Chapter 5
They went in one big taxi from the airport to the ferry terminal, then caught a boat to Porto Liakáda, a journey of about twenty minutes. The sun was shining brightly and the turquoise sea looked so tempting, Edie could hardly wait to jump in.
Feeling the heat, they all stripped off their top layers. Edie was concerned her pale, winter skin might burn, and she’d buried her sun cream in a sponge bag at the bottom of her suitcase. Luckily Jessica had a small tube to hand.
‘It’s factor thirty,’ she said, passing the tube across. ‘Use as much as you want. I’ve got plenty more.’
After applying some cream to her own face and arms, Jessica turned away from the others and gazed out at the rocky, mountainous coastline, dotted with spiky low ground bushes.
While Hannah and Edie chatted, she remained silent and self-contained, looking neat and business-like in skinny black jeans, clean white trainers and a pale grey T-shirt, with her slender hands resting, one on top of the other, in her lap.
Before long, they rounded a bend and Porto Liakáda came into view. Edie gasped in delight. The small, semi-circular harbour was surrounded by sparkling, whitewashed buildings with bright blue shutters, which seemed to cling to the rocky, reddish-brown mountains behind.
Painted wooden boats bobbed merrily by the shore and the water was so clear, you could see the rocks at the bottom.
‘It’s even prettier than the photos,’ Edie said to Ralph, who was beside her. They’d both risen to their feet to enjoy the view and she tucked a hand under his arm. ‘It looks completely unspoiled.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ Hannah murmured, standing up, too, and moving away from Mac, who remained sitting on the wooden bench. ‘It’s like a painting. It hardly looks real!’
As the boat pulled into the jetty and the first passengers began to disembark, Edie scanned the faces of folk waiting by the quayside.
Some were clearly tourists like them, with backpacks and suitcases, while others, unloading crates of water, wine, vegetables, fruit and kitchen supplies, must have been locals.
Mrs Papadakis had promised to meet them there when they arrived but there were no likely candidates who might have been her. Perhaps she’d forgotten.
‘What does she look like?’ Ralph asked, as Edie led the way down the gangplank onto the cobbled street, wheeling her suitcase behind her.
‘No idea. I don’t even know how old she is,’ she admitted. ‘I probably should have asked for a photo.’
All of a sudden, she heard her name being called – ‘Mrs Lovell?’ – and a tiny woman in a blue and white headscarf pushed her way through the small crowd towards them.
Dressed in a white, short-sleeved blouse tucked into smart navy trousers, the woman was considerably older than Edie had imagined, with a skinny neck and arms and tanned, wrinkled skin. But as she drew near, Edie noticed her straight back, raised chin and intelligent black eyes.
‘I am Mrs Papadakis,’ she said, stopping in front of Edie and looking at her steadily with an extended hand. ‘But you can call me Katerina. Welcome to Porto Liakáda.’
Her voice was clear, strong and heavily accented and her handshake was surprisingly firm. ‘I hope you will be very happy here.’
Edie introduced the others, then, at Katerina’s suggestion, they started on the mile-long, uphill walk to the villa. Edie had been warned about this in an email, and her friends were prepared.
The main street overlooking the harbour was bustling with visitors going in and out of shops selling clothes, jewellery and beach items, or sitting in bars and restaurants at tables right by the water.
With no cars or angry motorists to worry about, Edie felt her stress levels subsiding. The air smelled clean and fresh and you could wander freely in any direction for as long as you liked.
When they’d almost reached the end of the street, Katerina stopped.
‘Here’s the mini-mart where you’ll probably want to buy your groceries. You’ll find basic things like milk, tea, coffee, sugar and white and red wine at the villa.
‘I’ve also made supper for tonight – just cold meat, rice and salad, you understand, and Greek yoghurt with fruit for afters. I thought you mightn’t want to go out again this evening. But you’ll have to buy what you need for the rest of the week another time.’
‘Thanks so much,’ Edie said. ‘We weren’t expecting you to provide supper.’
Peering inside the shop, she could see the shelves were well stocked with tins, jars and packets of assorted shapes and sizes.
In one corner was a giant-sized rotisserie with delicious-looking golden chickens roasting on the spit, while outside two stands were stacked with fresh fruit and vegetables: white and green asparagus, cucumbers, juicy red tomatoes, big heads of garlic, peas and beans, peppers, radishes, courgettes, fennel and aubergines, plus apricots, loganberries, lemons, peaches, strawberries and mounds of pistachios.
Her mouth watered and she found herself looking forward to eating big salads drizzled with local olive oil good enough to dip your bread into, and even your finger.
Katerina was about to get going again when she and Edie heard a screech behind them.
‘Look out!’
Edie spun round to see Hannah and the others pointing, wild-eyed, to a spot by her feet.
Glancing down, she was startled to see a very small, dark child in nothing but a nappy squatting in front of her, trying its best to pick up a pebble from the ground.
One more step and she’d have fallen over, or worse, on top of the infant.
Her heart fluttered, then started banging against her ribs.
‘Naughty boy!’ came a strange, strangled voice. ‘Put that down!’
A blonde woman with a red face was hurrying out of the shop. She barged past Hannah and Jessica, who were standing side by side, and raced in Edie’s direction.
Just in time, Edie noticed the child succeed in picking up the pebble between finger and thumb and raising it to his mouth. Quick as a flash, she bent over and snatched it from his pudgy little fingers, causing him to wail in high-pitched fury.
‘Sorry, sweetie,’ Edie said, at once relieved and also stricken with guilt. She squatted down to comfort the child.
‘There there… sorry, darling… it’s all right…’
She would have picked him up but his mother got there first.
‘Bad boy, naughty Nikos,’ the woman repeated over and over again, scooping the sobbing toddler into her fleshy arms and squidging his grimy wet cheeks in a hand.
Amid much jiggling and scolding, she kissed him hotly on the lips, forehead and nose.
‘Mamma’s told you not to eat stones. You might’ve choked.’
After a while, the woman glanced up and caught Edie’s eye. Feeling rather as if she were being ticked off herself, Edie quickly popped the offending pebble into a pocket, noticing its hard, sharp edges and thinking it could have done some serious damage.
While all this was going on, a fair-sized crowd had gathered round.
Katerina starting shooing them away as if they were geese, in a rather confusing mixture of Greek and English.
‘Everything is all right, there’s no need to gawp,’ she said fiercely, flapping her arms like imaginary sticks. ‘ Elá! Will you please give us some space.’
Reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse, but not until Edie heard some busybody Englishwoman mutter, ‘Irresponsible mother!’ to which her friend replied, ‘Poor child. Did you see its dirty hands and knees?’
When at last the toddler stopped crying, Katerina gave a satisfied nod.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Vasillis,’ she said to the blonde woman, as if the drama of the last five minutes or so had never taken place. ‘I was just pointing out your shop to my new guests. They’re spending a week at Villa Ariadne.’
The blonde woman, who seemed somewhat recovered, blew a straggle of hair off her face and smiled apologetically. She was really rather pretty when she wasn’t shouting, with a round face, dimples in her cheeks, a small squashy nose and sparkly grey eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, still clutching the little boy while looking at each of the visitors in turn. ‘He’s that quick, one minute he was there, the next he’d vanished into thin air.
‘One of the others usually looks out for him when I’m serving, but they’ve done a disappearing act on me, too.’
‘The others’, as it turned out, were her three older children, a boy and two girls.
Although Katerina gave the woman no encouragement, she seemed intent on filling everyone in on her life story.
She was called April, grew up in Leeds, had met her husband, Georgios, on holiday in Crete and they now had four kids, two large Bernese dogs and two cats. And they all lived in a flat above the supermarket.
She missed Boots, the chemist, Marks and Sparks and cheese and onion crisps, but not the English weather. She loved Georgios to bits and still fancied him rotten, but he was useless in the shop or at helping with the kids, unless given strict orders.
‘Goodness!’ Edie said when April had finished her account. ‘I’m not surprised you lose a child from time to time. I found it hard enough keeping tabs on my two – and I had my parents and a childminder to help!’
Katerina gave her what she took to be a disapproving look.
‘I-I mean, I never really lost them,’ Edie stammered. ‘They were just misplaced. They always turned up in the end, thank goodness. We never had to call the police. Well, just the once…’
Realising she was only digging herself in deeper, she quickly clamped her mouth shut.
‘Oi! Meaty!’
Another screech from April made them all jump, including Nikos, whose bottom lip trembled and his eyes started to refill with tears.
Before Edie knew it, the child had been thrust into her arms while April hurried towards an older boy on the other side of the street, who was kicking an empty Coke can into the harbour wall.
This boy was about nine or ten, Edie guessed. Dark-haired and skinny, he was dressed in jeans shorts, a khaki T-shirt, which was rather tight and small, and grubby white trainers.