Chapter Six
Their first week on the island passed them by in a haze of sun-warmed shoulders and tentative plans.
The three women fell into a pattern of spending their days acquainting themselves with Villa Valentina’s charms and secrets, its nooks and crannies, the rickety staircase up to the dusty attic filled with intriguing old boxes and trunks.
They were long, sun-drenched days, and invariably ended with a sundowner on the terrace watching the sun sizzle down into the sea.
‘I’m going to investigate the cellar,’ Stella said, as they sat around the kitchen table drinking strong coffee on their seventh morning.
The back door stood propped open to let the light morning breeze in, and they’d just breakfasted on toast slathered with heavenly greengage jam Frankie had made the day before and bowls of thick creamy Greek yoghurt given to them as a welcome gift by one of the neighbouring farms. The locals had been calling thick and fast, everyone keen to get a look at the mysterious trio of English women who’d unexpectedly come to their island.
They’d ended up with a fridge stuffed with all kinds of produce and a table overflowing with wine and sweet pastries, and with their hearts warmed and well and truly welcomed.
‘There’s a torch underneath the sink,’ Frankie said, dragging a huge, battered old brown cookbook towards her across the table.
It had come with the villa, and she’d read it from back to front already, deciphering the Greek family recipes from the pictures and Google translate and then adapting them in her notebook to make them her own.
She was an intuitive cook with a natural flair for flavour and a taste for the simple and delicious; she was in her element on Skelidos surrounded by nature’s bounty.
‘I’m going to try to make this for dinner tonight,’ she said, tapping an image of fat, ruby stuffed tomatoes.
Stella leaned over to look. ‘It’s a good job we’ve got you, Frank,’ she said. ‘If it was left to me to do the cooking, we’d live on halloumi on toast.’
‘Or crisp sandwiches,’ Winnie said, thinking back to Stella’s favourite TV snack as a teenager.
‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,’ Stella said. ‘Nothing better than cheese and onion crisps and mayonnaise.’
‘I hope I never fall ill and have to leave you in charge of the kitchen,’ Frankie said. ‘Our guests would be in for a shock.’
‘I’d just get them all drunk on gin so they couldn’t remember anything,’ Stella said with a grin, scraping her chair back on the flagstones and gathering the dishes into the sink.
She opened the cupboard underneath, bent down and came up brandishing a long black torch.
‘Wish me luck. If I’m not back up in an hour, send out the search party. ’
‘Do you want me to come down there with you?’ Winnie asked, relieved when Stella shook her head.
‘We all know you’re rubbish in the dark. I haven’t forgotten when we went into that haunted house at the Pleasure Beach in Blackpool.’
‘I thought I was very brave,’ Winnie sniffed, refilling her coffee from the cafetière and avoiding Stella’s laughing gaze because they all knew she’d screamed like a baby and almost got herself arrested for assaulting one of the zombie staff who jumped out on her.
‘Poor guy was only doing his job. You nearly broke his nose.’
‘God, yes. There was blood all down his shirt,’ Frankie laughed.
‘It was fake!’ Winnie protested.
‘Just stay up here in the daylight unless I shout,’ Stella said, turning the knob on the creaking cellar door beside the walk-in pantry. ‘Wish me luck. I’m going down.’
Stella reappeared in the kitchen half an hour later, considerably dustier than when she’d descended and carrying half a dozen bottles of island gin under her arms.
‘Look what I found,’ she said, as Frankie wandered back inside carrying a bowl of huge ripe tomatoes.
‘A whole load of island gin!’ Frankie raised her eyebrows in surprise.
Stella nodded, then stuck her head out of the kitchen and called Winnie’s name loudly down the hallway.
‘I’ve started cataloguing all of the linen,’ Winnie said as she came back into the kitchen carrying a pile of sheets and deposited them on the side.
‘There’s heaps of it in those huge cupboards on the first-floor landing.
’ Her eyes moved to take in the bottles of gin that Stella had lined up on the kitchen table. ‘Where did that lot come from?’
‘That’s why I called you,’ Stella said. ‘You two have to see this.’ She led them across to the cellar, then turned back and looked at Winnie. ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe. There’s a light down there.’
They all trooped down the stone steps into the cool cellar. About the same size as the kitchen overhead, the bare earth-floored room was lit by a single bulb hanging from a wire in the centre of the ceiling.
‘I know where to come if I need to cool off,’ Frankie murmured, as they all stood and surveyed the long wooden bench loaded with glass jars and bottles. One side of the room had been lined with deep wooden shelves, and they were filled with row upon row of island gin.
‘One hundred and twenty-seven bottles of the stuff, to be exact,’ Stella said.
‘Wow.’ Winnie crossed to study them, admiring their Alice in Wonderland style handwritten labels all individually numbered in flowing black script. ‘Looks like the gin really is part of the villa’s history.’
Frankie was at the bench examining the jars and bottles.
‘Juniper berries,’ she said, pulling the lid off a big jar of tiny dried berries to sniff the contents.
‘And coriander seeds.’ She twisted another jar around to read the hand-inked label.
Stella joined her by the bench and steered her to the other end.
‘Look at this.’
Winnie joined them, and they all gazed down at the words etched into the surface of the wood.
‘It’s a recipe, I think?’ Frankie traced her finger over the inscriptions. It was difficult to make out in places, worn almost away by hands and time.
Stella reached down to the shelf beneath the bench. ‘I found this too.’
She laid an envelope down on the surface so they could all see that it bore each of their names.
Winnie. Stella. Frankie.
‘What does it say?’ Winnie asked, lifting her eyes to Stella’s.
‘I don’t know, I didn’t look. I thought we should read it together.’
For a minute they all stared at it in silence.
‘You do it, Frank,’ Stella said. Winnie swallowed and nodded, and Frankie sighed and picked it up.
‘Just because I’m a mother, it doesn’t mean I’m always the most responsible adult.’
‘Of course it does,’ Stella laughed. ‘You kept two actual people alive. I couldn’t even keep a goldfish going.’
With a roll of her eyes, Frankie picked the envelope open and pulled out the sheaf of papers, smoothing the sheets out on the bench to read them aloud.
Hello ladies,
I hope that by now you’ve settled into Villa Valentina and have realised that you’ve landed in paradise.
All three of them nodded slowly. They couldn’t disagree so far.
You may or may not have heard talk of the island gin being linked to the Villa. It isn’t a myth; as custodians of the place, you’ve also taken on responsibility for running the island’s distillery, such as it is. (You’re standing in it.)
Frankie broke off to look incredulously at Winnie and Stella, then dropped her gaze to carry on.
I expect you’re wondering why I didn’t mention this before the sale.
In truth, I was worried it might give you pause for thought, but there’s really no need to feel overly concerned.
You have all of the necessary botanical ingredients readily available in Valentina’s garden, and you’ll find a supply already dried out in the jars on the bench, enough to make a couple of batches while you get the hang of preparing the ingredients yourselves.
Please don’t think badly of me. You might even enjoy it!
I know I did. The recipe is engraved on the bench.
I don’t know who wrote it, it’s been that way for as long as anyone on the island can remember.
I’ve taken the liberty of translating it into English for you here, because the locals take the spirit of the island seriously and won’t appreciate it if you get it wrong! No pressure, ha!
Anyway, I found that distilling around fifty bottles a month keeps the island from running dry, plus enough for Hero.
It’s only supplied to the bars and restaurants and any locals who want to buy it directly, it doesn’t leave Skelidos.
Panos will supply you with the base spirit, and you’ll see the record book on the bench so you can number the bottles.
It’s all sold through Panos’s bar, he’ll clue you in on the arrangements.
Each new owner gets to design their own label. You can see that I went for a strong italic. I’m looking forward to seeing what three English adventurers come up with when I come back to visit!
Love and luck,
Ajax
PS … it’s all sort of a bit of a secret. No one else knows the recipe. I’ve deliberately forgotten it already. Gin? What gin?
Frankie lifted the top sheet to reveal the recipe written out on the page below, and rubbed her hand over her cheek thoughtfully.
‘We’ve bought a gin distillery,’ Winnie said slowly.
‘Is it even legal?’ Frankie asked, wary-eyed.
‘Well, it wouldn’t pass any health and safety checks, that’s for sure,’ Stella said, looking at the bare earth floor and then towards the shelves on the wall. ‘Going on Ajax’s calculations, there’s roughly three months’ supply on the shelves already. And Hero? What does he mean by that?’
‘Perhaps we’re to give free gin to anyone who does something heroic,’ Winnie shrugged, knowing it was a reach.
‘It takes about a week to make it, looking at this.’ Frankie was reading the recipe and turning the jars on the bench to check the contents.
‘You’re the chef amongst us, Frank,’ Winnie said, nodding towards the recipe. ‘Do you think we can do it?’