Page 5 of Hot Greek Summer

Stella’s handsome redundancy from Jones & Bow, a chunk of which she’d already earmarked for a world cruise.

Frankie’s nest egg, bequeathed to her by Marcia, the childless elderly neighbour she’d cared for over the last dozen years.

‘Marcia told me that she wanted me to have an adventure,’ Frankie whispered. ‘The very last time we spoke. I didn’t realise that she was leaving the house to me until the solicitor called me in, after she’d … after she’d gone.’

Her neighbour had been more of a surrogate mum, and she’d been aware of Frankie’s deep-seated unhappiness with Gavin for many years. Her gift had been the catalyst for Frankie to finally find the courage to end the marriage her parents had pressured her into as a frightened, pregnant seventeen-year-old. She and Gavin had rubbed along as best they could and the twins had grown up happy and strong as a result, but they were seventeen themselves now and they didn’t need her to wipe their noses or hold their hands when they crossed the road any more. They’dbeen the reason she’d stayed, and their leaving home had beenthe reason she’d finally left, too; the reality of living all alone with Gavin had been too much to bear. The boys had filled the silence and the space with noise and clutter: hockey sticks in the hall, muddy football boots in the porch, music too loud in their rooms. Who knew the silence they left behind would be even more deafening? Marcia’s money had allowed Frankie to rent a tiny place all of her own while she considered her next move, somewhere to lie low and lick her wounds, somewhere to spin the globe with her eyes closed and choose an adventure grand enough to warrant Marcia’s approval.

‘Looks like adventure got tired of waiting and came looking for you,’ Winnie said quietly.

All three of them stared at the large white envelope between them on the breakfast bar, and at the bunch of keys resting on top of it. They’d flown to Skelidos in the expectation of a couple of days’ hedonistic escape, and they’d flown home again with the deeds to Villa Valentina in their weekend bag beside the duty-free.

‘God knows what he put in those cocktails,’ Stella said, frowning. ‘He was more hypnotic than Derren sodding Brown.’

Winnie stared at her. ‘You don’t think he slipped us something illegal, do you?’

‘Yes,‘ Stella huffed. ‘He slipped us pipedreams and bare bronzed chests and sand between our toes. He slipped us sunshine on our shoulders and lazy, idyllic afternoons, and he slipped us long starlit evenings drinking cocktails beneath fairy lights strung between pine trees. He slipped us the idea of a perfect life, and we reached out and grabbed it in our pale English hands because we had stressed, lonely and gullible stamped on our foreheads.’

As she spoke she pointed from herself to Frankie and then finally to Winnie. Stressed, lonely and gullible.

‘Well, that’s lovely,’ Frankie frowned, wrapping her hands around her mug of steaming coffee. ‘Anyone would be lonely going from living with my kids to the silence of an empty flat.’

‘At least you got lonely. I got gullible,’ Winnie muttered, twisting the slender wedding band she still wore even though her marriage was all over bar the decree absolute.

‘Ladies, it wasn’t an insult.’ Stella shook her head. ‘We are where we are. Ofcourseyou’re lonely, Frank, you’re recovering from years of being needed by a whole bloody cul-de-sac, and Winnie, the fact that you’re still too trusting after what Knobchops did to you is a good thing, not a bad one. And me? I didn’t even have a relationship to break. I pinned years of hopes onto Jones & Bow, and I’ve been left high, dry and stressed to the eyeballs. The truth is that we’re all lonely, and we’re all stressed, and given that we’ve just gone thirds on a bed and breakfast on a Greek island I can’t even remember the name of, we’re all gullible as hell.’

They perched on Stella’s uncomfortably high designer saddle stools and stared at the keys in silence.

‘Skelidos,’ Winnie said, eventually. ‘It’s called Skelidos.’

‘The villaispretty gorgeous, in its own elegantly shabby way,’ Frankie said, after a while.

‘And the cocktails were world class,’ Stella acknowledged.

They lapsed into silence again.

‘What else were you planning on doing this summer, anyway?’ Winnie asked, the slow tug of a smile lifting the corners of her mouth. She’d made the horrendous decision to move temporarily back home to her parents after her house sold more speedily than anticipated, and she was already heartily sick of her old curfew being unexpectedly back in place because her father liked to lock up before bed at eleven, and of going to sleep staring into the collective soulful eyes of Westlife because her mother refused to allow her to take her old posters down. She loved her parents dearly, but if she didn’t get out of there soon she’d give up, buy a cat, take up macramé and join her mother’s Catherine Cookson Monday-afternoon reading group.

Frankie looked up from her coffee thoughtfully. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘Well, I need a job, a man and a ticket back to normality, asap,’ Stella said.

Winnie nodded slowly. ‘Will a business, a donkey and a ticket back to an island you can’t remember the name of do in the meantime?’

Stella’s expression spoke volumes. ‘A donkey?’

Winnie nodded. ‘It’s in the deeds. Seriously, I’m not even joking. The Fonz comes with the villa.’

‘Don’t tell me. He lives out the back with the rosemary bushes and the fig trees and the fairies at the bottom of the friggin’ garden.’

Frankie pulled her laptop from her bag, her wide, copper-flecked eyes flaring with wary anticipation.

‘I’ll see if I can book us some flights.’

Winnie stared at her old single bed, which at that moment was barely visible beneath summer clothes, swimsuits, bumper-size bottles of factor 30 and beach towels. How do you pack for a one-way trip to Greece? She wasn’t sure if she should pack for a week or throw her entire wardrobe in her suitcase, because she didn’t know if they were heading back to Skelidos for a week to try to wriggle out of the contract or for a lifetime to start a new chapter. Thanks to the lethally large cocktails, she also wasn’t sure whether Ajax was their fairy godfather or had played them like a crack hot conman. He’d kept them fuelled up on his secret recipe gin and lured them in with tales of his bucolic life on the island, and, their tongues loosened by the alcohol, they’d poured out their woes faster than three leaky jugs.

He hadn’t even directly suggested that they buy the villa, at least not at first. He’d talked around it, and let them think it was their idea. It was just damn good fortune that Nikolas happened to be the local property notary and had had the sales paperwork already drawn up in preparation for the planned sale which had just fallen through at the last moment. Convenience, or fate? Either way, he’d had them signing on the dotted line and arranging bank transfers with lightning speed, all buoyed up by Ajax and his constant supply of free drinks and his endless tales of how marvellous life on Skelidos was going to be for the three women. What an adventure they’d have! What a brave and smart move to leave grey old England behind for the idyll of sunny Greece! He’d sealed the deal with big fat tears as they signed, tears of joy tinged with sadness that his wonderful B&B was now in new hands and that he’d forever leave part of his heart there when he and Nikolas moved to Athens in a few days’ time. Nik had accepted a high-profile job over on the mainland, and much as they adored their one-long-honeymoon island life, the bright city lights were calling.

Ajax was in no doubt; fate had conspired to bring Winnie, Stella and Frankie to his island at that precise moment because this place was now their destiny, not his. At heart, Winnie was a believer in fate and superstition; the idea that she’d been guided to the island charmed her all the way to the bank. Frankie, of course, felt more guided by Marcia’s instruction to find adventure; she’d needed little in the way of persuasion to realise that this would certainly be that. Stella had been perhaps the most hesitant of the three, until Frankie and Winnie had decided that they’d find a way to buy it together even if Stella decided it wasn’t for her. The idea of missing out on a potential business opportunity and a life in the sun with her best friends had proved too tempting to pass up, and in the end she’d signed on the understanding that she could always pull out after a year if she wanted to. They each had their own reasons for signing, and for all of them there was an element of running away and an element of looking for a new place to call home.

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