Chapter 1
1
The housekeeper was older than Stella had imagined with thick grey hair poking out from under a dark-blue headscarf, knotted beneath her chin, and tanned wrinkly skin.
She looked fit, though: short, slim and wiry. She was wearing a white blouse and smart navy trousers, and brandishing a piece of paper with Stella’s name on. She gave a small polite smile when she spotted the group coming off the ferry.
‘Thank goodness,’ Stella said, stopping for a moment to wave at Katerina, before dragging her brown wheelie suitcase across the tarmac. It was ridiculously heavy; she’d packed in a rush and chucked everything in. ‘I was worried she might have forgotten about us.’
‘She’s ancient,’ said Hector nastily. He was Stella’s nineteen-year-old son.
‘Shh. Don’t be rude.’
‘What happens now?’ He knew perfectly well; Stella had told him a hundred times.
‘We walk to the villa. It’s about a mile.’
‘A mile? You’ve got to be fucking joking.’
He’d been extremely unpleasant since they left home at the crack of dawn this morning – in fact, ever since Stella had tried to lay down the law some weeks ago and insist he join them on holiday.
Of course, she’d hoped he’d come about eventually and start to enjoy himself, but he was stubborn as hell and the signs weren’t good.
Her eyes started to fill up and she realised she could easily cry. She mustn’t. Once she started, she might never stop.
‘Why can’t we drive? Haven’t they heard of cars? This place is a shithole.’
Stella’s features seemed to slide down her face and the corners of her mouth drooped. She was sick and tired of having to be strong. If he only knew how close she was to cracking…
Louise, who was just behind, came to her rescue.
‘It’ll be good to stretch our legs, Hector,’ she said briskly. ‘We’ve been sitting for so long. Look! What a stunning place!’
She gestured to the turquoise bay and painted wooden boats, the sparkling white buildings with bright-blue windows and the dry rocky mountains rising up behind them.
‘I like the fact there are no roads. You can only get here by boat, you know. It feels like a world away from London.’
Hector was about to answer back but was interrupted by laughter and they all turned to look. A group of youths were standing by the quayside, wolf whistling at the two girls trailing behind Louise’s sixteen-year-old, Will.
He had his head down, pretending not to notice, while his sister, Amelia, and Stella’s daughter, Lily, egged on the youths, flicking their long silky hair and giggling, lapping up the attention.
Louise raised her eyebrows. ‘We’ll have to keep an eye on those two minxes!’
Stella giggled, despite herself.
They were just a few short paces from Katerina now and she hurried forward to greet them. Holding out both hands, she took Stella’s in hers and squeezed tight. Her grip was remarkably sure and strong.
‘You had a good journey, I hope? You must be tired. Welcome to Porto Liakáda!’
Will and the two girls, both fourteen, wanted to stop for a drink in the town before heading for the villa. Tables and chairs were spilling out of bars with brightly coloured awnings. It all looked very tempting, but Louise was having none of it.
‘C’mon. Let’s drop our bags first, then you can explore as much as you like.’
Katerina led the way towards a flight of steep, narrow stone steps between two buildings, bounding up the first few as if she hadn’t even noticed they were there. Then she stopped suddenly, realising Stella was struggling with her heavy suitcase.
Louise, having perfected the art of capsule wardrobe packing, had a neat carry-on, while the younger ones wore trendy backpacks.
‘Here, give that to me.’ Katerina reached out to grab Stella’s luggage, but she shook her head.
‘I can manage, honestly. I shouldn’t have brought so much stuff.’
Will, who was of average height and athletic looking, like his mother, offered to help instead, but Hector hung back.
‘Why don’t you take one end, Hector, and Will can take the other,’ Louise said firmly. ‘Just till we reach smooth ground again.’
Lily and Amelia chatted excitedly all the way up, but the others were mostly silent. The steps were extremely steep and even without her bag, Stella soon felt out of breath and her legs ached.
At one point, she stumbled, banging her knee on the step above. Pain whipped through her body and she closed her eyes, wincing.
Louise spun round.
‘Are you okay?’
Stella nodded. Her knee was throbbing but there was nothing to be done. She’d no doubt have a big ugly bruise there tomorrow, to add to all the others.
Her mind flashed to Al. He used to tease her because she was constantly covered in bumps and bruises. He said she looked like the kid at school who was always getting into scraps.
In the early days of their relationship, he used to say, only half joking, people would think he’d beaten her up. She could still picture him lying in bed with her one lazy Sunday morning. They were on their first proper holiday together, in Barcelona. They’d just made love and it was hot, so they’d thrown off the covers and were sprawled, side by side, only their thighs touching, listening to the steady slowing of their heartbeats.
After a few moments, he’d rolled over, propped up on one elbow, and begun to count her scratches and bruises, kissing each one ever so softly ‘to make it better’.
He could be so tender like that, with the children too. When they hurt themselves, they always wanted him to treat the wound, not Stella. They said he was calm and gentle and they barely felt it, whereas she could freak out at the sight of blood and make them more anxious, too.
A wave of sickness came over her. Al. Don’t think about him.
Rubbing her knee, she rose and gave a brave smile before ploughing on. Soon, even super fit Louise was panting and had to slow down. Katerina, meanwhile, sprang on, oblivious, until she reached the top.
‘That’s the hardest part done!’ she cried, turning round. She wasn’t smiling but Stella noticed her black eyes sparkling with amusement.
She must think them a soft lot; she probably skipped up and down those steps every day without even thinking about it. No wonder Cretans were renowned for their longevity.
When at last everyone had joined the housekeeper at the summit, there began a long, slow ascent up a gravelly donkey track.
Assorted trees dotted the dry landscape – pine and olive, lemon, orange and fig – along with myriad wildflowers: pink, blue, white, yellow and purple. The scent of wild thyme and sage filled their nostrils, and at one point, Katerina paused to point out some rough wooden beehive boxes, stacked one on top of another on a stony plateau.
Painted in vivid primary colours with metal catches on the front, they looked very jolly, like Jack in the Boxes.
‘We make the best honey in the world,’ Katerina announced proudly. ‘Because of our wide variety of trees and flowers, and our temperate climate.’
‘I hate honey,’ muttered Hector, but she didn’t seem to hear.
A herd of goats, with jangling gold bells round their necks, were perched on rocks a little way off. On spotting the group, they bleated loudly. It was a pitiful, wavering sort of sound, a series of cries of varying pitches, high and low.
A few of the animals turned tail and scrambled higher up, but once they realised the strangers weren’t a threat, they went back to munching on the blades of grass growing between the rocks.
Dragging her heavy suitcase, Stella berated herself yet again for packing so badly. May was one of the best times to visit Crete but it was still hot, much warmer than she was used to, and she was uncomfortably sweaty in her jeans and long-sleeved white cotton top.
Up to now, they hadn’t seen a soul. Soon, though, they came to a tumbledown stone cottage with a rusty, vine-covered pergola outside, providing some shade.
The brown painted shutters were open downstairs and glossy red tomatoes were drying on a large tray on the front step.
At the side of the house, an elderly bent woman in a black headscarf was tending to a flock of chickens beside a rickety wooden henhouse. Some items of white washing were hanging on an olive tree nearby.
The woman nodded and grinned as they passed, revealing black stumpy teeth.
‘That’s Eleni Manousaki,’ Katerina whisper-shouted, once they were out of hearing. ‘She lives alone, like me. Her husband died years ago and they didn’t have children. She’s got bad arthritis. She knows I’m just up the road if she needs anything, but she hates interference. She seems to manage remarkably well, the poor old thing.’
Stella smiled to herself. Katerina must have been about the same age as her neighbour, but clearly considered herself in a different league entirely, and far more youthful.
It was humbling to think how hard both women’s lives must be, up here on the rocky mountain, and how doughty and cheerful they seemed.
‘When will we be there?’ Lily whined. Stella dropped back to walk beside her daughter and Amelia. Both girls’ heads were bowed. Their moods had taken a nosedive.
‘Not long now, I’m sure,’ she reassured, but really, she had no idea. Maybe a mile meant something different in Crete. Maybe they’d be walking for hours. Perhaps this whole trip was a terrible mistake and they shouldn’t have come.
The donkey track curved right then left and on they trudged without speaking. The silence was broken at last by a cry from Katerina.
‘This is it! We’ve arrived!’
She’d come to a sudden halt and was pointing ahead. Everybody stopped and stared too. The gravelly track petered out a few feet hence and became a rough sandy path, lined with gnarled old olive trees.
At the very end was a set of tall, shiny black metal gates and behind them loomed an imposing building made of the same grey-beige stone as Eleni’s cottage.
Now the goal was in sight, the group’s pace quickened. Even Hector started to hurry, picking up one end of Stella’s case without being asked when she struggled to drag it across the sand.
Soon, Katerina was pulling a big bunch of keys from her trouser pocket and placing it in a large black lock. The metal gates were very heavy. Undaunted, she turned round, bent almost double, and used all the strength in her back and legs to force them open.
‘This way,’ she said firmly when Amelia and Lily started to wander across the gravel courtyard in the wrong direction. ‘Stay with me or you’ll get lost.’
The villa did indeed look like the sort of place where you could easily lose your way. The main part was a tall rectangular tower, with an archway in the middle leading to the front door. On either side were two lower, two-storey sections, with windows upstairs and down.
It was an old building that seemed to have been lovingly renovated. There were no cracks or gaps in the stonework and the sky-blue shutters and front door looked freshly painted. Giant terracotta pots in the courtyard had been carefully filled with interesting-shaped palms and colourful blooms.
Stella was about to ask about the history of the place, but Katerina got in first.
‘Sections dates back to 1462,’ she said. ‘It was built by the Venetians, but has been much modified since. The current owners have taken care to bring it up to date while retaining most of its original charm.’
Louise cocked her head to one side, her interest piqued.
‘Who are the current owners?’
Stella had been wondering the same thing; she hadn’t seen any mention of them on the villa’s website. Katerina was already striding up the stone steps to the front door, however, and didn’t reply.
‘Be careful. They’re quite steep.’
As soon as the door swung open, Amelia and Lily pushed ahead, followed by Stella, Louise and the boys.
Gazing round, they could see they’d entered a wide, open entrance hall, with a high ceiling, smooth, whitewashed walls and cool, cream-coloured marble floor tiles.
In the centre was a polished dark wood table on which sat a chunky, greenish-grey ceramic vase with a round bottom and narrow neck.
A number of curved archways led off the hall into smaller rooms, one with a TV and some comfortable-looking dark-red armchairs, just waiting to be sat on, another with a desk, more chairs and an antique wooden table with a fancy chessboard on top.
Another bigger arch behind led into the dining room with a rectangular, pale-grey marble table in the centre. It could probably have seated at least twelve people and must have been incredibly heavy to lift. To Stella, it seemed to represent strength and permanence. She liked it.
The open-plan layout of the property created a sense of space and light, while the little nook-like rooms round the atrium seemed to beckon you in.
Stella took a deep breath. She’d picked well; the villa was serene, comfortable and beautiful. Thank God one thing, at least, was going right.
They left their bags on the floor and followed Katerina to the yellow and white kitchen at the back of the house. It was spotlessly clean and appeared to have everything they needed. There was even a tree outside the open window, giving off a heavenly scent of lemon blossom.
Next, they went upstairs to see the bedrooms, which were simply but tastefully decorated with linen blinds in deep shades of red, orange and blue, original paintings and wooden floors scattered with rustic, woven rugs.
The best ones had balconies and views of the mountains, town and sea.
Louise turned to Stella and smiled.
‘Happy?’
‘Very. It’s gorgeous. Surely I’ll be able to relax here?’
Katerina fixed on Stella with beady black eyes, before glancing away. She was shrewd, for sure, the type who didn’t miss much.
Louise insisted Stella take the biggest room with the best view. Once the others had picked where they’d sleep, they all strolled downstairs again into the wraparound garden.
On one side of the house was a swimming pool, which looked out over the ocean, and on the other, tucked away in a private stone courtyard, a square-shaped plunge pool, decorated in beautiful blue and white mosaics and surrounded by lush green plants and trees.
There was a paved area for alfresco eating, and a grassy patch near the main pool with wooden sun loungers half shaded by greenery. The thick yellow cushions on the seats looked soft and inviting. Stella decided this would be where she’d take her novels and try to read.
Her focus had been so poor of late, she’d found herself getting through entire chapters without having absorbed anything. She longed to lose herself once more in a really good story.
Her mind flitted again to Al. He’d always loved the type of lazy holiday where you couldn’t do much because of the heat; you just sat around the pool with your nose in a book.
She could see him now, sprawled on a lounger in his bright-red swimming shorts, which Lily dubbed ‘disgusting’, because he’d picked them up cheaply in a supermarket, along with the groceries.
Actually, Stella had quite liked them, or him in them, anyway. He was still a good-looking man: tall, broad-shouldered and handsome. She hadn’t minded the extra roll round his tummy or the love handles; they were part of him, as much as his hazel eyes and infectious laugh.
Remember the bad stuff , she told herself: the rows, the attention seeking, the clinginess, the constant desire for reassurance – and sex, when that was the very last thing on her mind. She couldn’t cope with his needs on top of everything else.
‘C’mon! Hurry!’
Lily’s voice brought her back to the present. Lily was pulling Amelia’s arm, trying to drag her indoors to get changed for a swim.
Stella glanced at Louise. ‘D’you fancy a dip?’
‘To be honest, no. I want to unpack and get myself sorted.’
Katerina cleared her throat, which made Stella jump; she’d forgotten she was there.
‘If there’s anything else you need, please give me a call.’
The housekeeper’s English was heavily accented, but faultless. ‘I don’t live far, just twenty minutes away, up the mountain.’
‘Your house is even higher up than this?’ Stella was amazed. ‘How do you manage? How do you get your shopping up?’
She was already slightly worried about lugging groceries from town herself, even with the others to help.
Katerina shrugged. ‘It’s not hard. I don’t need much. I have a goat and I make my own yoghurt and cheese. I buy olive oil and honey from the farmer and there’s plenty of fruit on the trees. The rest I can carry.’ She smiled. ‘I’m used to walking everywhere, as you’ve seen.’
She was about to leave when she remembered something.
‘You don’t need to water the garden, unless you want to, of course. There’s a very good sprinkler system which comes on automatically first thing in the morning and late at night. Oh, and I’ve left some supper in the fridge – lamb cutlets with beans, and a feta salad. I also brought eggs for breakfast, some bread, orange juice and Kalitsounia . These are traditional pastries. I made them myself. I hope you like them. You’ll find coffee and mountain tea in the cupboard above the sink.’
‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’
Stella had eaten a little on the plane, but that was hours ago. She didn’t feel hungry, but guessed the others might be. It couldn’t be far off suppertime. The sun was just beginning to sink and the air felt cooler.
‘Shit.’
They turned to see Hector, sitting cross-legged on the rustic wooden table they’d probably be eating at later. He had a cigarette in his mouth and was lighting match after match, but the wind kept blowing them out.
Stella’s face fell again; he was determined to cause her maximum embarrassment. All he did was throw poisoned darts at her, dripping with anger and resentment.
Katerina would have been well within her rights to tell him off for putting his feet on the table. If she disapproved, though, she didn’t show it.
‘Be careful,’ was all she said. ‘The land is so dry; we get a lot of wildfires.’
He grunted an acknowledgment of sorts; at least he’d heard.
When Katerina turned back to Stella, her features looked softer suddenly, her eyes less beady, her nose less sharp.
‘I hope you have a good night’s rest. I think you’ll like it here, all of you. Villa Ariadne is a very special place. It’s like nowhere you’ve ever been before.’