Wish You Were Here
Victoria Connelly
Sun, sea and secrets…A week on the sunny Greek island of Kethos is just what Alice Archer needs, even if she has to put up with her difficult sister. Stella’s tantrums and diva-like demands are a fair price to pay for crystal-clear waters, blue skies and white clifftop villas.When Alice meets Milo, a handsome gardener at the Villa Argenti, for the first time she suddenly feels beautiful, alluring and confident. But is it just holiday magic or will the irresistible pull between Alice and Milo survive against all odds?For fans of Katie Fforde and Alexandra Potter, this heartwarming, romantic novel is the perfect escapist read.
VICTORIA CONNELLY
Wish You Were Here
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2013
Copyright © Victoria Connelly 2013
Cover photographs © Getty Images & Trevillion
Cover design © Lucy Stephens 2013
Victoria Connelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781847562838
Ebook Edition © May 2013 ISBN: 9780007443239
Version 2018-07-23
To Bob and Anne with love
Contents
Cover (#udddd4a49-45c9-5ed4-8c5d-43ac130018cf)
Title page (#u26ebe4e6-feec-5f78-a484-a8e42fe36c2f)
Copyright (#ubaa18679-6624-51fa-ad46-417069f0c28f)
Dedication (#u82c4d261-7638-5a33-a2f8-04ad54c1d122)
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
One Year Later
Acknowledgements
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About the Author
Also by Victoria Connelly
About the Publisher
Prologue (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
On a tiny Greek island in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea sits the Villa Argenti, clinging precariously to a cliff that plummets into the aquamarine waters far below. It’s a strange, rambling, tumbling sort of a building. Parts of it date back to the fourteenth century and it’s been added to and extended by successive generations which have included one Italian prince, two Greek tycoons and three rock stars. There are towers and turrets, great wooden doors, and windows that would look more at home gracing a Venetian palace. The overall effect is slightly bemusing but very pleasing.
But it isn’t the villa people come to see but the gardens. It is said that they are the most beautiful in the whole of the Mediterranean. Perhaps it’s because they are so unexpected. They don’t scream and shout their presence like some tourist destinations – rather, they whisper enticingly and people find them through serendipity or word of mouth.
Have you seen the gardens at the Villa Argenti? You haven’t? Then you must. You really must!
There are long, shady avenues, sun-drenched terraces and lush green lawns. There are stone temples and urns spilling over with bright flowers, and fountains which cool the air in a musical mist. But it is most famous for the Goddess Garden where beautiful statues are placed at respectful intervals, enticing the visitor to walk amongst them in venerable silence. There, beside a cypress tree, stands Artemis, goddess of the hunt, with two faithful hounds by her feet. Overlooking a pond is Demeter, goddess of the harvest, carrying a sheaf of wheat. And there are Athena, Hera and Iris too.
But it isn’t until you reach the end of the garden that you find the most popular of the goddesses. In full sunlight, surrounded by roses, is Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty.
There is something special about this statue – something that marks it out from the thousands of other statues of Aphrodite that can be found all over Greece. It’s hard to spot at first because she looks very like the others with her curls tumbling down her back and the finest of silken garments only just covering her curves as her arms reach up to lift her hair away from her face. She holds the attention. She’s mesmeric and, some even say, magical. Her eyes might be sightless but she seems to see so much and she appears to be smiling as if she can see into the future and knows what’s going to happen.
Perhaps she does.
Chapter 1 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
Alice Archer would be the first to admit that she wasn’t beautiful. Sweet, perhaps. But never beautiful. Beauty was a word far more at home describing somebody like her sister, Stella, with her blonde hair, sharp cheekbones and hourglass figure. Next to her sister, Alice faded away into the background. She was Alice the Gooseberry. Second-fiddle Alice. Alice – sister of Stella. She’d never been Alice in her own right. Not that she was complaining. She’d never really wanted to be the centre of attention. She was far happier just to watch life happen to other people.
So that’s what makes what happened to her so hard to understand.
It all began on a perfectly ordinary day in February. Well, it was an ordinary day for Alice – Valentine’s Day always was. She awoke in her tiny terraced cottage, shivering because the boiler had broken yet again, and got ready for work.
I will not look on the doormat, she told herself as she walked through to the kitchen for breakfast. There won’t be any Valentine’s cards there and I will not let it bother me.
Still, she couldn’t help a sly little spy and, sure enough, the mat lay bare of all declarations of secret admiration and unrequited love.
It’s wasn’t that Alice didn’t get to meet many men because she did. In fact, she was surrounded by men. But it was the kind of men she was surrounded by that was the problem and she couldn’t help thinking about this as she left the house and saw Wilfred the postman ambling up the driveway as if he had all the time in the world and posting his letters was the last thing on his mind. He was in his mid-fifties and had the hairiest face Alice had ever seen, with great thick sideburns giving him a furry quality. He always reminded her of a half-metamorphosed werewolf.
‘Morning, Wilfred,’ Alice said with the brightest smile she could muster on a Monday.
‘Morning, Alice. Just bills today,’ he said. ‘Gas and credit card.’
‘Great,’ she said. She didn’t really mind that Wilfred knew all about her private business. If she was a postman, she’d probably make it her business to know too. It was one of the perks of the job, wasn’t it?
‘No Valentine’s cards for you then?’ he said.
‘Well, I wasn’t really expecting any.’
‘Third year in a row now, isn’t it?’
Alice sighed. Wilfred’s memory was far too sharp sometimes. He stopped on the pavement for a moment, blocking Alice’s way, and she knew she was in trouble.
‘That cough of mine’s back,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ Alice said, knowing all about Wilfred’s cough.
‘Went to the doctor’s again. Complete waste of time.’
‘Oh, dear.’
Wilfred coughed loudly. ‘Hear that?’ he said. ‘That rattle?’
Alice nodded.
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Can’t be right.’
Alice didn’t like to point out that Wilfred’s twenty cigarettes a day might not be helping matters because she knew he wouldn’t listen.
‘Oh, well. No rest for the wicked,’ he said, and mooched on. ‘Oh, look,’ he added, ‘a second red bill for Mrs Bates at number twenty-two. And a lingerie catalogue too. Bit old for that, isn’t she?’
Alice rolled her eyes.
Wilfred was usually Alice’s first male encounter of the day. The second one was Bruce at the bus stop and he was standing there in a long dark trench coat, his briefcase in his hand. She nodded to him and he nodded back. That was it, really. Alice had gone to school with Bruce but that was never worth talking about because they’d only ever nodded to each other there too. He was quite good-looking, she supposed, with short fair hair and hazel eyes. He had that mean and moody thing going on which had never really attracted Alice.
She turned the collar up on her winter coat and shivered. The Norfolk village of West Carleton was one of the prettiest places in summer. Surrounded by emerald fields, deep cool woods and more round-towered flint churches than you could shake a vicar at, it was like something out of a fairy tale but, in the depths of winter when the wind howled in from the coast across the great expanses of fields, it was a miserable place to be and Alice would wish that she hadn’t had to sell her car and endure the bone-crippling conditions of February at the bus stop.
A half-hour bus ride took her into the centre of Norwich and to her job in the Human Resources department of a building society. She didn’t enjoy her job but it did have its compensations for somebody who was as inquisitive as she was. Nobody suspected her of being nosy, of course. She was hard-working and quietly-spoken. In other words – completely above suspicion. Alice would often smile at the secrets she was privy to.
‘Ah, Alice. Can you bring me Martin Kasky’s file?’ Alice’s boss, Larry Baxter, asked as soon as she’d walked into the office. He was fifty-four, lived just off the Newmarket Road at the posh end of town, had had three sick days off last year and was a Sagittarius. That was one of the perks of working in Human Resources. Alice had all sorts of useful information at her fingertips.
‘I’ll just do a bit of filing,’ she’d tell her colleagues when she wanted to find something out about a guy. Like last year when Philip Brady asked her out to dinner. He worked in the New Business department, had jet-black hair and was very charming. Before the date, Alice looked him up quickly in between filing jobs. She noticed he was on a very good salary, had had two jobs before taking this one and had nine GCSEs at grade A. What she forgot to look at, though, were his self-certified sick notes. If she had, she would have seen that he’d taken six separate days off for irritable bowel syndrome and that might have prepared her for the night ahead and the number of times Alice was left alone at the restaurant table.
She fetched Martin Kasky’s file and handed it to her boss. He didn’t bother to look up at her as he took it but Alice was used to that.
‘We’re still waiting for his references,’ Larry said. ‘Chase them up with a phone call.’ He handed the file back to Alice without so much as an acknowledging smile or thank you and Alice returned it to its shelf and went to sit – invisibly – at her desk in the corner of the open-plan office.
It was then that Ben Alexander came in. He was the Accounts Manager and Alice didn’t exist in his world although he did make some sort of an effort to acknowledge her.
‘Hello, Anna,’ he said without even looking at her. She didn’t bother to correct his mistake. It wasn’t as though he would ever remember her real name.
As Ben approached her boss’s desk, she watched him from behind her computer. He had dark red hair and slate-grey eyes. He was wearing a navy shirt today which made his eyes seem even brighter than usual and Alice felt her heart do a little dance. She’d had a crush on him for longer than she could remember which was ridiculous because he’d never look at a girl like her. He went out with building society royalty like Pippa Danes who had platinum-blonde hair and catwalk legs. Still, there was no harm in dreaming, was there?
Actually, there was. Alice had lost count of the number of times she’d allowed herself to believe that maybe once – just once – a handsome man would turn round and look at her – really look at her. They’d see beyond the shyness and the plainness. They’d see her.
But Ben didn’t see her even when he stared right at her to hand her a member of staff’s sick note to file.
‘Thanks, Anna,’ he said before leaving the office.
Alice got up and walked through to the ladies’ toilet. She’d just shut the cubicle door when two giggling members of staff came in.
‘Did you see Alice Archer this morning?’ one of them said.
‘No – why?’ the other replied.
‘She was wearing that awful grey cardigan again.’
‘Oh, no! Not the one with the bobbles on the front?’
‘Yes! Classic Alice!’
They both shrieked with laughter.
‘I like that old brown thing she wears with the funny belt.’
‘The one that looks like a bear has died on top of her?’
They shrieked again, flushed toilets, ran some taps and left.
Alice waited a few moments before leaving the safety of her cubicle. She was very attached to her grey cardigan. It was a good practical one with a lot of wear in it yet but she had to admit that it probably wasn’t the most attractive look for a young woman of twenty-eight with its overlong sleeves and baggy middle.
She looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her face was pale and her brown hair fell straight down to her shoulders, neat and unremarkable. Her blue eyes were the only feature really worth any notice but she never drew attention to them, choosing to hide them behind large dark-framed glasses when she was in the office and never bothering with the likes of eyeliner or mascara.
She often wondered what she would look like with a makeover. She liked to watch that programme on the television where they take a hopeless case with a terrible haircut and a baggy jumper and turned them into a glamour queen. She would probably qualify for that show, she thought, looking at the bobbly grey cardigan and her sensible, flat shoes.
As she returned to her desk, she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be one of those women who knew what clothes to wear and how to have their hair. What was it like to have the ability to turn heads and make a man fall in love with you?
Alice sighed. Once – just once – she’d love to know what it felt like to be beautiful.
Chapter 2 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
‘You know what your trouble is, Alice?’
Alice wasn’t sure that she wanted to know but she was quite sure that Stella was going to tell her.
‘You just don’t make an effort. I mean look at you!’ her sister said, pointing an admonishing finger at Alice’s ensemble. ‘Grey!’ She spat the word out as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth.
‘There’s nothing wrong with grey. It’s very fashionable at the moment.’
‘Not like that it isn’t!’
Alice self-consciously pulled at her bobbly cardigan and watched as Stella flopped onto the sofa opposite her and stuck her spoon into a carton of ice cream.
‘Anyway,’ Stella continued through a mouthful of double chocolate chip, ‘what are you doing here?’
Alice took a deep breath, knowing how the following conversation was likely to go.
‘It’s Dad’s birthday in a couple of weeks and I wondered—’
‘His birthday? Oh, I completely forgot!’ Stella said.
‘You forgot last year too.’
‘I was busy.’
‘And the year before that.’
‘Don’t be a bore, Alice. God, you’re worse than a mother.’
For a moment, the two sisters sat in silence, remembering the mother who had been so cruelly taken away from them when Alice had been just twelve years old and Stella only eight.
‘I’m sorry – I didn’t mean—’
‘It’s all right,’ Alice said. ‘I shouldn’t really nag you like that.’ Stella stuck her spoon into the carton of ice cream again, thinking she’d got away with it, but Alice wasn’t going to let her off so easily.
‘So what are we going to do?’ Alice asked.
‘About what?’
‘About Dad’s birthday!’
Stella shrugged and kept her eyes down, resolutely refusing to meet Alice’s.
‘We have to do something. It’s not every day that you’re seventy,’ Alice pressed.
‘God, it’s so disgusting having a seventy-year-old father,’ Stella said. ‘What was Mum thinking of?’
‘She was in love with him,’ Alice said, ‘and it’s just as well for us that she was or we wouldn’t have been born, and he wasn’t that old when he had us. Not for a man, at least.’
‘I think it’s horrible how men can go on having babies until they’re ancient.’
‘But Dad was only in his forties when he had us. That’s not old these days and neither is seventy any more.’ Alice paused and took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I was thinking we could visit him.’
‘Oh, Alice!’ Stella said. ‘You know I hate that horrible place! It smells of disinfectant and old people.’
‘You’ll smell like that one day too,’ Alice said.
‘Don’t be foul!’
‘Anyway, we needn’t be at the home for long because I was thinking of taking him out somewhere.’
‘Taking him out? What, in public?’ Stella said, a look of shock on her face.
‘He’s still able to enjoy a day out by the sea and an ice cream. He’s not dead yet, you know!’
‘He might as well be. He’s brain dead.’
‘No, he’s not!’
‘Well, he is whenever I visit,’ Stella said.
‘And when did you last visit?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t keep a written record like you obviously do. You always were the favourite, anyway.’
‘How can you say that? You’re the one with the house!’ Alice pointed out, looking up at the lofty ceiling of the Victorian semi’s living room.
‘Oh, you’re begrudging me the house, are you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I thought you said you wanted your own place.’
‘I do want my own place, Stella. I just want you to see Dad once in a while. I thought we could take him to the seaside. He always loved the sea.’ For a moment, Alice remembered the endless bucket and spade holidays they used to go on as a family. From Great Yarmouth to Blackpool, from Skegness to Brighton, they would laugh their way round the coastline of Britain, making wonky castles in the sand and eating mountains of candy floss. ‘It really is the least we can do for him.’
‘But it’ll be so cold,’ Stella said with a theatrical shiver.
‘So, we’ll wrap up!’
‘How are you going to get there?’
‘Well, Sam at the home has offered to drive us to the station.’
‘The train station? With his chair?’
‘Of course with his chair. He can’t walk very far these days.’
‘Oh, God! I really don’t fancy it!’ Stella said.
‘I know you don’t but can’t you think beyond yourself for once?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean, can’t you think about Dad for a change and how much he’d love to see us both together and spend a day with us – a day away from the home?’
Stella wrinkled her nose.
‘We really could use your car, actually,’ Alice said. ‘Dad did say we could share it, after all.’
‘Oh, Alice! When are you going to get another car of your own? You really should, you know. You can’t rely on other people to bail you out of awkward situations all the time.’
Alice baulked at the implication that their father was an awkward situation. ‘When was the last time I asked you for your car?’
‘I’m just saying that you should get your own.’
‘I can’t afford another car. I’m only just keeping my head above water as it is with the rent and bills.’
‘I don’t know what you do with your money, Alice, I really don’t.’
Alice bit her tongue. If Stella had had to go out and find herself full-time employment and hadn’t had everything handed to her by their father, she might realise how tough it was in the real world.
‘It is Dad’s car after all,’ Alice reminded her.
‘Yes, I know, and it’s an old banger. He really should have bought me a new one. I can’t believe he didn’t think of that before he went into that home.’
‘Buying his daughter a brand new car wasn’t exactly at the forefront of his mind when he was in the process of losing it.’
‘Well, what about going in Celia’s car? She’s got one of those big four by fours, hasn’t she?’ Stella said, thinking of Alice’s oldest best friend.
‘Yes, and it’s always filled with her kids,’ Alice pointed out. ‘I hardly see her these days. She’s always so busy running her boys around. Anyway, Dad wouldn’t want to see Celia – he’d want to see you!’
They were quiet for a moment, their words hanging heavily in the air between them.
‘Look,’ Alice said at last, ‘I didn’t come round here to argue.’
‘Good, because I’m not in the mood. I’ve had a horrible day, if you must know,’ Stella said with a pout.
Alice looked at her sister. She was selfish and infuriating but she also looked a little paler than usual and Alice’s sisterly genes kicked in.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
Almost immediately, tears welled up in Stella’s big blue eyes. ‘It’s Joe!’ she cried.
‘What about him?’
‘He broke up with me!’
‘Oh, Stella!’ Alice said, leaning towards her on the sofa and squeezing her shoulder. ‘What happened?’
‘He said I was too high-maintenance. What does that mean, anyway?’
‘It means you spend a lot of time—’
‘I know what it means! But I’m not high-maintenance! I haven’t been to the hairdresser’s for two weeks. Two whole weeks! And look at my nails!’
Alice looked at the immaculate scarlet talons her sister sported.
‘Chipped and scuffed but I’m making do until tomorrow before getting them done. I ask you – is that “high-maintenance”?’
‘Well—’
‘And he said I didn’t like the simple things in life just because I didn’t want to go on some crumby camping holiday. I mean, what girl in her right mind would want ‘to sleep in a tent? On the ground?’
Alice thought of Joe. He was the outdoors type with rock-climber’s arms and an athletic build. She could think of any number of girls who’d give anything to spend a night in a tent with him. Not her sister, though. Nothing but a five-star hotel would do for her.
‘He’s a scumbag,’ Stella said.
Alice sighed. Joe was most definitely not a scumbag. Alice actually quite liked him but she could guess what had happened. He’d probably grown tired of Stella’s little ways as well as her constant flirting. For a start, Alice couldn’t help noticing that there were no less than five Valentine’s cards lined up on the mantelpiece. Five! Who were they all from? Alice was guessing that Stella had flirted with every single one of the senders.
‘We’d just booked a holiday to Greece together, too,’ Stella went on with an almighty sniff, ‘and I was really looking forward to it. He knew how much I needed a break.’
Alice blinked, wondering what exactly it was that Stella needed a break from. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
‘Well, I’m not going to waste it, am I? Joe gave me the tickets – probably so I wouldn’t make a scene. Look.’ Stella got up and retrieved a brochure from the dining table and tossed it into Alice’s lap. ‘Page eighteen.’
Alice flipped through the brochure until she came to the right page and gave a long, low whistle as she took in the picture-perfect white villa with the bright blue shutters. It had its own swimming pool and terrace overlooking the sea. It certainly wasn’t your typical tourist trap Greek island with blaring nightclubs and bars. This looked quiet and exclusive – a real escape from the world. Joe certainly had good taste – it looked beautiful.
‘You’ve got to come with me, Alice!’
‘What?’
‘You’ve got to come with me. I can’t go on my own – it’ll be so boring. And I’ve already asked Lily and Becks and they can’t make it. I even asked Jess and I don’t even like her that much and she said no too. So you’ve got to come. You don’t have to pay or anything although you can buy me a present as a thank you if you like. I’ve seen this really beautiful cashmere jumper I really need. Do say you’ll come!’
Alice bit her lip. What was there to think about? A week of glorious sunshine on a beautiful Greek island far far away from the bleak, Norfolk weather and the woes of office life. It was just what she needed.
‘Please, Alice! I know you’d never forgive yourself if you thought I was going on holiday all by myself! You’d never let that happen, would you?’
Alice looked at her sister. She was so good at getting people to do exactly what she wanted and, of course, Alice was going to say yes but not because Stella was trying to make her feel guilty. Alice really wanted to go but it occurred to her that she could use this as a bargaining chip.
‘Oh, Alice! I’ll be so miserable all on my own!’ Stella continued, her face as long as a bloodhound’s.
Alice held her hands up in mock defeat. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll come with you. On one condition.’
‘What?’ Stella said.
‘You come with me on Dad’s birthday and give him a really brilliant day out.’
Stella took a deep breath. She didn’t look happy and, for a moment, Alice thought her bribe wasn’t going to work. But it did. ‘Okay!’ Stella said at last.
‘Promise?’
‘I promise,’ Stella said. ‘I’ll be there.’
Chapter 3 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
One of the pleasures of living in Norfolk was the extensive coastline to the north and east of the county. You were never far from the sea but, without a car, it was rather awkward to reach and Alice didn’t get to see it very often but today was a wonderful exception.
‘It was good of Stella to let us borrow her car,’ Terry Archer said.
‘It’s your car, Dad,’ Alice said.
He shook his head. ‘No, no – it’s Stella’s all right,’ he said, nodding to the pair of furry pink dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.
Alice groaned and took them down, chucking them onto the back seat. ‘She was sorry she couldn’t make it today,’ she said. ‘She really wanted to be here.’
She heard her father sigh. ‘Alice, you don’t need to lie on behalf of your sister. I know what she’s like. In fact, I only expect to see her on special occasions like when she needs a cheque signing.’
‘She’s not still tapping you for money, is she?’ Alice said, aghast.
‘Only when I let her get away with it.’
‘Oh, Dad!’
‘I find it hard to say no to her sometimes – like your mother. I never could say no to her either.’
‘But you’d say no to me, wouldn’t you?’ Alice said with a grin.
‘You never ask in the first place, my dear,’ he said.
Alice smiled at him as she took the turn onto the coast road but she was secretly seething because that morning, she’d got a phone call from her sister.
‘Alice?’ a little voice had squeaked at the end of the line.
‘Stella?’
There was the sound of throat-clearing and then the squeaky voice began again. ‘I don’t feel so good. I think I’m coming down with flu.’
Alice had tried to believe her – she really had – but Stella was in the habit of crying wolf whenever it suited her and it was hard to know when she was telling the truth.
‘Are you wrapped up in bed?’ Alice had asked her.
‘Yes,’ the squeak replied.
‘Good,’ Alice said. ‘Then I’ll pop over and get the car.’
‘What?’ she’d shouted.
‘I thought you’d lost your voice?’
There was the sound of throat-clearing again. ‘I have! What do you want the car for?’
‘For Dad’s birthday. If you’re ill in bed, you’ve no use for it,’ she said and had immediately hung up.
When Stella had answered the door an hour later, she’d done a pretty good job of roughing her hair up but Alice could see she was wearing clothes underneath her housecoat and had a full face of make-up on, but she hadn’t bothered to challenge her. One thing was certain – she wasn’t going to let it spoil her special day with her father.
The little town of Bexley-on-Sea might not have Great Yarmouth’s funfair or Cromer’s pier but it was all the richer for that, Alice couldn’t help thinking. It was an old-fashioned sort of place with its row of Regency hotels and its simple promenade lined with pretty wooden kiosks selling fish and chips and ice cream. It wasn’t the first choice for the tourist venturing to Norfolk but it was a favourite with locals and Alice loved it.
Parking the car on the seafront, Alice shoved a woolly hat onto her head and, opening the car door, was greeted by an icy blast of salt-laden air. She got her father’s wheelchair out from the boot, erecting it in record time and then helped him out of the car and into it.
‘Just for a while,’ he said, ‘and then I’ll have a little stroll.’
The sea was steely-grey under a matching sky. Great boulders of dark clouds banked up along the horizon and a chill wind was blowing from the north reminding Alice that there was very little between them and the North Pole.
‘Not quite a day for a paddle, is it?’ Terry said from his chair.
‘I’m sorry, Dad! This was a terrible idea.’
His hand reached round and squeezed hers. ‘A breath of sea air always does the power of good,’ he said, ‘even if it does try to blow your head off your shoulders.’
They followed the promenade along the seafront for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. The kiosks were in hibernation for the long winter months but Alice had spotted a café that was open and earmarked it for later.
‘Park me here,’ her dad said after they’d been on the go for about ten minutes, ‘and sit down next to me for a bit. It gets lonely with you stuck behind me and I can’t talk to you properly.’
Alice stopped the chair by a bench and sat down next to her father. The bench was wet with sea spray and the slats were cold and uncomfortable but it felt good to be with her father and she took one of his large hands and held it between her own.
‘You’re cold,’ she said. ‘We shouldn’t stay here too long.’
Her father didn’t reply and she saw that he was staring far out to sea and she wondered what he was thinking about, his eyes seeming to glaze over with memories of the past.
‘Remember we used to come here with your mother?’ he said at last.
‘Yes, of course,’ Alice said, thinking of how her mother would get up extra early to make up the most enormous picnic hamper you’d ever seen and then rounding up every blanket, towel and toy she could find, stuffing the car to bursting point. A day at the beach was a military operation but her mother loved every moment and she never lost her patience when Alice and Stella bickered on the back seat of the car or spilt ketchup or ice cream down their dresses.
‘You used to love those holidays,’ her father said. ‘Give you a bucket and spade and you could create a kingdom that would entertain you for hours.’ He shook his head and smiled at the memory. ‘Stella, however, would be bored after five minutes.’
‘She hasn’t changed much, I’m afraid,’ Alice said.
‘No,’ he said, as if accepting the fact.
‘We’re going away together in April.’
‘You two? On holiday – together?’
Alice nodded and laughed. ‘I know! It came as a bit of a surprise to me too but Stella was in a bit of a jam and didn’t want to go on her own.’
‘So, where are you going?’
‘Kethos,’ Alice said.
‘Where’s that?’
‘Greece. It’s a little island off the mainland.’
‘What do you want to go there for? Our beaches not good enough for you?’ Terry asked with a grin.
‘Stella’s boyfriend booked it but they broke up and now she wants me to go with her.’
‘I didn’t know she was seeing somebody,’ Terry said.
‘I don’t think it was for very long,’ Alice said.
Terry shook his head. ‘Poor Stella,’ he said. ‘So, do you want to go on this holiday?’
‘Yes, of course!’ Alice said, feeling the weight of her father’s gaze upon her. ‘I do, really I do, only I can’t help wishing you were going with me instead.’
He laughed. ‘You won’t get me out of the country now.’
‘Never did, did we?’
He shrugged. ‘There are them that’s made for travelling and them that’s made for home.’
Alice smiled, remembering her father’s little motto from years gone by. It had usually been wheeled out when Stella made a scene about their holiday destination.
‘Weston-super-Mare?’ she’d complain. ‘It sounds like an old horse. Can’t we go to Italy? Jude’s going to Italy with her family. Lake Como.’
‘Let them get on with it,’ their father would say. ‘Lake Como has nothing – absolutely nothing on Weston-super-Mare.’
Alice tended to agree with her father but she was more easily pleased than her sister which was just as well as she’d never had the budget for exotic holidays – one of the reasons she was looking forward to Kethos.
She looked out over the grey waves of the North Sea and tried to imagine the aquamarine ones waiting to greet her in Greece. How wonderful it would be to feel warm, she thought. The last few winters had seemed to drag on forever, as if the White Witch of Narnia was back in business and had cursed the whole of the UK. Alice felt quite fatigued by it all and couldn’t wait to shed her baggy winter layers and luxuriate in the feel of the sun on her skin.
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ her father said.
‘Oh, I was just wondering if I’d be able to make it to that holiday in Greece or if I’d freeze to death first.’
Her father chuckled. ‘Shall we go and get some lunch and warm up somewhere?’
‘Good idea!’ Alice said, leaping up from the bench.
They went to the tiny café Alice had spotted earlier and she pushed the door open into the welcome warmth before wheeling her father’s chair through. She didn’t need to ask what he wanted; it was always the same. So, she ordered two full English breakfasts with all the trimmings even though it was one in the afternoon, and they washed everything down with two mugs of piping hot tea.
‘Do you want anything else, Dad?’ she asked after everything had been consumed.
‘Ice cream, of course,’ he said.
‘But we’ve only just thawed out!’ Alice said.
‘You can’t come to the seaside and not have ice cream!’
Alice laughed. ‘Two ice creams. In cones, please,’ she said to the waitress who was hugely entertained by the idea but didn’t mind in the slightest. ‘One strawberry, one chocolate.’
Her father always had strawberry ice cream. You could offer him fifty different flavours from cherry chip to lemon meringue and you could guarantee that he would seek out the strawberry.
When the two cones arrived, they beamed at each other.
‘See what your sister’s missing out on?’ her father said.
‘Yes,’ Alice agreed. ‘It’s like being on holiday.’ And it really was. It felt wonderfully perverse to be eating ice cream in February with the wind blasting against the little café window and the great grey sea rolling malevolently towards the land. But it was even more wonderful being with her father. Not only did it remind Alice of her childhood when they’d all been together as a family, but she had his sole attention and Alice didn’t often have anybody’s sole attention. More often than not, people would talk through her or be looking over her shoulder or else they just wouldn’t bother talking to her at all. It was something she’d grown used to over the years but it was rather lovely to be with somebody who gave her his undivided attention even if they were genetically predisposed to do so. Which reminded her, there was something she had to talk to him about and now was as good a time as any.
‘Dad, I wish you’d rethink things,’ Alice said.
‘What things?’
‘About the home.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked, looking up from his ice cream.
‘I mean, if we got a carer, you could come back and live in your own home.’
He shook his head. ‘We’ve been through all this,’ he said. ‘Haven’t we?’
‘Yes, I know, but I just don’t like the idea of you being there all on your own.’
‘And you’d rather have me at the mercy of Stella?’
‘She doesn’t have to live there. She’s big enough to get a place of her own. I can’t believe she’s never thought to do that.’
He took a lick of his ice cream. ‘Alice – you mean well – I know you do – but you know my thoughts on this. I’m not having either of you worrying yourselves about me all the time. Carer or no carer, if I was at home, you’d be fussing around me all the time and you’ve got your own lives to live. I’m not going to do that to you. Besides, I like the home.’
‘You do?’
‘There’s company there. I’m not on my own at all as you so often think.’
Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve met somebody, haven’t you?’
Her father smirked. ‘I might have done.’
‘Really?’ Alice laughed. ‘Tell me!’
Their matching blue eyes locked together but her father wasn’t saying anything.
‘You naughty man!’ Alice said. ‘I’ve been imagining you sat in a chair in a corner of some lonely room with nothing to do all day and, all this time, you’ve been flirting!’
He chuckled. ‘I’m a wicked old man,’ he said.
‘What’s her name?’
‘I forget.’
Alice frowned. ‘Oh.’
‘I’m kidding, for goodness’ sake!’ he said with a chuckle.
‘Oh, Dad!’
‘Her name’s Rosa and she’s eighty-two.’
‘Eighty-two?’
‘Yup! Who would’ve thought your old man would be somebody’s toy boy at seventy years of age?’
‘You’re incorrigible!’
‘So, that’s my love life up to date. Are you going to tell me what’s going on in yours? Any nice young man on the horizon?’
‘On the horizon? If there is, I think I need a telescope because I haven’t spotted him yet.’
For a moment, Alice thought of Ben Alexander at work – his handsome face and lopsided smile that always made her heart flutter.
‘There is somebody,’ she said quietly, ‘but he doesn’t even know I exist.’
‘Why not? Why doesn’t he notice a pretty young girl like you?’
‘Dad! I’m not pretty and I’m not that young anymore either.’
‘What nonsense!’
‘It’s true! I’m just ordinary – I know that – you don’t have to be kind. Stella was always the pretty one.’
Her father frowned at her. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Because it’s true.’
‘You are so beautiful, Alice. You have a pure and giving heart—’
‘And the sort of face nobody looks at twice.’
‘But nobody wants to look at a beautiful face if it hides a cruel heart,’ he said and Alice couldn’t help wondering if he was talking about somebody in particular. ‘Listen,’ he continued, ‘Stella might get all the attention when it comes to the opposite sex and she might get her own way when it comes to you and me but just be careful.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You mustn’t trust her so wholeheartedly. She takes advantage of you.’
‘Well, I’m used to that.’
‘But you mustn’t let her—’ he paused.
‘What?’
Her father shook his head and something inside him seemed to close down. The conversation was over; he wasn’t going to elaborate.
They finished their ice creams and then drove home in virtual silence. The winter sky had darkened dramatically and Alice turned the car headlights on. Her father’s eyes kept closing and she didn’t prod him into wakefulness with conversation although she was desperate to know what he’d meant about Stella.
You mustn’t trust her so wholeheartedly.
Of course, Alice knew that her sister wasn’t completely honest all the time but she was used to all the white lies and Stella wouldn’t be Stella without them. But was there something more sinister than that?
Alice turned into the tree-lined driveway and the south front of Bellwood House rose up out of the immaculate lawn to greet them. It was an imposing Georgian house which had been extended and modernised to provide more ground-floor facilities for its residents. Her father, though, despite his wheelchair, had insisted on having a first-floor room because he wanted a good view.
Alice pulled up outside the front door and one of the carers, Sam, was immediately there to help. He always had the uncanny ability to spring up out of nowhere when he was most needed and Alice watched as he helped her father into his chair, wheeling him up the ramp into the home.
‘No need to come with me,’ her father told her.
‘Are you sure?’
‘You’ve done quite enough for today, my dear.’
Alice bent down and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Give me a call soon, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, grabbing hold of one of her hands. ‘Thank you.’
Alice smiled at him. ‘Happy birthday, Dad.’
She watched as Sam wheeled her father’s chair into the lift up to his room on the first floor and waited for him to return, peeping into the main sitting room which overlooked the front lawn and wondering if she’d catch a glimpse of Rosa. Would it be too intrusive to ask for her? she wondered. Yes, it would and what would she say, anyway? Excuse me – are your intentions towards my father honourable? No, she was quite sure that he was old enough to know what he was doing when it came to the opposite sex.
At last, after settling her father into his room, Sam returned.
‘Did he have a good day?’ he asked Alice, his young face beaming at her.
‘He did,’ Alice said, knowing that Sam was referring to the mental and physical state of her father rather than whether he’d enjoyed himself. ‘He was absolutely fine. No problems at all. Just got a little tired at the end of the day.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Sam said with a smile.
‘You’ll let me know if he has another turn, won’t you?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ve got your number,’ Sam assured her.
‘My mobile and my home number?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the office one?’
‘We checked them all last time, remember?’ Sam said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Alice said.
‘He’s well looked after, Miss Archer,’ Sam assured her. ‘We’ve got him on the new dosage of medication for the MS and he’s eating well, sleeping like a log and – well, everything is absolutely normal.’
‘I know. It’s just that I want to make sure,’ Alice said.
‘And the dementia – well, he has good days and bad days.’
Alice nodded. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she said. ‘Isn’t MS enough? Why dementia too?’
‘Old age can be very cruel sometimes,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve seen so many of our clients battling no end of ills.’
Alice nodded, blinking fast so that her tears wouldn’t spill. ‘But he isn’t old,’ she said hopelessly.
‘Well—’
‘He isn’t! Not by today’s standards.’
Sam nodded. ‘You just have to take things one day at a time with ageing. That’s all you can do.’
Alice nodded and said goodbye, leaving Bellwood House for her sister’s. It was dark now but there were no lights on in the house. Alice wondered if her sister really was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a box of tissues but she quickly dismissed the thought as she popped the car keys through the letterbox.
Walking to the end of the road, Alice turned left and headed towards the bus stop. Fishing her mobile out of her pocket, she texted Stella.
Had a great day with Dad. Car returned. Hope you’re feeling better. Xx
The reply took only half a minute to arrive.
Hope you topped up the petrol. S x
Chapter 4 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
‘We can’t possibly go on using that room for interviews – it’s far too noisy with them digging up half the street outside,’ Larry Baxter told Alice without actually looking at her.
‘How about the old filing room?’ Alice suggested.
‘What?’ Larry snapped.
‘The old filing room at the end of the corridor. It’s only got one old filing cabinet in it and we don’t really use it anymore. It’s quiet in there too and has lots of natural light.’
Larry deigned to look at Alice for a moment but didn’t really appear to see her. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he said at last, scratching his bald head.
Alice shook her head. Ben Alexander had three interviewees arriving in less than an hour and they had nowhere to put them. The least Larry could do was listen to her perfectly decent suggestion or they’d end up interviewing the candidates in the canteen which would probably flout the all-important health and safety regulations.
Alice was just racking her brains for an alternative suggestion when Ben Alexander walked into the room.
‘Hello, Larry. Hello, Anna,’ he said, his all-encompassing gaze sweeping Alice oh-so-briefly. ‘All set for the interviews?’
Larry cleared his throat. ‘I suggest we use the old filing room at the end of the corridor,’ he told Ben. ‘It’s quiet and has lots of natural light.’
‘Excellent idea!’ Ben said, clapping his hands together.
‘Yes, I thought so,’ Larry said.
‘Your boss is a miracle worker, isn’t he, Anna?’ Ben said.
Alice turned round and rolled her eyes, returning to her desk where she found Larry’s empty coffee cup waiting for somebody to wash it. She sighed, thinking to herself that her situation might be more bearable if she had somebody in the office she could talk to but the only other woman who worked in her department was part time. Her name was Pearl Jaggers and she was about a hundred and twenty years old and was only interested in small talk if it was about her eleven grandchildren.
She wasn’t sure how she managed to get through the next few weeks leading up to the holiday. She endured countless cold mornings at the bus stop, her neck retreating like a shy tortoise’s into the woolly folds of her scarf. Bruce was his usual uncommunicative self and didn’t even attempt to help when a speeding car splashed an icy puddle up her legs.
Wilfred the postman was as grouchy as ever, complaining about the conditions postmen had to endure during the cold months and then promptly sneezing on her and, at work, Larry continued to ignore her and Ben continued to call her Anna. Life was perfectly normal if far from perfect.
But, finally, the great day arrived. Alice had spent the final five evenings before the holiday packing. And unpacking. She just didn’t know what to take. She’d looked up the temperatures in Kethos online and was assured that mid-April was mild but not hot. That meant you had to take absolutely everything: jeans and jumpers in case it was cool and dresses and swimsuits in case it was warm. Not that Alice had much in the way of clothes; she wasn’t the sort of woman who had an excess of anything – unlike her sister who had once bought a favourite dress in three different colours. Alice thought of her sister’s heaving wardrobe and the number of clothes which had been flung over their father’s old bed. She couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong when a person had more shoes than books in their home.
Which reminded her, which books was she going to take? She’d treated herself to a guidebook and a lovely paperback romance called Swimming with Dolphins as well as a funny little hardback she’d found in her favourite second-hand bookshop in Norwich. The book was called Know Your Gods and, as Alice didn’t, she’d bought it.
Their flight to Greece left shortly after seven and Stella refused to drive to the airport so early in the morning and didn’t want to pay the parking charges for the week either.
‘You can pay for a taxi. You are getting a free holiday, after all,’ she told Alice who swallowed hard, held her tongue and made a huge cash withdrawal from a hole in the wall.
Travelling with her sister was a trying experience. She had been the archetypal are-we-nearly-there-yet kid and she hadn’t grown out of that with the passing of the years.
‘I don’t understand why we have to be at the airport so early,’ she complained. Then came, ‘There really isn’t enough leg room for somebody like me. It’s all right for you with your short legs.’ Then, ‘I can’t believe we don’t get a meal on this plane. Not that it would be edible or anything but it’s the principle, isn’t it?’
The world would never please Stella no matter how hard it tried, Alice thought, gazing out of the window and smiling at the intense blue waters far below them as they neared their destination.
The island of Kethos lay in the Mediterranean Sea just off the mainland of Greece. From the air, it looked rather like a squashed heart and Alice wondered if this had anything to do with the Aphrodite legend that was linked to the island.
She picked up her guidebook. ‘Do you want to read this?’ she asked Stella.
‘No, I’m reading this,’ her sister answered, holding up a copy of a glossy gossip magazine. Alice was just about to try and find out more about the famous Greek goddess when the announcement came that they were about to land.
‘About time too!’ Stella said, shoving her magazine into her handbag and reaching for her compact to make sure her face was still immaculate. Alice didn’t bother reaching for hers.
For a moment, she was aware that her sister’s eyes were upon her. ‘You could’ve made an effort,’ Stella told her. ‘Were you in a rush this morning?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Well, just look at you!’
‘We’re travelling, Stella, not attending a party,’ Alice said, noticing her sister’s lacy dress with the plunging neckline.
‘Yes, and you never know who you’re going to meet,’ Stella said, pointedly looking around the aeroplane. ‘Take him over there – he’s quite nice looking. In fact, I might introduce myself.’
‘Stella, you’ve just broken up with Joe.’
‘Oh, that was ages ago!’ she said. ‘And what’s wrong with a bit of flirting, anyway? I’m totally up for a holiday romance and you should be too. Once you get a bit of sun on your face and do something with your hair, that is.’
Alice took a deep breath and counted to ten. She might be getting a free holiday but she knew that it was going to cost her dearly.
Chapter 5 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
Milo Galani had lived on the island of Kethos for all of his twenty-six years. His brothers – all three of them – had left for the mainland years ago but there was no life there for Milo. He couldn’t imagine living anywhere that wasn’t completely surrounded by the sea and the idea of a city gave him nightmares. He’d once stayed with his eldest brother in his tiny flat in Athens for a whole week and it had nearly killed him. He’d been kept awake all night by the sounds of the city: the police sirens, the drunken party-goers and the incessant mopeds.
When he’d returned to Kethos, he’d vowed he would never leave again. The bruising, bustling city might suit his three brothers but it didn’t suit him. He would rather walk through an olive grove than a crowd and he preferred a rocky mountain track to a shop-lined pavement. The island was like an extension of himself and he knew every field and every cove and he loved them all, especially once the spring arrived, like now.
There were some islanders who objected to the arrival of spring because, just as the island was reawakening after its winter hibernation and the first of the year’s flowers were emerging, the first tourists would arrive and the island would be wrenched from the residents and hauled back into life. There were some residents who lived up in the hills who had nothing to do with the tourists at all. They led solitary lives and were happy to do so. They believed that the island belonged to them and them alone and that the outside world had no business intruding upon it.
Luckily, the objectors to the tourists were in the minority and Milo certainly wasn’t amongst them. He welcomed the new injection of life which the tourists brought – he liked talking to them and hearing about the places they came from and the lives they lived there. It was his way of travelling without actually having to leave his beloved island.
He loved watching the boats chugging across the sea from the mainland and he couldn’t help but stare at the holiday-makers as they disembarked. What had brought them to his little island, he wondered? Were they in search of peace and solitude? Did they come in search of Greek myths and legends?
He was watching them today after doing a spot of shopping in Kethos Town. It wasn’t a large crowd – they would come during the busier summer months – but there was enough to fill a couple of tavernas. He spied an elderly couple who were linking arms. The man looked a little pale after his sea crossing and the woman was patting his hand as if to reassure him it was all over. There was a young family with two children who were tugging their parents along as if they couldn’t possibly wait a moment longer for their holiday to begin.
Then, his eye was suddenly caught by a young woman whose face was full of wonder as she stepped off the boat, her eyes large and searching as if she was trying to take everything in at once, and that made him smile. She looked so thrilled to be there – as she should, of course, but he’d seen some really miserable faces coming off that boat in the past. Like her, he thought, staring at a young woman who was following the smiling girl. She was beautiful with her shoulder-length golden hair and her perfect figure encased in a lacy dress but her face was as grim as a stormy day at sea. There was no joy to be found in it and Milo found his gaze returning to the smiling girl once again. She didn’t have the golden hair or knockout figure of her companion but there was something rather special about her and Milo couldn’t help but wonder if he would see her again. Maybe she’ll come to the gardens, he thought. Yes, let her come to the gardens.
He didn’t have time to hang around the harbour. He had to get to work and, for Milo, that meant a short moped ride to the Villa Argenti high up in the hills on the other side of the island. His boss was leaving the next day and wanted to go through some things with him and that always meant trouble. The sooner he left, the better, Milo thought, and then he would have the place to himself again.
Cedric Carlson was an American businessman who did something in technology. Milo wasn’t quite sure what it was, exactly, but it was obviously something that made a lot of money because Mr Carlson had homes in New York, Los Angeles, London and Milan as well as the Villa Argenti on Kethos where Milo was the groundsman.
Milo loved his job at the villa. He had a team of three part-time gardeners working for him but, most of the time, he had the gardens to himself and that was exactly how he liked it.
When Milo clocked in for work, Mr Carlson was sitting on the veranda with an enormous newspaper obscuring the view and covering almost his entire body. How could he be bothered with such things? Milo wondered. Couldn’t he sit back and luxuriate in the sun and enjoy the view for once? But perhaps that was the difference between the two of them – Milo might be able to enjoy the views that the Villa Argenti gave him but he’d never own them. Owning them took hard work, endless work. There was no time to just sit and stare at things.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Mr Carlson said as he spotted Milo.
‘Yes, sir,’ Milo said, running a hand self-consciously through his dark hair. He’d been told to address Mr Carlson as ‘sir’ on his first morning of employment seven years ago and woe betide him if he ever forgot.
‘I’m leaving for New York in—’ he paused and looked at the very expensive gold watch he was wearing, ‘thirty-eight minutes precisely.’
Mr Carlson liked to be precise and his chauffeur would be fired on the spot if he ever failed to match his boss’s precision.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And I’ll be gone for a fortnight.’
Milo nodded.
‘I’ve left a list of things I want doing. It’s all quite straightforward.’
Milo had no doubt that it was. He was used to the lists; his life was dominated by them. Not only would he be handed them by Mr Carlson each week but he would find them all over the gardens too: inside temples, taped to tree trunks and once on the inside of Milo’s favourite wheelbarrow. That had been a classic. It had read:
1. Take this wheelbarrow to the tip.
2. Replace with new one.
3. Store new wheelbarrow away each night.
Milo had ignored it. What Mr Carlson didn’t understand was that an old wheelbarrow was a good one. Its handles were almost a part of the user’s hands because they had worked in perfect harmony for so long. It might not always move in a perfect straight line but that didn’t mean it was ready for retirement. No. Mr Carlson should stick to things he knew and keep out of the garden whenever possible.
Milo listened to the rest of his instructions although there wasn’t really anything new and he nodded politely. He said ‘Yes, sir’ wherever appropriate then wished his boss a good journey and got on with his day’s work, walking down the long straight path lined with trees that was known as ‘The Avenue’. He was going to get on with some work in the kitchen garden today. It was one of the few areas that wasn’t open to the public and was hidden behind a large wall which harvested the best of the sunshine and produced bowlfuls of fruit on the trees grown against it.
Milo loved the kitchen garden because it was private and he was rarely disturbed there. In the other parts of the garden, he was always at the mercy of the tourists with their questions and their cameras. If he had a euro for every photo he’d taken of tourists, he could probably afford to buy the Villa Argenti himself, he thought.
But, before he could reach his sanctuary, he saw a figure half-hiding in the shadows of a wall and he instantly knew who it was. Sabine – ‘The Pushy French Girl’ – as he had come to think of her. It wasn’t really her fault. She was sixteen and was on holiday with her family and bored out of her mind. She’d been visiting the gardens with her parents one Tuesday afternoon and had taken one look at Milo and decided that she’d spend the rest of her time on Kethos trying to seduce him. It wasn’t bad as fates went, Milo thought, and goodness only knew that he’d had his fair share of holiday romances with tourists. There was obviously something about being a gardener, he’d decided, that attracted women. Perhaps they liked men who worked with their hands in the great outdoors and it was certainly more original to fall for a Greek gardener than it was a Greek waiter.
He took a deep breath and walked towards her. Be brusque, he told himself.
‘What are you doing here, Sabine?’ he asked as he continued walking. He spoke in English in which she was also fluent.
‘Keeping you company,’ she said, running to catch up with him, her long blonde ponytail swinging about her bare shoulders.
‘I don’t need company. I’m very busy. How did you get in, anyway? We’re not open yet.’
‘I climbed over the wall.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m not telling you. You’ll fence it off.’
‘That’s right,’ Milo said. ‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
‘But the gardens are open to everyone, aren’t they?’
‘Yes, but not you,’ he said.
‘Why not me?’
‘Because you should be with your family.’
‘Oh, they’re so boring!’ she said, puffing her cheeks out and sighing dramatically. ‘They do nothing all day!’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘But it is!’ Sabine said. ‘Dad sits around reading his boring books and Mum just sunbathes.’
‘I thought you were going to the museum?’
‘Oh, God! That was even more boring than sitting around the pool.’
Milo frowned. The little museum on Kethos might not be able to rival anything on the mainland but Milo was very proud of it and he objected to people who made fun of it. So it might only have two rooms but it housed a very interesting collection of coins and pottery.
‘Well, what do you want to do all day?’ he asked and then realised that he shouldn’t have.
‘I want to be with you,’ she said, her green eyes large and wide.
‘But I’m at work.’
‘There’s nobody around,’ she said, still running to keep up with him.
‘Sabine!’ he said sharply, stopping in the middle of the path so abruptly that she crashed into him. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said coyly, fluttering her obscenely long eyelashes at him and smiling prettily. She really was very attractive. She was tall for her age too and her figure was full and—
Milo stopped. She was sixteen years old and, although that might all be legal and above board, she was still a child. She might have the body of a woman but she behaved like a petulant teenager and he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. It was courting disaster.
‘Sabine,’ he tried again.
‘Yes?’ she said, tilting her head to one side and giving him her full attention.
‘You have to go.’
‘Oh, not yet!’
‘Yes, you do. I really have to get on with my work and you can’t come with me.’
She pouted at him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But say something in Greek first.’
‘What?’
‘Say something in Greek – anything! Go on!’
‘Sabine!’
‘Go on!’ she pleaded.
‘And then you’ll go?’
‘Yes,’ she promised with a nod.
Milo took a deep breath and told her – in Greek – that she was a spoilt young girl who should really know better and that he didn’t want her getting him into trouble.
‘Oh!’ she said once he’d finished. ‘That’s so romantic!’
He shook his head at her and then pointed towards the exit.
‘All right, I’m going,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Sabine – no!’ But she’d trotted off and pretended not to hear him. It was Milo’s turn to sigh. Why, oh why, couldn’t he meet a nice normal girl?
Chapter 6 (#u781a25e4-d418-5948-8b5c-602cd1ef986a)
One taxi, one plane, one boat and another taxi later, and Alice and Stella were finally holding the keys to their villa. The taxi had dropped them outside a large pair of iron gates and Alice looked at them in surprise.
‘Are you sure we’re at the right place?’ she asked Stella.
‘Joe obviously knew my taste,’ Stella said, acknowledging the splendour with a brief glance. ‘Come on, help me with my bags.’
Stella sauntered through the gates and Alice followed with the bags, smiling at the tree-lined driveway that led to the villa.
‘This is beautiful!’ she said, between short breaths as the luggage weighed her down. The villa was a dazzling white and its brilliant turquoise shutters couldn’t fail to make you smile. Well, they failed to make Stella smile – she was frowning down at her dress on which a large beetle had landed.
‘Ewww!’ she cried, flicking the offending creature off her. ‘What kind of a place is this?’
‘A foreign one,’ Alice dared to say, producing another key as they reached the enormous wooden front door. It opened with a long, low groan and the hallway that greeted them was large and echoey with a flagstoned floor which made everything feel wonderfully cool. Alice looked up at the lofty ceiling and then back down at the floor which could easily accommodate a grand ball. ‘This place is huge!’ she said with a whistle.
‘Yes, well Joe always knew I never settled for second best,’ Stella said, making her way to the sweeping staircase in order to choose the best bedroom for herself. ‘Bring my bags up,’ she said as an afterthought.
Alice stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment.
‘Oh, you know how much stronger you are than I am,’ Stella added with a tiny smile.
Alice rolled her eyes at the insincere flattery and then struggled up the stairs behind Stella, watching as she viewed all five of the bedrooms before picking the largest room for herself. It had an enormous four-poster bed draped with a white canopy, a gigantic en suite and a long balcony that overlooked the coast to the east of the property.
‘Just put my things there,’ Stella said, motioning to Alice whilst she flopped down on the immaculate white bed. ‘It’s probably best if you hang my dresses up before they’re creased out of all recognition.’
Alice glanced at her sister. Was she serious? Alice had half a mind to tell her where she could stick her dresses when Stella stopped her.
‘You know you do a much better job of it than I do,’ she said.
Once again, Alice caved in. It wouldn’t take her long and, if she didn’t keep Stella sweet, there’d be all sorts of hell to pay, she was quite sure of that.
‘I’m off to find a room for me now,’ Alice said a moment later, having hung up her sister’s clothes.
Stella groaned from the bed and swatted a hand in Alice’s direction as if dismissing her. Relieved that she could have some time to herself at last, Alice walked out onto the landing and looked around. There were two large double bedrooms either side of Stella’s and one small single at the end of the corridor. She headed to the single. Privacy, she thought, was more important than size.
Like Stella’s room, the colours were soft and muted: the bed was a vision of white, and pale blue curtains fluttered in the breeze when Alice opened the windows. She didn’t have a balcony but the room did have an unrivalled view down to the harbour at Kethos Town and Alice stood looking at it for a few moments, watching the boats bobbing about on the glassy, blue-green water.
‘Am I really here?’ she asked herself as she gazed at some distant mountains that rose and fell like the back of a sleeping beast. ‘Am I really on holiday?’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper holiday that involved going abroad. She hadn’t been able to afford more than a couple of weekends away over the last few years and they’d been a very modest hotel break in the Lake District where she’d been rained on for an entire weekend, and a couple of nights in a youth hostel in Derbyshire where she’d had to share a room with a party of fifteen hyper schoolgirls. Not exactly the stuff of envy-inducing postcards. But here she was and it was a wonderfully sunny April day and the cold, grey days of the English winter that had seemed to drag on forever were now far behind her.
She glanced around her room again and then decided to do a bit of exploring, gasping at the enormous bathroom with walk-through shower and roll-top bath and the window looking straight out to sea.
Descending the staircase, Alice found an enormous modern kitchen with gleaming black worktops, a dining room with a table that sat twelve people and a living room filled with enormous white sofas. There were also doors out onto a terrace and Alice’s eyes widened in wonder when she saw the swimming pool beyond them. It was a traditional rectangular shape with a mosaic of pale tiles around it. There were sun loungers, an umbrella, a scarlet hammock and a barbeque – everything the holidaymaker could possibly want. There was even a large table and chairs under the shade of a pretty pergola over which clambered a magenta bougainvillea, its flowers dazzlingly bright against the blue sky above.
Beyond the terrace was an olive grove before the land dipped down and headed steeply towards the sea, punctuated every now and then with the tall, dark spires of cypress trees. It was the stuff of fantasies and, for a moment, Alice felt guilty for being there. After all, Joe had booked this holiday and he must have paid an absolute fortune for it but Alice couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d thought it was worth missing out on it to be shot of Stella.
A huge bubble of excitement rose within her and, not wanting to waste a single moment, she decided that they should go straight down to Kethos Town and get something to eat, do a bit of shopping and stock up on supplies so they could cook at the villa.
Walking back upstairs, she popped her head round Stella’s bedroom door. She was still on the bed and her eyes were closed.
‘Do you want to get something to eat?’ Alice whispered.
‘What?’ Stella croaked without opening her eyes.
‘I’m going to walk into town and get some food.’
‘Some Greek food?’
‘I imagine so.’
‘No thanks,’ Stella said. ‘I’ve brought some cereal bars with me.’
Alice wrinkled her nose. Her sister had flown all this way to fall asleep and eat cereal bars.
‘Well, I’m going out, okay?’
‘Knock yourself out,’ Stella said before rolling over on the bed and burying her head further into her pillow.
Alice returned to her bedroom and changed from the jeans she had been wearing on the plane and opened her suitcase to reveal the summery clothes she’d optimistically packed. There were T-shirts in cream and navy and – Alice’s hand hovered over a third – grey. She didn’t dare wear grey in Greece. Stella would kill her if she did and, for once in her life, Alice didn’t want to wear grey either. The brilliant colours of the island seemed to be whispering to her, persuading her to be a little more adventurous with her palette.
Ditch the grey, it seemed to say. Only she seemed to have an awful lot of it. Even one of her dresses had grey in it. It was only a background, mind, hiding behind the pretty pink roses but it was there all the same.
‘Best to avoid,’ she said to herself, her hands reaching under the layers of grey, white and navy and pulling out her one magnificent piece of colour. She caught her breath as she saw it because it was so un-Alice like. She remembered the day she’d bought it. She’d seen it on the sale rail of a shop she normally walked right by without even glancing at because it just wasn’t the sort of shop someone like Alice went into but it had beckoned her in, urging her to take it home with her and now, holding the light folds of turquoise between her hands, she was so glad of her impulse buy. It was the one truly beautiful thing she owned and she was going to wear it right now.
First, she took off the rest of the drab clothes she’d been wearing on the flight and ran into the shower, washing away the weariness that comes from travelling. Then she combed her hair. Being fine, it would dry quickly in the sun.
Returning to her suitcase, she pulled out the turquoise dress. The little buttons down the front winked in the sunny bedroom and the fabric felt so luxurious against her skin, tickling her knees with its softness. If only she had some pretty piece of jewellery. If only she could borrow one of Stella’s necklaces. She had heaps and heaps but, the problem was, Stella wasn’t exactly a sharing sort of sister. Growing up, they’d never swapped make-up, and the idea of sharing or lending was abhorrent to Stella.
‘But she never needs to know,’ Alice thought, thinking that her sister must have packed a veritable treasure trove of jewellery judging by the weight of her luggage and Alice couldn’t help feeling entitled to borrow a piece seeing as she’d carried it all.
With silent bare feet, Alice peeped round Stella’s door. She was fast asleep on the bed and was snoring like an angry volcano. Alice spied the suitcase. She’d already hung up all the clothes on her sister’s command but knew there must be a jewellery box or roll still hiding there so she crossed the room to where she’d left it.
The jewellery roll was easy to find and Alice sighed with pleasure as she saw the row of necklaces. There was silver and gold as well as all sorts of pretty costume pieces which one woman couldn’t possibly hope to wear in a single week even if she had a dozen necks, and Alice’s eyes fastened on a lovely blue pendant that was the colour of the summer sky. It would look beautiful with her turquoise dress and Stella wouldn’t miss it if it was returned straightaway.
Folding the jewellery roll and closing the suitcase, Alice tiptoed out of the room and, once safely in her own bedroom, placed the pendant around her neck and dared to gaze at her reflection. Her newly-washed hair was clinging to her face in dark strands and her blue eyes were made all the bluer by the bright dress. She dared to smile. For once, she looked almost pretty.
She slipped on a pair of sandals. They were a simple brown leather with nothing really to recommend themselves. In fact, they looked a little at odds with the pretty summer dress and Stella would no doubt have a fit if she clapped eyes on them but they were the only pair Alice owned and they would have to do.
Grabbing her handbag which was a rather monstrous black affair in which Alice usually kept at least three books, she left the villa and turned right out of the gates, heading down the steep path that led to Kethos Town.
How wonderful it was to feel warm. She hadn’t seen her limbs for months and they looked startlingly white in the Greek sunshine.
The road into town was quiet and Alice was soon down on the harbour front where they’d docked just a couple of hours before. She looked around at the pretty houses jostling along the water. Most of them were white and shaped like sugar cubes but there were some in brilliant colours too like Venetian red and sunset yellow and there, sat at the top of the hill overlooking the sea, was a beautiful church with a dazzlingly blue domed roof.
There were a few tourists about and Alice found a taverna overlooking the harbour and ordered moussaka, some salad and a glass of wine before closing her eyes and breathing in the salty tang of the sea and listening to it as it lapped against the harbour wall. Why couldn’t life always be like this? she wondered. Why was life more about in-trays than outings? And why were there always more workdays than weekends?
How hard it was going to be to return to England and her job after spending a week in such a paradise, she thought. Maybe it had been a mistake to come on holiday. Maybe she would have been better off not knowing there were such beautiful places in the world.
Tucking in to her moussaka a few minutes later, Alice did her best to banish thoughts of the office waiting for her back in England. She wasn’t going to think about the person she was there. Here, she could be anybody she wanted to be. Nobody knew her here. Nobody would judge her or gossip about her in the staff toilets. She was just another tourist who had come to soak up a bit of sunshine and that realisation made her smile.
Finishing her meal and glass of wine, she paid at the bar and noticed a handful of leaflets on a nearby table. There was one about the island’s museum and another about boat trips but one in particular caught her eye. It was for a villa set in acres of beautiful grounds which overlooked the sea at the south of the island.
‘The Villa Argenti,’ Alice whispered and the very name sounded like a promise. Its towers and turrets were mesmerising and its great Venetian-style windows seemed to hold secrets behind them, and the gardens rolled gently across the landscape before ending in cliffs which plummeted dramatically down to the sea.
She made up her mind then and there that she would visit it. Maybe it would even tempt Stella to leave the comfort of their villa. Yes, it would be the first of many wonderful adventures they would have together on the island. They’d laugh, relax and become closer than they’d ever been before, Alice thought, as she walked along the steep road that led out of the town and back to their villa. Stella couldn’t fail to be charmed by such a place as the Villa Argenti, could she?
‘I’m back!’ Alice called as she closed the front door behind her. ‘Stella?’
‘I’m through here,’ Stella said, her voice coming from the living room.
Alice found her sprawled out on one of the enormous cream sofas, the empty wrapper of a cereal bar on the table before her. She sat down next to her sister, half-expecting her to ask her where she’d been but she didn’t.
Undeterred, Alice took the leaflet for the Villa Argenti out of her handbag and handed it to Stella.
‘What’s this?’ Stella asked.
‘Somewhere I think we should visit.’
‘What – some boring old house?’
‘It isn’t a house – it’s a villa.’
‘But we’re in a villa already.’
‘Not like this one – just look at it!’ Alice said, her voice high with excitement. ‘Anyway, the villa isn’t actually open to the public but the gardens look so beautiful, don’t you think?’
‘It looks like somewhere they’d drag you on a school trip!’ Stella said, handing the leaflet back to Alice.
Alice bit her tongue and returned the leaflet to her bag. There wasn’t going to be any laughter on this trip, and they weren’t going to become closer than ever either, were they?
‘Hey!’ Stella suddenly said, leaning forward on the sofa and staring at Alice. ‘What are you doing wearing my necklace?’
Chapter 7 (#ulink_48d1ed13-71f9-5a0d-ae84-8cf0a27b24ff)
By the time Milo had tidied around the garden and put all the tools safely away, the sun was setting fast, leaving great violet streaks across the sky and turning the sea indigo. It was a time of day that he loved, especially in the spring when the air was balmy and one could get away with a short-sleeved shirt.
Leaving the Villa Argenti on his moped, he took a winding mountain road which first descended towards the sea and then climbed steeply. From the top, you could see across the water to a neighbouring island. Milo had been there a couple of times. It was about ten times the size of Kethos and had been heaving with tourists. It made his own dear island seem deserted. Certainly, there wasn’t the notorious rush hour that some places were famous for; Milo practically had the roads to himself when he left work although the occasional stray goat would often force him to slow down and swerve. He’d heard his brothers complaining about their commute in Athens and he didn’t envy them. He always looked forward to his ride to and from home, occasionally breaking into song as he rode, his voice filling the air – not always in tune, perhaps, but always happy. Life was good. He loved his island, he loved his job and he loved his home.
But he wasn’t going directly home that evening because there was something he had to pick up first. Turning his moped into a narrow road, he drove through a tiny village which ended in a small courtyard where half a dozen hens were pecking around in the dirt. There was a simple two-storey white house that was typical of Kethos. Its windows were wide open and a pair of orange curtains fluttered in the evening breeze and Milo could smell something wonderful cooking.
‘Hanna?’ he called as he took off his helmet and got off his bike. ‘Anyone at home?’ he called in Greek as he entered the kitchen but there was nobody about so he went back outside again and spotted a portly woman in her sixties with a huge wicker basket full of white sheets. Milo ran across the grass and took the basket from her. Her round face was red from the exertion.
‘Shouldn’t Tiana be helping you with this?’
Hanna waved a fat hand at him. ‘Oh, let the child be a child.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In the back room on that computer thing.’
Milo sighed. Slowly but surely their little island was being taken over by computers and hand-held gadgets. Even the most unlikely of people seemed to have them now and were connecting to the internet with alarming regularity.
‘She knows I don’t like her on that day and night. She’s a kid. She should be outside, running up mountains and scraping her knees on rocks.’
They entered the kitchen and Milo put the basket of washing down on the tiled floor. Two large black cats were asleep on an old leather chair by the cooker and, once again, Milo inhaled the aroma of a fine dinner.
‘You’ll stay for something to eat?’ Hanna asked.
‘Oh, that’s really kind of you but I’ve got to get back,’ Milo said, thinking of the chores he had to do around the house if he was to keep on top of things. His eldest brother, Georgio, had threatened to visit and Milo wanted to be above reproach if he did show up.
‘Suit yourself,’ Hanna said and then left the kitchen and hollered, ‘Tiana!’
A few seconds later, a ten-year-old girl darted from one of the rooms at the back of the house, her long dark hair flowing wildly behind her as she launched herself into Milo’s arms.
‘Tiana!’ he cried, wrapping his arms round her and kissing the top of her head. ‘You okay? Had a good day?’
‘She’s had her tea,’ Hanna said, ‘and you look as if you could do with some yourself. Look at the size of you!’
‘What?’ Milo said.
‘There’s nothing of you!’
‘I keep myself fit – that’s all.’
‘A working man needs a bit of meat on him,’ Hanna said. ‘Like my boys.’
Milo thought of Hanna’s four sons. They were all as tall as Greek temples and about the same width too. By contrast, Milo and his three brothers were positively slender although he’d never have thought of himself as skinny. He was just well-toned, that was all. His job and his lifestyle made sure that there wasn’t any surplus flesh on him.
‘Now, are you sure you won’t stay for a bit of dinner?’
As tempting as that offer was, he really had to get home. ‘Another time, Hanna,’ he said with a smile and she waved him from her kitchen.
‘I’ve been on the internet!’ Tiana said as they left the little house.
‘Yes, Hanna told me,’ Milo said. ‘I don’t like you spending all your time in front of a computer.’
‘But it’s brilliant! You never let me use ours,’ she said.
‘And for good reasons too.’
‘Like what?’
‘Your beautiful dark eyes will turn square and your brain will frazzle up and die.’
Tiana wrinkled her little nose. ‘Don’t be silly!’
‘I’m being absolutely serious. You should be outside and running around like I was at your age.’
‘Oh, you’re so old sometimes!’ Tiana said with a little laugh.
‘Maybe I am,’ Milo said, ‘but you should take advantage of that and learn from me.’ He shook his head. He was beginning to sound old even to himself now. ‘Come on – helmet on!’ Milo ordered as they walked towards the moped.
‘Do I have to?’ Tiana protested.
‘You most certainly do.’
‘But I want to feel the wind in my hair,’ she said.
‘If you want to feel the wind in your hair, it’ll be a very long walk home.’
She pouted but then placed the helmet firmly on her head and Milo helped her with the strap. Then they both hopped on and took off. Milo took the roads a little slower when Tiana was riding behind him. He loved to speed around the island when he was on his own, careening around the bends a little too fast sometimes and speeding down the hills towards the sea but he was the perfect rider when Tiana was with him and he never took any unnecessary chances.
Feeling the tightness of her little hands on his waist, he smiled.
‘You okay?’ he shouted and he felt her squeeze his belly in affirmative response. They rode through another village, scattering a group of children who were kicking a football around and then they ascended into the hills before coming to a stop at last.
Their house was like most of the others on the island: small, square and white but, over the years, they’d put their own stamp on it, painting the three tiny bedrooms, living room and kitchen in cheering yellows and vibrant reds apart from Tiana’s bedroom which – like the bedrooms of almost every other ten-year-old girl around the world – was a symphony of pink. Milo remembered the weekend they’d chosen the pots of pink paint together and had spent two whole days getting just as much paint on themselves as on the walls.
The furniture around the house was simple wooden hand-me-down pieces which weren’t worth a lot of money but were good and sturdy. His favourite piece was a rather fine rocking chair by the fire which had been rocked by at least four generations of Galanis. He adored that old chair.
But it was the garden which was Milo’s real forte. He’d planted it with flowers, fruit bushes and vegetables. One of the perks of his job at the Villa Argenti was that his pockets would often be stuffed with seeds taken from the garden he’d created there and he’d replicated some of the borders at the villa in miniature in his own back garden for Tiana. Even though he spent all day working in one garden, he couldn’t resist tinkering around in his own once he got home, only he really didn’t have time for that tonight. There were the morning dishes to wash, dinner to prepare, the ironing to do and heaven only knew that the little house hadn’t seen the sight of a vacuum cleaner for a good many days.
Walking into the kitchen together, he watched as Tiana reached into a cupboard for her favourite pink glass before filling it with pineapple juice from the fridge. She took it to the table and sipped it thoughtfully. It was a routine that Milo observed every day and never tired of. What a little miracle she was, he thought, and how wonderful that she had come into his life.
She looked up at him with her large dark eyes and smiled. ‘What is it?’ She was at the age where he could no longer just stare at her without her asking him what he was doing or thinking or plotting.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said.
She didn’t look convinced. ‘Tell me!’
He shrugged but then said, ‘You are happy here, aren’t you, Tiana?’
She sighed. ‘Of course I am,’ she said. ‘Why do you always ask me that?’
‘Because I worry.’
‘What about?’
‘Everything. I worry that you’re not happy living with me. I worry that you’re not happy living here. I mean, are you sure you wouldn’t want to live somewhere else?’
‘Like where?’
‘Like the mainland.’
She shook her head and took another sip of her pineapple juice. ‘Why would I want to live there?’
‘No reason.’
‘You said it was horrible there. You said it was dirty and smelly and noisy.’
‘It is.’
‘So why would I want to live there? You’re not going to send me there, are you? We’re not leaving here, are we?’ she asked, her eyes filled with anxiety.
‘No, we’re not leaving here.’
‘Well, then,’ she said with a little shrug before finishing her juice and leaving the table. ‘I’m going on the computer,’ she added as she left the room.
‘No, Tiana! You’ve spent quite enough time on there already for one day.’
‘But I need to. It’s for my homework!’
‘Well, I’m timing you. Make sure it’s just your homework you’re doing and remember I’ll be checking up on you.’
‘No, you won’t. You’ll go out in the garden and forget all about me!’
‘I will not, you cheeky miss!’ Milo shook his head. Honestly, his little sister could be so astute sometimes.
Chapter 8 (#ulink_73bd65b2-279e-5497-b69c-9a47777cc692)
The room was cool and dark and Alice had no idea what the time was when she awoke, fumbling for her travel clock on the bedside cabinet. Eight o’clock.
‘Eight o’clock!’ she cried, leaping out of bed. She didn’t want to miss a single moment of her holiday and ran across the room to draw the curtains. Sunlight blasted into the bedroom and dazzled Alice’s eyes, the vibrant colours of Kethos dancing before her. The sky was a perfect blue and the sea was a gloriously glassy aquamarine.
Showering quickly and pulling on a pair of beige cotton trousers and a blouse that was still new enough to look white rather than grey, she ventured downstairs, walking into the kitchen and fixing herself a light breakfast of toast and honey. She’d had to make a return journey into Kethos Town the night before to buy provisions for the villa. She’d meant to get them after eating at the taverna but the leaflet for the Villa Argenti had excited her so much that she’d forgotten to go shopping.
Alice had been up a full hour by the time Stella shuffled downstairs. She was wearing a pink satin bathrobe and her blonde hair was newly washed and blow-dried. Alice had noticed the enormous hairdryer and straightening tongs in her sister’s suitcase.
In the spirit of sisterhood, Alice decided to try again and took a deep breath. ‘It’s such a glorious day. Have you changed your mind about a bit of exploring?’
‘I’m going to work on my tan,’ Stella announced.
‘But you’ll be out in the sun if you come with me to this villa. There’s a wonderful garden. We can do a bit of sunbathing there.’
‘It’s not the same. I want to lie about the pool and really relax. You’ve no idea how stressed I’ve been recently,’ she said with a dramatic sigh.
Alice watched as Stella untied her bath robe and let it fall to the floor. She was wearing the skimpiest of bikinis in a metallic gold material that managed to look expensive and cheap at the same time.
‘Put some cream on my back,’ she said, handing Alice a large bottle of coconut-scented sun lotion. ‘Blimey! That’s cold!’ she complained a moment later. ‘Can’t you warm your hands up or something first?’
‘No, I can’t,’ Alice said abruptly, ‘or I’ll be late for the bus. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?’
‘To that boring old villa?’ She made a funny huffing sound and waltzed out through the patio doors onto the terrace and took position on the sun lounger nearest the pool. Alice sighed. She couldn’t believe that they had flown all the way to the Mediterranean and Stella wanted to do nothing more than get a tan. Didn’t she want to see any of the island? Wasn’t she the least bit interested in exploring some of its history and culture? Well, Alice wasn’t going to just sit around, that was for sure.
‘My friends are all going to be so jealous of my tan,’ Stella said, stretching herself out like a cat. ‘You’ll have to get lots of photos of me,’ she said, putting on her very large, very dark sunglasses.
It was such a relief to leave the villa and walk into town. Why did she always let her sister get to her like that? She was twenty-eight years old and she’d had to put up with Stella for all but four of those years – surely she knew what she was like by now. So why did it still hurt her so much?
Alice caught a little bus from the centre of Kethos Town which headed up a road into the mountains. She’d shown her leaflet of the Villa Argenti to the driver and he nodded in understanding and Alice sat on the back seat and prepared to enjoy the journey. As long as it took her as far away from Stella as was possible on a tiny island, that would suit her.
Alice took a deep breath. She was going to push all thoughts of Stella out of her head and enjoy her surroundings and, looking out of the bus window, she gasped as she noticed just how high they had climbed. The road had twisted its way high up into the mountains and the drop back down gave Alice goosebumps but the view was spectacular. She could see so much of the island all at once from this vantage point and she could just make out the large curve of the coastline that made up one part of the heart shape that the island was famous for.
It was about twenty minutes later when the bus stopped and the driver nodded and pointed along a little road. Alice looked down it but couldn’t see anything.
‘Villa Argenti?’ she asked.
He waved his hand and nodded again and Alice hopped off the bus. She was the only one to do so and she watched as it rounded a bend in the road and disappeared.
Suddenly, she was alone and it was totally silent. She looked down the road the bus driver had pointed along but she couldn’t see anything other than trees and hills. Was there really a magnificent villa tucked away there? She took the leaflet out of her handbag but it didn’t help very much so she set off at a smart pace in what she hoped was the right direction.
The sun had climbed high in the sky and Alice soon felt she’d been walking for hours but consoled herself with the fact that you couldn’t go far wrong on an island. Then, as she rounded a bend, she saw a large white sign with the words ‘Villa Argenti’ on it. She sighed with relief and followed a tree-lined driveway until she came to a pair of large gates which stood open in welcome.
What now? she wondered. There was nobody around to take her money and she suddenly felt shy about entering the garden but she had come all this way to see it and she didn’t want to miss out now.
‘Hello?’ she called but there was no reply. She looked around. She really was the only soul about and, if that was the case, surely a quick look wouldn’t do any harm.
She followed a neat brick path and descended some steps and, suddenly, it was there. The Villa Argenti. It was a large wedding cake of a building with pillars and balconies and enormous doors and sweeping steps. Alice had never seen anything like it in her life. Its honey-coloured stone glowed warmly in the sunshine and Alice had the peculiar feeling that the house was actually smiling at her and she smiled right back at it. It had every right to smile too because it had the good fortune to be in one of the most beautiful settings Alice had ever seen. Completely surrounded by gardens which Alice couldn’t wait to explore, the villa was also positioned high enough to have one of the best views along the coastline of Kethos.
What a pity the house was not open to the public, she thought, although there was plenty to see in the garden.
Leaving the house behind her, Alice walked down yet more steps into a world of green. There was an immaculate emerald lawn that looked as if no human being had ever dared to walk on it and Alice was loath to now but there were no signs to tell her not to so she walked as quickly and delicately as she could, crossing to a little path lined with low walls which had been planted with flowering shrubs. It was one of those times when you needed at least three pairs of eyes to take everything in so Alice slowed her pace because she wanted to see everything: each tree, shrub and flower, and every pond, fountain and temple.
Alice had always wanted a garden. Their family home had a long strip of uninspiring grass which had never been very well tended and her little cottage only had a tiny enclosed courtyard. She’d bought a plastic chair and a terracotta pot in which she grew a rose bush but it wasn’t the stuff of dreams.
But this garden was the stuff of dreams. It was laid out in wide terraces which ended in a large stone wall on top of a cliff which plummeted down to the sea. It was a dizzying vista and Alice stood on the terrace, daring to lean on the iron railings that were the only thing preventing her from tumbling onto the craggy rocks far below.
Gazing out across the coastline, she suddenly felt sad and couldn’t help wishing that her dad was there with her. He would have loved to have seen the villa and the gardens. She would have to send him a postcard or two so that he could at least appreciate it all from afar.
Turning her back on the sea for a moment, she spotted an ornate white bench underneath a fig tree. Sitting down on it a moment later, she closed her eyes, her face drinking in the warm rays of the sun. She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting there for or even if she nodded off for a few blissful moments but, when she opened her eyes, a young man was approaching her. He was tall and had dark hair and olive skin and he was wearing khaki trousers and a dark grey T-shirt. If Alice had worn such colours, her complexion would have drained away to nothing and her sister would have berated her for her bad taste but, on him, they looked wonderfully masculine.
‘Hello,’ he said in English as he pushed an ancient wheelbarrow in front of him.
‘The gardens aren’t closing, are they?’ Alice asked, fearing she was being rounded up and pushed out. ‘I’ve lost all track of time.’
‘This place can do that to you,’ the man said. ‘But, no, they’re not closing. Not for a few hours.’
‘Good,’ she said, liking his gentle accent. ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave yet.’ She looked up into his smiling face. ‘Do you work here?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I just like coming and pushing a wheelbarrow around the grounds from time to time.’
She blushed. ‘Sorry – it was a silly question.’
He grinned at her. ‘No, I’m sorry. And, yes, I do work here. I’ve worked here for a very long time.’
Alice smiled. ‘It must be a wonderful place to work.’
‘It is, yes,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.’
‘You’re very lucky.’
‘I am,’ he said simply and then he put his wheelbarrow down and sat on the bench beside her.
Alice shuffled up a little, not used to having handsome men sitting so close to her.
‘And where do you work? You’re here on holiday, right?’ the young man asked her.
Alice nodded. ‘I’m here for a week – with my sister.’
‘And your job? You have a job back in England – right?’
‘Yes, I’m from England and I do have a job but do you mind if we don’t talk about it? I wouldn’t like to spoil this beautiful place by talking about something so dreary.’
The man nodded. ‘I’m sorry to hear that it is dreary. That is a great shame.’
Alice nodded again. ‘I don’t really know what happened. I mean, you never plan these things, do you? You don’t grow up thinking, I want a really dreary job when I grow up. I want to be bored out of my skull and fill my days doing meaningless things that don’t seem to add anything worthwhile to the world.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘But I said I wasn’t going to talk about it and I wouldn’t want to bore you.’
‘You’re not boring me,’ he said, his dark eyes warm and attentive and, all of a sudden, Alice was talking – talking like she’d never talked in her life because nobody had ever really listened to her before except her father. She told him about her job and her boss and how bored she was there and how nobody ever seemed to notice her or care about what she thought.
She told him about her father and how worried she was about him even though he always said he was all right and that she shouldn’t worry. She told him about her sister and how cross she made her and how she’d thought this holiday would change things between them.
‘Gosh,’ she said once she’d finished, ‘I didn’t mean to say all that. I’m not quite sure where it all came from.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘You needed to talk it all out of you.’
She smiled at his funny phrasing but still felt horribly embarrassed at having unburdened herself to a complete stranger and so stood up and started looking for an escape route and then she remembered something. ‘I – er – I haven’t actually paid to get in,’ she said. ‘There was nobody at the gate.’
The young man waved his hand dismissively. ‘There’s no need.’
‘But this place must cost a fortune to keep going.’
‘Yes, but the owner has plenty of money. He doesn’t need yours.’ He stood up and followed her along a footpath and there was a moment of silence between them as their feet crunched along the gravel.
‘Did you come to see Aphrodite?’ the young man said at last.
‘Pardon?’ Alice said, surprised by his question.
‘The statue of Aphrodite – over there by the fountain. Most tourists come here to see her. Perhaps you missed her.’
‘I think I must have,’ Alice said, annoyed with herself. She thought she’d seen everything.
‘They say she grants wishes,’ the man said with a little smile.
‘Do they?’ Alice said.
‘If your wish is for love or beauty, it will be granted.’
‘I don’t believe in wishes,’ Alice said.
‘Just because you don’t believe in something, doesn’t make it less real.’
She blinked in surprise. ‘Perhaps I’ll make a wish another day,’ she said, ‘if I come back.’
‘I hope you do,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
He turned to go and she watched until he was out of sight and then glanced in the direction of the avenue of statues. She’d walked that way earlier but now realised that she hadn’t been paying attention. She’d been thinking about Stella and her head had been full of worries which meant she hadn’t really seen the beauty of the place she was in.
She took out the leaflet from her handbag. She’d remembered reading something about the statues there.
The Goddess Garden is a place like no other, the leaflet proclaimed. Travel back to Ancient Greece and meet Hera, Athena, Artemis and Aphrodite whilst enjoying the lush beauty of the garden with its fountains and sea views.
It was, indeed, a beautiful part of the garden with its enormous urns spilling over with bright flowers and its fountains cooling the air with watery mist. Alice walked up to the first statue which was standing beside the protection of a cypress tree. Its figure was long and boyish and her hair was scraped away from her rather serious-looking face. She was reaching behind her shoulder to where she was carrying her arrows and her other hand was resting upon the head of a faithful hound.
‘Artemis,’ Alice said, ‘goddess of the hunt.’
She walked on and found the next goddess standing by a small pool. She was carrying a sheaf of wheat, a gentle expression gracing her face.
‘Demeter,’ Alice said, ‘goddess of the harvest.’ She smiled because she knew that her knowledge would have intensely annoyed Stella had she been there.
Alice walked on by the other goddesses and then she saw her. Standing in full sunlight at the end of the walk was Aphrodite. Alice recognised her at once because she was quite unlike all the other statues in that she was smiling. Artemis had worn the expression of a head teacher and Demeter had looked dreamy but Aphrodite was positively beaming with happiness, her long curls tumbling down her back and the finest of silken garments only just covering her curves as her arms reached up to lift her hair away from her face. Alice couldn’t stop looking at her.
‘So you’re the one everybody comes to see, are you?’ She took a step towards her. ‘Do you really grant wishes?’ she asked, looking into the blank eyes. She reached out, her hand resting on Aphrodite’s gown which was warm from the sunshine. ‘Heaven only knows I could use a granted wish or two right now.’
Alice thought for a moment. What exactly would she wish for? The health and happiness of her dear father, of course. A better, more normal relationship with her sister. But what for herself? If she was being really selfish, what would she wish for herself? Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty and the young gardener had said that wishes to do with those would be granted.
What would I wish for? Alice wondered, looking up into the beautiful face of Aphrodite. Should I wish to be as beautiful as you?
The warmth of the stone statue seemed to seep into Alice’s arm and she felt the strange tingling sensation that one feels after five minutes too long in the sunshine.
She shook herself out of her reverie.
This is silly, she told herself, and she quickly left the garden.
Chapter 9 (#ulink_6510869c-4c2f-5a66-8c5a-98a5bcae797b)
It had been very remiss of Milo not even to ask the English girl her name. He should have found out a little bit more about her but, by the time he’d thought to do so, she had long disappeared.
He’d recognised her as one of the tourists he’d seen in Kethos Town the day before. She’d been with the beautiful blonde girl who had looked so moody. Milo now realised that this was the English girl’s sister. He shook his head. He knew the sister’s name but not the girl he’d sat with for half an hour. How absurd was that? He felt as if he knew everything about this girl’s life from the father whom she obviously loved more than life itself to the job that seemed to be swallowing her whole.
He smiled as he remembered the way her past had tumbled out of her mouth with no regard for what he might be thinking. There was something curiously endearing about that. She’d had a certain sweetness and he’d adored her honesty when she’d tried to pay her entrance fee and she had the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. He should have kept her talking at least until he’d finished work and then he could have got to know her better.
Perhaps she’ll come back, he thought. Maybe he should make a wish on the statue of Aphrodite so that the English girl would return. He smiled at the thought. He didn’t really believe in wishes even though he told all the tourists that he did. It was all just a bit of fun, wasn’t it? Still, as he walked towards the statue before the last of the sun’s rays dipped behind the villa casting Aphrodite into shade, he knew that he wanted this wish to be granted more than anything else.
Alice felt strangely flat when she returned to the villa, which was odd, really, because she’d had such a wonderful day. She knew what it was, of course. It was the gardener she’d met.
Why did she tell him those things, she wondered, blushing at the memory of having revealed so much to somebody she’d only just met. Perhaps it had been part of the magic that was the Villa Argenti. Perhaps it had woven its spell over her and had broken down her inhibitions. She’d certainly never behaved like that before in her life. She never expressed her true feelings to anybody around her because nobody ever seemed interested enough but this gardener had really listened to her.
He seemed to have cared too. She remembered the gentle look in his deep brown eyes and the expression on his face as she was leaving. But then something occurred to her. He was a good-looking young man who probably met and flirted with hundreds of impressionable tourists every year. Alice had been just another gullible young woman who would fall for his easy charm and handsome face, hadn’t she? Only she hadn’t given him a chance and she was glad of that now.
Are you? Are you really glad? a little voice inside her asked. Why did you up and leave him so quickly when he was obviously interested in you? How many chances like that come along?
Alice laughed. No chances like that ever came along in her life. She thought about Ben Alexander at work and how the only time he looked at her was when he was handing her a member of staff’s sick note.
‘Here you go, Anna. Another one for the collection.’ His brief eye contact was what got her through whole days of boredom and that was a very sad way to live. But here, on this beautiful magical island, she’d held the sole attention of one of the most handsome men she had ever seen and she had batted it away as if she received such attention all the time. What had she been thinking of? And what was it about Kethos that was making her so reflective? She’d never really stood still and examined her life before but she was beginning to realise how unhappy she was and she knew that something had to change.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Stella said as Alice walked out onto the terrace. ‘You’ve been gone for hours.’
Alice couldn’t help but be surprised that her sister had even noticed her absence. Sitting down on the sun lounger beside her, she wondered whether to tell Stella about the young gardener she’d met but decided not to. For the time being, she wanted to keep him secret – a wonderful secret.
‘What are you grinning about?’ Stella suddenly asked, peering at her from behind her oversized sunglasses.
‘Nothing,’ Alice said.
‘Don’t lie – you’ve got a silly smile plastered right across your face.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes, you have,’ Stella said.
‘I’m just happy.’
‘Are you?’ Stella said. ‘Well, I’m bored.’
‘I’m not surprised if you’ve just been sitting here all day doing nothing.’
‘What was your villa like, then?’
‘It was—’ Alice paused. If she told her sister just how beautiful it was, Stella might decide to visit it for herself and Alice knew exactly what would happen then. She would be bound to run into the gardener and then he wouldn’t even notice Alice any more. It was a pattern that had repeated itself since the girls had become teenagers and it had happened with at least two of Alice’s boyfriends.
Alice took a deep breath. She didn’t like telling lies but this was a time when a lie was definitely needed. ‘Oh, the villa was deadly dull,’ she said. ‘You were right. I don’t know why I went there.’
‘I told you!’ Stella said. ‘Didn’t I say?’
‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘I should’ve listened to you.’
Stella nodded. ‘Nobody ever listens to me but I’m always right and I don’t know about you,’ she continued, ‘but I’m going to spend the entire week right here.’ She stretched out her long legs which were gleaming with sun lotion and settled back to soak up the rays.
‘I thought you said you were bored.’
‘I am but at least I’m getting a good tan.’
‘You really shouldn’t lie out in the sun all day,’ Alice said.
‘Oh, don’t start!’ Stella said. ‘I haven’t come to Greece to remain all pale and pasty like you.’
‘I’m just saying that you want to take care of yourself.’
‘Oh, lighten up, Alice. Stop worrying about everything and start enjoying life!’
Alice sat stunned for a moment. Not because of her sister’s rude tone – she was quite used to that – but because perhaps for the first time in her life, Stella had actually given Alice some advice worth listening to.
That night, Alice couldn’t sleep. Stella’s words kept somersaulting around her head in a teasing chant.
‘Stop worrying about everything and start enjoying life!’
Alice sat up in bed. Start enjoying life!
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself. Stella was right. She was always worrying about everything, wasn’t she? Perhaps it was time to relax a little and have some fun.
For a moment, she thought about the dark-eyed gardener at the Villa Argenti. She didn’t even know his name but she couldn’t help wondering if he was somehow inextricably linked with Stella’s advice.
There was something else too – an idea which Alice just couldn’t shake from her mind.
‘Aphrodite.’ She spoke the name quietly into the silence of her bedroom. It sounded like a magical spell and seemed to weave rainbows in her mind. Lying back on her pillow, Alice closed her eyes. She knew it was ludicrous and impossible but, all the same, what did she have to lose? She would go back to the Villa Argenti tomorrow.
Chapter 10 (#ulink_7b16c696-14de-50b1-9f58-12579883f0d9)
The bus ride up into the mountains from Kethos Town was just as beautiful the second time. Alice had left around mid-morning and had tried to be as casual as possible when Stella asked her where she was going.
‘I don’t know yet,’ Alice had said with a shrug. ‘Probably a museum or something. Want to come?’
Predictably, Stella had declined which was a great relief to Alice who had made her escape into town and was now just about to get off the bus at the stop for the Villa Argenti. This time, a young couple got off the bus with her and they all walked together down the road that led to the villa. They were from Worcester and had just got married and Alice couldn’t help but envy them their new life together. She saw the way that Tim looked so adoringly at his new wife, Janey, and the way that they held hands so tightly. What must it be like to be so adored, Alice couldn’t help wondering?
There was a little old man by the gate today and he took their money with a polite little nod and Alice watched as Tim and Janey walked hand in hand towards a sunlit bench. She didn’t follow them.
All of a sudden, Alice wondered what she was doing there and a coldness resembling fear chilled her whole body. It had all been very well imagining romantic scenarios with the handsome gardener whilst in the safety of her bed but Alice really wasn’t the kind of girl to initiate something as wonderful and frivolous as a holiday romance.
She stopped by a little fountain and trailed her fingers in the cool water and sighed. Perhaps she was worrying unnecessarily. She couldn’t see the gardener anywhere and it occurred to her that he might not be there at all. She couldn’t help smiling at that. The one time she had allowed herself to be a little bit brave and the man in question had foiled her by having a day off. Besides, she had every right to be in the garden, didn’t she? Not only had he invited her to come back but she was a tourist who was simply enjoying a beautiful place. That was all. She nodded to herself and determined that she would let things fall into the hands of destiny.
It was then that Alice remembered that she hadn’t just come back to the garden in the hope of seeing Milo again but to see the statue too.
She walked down the neat path which led to the Goddess Garden, passing Artemis, Demeter, Athena and the others but she hadn’t come to see them. She’d come to see Aphrodite.
Once again, the statue of the goddess of love was in full sunlight and the loveliness of her face made Alice smile. She placed her hand on the hem of the finely-carved gown and felt the magical warmth seep through her skin. What did she have to lose? She closed her eyes.
Concentrate.
What did she want for herself that the goddess could grant? What was it the gardener had told her?
‘If your wish is for love or beauty, it will be granted.’
Love or beauty. The two words spun inside her mind until she had her wish.
‘I wish,’ she began, her fingers trembling against the warm stone, ‘I wish men would notice me. I wish I wasn’t so invisible to them but that they really really saw me.’
She thought of Stella for a moment and how much attention she got from the opposite sex. Her life seemed like one long joyous date and she was constantly showered in gifts and spoilt rotten. Just once, Alice wanted to know what that would be like.
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