She’d come to check on them. Stella smiled gratefully.
‘No thanks. I think I’ll head back downstairs. Al said he’d come and chat with Jon when I’ve finished.’
‘I’ll be fine on my own,’ Jon mumbled. Snot dribbled from his nose, leaving a slimy trail. Stella had to look away. ‘I’m not going to do anything stupid.’
‘We know.’ Louise looked doubtful. ‘But we’d rather keep an eye on you for now.’
Stella started walking towards the door but Jon called out, so she stopped and turned.
‘Thank you,’ he said with a crackle in his voice. His face was red and blotchy.
She was surprised. ‘What for?’
‘For saving my life. I was being selfish; I wasn’t thinking about Jemima. I will now. And another thing – I-I didn’t really want to die.’
He managed a small, brave smile, which made Stella’s own eyes well up.
‘Good.’ She sniffed hard, to hold back the tears, and gave him the biggest, brightest smile she could muster in return. ‘You’ve no idea how happy that makes me feel.’
* * *
When the temperature started to drop in the late afternoon, she and Al decided to go for a stroll. She wanted him to experience the sights and smells of this little corner of beautiful Crete and watch the sun set over the mountain.
They took a rug, a bottle of white wine from the fridge and two glasses, which Al carried in a basket over his shoulder.
‘That’s Eleni Manousaki’s house,’ Stella said as they approached the tumbledown stone cottage. ‘She’s ancient and lives all alone. I don’t know how she manages.’
The windows were open and the brown shutters folded back, so the elderly woman must have been around. Sure enough, they spotted her soon after at the side of the house, dressed all in black and bent almost double, scattering corn for the chickens.
A goat, with a bell round its neck, was tethered to a wooden post nearby and signalled their arrival with noisy, insistent bleating. Stella waved when the old woman looked up and she nodded and grinned in return, flashing her rotten teeth.
‘Jesus!’ Al said when they were out of hearing. ‘She doesn’t go in for dentists, does she?’
Stella laughed. ‘No, but she looks after her goat and chickens and never asks anyone for anything. I think she’s amazing. I won’t have a word said against her.’
Before long, they left behind the centuries-old footpath that led to the village and headed right, into a clearing carpeted with yellow flowers.
In the distance, the mountain peaks were still covered in snow, and the limestone rocks seemed to change from blue-ish black to light grey.
The view was quite breathtaking and Al suggested they stop right there to enjoy it. He spread out the green fleecy rug in the shade of a lone olive tree and they settled down side by side. There wasn’t a soul in sight, their only company a herd of goats some way off, breaking the silence with their jingling bells and intermittent baa-ing.
‘Wine, madam?’ Al said, producing the chilled bottle from his basket with a flourish and pouring her a glass.
It seemed to her to be more delicious than any wine she’d ever tasted, but this was probably because of the perfect setting – and the fact her husband was close by.
She was wearing a cream T-shirt and her loose linen khaki shorts. When she straightened out her legs, which had picked up quite a tan, Al stared at them and tut-tutted.
‘You’ve really been in the wars.’
He was referring to the array of unsightly cuts, mosquito bites and bruises that began at her ankles and ran at regular intervals all the way up.
‘I did that on the very first day, walking up a big flight of steps with our bags,’ Stella said ruefully, following his gaze, which had fallen on the large bruise on her right knee, now faded to a purple-ish grey.
‘And what about this?’ he went on disapprovingly, pointing to a long, ugly scab on her other knee.
‘I caught the toe of my boot on a tree root. It really hurt.’
‘Oh dear. You look like you’ve been in a fight.’
