Page 97 of Hot Greek Summer

Pulling her soft fringed blanket closer around her bare shoulders, Winnie tried to make sense of the summer they’d just shared together on Skelidos. It felt as if magic had pulled them there, and as if fate had finally decided who should stay and who should go. But what an adventure they’d had, what laughter they’d shared, what an unexpectedly wonderful and necessary interlude it had turned out to be in all of their fractured lives. The island seemed to have come looking for them, three birds with injured wings, and little by little they’d been healed, ready to fly home again, if they wished to.

Winnie knew that of the three of them, she was the one they’d all have put money on staying in Greece for ever; it seemed ironic that it had turned out that she should be the one who needed to leave. She wasn’t certain what she was going to do yet; definitely not move back to her parents though, that much she was sure of. She’d find a cottage perhaps, somewhere she could work again, make up the island-inspired designs she’d been working on. She might be leaving, but she’d go with a head full of inspiration and a suitcase full of Technicolor memories.

‘Hey, you.’

She looked towards the darkness beyond the edge of the terrace, towards the lane leading to Jesse’s house. He’d come. She wasn’t sure if he would, or if she wanted him to.

‘Winnie,’ he said, and she laughed when she saw what he had in his arms when he stepped out of the shadows, because he always seemed to know exactly the right thing to do.

‘I carried a watermelon.’

She nodded as he laid the huge green fruit on the floor at her feet. ‘So you did.’

He looked at her for a long, searching moment. ‘Can we talk?’ Glancing towards the band, he added, ‘Somewhere a bit quieter, maybe?’

She nodded, standing up. ‘Let’s go inside.’

He followed her through the villa silently to her room up on the top floor, to the bed they’d lain in together. She pulled the patio doors closed, turning the party into a low background hum, and then crossed to lie on her back on one side of the bed.

Jesse stretched out on the other, and for a little while they listened to each other breathing.

‘Can I go first?’ she said, when she was ready. He rolled onto his side and propped himself on his elbow to look at her.

‘OK.’

She faltered, wondering where to start. At the beginning, of course.

‘When I came here, I thought my heart was broken. And it was, in a way, because the only man I’d ever known had left me and it felt like the end of the world. And then I came here, and I found that it wasn’t the end of the world after all, not exactly. How could it be, when a place like this exists? Even if youfeellike it’s the end of the world, the sun still comes up every morning over the hills, and the sand’s still warm beneath your feet, and the birds still sing in the olive trees. There’s a gentle insistence to living here, and it seemed to insist that I meet you.’

He listened, watching her eyes, not giving himself away as she marshalled her thoughts and lifted her eyes to the ceiling and carried on.

‘You stormed into my life on a flurry of bad temper and beautiful eyes, and you completely, utterly blindsided me. You’re unapologetically rude, and then you’re so damn thoughtful that you seem to see right inside my head, and then you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that you have this sentimental, romantic seam running through you like words through Blackpool rock.’

He huffed softly and she ignored him. Closing her eyes, she recalled the last time they were together in her bed.

‘And then you touched me and tried to teach me how to not let my head or my heart get involved, but, Jesse, you failed. You failed, because my headisinvolved. I think about you all of the time, and I miss you when you’re gone from me, and I dream about you when I go to sleep.’

She opened her eyes and looked into his, clear and direct.

‘You failed, because my heartisinvolved too. I thought it was broken when I came here, but I was wrong. It was never his to break, because I never loved him the all-encompassing, sun-moon-and-stars way I love you.’

Slow devastation seeped into Jesse’s face, but when he went to speak she shook her head for him to wait.

‘But in the most important way of all, you didn’t fail. I was afraid when I came here. I wouldn’t have said so, but I see now that I was.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m not afraid any more, and much as I want to stay here, I can’t. Corinna mentioned your wife, that the sculptures were of her.’

Again, he opened his mouth to speak, and again she shut him down.

‘It’s OK, it really is. You don’t need to explain. It’s time for me to go, that’s all. I need to find my own place, just like you did. I need myownSkelidos, somewhere to put down roots, to work, to find a life that suits my bones. You’ve taught me all of that. You loved me better, Jesse Anderson, even though you never intended to.’

She stopped speaking and drew in a deep, shuddering breath, feeling more naked and exposed to him than she ever had before.

‘I’m done,’ she said, with a tiny, vulnerable half smile.

He nodded. ‘I know. And I want to kiss you until you feel better again and tell you it’ll all be all right, but I can’t.’

There was a melancholy edge to his voice as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a photograph folded in half. Opening it, he handed it to her.

‘This was Erin. My wife.’

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