Chapter 4
There wasn’t much opportunity to chat to Tash over breakfast because the lady in the voluminous smock sat next to Cleo and occupied her for most of the meal.
Noreen, it turned out, was a psychotherapist from Connecticut. She was eighty-one years old, though she looked and behaved like a much younger person, and had recently remarried.
‘My first husband died of a heart attack three years ago,’ she explained.
‘I couldn’t bear to rattle round our big house on my own for the rest of my days, so I went online.
Fortunately, there are plenty of dating sites, even for wrinklies like me.
I soon met Ron, who’s just a couple of years older than me and a complete darling, and we got married last summer.
We feel terribly lucky to have found each other. We’re blissfully happy.’
The sparkle in her soft grey eyes was enough to convince Cleo she was telling the truth. Noreen did, indeed, seem to have struck gold and age hadn’t dampened her enthusiasm for life – or her sense of humour.
‘What brought you here?’ Cleo wanted to know, eyeing the contents of the small glass dish in front of her, containing what looked suspiciously like frogspawn.
‘That’s a very good question,’ Noreen replied in a confidential manner, picking up her silver teaspoon and tentatively poking the top of the greyish, gelatinous mixture in her own bowl.
‘You see, what I’ve learned down the years is even happily married folks need a break from each other now and again. It helps keep the spark alive, if you know what I mean.’
She let out a loud guffaw, like a horse’s bray, which made Cleo laugh, too. She was thinking, if Noreen and Ron still had a spark in their eighties, there was hope for everyone.
‘Ron was off to Florida on a golfing trip with friends, so I thought – hell! I’m gonna treat myself to something, too,’ she went on.
‘I love Crete and all things Greek, actually. Plus, I knew I could do with some exercise. Ron says we have to keep fit and mobile for as long as possible. He works out two or three times a week and does weights and all that, but I can’t stand the gym.
I’m naturally lazy – always have been – but I figured if I had someone yelling at me to do stuff, I’d have to put in the work.
’ She grinned and shrugged. ‘That’s the theory, anyway. Watch this space!’
Cleo noticed Frida and Ingrid tucking into their breakfast pots with enthusiasm. Her own hunger had returned with a vengeance and she picked up her spoon and prodded the grey concoction.
‘What is this, do you think?’ she asked Noreen, who raised her eyebrows.
‘No idea.’
Frida must have overheard.
‘It’s chia pudding,’ she explained, leaning across the table.
‘Chia seeds are very good for you. They’re full of protein and other nutrients.
You soak them in something like almond milk or oat milk and leave them in the fridge overnight.
Then you can add what you like – honey, maple syrup, fruit or whatever. It’s delicious, try it!’
Encouraged by these words, Cleo reached for an open jar of honey on the table and added a dollop to her bowl, along with a handful of seeds, before taking a mouthful.
The pudding was, indeed, scrumptious – thick and creamy with a mild, milky taste and a slight crunch, thanks to the hydrated seeds.
She took another spoonful, and another, while Frida watched, amused.
‘It’s also very good for your gut,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably need to go to the toilet more than usual today.’
Cleo glanced at her bowl, which was now almost empty, and made a mental note to keep as close as possible to the loo at all times.
The small pudding, followed by a few slices of honeydew melon and a cup of herbal tea, seemed hardly enough to fill the hole in her stomach. But when she’d finished and risen from the table, she realised she wasn’t hungry any more.
Henrietta and Mark must have worked out the portion sizes of the meals very carefully. Clever.
There was barely enough time to rush back to her room, clean her teeth, change into shorts and trainers and fill up her water bottle before circuit training, incorporating HIIT – short for High Intensity Interval Training – kicked off at 10.30 a.m.
This was to take place in a grassy area outside the grounds of the villa, and Cleo and Tash had agreed to meet at the main gates and walk over there together.
‘I’m not sure Maya’s leaning into the spirit of the week,’ Cleo said as they set off, after quickly checking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. ‘She’s giving Ima such a hard time; she doesn’t deserve it.’
‘Lesley’s a misery too,’ Tash agreed. ‘Thank God for the Norwegians. Noreen’s lovely as well – super smart and I bet she’s a right laugh after a couple of glasses of wine. She’s got such a cheeky sense of humour. I hope I’m like her if I’m lucky enough to make it to my eighties.’
The women had only walked a short distance along the track when they spotted Henrietta, in a bright orange vest top today, putting cones out on a grassy clearing to their right.
Mark was helping, pulling heavy-looking weights off a trolley and placing them on the ground. It was clearly a case of all hands on deck.
Noreen was by the trolley, attempting to assist Mark by lifting one of the weights for him. She only managed to raise it a few inches from the cart, however, before having to drop it again.
This didn’t bode well, Cleo thought. The class was going to be challenging for sure.
Maya was standing on her own some way off, staring, it seemed at the horizon. She was still wearing her neon headband, but had changed from leggings into a black T-shirt and shorts.
She must have sensed Cleo’s gaze, because she turned and caught her eye. Cleo felt obliged to give a nod of acknowledgement and was dismayed when Maya strode across the grass towards her.
‘Did you two know each other before?’ Maya asked matter-of-factly, referring to Cleo and Tash, who were side by side.
Cleo said no, they’d only met yesterday.
‘I thought you handled Lesley’s accident on the way here very well,’ Maya went on. ‘It’s always useful to have a nurse or doctor with you on holiday. In fact, it should be compulsory.’
The unexpected compliment surprised Cleo and she thought the comment which had followed might have been a joke, because the corners of Maya’s mouth turned up.
But as the rest of her face remained expressionless, Cleo couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure.
In any case, she decided to take the words at face value.
‘Oh, I’m not much of a nurse these days. I gave it up. What do you do?’ she asked, deliberately deflecting the conversation away from herself.
Maya pulled back her shoulders and stood up tall. ‘I’m a stockbroker,’ she said grandly. ‘I work for one of the leading UK investment firms.’
‘That must be pretty stressful,’ Tash commented. ‘But I guess it’s very well paid. Do you enjoy it?’
‘Mostly,’ came the reply. ‘I’m used to long hours and working under intense pressure. The financial markets are incredibly fast-paced and I like the fact no day’s ever the same. It’s an exciting environment to be in.’
Her eyes gleamed as she spoke, and Cleo decided she wouldn’t want to have to compete with Maya in a work context. She’d bet she was scarily determined, razor-sharp and utterly ruthless.
‘Which firm are you with?’ Cleo asked next. ‘My ex-husband was a stockbroker, too.’
She shuddered slightly, remembering Paul’s late nights and how, like a fool, she’d believed him when he kept telling her he had stuff to catch up on in the office.
Her question seemed harmless enough, but she noticed Maya flinch and her shoulders seemed to sag a little. She hesitated a few seconds before replying.
‘Well-er-actually I’m-I’m on a break at the moment,’ she said at last, with a stutter.
Cleo was puzzled. This was a contradiction, surely? Maya had definitely given the impression before that she was still working.
‘Oh,’ Cleo said, ‘so are you on a sabbatical or something? How nice!’
Maya’s eyes flitted this way and that. ‘Sort of. Yes. I, um, I decided I needed a bit of time off. I mean, I know I said I love the pressure but you can get burned out if you’re not careful. It’s important to unwind.’
She made it sound as if taking a break had been her choice, but Cleo’s antennae twitched. She was well aware of what a cut-throat business stockbroking could be.
It was strange that as soon as Maya had realised Cleo knew someone working in the same field, she’d completely lost her cool. There must be more to her story than met the eye. Cleo would have liked to probe further, but Maya quickly closed the subject down.
‘I hope this class is better than yoga,’ she said with a sniff. She was already back to her old, superior self. ‘I don’t rate Ima, but I think Henrietta’s teaching HIIT. She might be an improvement.’
‘I liked Ima’s class,’ Tash chipped in.
Maya shot her a stony stare.
‘Each to his or her own, I suppose. I’m used to more dynamic instructors who know how to push their students without compromising on safety.’
Cleo felt Tash wince and her own cheeks grew hot. Did Maya have any idea how arrogant she sounded? Probably not.
Curiously, though, now she’d revealed a chink in her armour, Cleo found her more interesting and human. Perhaps she wasn’t quite so perfect after all.
It wasn’t long before the rest of the group arrived and Henrietta explained the drill. There were six ‘stations’, some distance apart, involving different bits of equipment, including various types of weights and balance balls.
At each station, you had two minutes to repeat the exercise as often as possible – squats, sprints, ab curls, high and low planks and lunges were all on the agenda – before moving to the next post.
The idea was to work pretty much every part of your body.