‘Don’t apologise, that’smyjob,’ she joked, with a shy smile. ‘It was nice, but I’ve got patients to attend to.’
Achilles smiled back. ‘I know, I know.’ He raised his palms in mock surrender. ‘I mustn’t interrupt your work.’
Cleo could still hear sounds of the whooshing, gurgling floodwaters in the village below and glancing round, she saw the faces of shock and suffering everywhere.
Amid so much distress, however, she also felt a spark deep within of something long absent: strength, purpose, usefulness – and, yes, attraction.
When she moved away to help the next family, Achilles began softly strumming his guitar once more. She let the music wash over her, allowing herself to bask for a few brief moments in the unfamiliar melody.
It was just before sunrise when news came that the rescue team would be with them by about noon. Cleo, Tash and Maya realised they were exhausted and agreed to take a quick break, huddling together under blankets as the sharp, salty air nipped their skin and the stars crawled across the sky.
The fading moon looked pale, cold and indifferent, it seemed, to the chaos, but Cleo’s insides were warm and tingling. Maya, though, seemed to have hit a wall.
‘I still can’t believe they made me redundant,’ she said, as if the bad memories had somehow managed to sneak back in at the first grey hint of dawn. ‘One day I was someone, the next, nothing. I don’t know who or what I am any more.’
Slowly, the landscape was beginning to emerge – the olive trees and drystone walls.
Cleo reached out, placing a hand lightly on Maya’s arm.
‘We’ll face this first,’ she said gently, ‘then you’ll find another job. Something better, I’m sure.’
But Maya was still troubled.
‘I used to run a team of two hundred,’ she went on, a flash of old pride and pain in her eyes. ‘It’s strange not being necessary. I can’t handle it.’
Cleo met her gaze. ‘Then make yourself necessary. What better place to start than here? You’ve been really useful already and there’s so much more to do.’
Maya nodded, accepting this as if it were an order. A small smile appeared on her lips.
‘You’re good at this, you know?’
‘At what?’
‘Steadying the ship, keeping everyone calm and focused.’
Cleo shrugged. ‘It’s easier when it’s other people.’
Maya gave her a searching look but didn’t press.
Tash spoke next, her eyes fixed on the fading darkness.
‘When Alfie died, I kept thinking about all the things I wished I’d said to him, the words I should have spoken.’
She fiddled with the silver locket round her neck, then moved to the bracelets round her thin wrists, twisting and pulling on them as if they were worry beads.
‘You did everything you could,’ Cleo murmured. ‘You loved him fiercely, that’s what matters.’
Somewhere behind them, the soft strum of Achilles’s guitar rose again, cutting through the tense quiet, followed by the sound of his warm, comforting voice.
‘Hey, ladies,’ he said, approaching them with a small smile. ‘You look worn out. I’m here to provide comfort, entertainment and the occasional bad joke. Which will it be?’
Cleo smiled but Tash glanced first at him, then her, and snorted softly.
‘He’s ridiculous.’
‘Probably,’ Cleo admitted, ‘but at least he’s being helpful.’
Achilles strummed a soft chord.
