Cleo felt both touched and ashamed, realising her behaviour had been thoughtless and selfish. She should have known Tash would be upset and should have handled her decision to go much more sensitively. She herself would’ve been dismayed and hurt if things had been the other way round and it was Tash who was desperate to fly back home.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, giving Tash a hug. ‘I feel terrible. I guess Paul’s call really knocked me, and not just because of Erica, to be honest. Hearing his voice took me right back to the divorce. He was so angry and frightening then, I honestly don’t know how I survived. At times I just wanted to throw myself off a building or walk under a bus. Life didn’t seem worth living. I came here hoping the retreat would make me feel stronger and more positive. I hoped it would help me put all that horror behind me. I guess it hasn’t worked. I know Erica doesn’t really need me and won’t want to see me anyway. But right now, all I want to do is scuttle back home to the safety of my four walls and bury myself under a duvet.’
Cleo had broken away from Tash now and the two women were standing facing each other on the rocky track. Tash leaned forwards and took both Cleo’s hands in hers.
Her face was streaked with tears but her eyes were full of compassion and all of a sudden, Cleo felt a lump in her throat and wanted to cry, too.
‘I do understand,’ Tash said. ‘I’m just sad you’re going, that’s all. Don’t feel bad about it, and don’t think you’re being weak. You’re strong. You’ve been through so much and you’ve survived it. Look at you.’ She gave an encouraging smile. ‘This is just a little setback, we all get them. You’ll emerge from it even stronger.’
Cleo smiled back. ‘Thanks.’ She was thinking, she and Tash had only known each other for a few days but they’d already formed a connection she was certain would endure.
Once they got back to Villa Ariadne, Tash went off to join the late-afternoon classes while Cleo sat in her room, searching for flights.
There wasn’t enough time to catch the last one out of Chania tonight, so she opted for the first one in the morning. The first ferry left super early and she was sure Henrietta and Mark would be able to book her a taxi from there to the airport.
At dinner, everyone tried to persuade her to stay.
‘By the time you get home, Erica will probably have forgotten all about it,’ Maya reasoned. ‘Young people get stupidly drunk all the time. Obviously, it’s not a good idea, but they recover very quickly. She just overdid it, that’s all. She won’t make the same mistake again.’
‘You’ve been looking so relaxed and well,’ Henrietta added. ‘So much better than when you arrived. It would be such a shame to leave now and not get all the benefits.’
Cleo’s mind flitted to Achilles. He’d called when she was in her bedroom but she was busy on her laptop and hadn’t picked up. After that, he’d sent a text, inviting her for a drink tomorrow evening.
It would have been her first date since her separation and divorce, but clearly it wasn’t meant to happen.
Forget him, forget Crete, she told herself. And forget creepy Katerina and Villa Ariadne.
8
That night, she fell into a deep sleep almost straight away. She would have slept right through till the alarm went off, but was woken a few hours later by a violent jolt, followed by a crash, screams and sounds of shouting.
Her eyes sprang open and her heart thumped loudly in her chest. For a few seconds she couldn’t remember where she was and wondered if she was dreaming. But she hadn’t closed the shutters properly and moonlight illuminated some familiar objects in the room, reminding her she was still in Villa Ariadne.
Sitting bolt upright, she reached for the light switch, only to discover the light wasn’t there; it was on the ground, broken.
More shouts came from different parts of the house, then all of a sudden, her bed started shaking intensely and a chair slid from one side of the room to another before smashing into the wall.
Objects fell off the top of the chest of drawers – her make-up bag, a pottery vase, a mirror. The windows rattled, trembling in their frames, and she heard breaking glass. Then the chest’s drawers slid open and the whole thing toppled over, landing on the wooden floor with a deafening bang.
Dizzy with shock, she was aware of the bed rocking, like a boat tossed about in a storm. She listened, frozen in terror, to a series of rumbles, creaks and groans, as if the house itself was writhing in pain.
From deep within the walls came pops and cracks, like snapping twigs, as joints and nails struggled against the movement and the wooden floorboards exploded like machine-gun fire.
It all seemed to happen so fast, she barely had time to think. Her instincts told her to get out of the house as quickly as possible. But when she tried to stand, the ground seemed to roll and fall away and she couldn’t stay upright.
The door burst open and Henrietta rushed in, her face gleaming white in the shadows.
‘It’s an earthquake,’ she hollered. ‘Stay in bed till it stops. Cover your head with pillows.’
Cleo opened her mouth to speak but Henrietta had already gone, presumably to give her message to others or to race for safety herself. There was more banging, followed by shrieks. Cleo jumped back under the covers and held the pillow tight round her head, grateful to be able to muffle out the most terrifying noises.
Lying face down and squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to tell herself this would soon be over. The shaking would stop and everything would go back to normal.
But the longer the violent jolting went on, the more petrified she became, imagining a dark abyss opening up beneath her. Any minute, she’d fall into its gaping mouth and be buried alive.
Her mind flitted to her children and tears sprang to her eyes. If she could only see them, speak to them, hold them one last time. Then, strangely, she thought of her own mother, now dead. She imagined burying herself, childlike, in her mum’s chest and being wrapped in her soft, comforting arms. She’d be safe, then. Nothing bad could happen.
If only. She bit into the sheet beneath her, rigid with terror, and recited the Lord’s Prayer over and over in her head. ‘Our Father who art in Heaven…’
