After devouring a couple of these each, washed down with cold draught lager, they were full to bursting and ready for a siesta.
Just beyond the café lay the village’s curved, shingly beach, dotted with conveniently placed sun loungers for hire.
They made their way across the crunchy pebbles to two empty chairs and sat down beneath the jaunty parasols.
Edie, who was wearing her bikini underneath her clothes, quickly stripped off and lay down. Meanwhile, Ralph grappled clumsily with his towel while he removed his shorts and underpants.
He was almost changed, just trying to shimmy into his swimming trunks, when a man came to ask for money for using the seats. While Ralph searched for some cash in his shorts pocket, the towel almost slipped off. Edie yelped before stretching over in the nick of time to pull it back up, preserving her husband’s dignity – just.
‘That was close,’ she said with a giggle when Ralph finally lay back with a relieved sigh. ‘I don’t think Porto Liakáda’s ready to see you in the buff.’
Ralph scratched his nose. ‘Oh, I don’t know. There are plenty of nudist beaches in Crete.’
‘Yes, but have you seen that sign?’
She sat up and pointed to a wooden notice nailed to the wall of the hotel behind them:‘NO TOPLESS BATHING ON THIS BEACH PLEASE’.
Ralph flopped down again. ‘Fair enough. But it doesn’t say anything about todgers.’
The beach was only about a quarter full and pretty quiet, save for the background murmur of people talking, the odd rumble of a boat’s engine and the lapping of the waves on the shore.
It was hot but they were comfortable in the shade and it wasn’t long before Edie heard the familiar sound of Ralph’s snores. She didn’t try to prod him awake as he only ever snuffled and wheezed when he was dropping off. He’d soon stop.
She was nodding off herself when her phone pinged in the bag beside her. It was a text message from Hannah, asking where they were.
‘On the beach in the village,’Edie replied.‘Where are you?’
‘We’ll come and join you. See you in a few xx,’came the answer.
Edie’s heart sank slightly as she’d been enjoying having Ralph to herself, but at least Jessica wasn’t around. She seemed to stir up Hannah and Mac and make everything ten times worse.
A young woman in a skimpy bikini walked gingerly across the pebbles to the water’s edge, taking short, soft steps to try to minimise the pain.
It seemed to take her an age to get into the sea. She inched forward, with her arms held high, then retreated every time a wave came her way.
Edie watched with amusement, thinking the woman would do better to dive straight in; she was only prolonging the agony.
The woman finally went all the way under, only to bob up again almost immediately. But after a few more attempts, she became used to the temperature and stayed under.
She must have started to enjoy herself because she swam out quite a distance to some rocks and sat for a while, waving at her friends on the beach and looking all round.
Edie remembered herself at this age – so young and carefree – and was tempted to go in herself. But she soon heard familiar voices behind and, on turning, saw Hannah and Mac walking towards her. They smiled and waved and Edie got up to greet them.
‘How was the walk?’ she asked, watching Mac drag over a couple of sun loungers.
‘Great.’
Hannah took a slurp of water from her bottle, which was almost empty. She looked rather hot, sweaty and uncomfortable after her exertion.
‘We found the castle. We got good views from there. It was a fair old hike, though,’ she added.
The pair undressed, with much less of a song and dance than the one Ralph had made, and went straight into the sea. Hannah lay on her back, staring up at the bright blue sky, while Mac dived down to the bottom, coming up with a handful of sand and seashells.
They were clearly having such a lovely time that finally, Edie couldn’t resist joining them. Ralph stayed snoozing under the parasol for a while, but when he woke, he went in, too, then they all swam to the rocks and sat on top, chatting and sunbathing.
Leaning back on her hands, with her face to the sun and her eyes closed, Edie breathed in and out deeply. It wasn’t the right time to quiz Hannah about Mac, she thought. In any case, at that moment everything felt reassuringly normal.
Hannah was beside her, dabbling her feet happily in the crystal-clear water, while Ralph and Mac were on the adjacent rock, talking about this and that in soothing, low voices.
