Although Katerina gave the woman no encouragement, she seemed intent on filling everyone in on her life story.
She was called April, grew up in Leeds, had met her husband, Georgios, on holiday in Crete and they now had four kids, two large Bernese dogs and two cats. And they all lived in a flat above the supermarket.
She missed Boots, the chemist, Marks and Sparks and cheese and onion crisps, but not the English weather. She loved Georgios to bits and still fancied him rotten, but he was useless in the shop or at helping with the kids, unless given strict orders.
‘Goodness!’ Edie said when April had finished her account. ‘I’m not surprised you lose a child from time to time. I found it hard enough keeping tabs on my two – and I had my parents and a childminder to help!’
Katerina gave her what she took to be a disapproving look.
‘I-I mean, I neverreallylost them,’ Edie stammered. ‘They were just misplaced. They always turned up in the end, thank goodness. We never had to call the police. Well, just the once…’
Realising she was only digging herself in deeper, she quickly clamped her mouth shut.
‘Oi! Meaty!’
Another screech from April made them all jump, including Nikos, whose bottom lip trembled and his eyes started to refill with tears.
Before Edie knew it, the child had been thrust into her arms while April hurried towards an older boy on the other side of the street, who was kicking an empty Coke can into the harbour wall.
This boy was about nine or ten, Edie guessed. Dark-haired and skinny, he was dressed in jeans shorts, a khaki T-shirt, which was rather tight and small, and grubby white trainers.
Looking over his shoulder at April thundering towards him, he gave the can one last almighty kick. It pinged against the wall before bouncing off and coming to a clattering halt in front of a surprised-looking elderly gentleman in a Panama hat. He’d been sitting at a café table sipping coffee and generally minding his own business.
April rapidly changed course, veering in the elderly gentleman’s direction and bending down to retrieve the can by his feet.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, stuffing the offending article into the pocket of her flowery apron. ‘My son’s lost his manners.’
The man didn’t seem put out and merely shrugged, before returning to his coffee. Meanwhile April lunged at Meaty, grabbing the neck of his T-shirt and dragging him, kicking and squirming, towards the shop.
‘My eldest,’ she said, depositing the boy in the middle of the group and looking down on him disdainfully, rather as if he were a disobedient puppy she didn’t know what to do with.
‘His name’s Demetrios but we call him Meaty for short.’
Nikos, who was still being held by Edie, yelped and struggled to get down. She put him carefully on the ground and he toddled towards his big brother, wrapping himself round his skinny legs as if his life depended on it.
Meaty tried to pick the toddler up but he was too heavy, so he crouched down and gave him a cuddle instead.
‘Ah! They adore each other,’ April said affectionately, momentarily forgetting her anger. ‘Nikos copies everything he does. He wants tobehim.’
Her expression hardened again and her eyes clouded over as she stooped to Meaty’s height, jamming her face right up close.
‘And that’s why you have to set a good example,’ she barked. ‘Now, get inside and take your little brother with you. You can mind him till supper – and don’t you dare let him out of your sight for one second.’
Meaty clearly knew the fight was over and Edie and the others watched him take Nikos by the hand and lead him back into the shop.
‘We must proceed,’ Katerina said strictly after a moment or two. ‘We have a long way to climb.’
After saying their goodbyes, the group turned left up a steep flight of stone steps between two buildings. Edie and Hannah struggled with their wheelie suitcases and their husbands had to help them, but Jessica, who was super fit, bounded up some of them two at a time.
She didn’t manage to overtake Katerina, however, who was sprightlier than a woman half her age. There wasn’t an inch of fat on her; she must have been all muscle.
‘Almost there!’ she cried, turning round at the top, hands on hips, and smiling, with some amusement, at the slowcoaches lagging behind.
‘Thank God,’ Edie muttered to no one in particular, her thighs and calves screaming. ‘My legs feel like jelly.’
There then began a long, slow ascent up a gravelly donkey track lined with gnarled bushes, rocks and scrub.
Assorted trees dotted the landscape – pine, lemon, orange and fig – along with swathes of brightly coloured wild flowers that seemed to flourish miraculously despite the dry conditions.
