Chapter 1 #2
While Flo and Jilly went out on the river for a quick kayak now the rain had eased up, Grace took the opportunity to finally pack and change the sheets on her bed for her guests. The festive sock was carefully wrapped in a handkerchief and stored away in the back of a drawer.
Dinner was to be a Thai takeaway for the three of them, and once she’d put in the order, Grace placed her iPad in the middle of the table and called the others down.
‘Let’s see if your sister’s up before our food arrives. I know it’s late, but she’s such a night owl, I’m sure she’ll still be awake.’
Grace crossed her fingers under the table.
Lottie answered after just one ring, wide awake and sitting at her kitchen island in tiny white silk shorts pyjamas, her dark hair and eyes so like Phil’s it always gave Grace a jolt.
‘Mum! Sis! And Jilly! What a treat.’
A flurry of waving and air kisses gave Grace the chance to put on her breezy not-bothered-that-you-live-nine-thousand-miles-away-and-I-never-see-you smile.
‘Are you all ready for your Greek adventure then, Mum? Got the thong bikinis and the condoms packed?’
‘Of course, sweetie. It’s all that’s in my suitcase.’
Grace wanted to reach in, grab her eldest daughter and pull her through the screen.
She’d been gone for five years now, living in Perth, Australia, with a much younger blond diving instructor who’d swept her off her feet and persuaded her to return with him to his home city.
They now ran a diving school together. Grace had got nothing against Brad personally, but the absence of her daughter from her life hurt so much more than she’d ever let on to anyone, except maybe her best friend, Sofia, and only after a vat of dry white wine.
If she’d lived abroad at that age, all her parents would have got was the occasional letter or a rushed call from a payphone, so she was lucky to be able to see and hear her daughter whenever she liked.
Touch and smell she would have to do without.
There was a bottle of her daughter’s distinctive scent she’d left behind in the cottage, which Grace occasionally sprayed in the air when no one was about.
‘What’s the score with the language school? Do you get plenty of time off? Are there lots of cool bars on your island? When Brad and I visited Ios you couldn’t move for bars, and Australians.’
Grace stopped trying to count the new freckles on her daughter’s nose.
‘As far as I can make out, it’s nothing like that. There are tourists on my island, of course, but plenty of them are Greeks. There’s a thriving year-round community, and I think Australians are few and far between, thank goodness.’
Grace quickly rowed back as Lottie’s boyfriend loomed behind her daughter, put his arms over her shoulders and kissed her on the top of the head.
‘No offence, Brad.’
‘None taken, Mrs F.’
‘Call me Grace, please.’
Grace paused as her daughter angled her head back so Brad could move in for a full-on snog.
Flo put her hands over her eyes.
‘Yuk. Make them stop, Mum!’
Everywhere she looked, the whole world seemed to be part of a couple, two people exchanging glances and more.
She’d stopped accepting invites to dinner parties for that very reason.
And if anyone said anything along the lines of ‘John lost his wife last year. I know you’ll have lots in common,’ she could cheerfully strangle them.
Her married friends were obsessed with getting her coupled up again, but if she did accept an invitation as a solo guest, some of the women gave her a wide berth and acted as if she was desperate to cop off with their husbands.
The behaviour of the men who’d sidled up to her and made it clear that they’d be up for playing away from home was a shock as well.
Thankfully none of her close friends’ husbands, but she’d stopped going to the village greengrocer’s after a rather too enthusiastic demonstration by the owner of how fresh his bananas were and plenty of winking, while his wife served a line of customers.
Married men were definitely not her bag.
‘Mum! Hello? You were saying?’
‘Sorry, miles away. It’s not a party place. It’s a working island in the Cyclades with a lovely main town lined with marble streets. Anyway, I’m going to be grafting too hard to hang about in bars.’
Lottie blew her a kiss.
‘You say that now. We’ve seen you in party animal mode, remember. Two wines and you’ll be up on the table.’
Grace pursed her lips.
‘But seriously, Mum, we want you to enjoy yourself as well. Ever since Dad…’
Grace grabbed for Flo and Jilly’s hands as Lottie reached for Brad’s.
‘Died, you’ve been like a hermit. It’s time to get out there again. You’re a good-looking woman with plenty of life left in you.’
‘Thank you, Oprah.’ But Grace smiled to take the sting out of her words.
‘I’m not looking for a man in Greece, sweetheart.
Believe me, that’s the last thing on my mind.
Anyway, from the website it looks like the people I’m going to be working with are in their thirties at the most. I’m the oldest by a mile. ’
Grace could see her daughter about to speak, and she wagged her finger at the screen.
‘And before you say it, madam, I am absolutely not in the market for a toy boy.’
‘Don’t rule it out. It works for some of us.’
Lottie’s adoring look at Brad had her sister miming sticking her fingers down her throat.
A ring on the doorbell was the sign Grace needed to shut down this particular conversation.
‘Right, there’s our takeaway. I’ll ring when I’m settled. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
With the food despatched, Grace’s eyelids began to droop. She decided to leave Flo and Jilly to it.
‘Remember, we’ve got to leave at eight in the morning.’
Grace opened her eyes again in time to see Flo raise her eyebrows at Jilly.
‘Yeah, we know. We’re driving you. We’ve got it covered.’
Both women toasted her with the last of the sauvignon blanc, and her daughter stood on tiptoe to kiss her goodnight.
‘Don’t fret, Mother. You’ll be leaving these grey skies far behind and basking in Greek sunshine this time tomorrow.’