Myfanwy that a member of her Court will betray her. She presents the betrayal as something both women already know, and describes a future in which Myfanwy stands in the rain surrounded by dead men. Myfanwy asks how Lisa can know this; Lisa replies that she can see it clearly. The prediction turns the visit from an unusual engagement into a personal warning about danger inside Myfanwy’s own organization.

Lisa repeats and intensifies the warning when Myfanwy says goodbye at the hotel. Taking her wrist and drawing her close, Lisa says that bad things are coming, that Myfanwy will lose everything, and that she will end in the rain. Beyond that point, Lisa says, she cannot see. The limits of her vision matter as much as its certainty: she offers a foreboding outline, not an explanation of who will betray Myfanwy or what follows. Myfanwy leaves the encounter shaken, and the prediction remains an unresolved threat rather than a problem settled by Lisa’s visit.

Narrative Role and Significance

Lisa’s scene places a prophecy of future treachery inside an otherwise carefully organized day of hospitality. The day’s arrangements—transport, itinerary, aides, and formal hosting—cannot make the encounter predictable. Myfanwy’s attempt to receive an unfamiliar ancient visitor becomes a moment in which the visitor claims knowledge of a coming crisis within the Court.

The contrast between Lisa’s fashionable, playful manner and the gravity of her forecast gives the warning its force. She does not arrive in the form Myfanwy expects from a figure of immense age, yet she speaks with confidence about a future Myfanwy cannot see. The scene establishes Lisa as a prophetic figure whose knowledge is consequential but incomplete: she names betrayal, loss, and rain, while leaving the betrayer and the eventual outcome unknown.