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Prologue
Katerina opened her laptop and squinted at her inbox. There was one new message, which she clicked on, but her eyesight was poor and she couldn’t read it.
Frowning, she cast around for her glasses. They weren’t on the rough wooden table, where she’d set her laptop, nor on the floor by her feet.
Muttering to herself, she rose and hurried a few paces across the flagstones. She’d kicked off her woollen slippers and the ground felt hard and chilly.
‘Ah!’ she cried triumphantly, picking up the glasses, which were lying on the stone worktop next to the sink. They were covered in smears, which she wiped on the bottom of her black skirt.
Glancing out of the little window, she noticed a mangy brown dog peeing down her pots of beloved crocuses.
‘Buzz off, you pesky mutt!’
She banged on the glass with her knuckles and the dog slunk away, but not before scratching at the ground with its back legs, kicking up dirt.
Katerina growled, a bit like a dog herself, before pushing the glasses up her long straight nose and settling down again.
A few strands of wiry grey hair escaped from her bun and she blew them off her face with one big puff, but they only settled back in the same place.
Dear Miss Papadakis…
She sniffed. Well, whoever it was had made their first error. Katerina might be a widow, but she was definitely not a ‘Miss’.
Careless of the writer not to check. People were so sloppy nowadays. But she supposed it wasn’t exactly a hanging offence. She read on…
Forgive the short notice, but I’m looking to book a villa for two weeks in May, for myself and my two children plus my friend and her two children.
We need four bedrooms minimum – one for me, one for my friend, Louise, one for our boys, age nineteen and sixteen, and one for our fourteen-year-old girls.
We just wondered, Villa Ariadne looks absolutely lovely and perfect for our needs. Is it by any chance free?
The writer went on to give her preferred dates over the half-term holiday and mentioned she’d never been to Crete before and had always wanted to visit.
Blah, blah. They were all the same, trying to wheedle themselves into Katerina’s good books, just so they could get the weeks they wanted.
The final paragraph, however, made the elderly woman pause…
My family and I have been through a difficult time and we’re badly in need of a break!
The exclamation mark struck Katerina as a somewhat clumsy attempt to lighten the sentence. She wasn’t fooled. When a woman told a complete stranger she’d been through a tough time, she was rarely exaggerating.
The writer signed off as Stella Johnston.
Katerina pushed back her chair and closed her eyes.
Her hand went instinctively to the right-hand pocket of her skirt, where she felt for the woollen pouch containing a miniature vial of olive oil, some dried laurel leaves and a silver pendant with a double-headed Minoan axe: her lucky talisman.
It was comforting to squeeze the pouch and feel with her fingertips for the objects inside. She took several deep breaths and tried to focus on the word ‘Stella’.
S T E L L A. She mouthed the letters, then whispered them out loud, one by one, almost reverentially, waiting for an image to form in her mind – of what, she had no clue.
At first, she could see nothing, only the letter shapes, but then gradually they started to jumble up, whirring round her brain like dirty washing in a machine: the pale-blue sleeve of a man’s shirt here, a brown corduroy trouser leg there.
The motion made Katerina feel sick and she longed for the whirring to stop. When it finally did, the letters seemed to come to a standstill right before her eyes, only they weren’t in the correct order.
Now they spelled ALTELS. Her English was good, and she was pretty sure there was no such word; it meant nothing to her.
Squeezing her eyelids tighter still, she forced herself to concentrate even harder. It made her head throb; it was quite painful.
All of a sudden, a sense of calm came over her, like a gentle breeze fanning her face and neck. She exhaled, long and slow.
‘Of course,’ she said at last, with a relieved smile. She nodded, as if in response to some comment or other, though she was quite alone. ‘Let’s wait and see.’
On opening her eyes again, she hit the ‘reply’ symbol at the top of the email and wrote back immediately.
Dear Mrs Johnston
(Not ‘Miss’, whatever the woman’s marital status. There were children, after all.)
I’m delighted to say you’re in luck! Villa Ariadne is indeed free between those dates… If you need a taxi transfer, just let me know your flight details at least a week before your arrival and I can arrange it for you… I look forward to welcoming you to our beautiful island…
Closing the laptop once more, Katerina stayed at the table for several minutes deep in thought, her elbows resting on the hard surface, chin in her hands.
May the eighteenth? That was only two months away. She’d better let the others know the villa wasn’t available after all; she’d kept them hanging on long enough.
There were always plenty of enquiries, mostly from Brits, plus a few French and Germans. She didn’t advertise; she waited for them to find her, then Villa Ariadne made the final call, so to speak.
It was rarely wrong, though it took its time and of course, you could never predict how things would pan out.
The sound of tinkling goats’ bells drifted through the gaps in the window frames: the goatherd taking the animals downhill to be milked.
Time for a cup of mountain tea, Katerina decided.
And perhaps a little Kalitsounia : a pastry filled with sweet cheese, cinnamon and lemon zest. She made these herself and never grew tired of them, though she tried to limit herself to one a day; she didn’t want to burst out of her clothes and have to buy new ones.
After stuffing her feet in her slippers, she walked over to the tap, filled a small saucepan with cold water and lit the gas ring with a match.
You could never call her life dull, she thought with some satisfaction as she blew out the match. She might be in her eighties, but there were always new people to meet, fresh stories waiting to be told.
As she popped the saucepan on the heat, she found herself thinking about the crisp white sheets and pillowcases folded neatly in her linen cupboard. They were deliciously light and would smell heavenly, having been hung out to dry in the lemon grove, warmed by the Cretan sun.
She’d make up the beds in plenty of time and put a few sprigs of lavender under the pillows, some wildflowers on the dressing tables. And she’d make more Kalitsounia as a welcome present.
She could do that for them, at least, along with some of the other nice little touches the guests so appreciated. The rest, of course, was out of her hands.
Chapter One
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.