Wish You Were Here

More from Alex Brown

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Bring Me Sunshine, the first instalment in this uplifting and escapist romance series from Alex Brown, is available to buy now by clicking on the link below.

Prologue

KALOSIROS, GREECE, 1990

Sinking her toes into the sand, she savoured the soft sensation as the plump, peach sun streaked the sky amber, bathing the sea with its shaft of shimmering gold.

Leaning into him, she rested her head on his shoulder as they sat together on a large rock at the water’s edge listening to the waves tumbling over the sand.

The holiday was almost over – two blissful weeks of snorkelling, sketching the gorgeous Greek island sights, shell collecting, horse riding on wet sand at low tide and hanging out together drinking cans of Fanta Orange and eating homemade houmous with warm pitta bread – before they’d each go back to their respective lives, him in Athens and her in London.

She touched a finger to the beaded friendship bracelets they had exchanged and smiled as she remembered the piece of paper tucked inside the pocket of her jean shorts.

His address.

Even though she already knew where his grandparents’ whitewashed sugar cube house was, where he stayed in the summer, near his family’s beach taverna, this was different.

He had given her the piece of paper with his Athens address on, which meant things had changed between them now.

This was the start of something special, a proper romance, she just knew it.

She would put his address in her diary for safekeeping and, as soon as she got back home to England, she could write to him and cross off the days until they could be together again next summer.

Her lips still tingled from the touch of his mouth on hers.

Her first real kiss.

And her heart had fizzed, sending butterflies swirling around inside her.

She felt on top of the world.

Back home she kept a Jackie Collins library book in her school bag to read in the privacy of her bedroom and now she finally understood how Lucky Santangelo felt when she was in love.

As the sun melted away, turning the night sky into a canopy of twinkling stars, she curled her fingers around his before tracing a heart on the back of his hand, whispering the first line from their song… ‘“Bring Me Sunshine”.’ The swirling sensation soared inside her again as she moved her head and he turned to face her, singing softly, ‘“In your smile”,’ as he rested his forehead on hers, the sweet tang of Fanta still there on his lips as they kissed again, making her wish she could stay in this moment forever.

Chapter One

TINDLEDALE, RURAL ENGLAND, PRESENT DAY

In the hall of the grand, gated residence on a hilltop overlooking undulating fields full of sheep where she was working, Gina hummed happily to herself as she packed her cleaning products into the laundry basket that she used to transport them from her clients’ houses to the boot of her car.

Checking that nothing had been left behind, she hitched the basket onto her left hip and pulled the heavy front door closed before making the trek all the way down the steep, million-mile-long driveway, or so it seemed, to the lane where she now had to park.

Mr and Mrs Hawton-Jones were very particular about the honey-coloured stone brickwork on their driveway and, since that time last month when Gina’s clapped-out old Clio had leaked sticky black oil all over the place, they had asked her to park on the grassy verge by the side of the road.

She had apologised profusely at the time of course, willing her face to stop flaming, and inwardly cursing her top lip for choosing to flick on the sweat sprinkler at the worst possible moment, as she and Mrs Hawton-Jones watched the oil slick become a rivulet of rainbow-coloured liquid when the rain started.

The oil had snaked and smeared all over the driveway, pooling at the toes of Gina’s canvas slip-on trainers that had definitely seen better days.

She wished she had been able to run away from her shame, but it had been impossible as she still needed the money from this cleaning job to go towards the last instalment due on her holiday – a whole two weeks away on the Greek island of Kalosiros.

Gina had been dreaming and cleaning and humming songs to herself for years as she thought about going back to the idyllic Greek island full of happy childhood holiday memories there with her single parent mum, Shirley.

She fondly remembered the cylindrical windmills and winding white cobbled lanes and rock-lined beaches, the rays from the hot Mediterranean sun dazzling on the crystalline azure waves.

Especially the summer she had turned fifteen and shared her first kiss – then more kisses in the summers after too – with Nico, the boy from the beach taverna.

The holidays had stopped when Shirley became ill and then when she died, those good times had faded to a distant memory.

Gina had met her husband, Colin, soon after, but all these years later she found herself wondering if Nico still lived on the tiny island and if he remembered her, because she’d never forgotten about him.

Not that this was her reason for wanting to go back to the Kalosiros.

It was more that she had never forgotten the happy, carefree feeling of her youth, or the romance and sense of escape she had felt when she was there and that she dreamed of recapturing once more.

Then, after seeing her absolute favourite film, Mamma Mia! , a few years ago, having missed it the first time around, Gina had started working as a cleaner and had been saving up ever since.

She had visions of frolicking across a moonlit beach in a floaty kaftan with a warm wind in her hair and the rousing strum of Abba’s ‘Fernando’ playing somewhere in the background.

And to be honest, it was the thought of doing this that had kept her going throughout all those times she’d snapped on her sunshine yellow marigolds ready to get elbow-deep in scrubbing somebody else’s loo.

Reaching the Clio, Gina stowed the basket in the boot and fished her phone out from the front pocket of her pink tabard to switch it back on.

The phone made a tweeting bird sound immediately to signify the arrival of another message.

She closed her eyes momentarily and let out a long fortifying breath before looking at the screen.

She knew the symphony of message alerts chirping one after the other would be from Colin, her husband of twenty-seven years.

He was the only person who insisted on sending her streams of messages when she was out working.

His first message had chirped on her phone over two hours ago just as she had arrived at Mr and Mrs Hawton-Joneses’ house and was carefully putting the laundry basket down on the ‘Welcome Home’ mat outside their front door.

She’d had her index finger poised to press the doorbell that chimed like a herd of mountain goats with bells on their collars, knowing that Mrs Hawton-Jones would do that impatient, sighing smile thing if Gina was looking at her phone when the door opened, so she had swiftly switched it off and shoved it in her pocket.

But there was no ignoring him now, Colin would only keep on, calling or badgering her with more messages until she answered him.

So after listening to a partial voice message before it cut out, she tapped through all the messages to get the gist of what he was actually saying, her eyes homing in on the key words that made her scrolling index finger start to tremble in disbelief and disappointment.

Sorry love… Can’t be helped… Make it up to you… Never mind… Why don’t you go with a mate or my mum instead?

Gina let it sink in, intending on counting to ten first, but she only made it to three before a rage reared up inside her and she pressed call, willing herself to try to keep calm, but no matter how hard she tried, it felt impossible to suppress the feeling.

It’d been happening more and more for the best part of a year now – a horrible tension, a rage that seemed to descend on her from absolutely nowhere and often without reason.

But right now, right here, there was a reason, and even if her frustration felt scarily disproportionate, it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want to go on a romantic holiday of a lifetime with a mate! Not that she really had any mates, certainly not one she was close enough with to go on holiday for two weeks.

Yes, there were a few women she chatted to over at the allotment she tended to on a Saturday morning, but she had lost touch with her real best friends from school when she had started going out with Colin all those years ago.

He always said that they were enough for each other and didn’t need other friends and it had felt sweet in the beginning, but not so much now.

And her much older mother-in-law, Pam, who lived with her and Colin, hated everything ‘foreign’.

Pam would refuse to even try a chicken ball from a Friday night Chinese takeaway, already convinced ‘it won’t agree with me and then I’ll have one of my turns and be up all night with heartburn’.

Gina was tired of hearing stuff like this all the time.

It sucked the little bit of joy, that she still felt from time to time, right out of her life.

She did love Pam, in her own way, but there was no way she was about to test this love by spending two weeks with her, twenty-four-seven, in a foreign country.

No, Gina had no desire to end up in a Greek jail charged with throttling her own mother-in-law.

‘Are you on your way back now?’ Colin said as a conversation opener, seemingly without a care in the world and oblivious to having trampled all over his wife’s long-held dream holiday plans that she had worked incredibly hard to save for.

Gina pulled the phone away from her ear in an exaggerated fashion like they do in slapstick movies when words literally fail the person holding the phone, his nonchalance further stoking the bubbling furnace inside her.

‘No. Colin. I am not on my way back now!’

‘But you’re usually finished by now and I’ve made you a cup of tea.

My treat.

Thought you could do with it after all that cleaning, love.’ She could actually hear the smile of satisfaction in his voice as he gave himself a proverbial pat on the back.

A cup of tea – give the man a medal.

The beat of silence that followed was deafening as Gina focused on the pumping sound of her own blood throbbing in her ears and turning her clarity of thought into a head full of cotton wool.

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Gina quickly shook her head and took a big breath as she tried to garner some focus.

She got in the car and closed the door, figuring it probably wasn’t a good idea to lose her flaming temper within earshot of her employers.

Mind you, if the holiday was off, then she wouldn’t need to clean for them any more in any case.

Colin covered the household expenses but wouldn’t pay for extras, which was why she had got the cleaning job in the first place, so she could save up for their holiday.

The disappointment was crushing and for a moment she thought she might cry.

Tears made her vision filmy as she pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder and clicked it into place, flipped her phone to hands-free and put it in the cradle on the dashboard.

She turned the key in the ignition, and, as if on autopilot, she prayed for the car to start the first time, as she always did.

Nothing.

Just the hollow sound of grinding metal as if the car had finally decided to give up for good, much like Gina was feeling like doing in that moment.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the rear-view mirror, Gina wondered when she got so tired-looking.

Weary and worn down.

Her grey roots in stark contrast to the box-dyed brown curls of the rest of her hair.

She let out a long sigh, swiped the cuff of a sleeve across her cheeks to stem the tears and sat back in the seat.

She was in no fit state to drive home safely anyway, and to be honest, home was the last place she wanted to be right now.

Not with Colin being all nonchalant about having let her down, no doubt, and Pam complaining about something or another.

‘I did say in one of my messages that I’ll make it up to you, love.

We could use the money you’ve saved to go to that caravan place you like for a long weekend?—’

‘Colin, please, don’t…’ she said quietly, seemingly now resigned to the fact they wouldn’t be going on holiday after all.

The chance of rekindling a romantic connection and revitalising her lacklustre marriage completely shattered.

‘Well, I’m only trying to help… What would you rather I do? Lose my job? Because that’s what will happen if I don’t go on the away-day,’ Colin piped up, and Gina’s heart sank even further.

She had heard enough.

He just didn’t get it.

She wondered if he ever had.

‘If you really wanted to help then surely you would have put our holiday plans before a team-building away-day!’ she snapped.

‘Where did you say it was again?’ That part of Colin’s voice message had been full of crackling static and so it had been impossible to hear what he had been saying.

‘Oh, somewhere near Slough, I think.

I can get all the details for you if you don’t believe me…’ he offered keenly.

A little too keenly, it suddenly struck Gina.

‘You know, the hotel where we’re all staying…’ Gina inhaled again, his vagueness making her uneasy, but she didn’t have the energy to ask more right now.

The top and bottom of it was that Colin had clearly never even booked the time off work, because surely if he had, then they wouldn’t expect him to cancel a foreign holiday that had been well over two years in the planning, to attend a team-building day somewhere near Slough?

A sudden tapping on the window startled Gina and she instinctively told Colin, ‘I’ve got to go,’ and ended the call.

Mrs Hawton-Jones was standing at the door of the car.

Just what she needed.

Gina gingerly cranked down the window.

‘Is everything alright, dear? Only you’ve been sitting here for quite some time now,’ Mrs Hawton-Jones said, fingering the heirloom gold locket on a chain at her neck before folding her arms and rearranging her face into one of concern.

‘Yes, yes, thank you, sorry, I was about to leave, I just had a bit of trouble with starting the car and then my husband called to tell me we can’t go on the holiday I have been dreaming of forever and—’ Gina stopped talking, conscious that she was babbling and massively oversharing and that Mrs Hawton-Jones now had her head tilted to one side in sympathy – the last thing she wanted.

She could feel tears stinging in the corners of her eyes again.

Please don’t feel sorry for me.

Please don’t feel sorry for me.

Gina said it over and over like a calming mantra inside her head, willing herself not to cry as she always did when someone was being nice to her.

‘Oh dear.’ Mrs Hawton-Jones studied Gina for a few seconds and then to her horror, surprise, or utter disbelief… she wasn’t sure which exactly, her employer swung open the car door and took Gina’s hand off the steering wheel, holding it firmly and reassuringly in hers.

‘Come on now, let’s get you a strong, sweet cup of tea and see if we can sort this out together.

Harold can take a look at the car while you tell me about this holiday you can’t go on.’ Gina stumbled out of the car.

‘That’s it, there you go,’ and she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer as Mrs Hawton-Jones put her arm around her shoulders and chivvied her back up the million-mile-long driveway towards the house.

* * *

A few weeks later, and Gina was still thanking her lucky stars for making the sensible decision when booking the holiday all that time ago to sign up for the special, fully comprehensive insurance policy.

Mrs Hawton-Jones, or Anne – as she had said Gina was to call her now – had explained it all.

And, being a consumer rights solicitor, Gina knew right away that Anne meant business, as she sipped her tea and listened while Gina told her all about Colin and his team-building away-day.

So after a few phone calls, Gina, with Anne telling her what to say, had managed to get a refund on Colin’s ticket and was going to use the unexpected windfall to have the time of her life, on her own, in her dream holiday destination.

Including an upgrade to a deluxe room with a sea view in the brand-new boutique Hotel Mirabelle, that she was able to afford now she’d be travelling on her own.

Anne had insisted on it, horrified on hearing that Gina had contemplated even for a second that she wasn’t going on the holiday just because Colin couldn’t or wouldn’t.

‘Oh no dear, you mustn’t let a little blip send you off course,’ Anne had told her.

‘You are a woman of substance! Come on, say it after me.

“I am a woman of substance; I will not be deterred, and I am perfectly capable of going on holiday by myself and having a jolly good time!”’ Gina had felt a bit daft saying all that, especially when Anne had stood up into a power pose, with fisted hands on hips, chanting the motivational mantra in a very loud Margaret Thatcher voice and motioning for Gina to do the same.

But Gina had managed it and had been surprised to discover that she did actually feel stronger and a little bit more like her old self – the woman she had been in her late teens and early twenties, when she had much more confidence and didn’t take anywhere near as much crap as she did these days.

Although Colin hadn’t been impressed by her ‘behaving oddly’, as he’d said when she had told him she was still going on the holiday, and she mooted the idea of them needing some time apart.

But then seemingly wanting to have the upper hand he had swiftly followed it up with some ‘odd behaviour’ of his own, saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re still going.

It’s like you don’t even want to be married any more if you’re gallivanting like a single woman.

Perhaps you want to leave me.

Well, if it’s what you really want, Gina, then it would be very selfish of me to stand in your way.

Let’s call it a trial separation, a chance for you to see if you can manage without me.’ And she had felt strangely calm at the prospect of doing just that.

Now, as she walked down the aisle of the aeroplane looking for her seat, dragging a wheelie cabin bag behind her and struggling to stop it swerving at a right angle on account of one of the wheels being broken, Gina wondered if she should have shaved her legs, waxed her top lip and flipped open the pop-up tent she kept in the garage to give herself an all over spray tan inside it, like she would have done years ago, before her libido started ghosting her and she still liked having sex with Colin.

Thinking of her now estranged husband, she wondered if he had spotted the note she’d left on the fridge yet? Gone to Greece.

But on second thoughts, sod it, she couldn’t be bothered with all that palaver, and besides, she had every intention of getting a real tan in the Greek sunshine as soon as she arrived, in about four hours’ time.

The rousing strum of the opening chords of ‘Fernando’ were playing once again as the internal soundtrack to the exciting adventure she was going on.

She was kaftan ready – hairy legs, top lip and all – and she could not wait for her holiday to begin.