It was tiring having to shout and the women fell silent again while they watched the village come closer.
Soon they could make out quite a few boats anchored to the small jetty or bobbing out to sea.
A row of shops and restaurants with blue and white awnings flanked the harbour, and there were a handful of people sitting on towels or sun loungers on the beach.
No one was swimming though. It was late April and perhaps the water was still too cold, or folk were preparing to go indoors and get changed; it was gone 5p.m., after all. It’d soon be sundown and time for drinks and dinner.
Before long, they were nearing a large landing jetty on the far side of the harbour. Cleo, who lived in London, breathed a sigh of relief.
It had been a long day and she’d been up since the crack of dawn. After flying to Chania, she’d had a ninety-minute taxi ride through the mountains to the port. Then there’d been a longish wait for the ferry. There were no cars or roads in the remote little village, so it wasn’t exactly easy to reach.
She heard raised voices below and a group of dark-skinned, dark-haired men seemed to appear from nowhere and assemble at the end of the dock, ready to assist the skipper.
By Cleo’s reckoning, the ferry was only about a quarter full and it didn’t take long to hoist her bulging bag onto her back, descend the narrow steps and disembark onto the quayside.
With Tash by her side, she stood for several minutes by the kiosk that sold ferry tickets and waited for the others to arrive.
‘Have you been on this retreat before?’ she asked, and Tash, who sounded as if she was from the UK, too, shook her head.
‘I’ve never done one. I don’t really know what to expect. I only booked at the last minute, to be honest. My son persuaded me. I guess he thought I needed a break. Either that, or he was desperate to get rid of me for a week and have the house to himself.’ She raised her eyebrows and gave a wry smile. ‘What about you?’
‘It’s my first one, too,’ Cleo replied. ‘I wasn’t really intending to come either. I was feeling a bit burned out and decided to book a cheap break somewhere, probably in the UK. I started looking for places to stay in the West Country and South Wales then, quite by coincidence, up popped the retreat.’
‘How strange! Maybe Google got Crete muddled up with Cornwall,’ Tash joked.
Cleo smiled and shrugged. ‘Anyway, the more I read, the more tempted I became. Villa Ariadne looked so beautiful and the retreat just sounded so, well, sohealing. I couldn’t possibly afford to go, so I did something I’ve never done before. I spoke to my bank and told them I’d been through a tough time and needed a break. To my amazement, they agreed to give me a loan.’
Tash raised her eyebrows. ‘Well done you!’
Cleo frowned. ‘I’m not sure going on holiday could really be classed as making good use of the money, but it’s done now. I do feel slightly guilty, like I should be spending the cash on my kids or a new kitchen or something. Mine’s decidedly dilapidated.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Tash commented. ‘I’d never have been able to afford to come if my mum hadn’t paid. My son put her up to it. I refused to accept at first, but the two of them ganged up on me and in the end, I caved in.’
Now Cleo knew she and Tash were roughly in the same boat, she felt a bit better.
‘Well, we’ll just have to make sure we have such a good time and come back feeling so fit and healthy, every penny will have been worth it.’
Tash turned and gave Cleo a high five.
‘Agreed. Mind you, I’m slightly worried what my son will get up to,’ she went on. ‘He’s sixteen. I’ve asked my mum to pop by when he’s least expecting it. Luckily, she lives round the corner.
‘We love her dearly but she can be terrifying when she wants. I’d have asked her to stay over with Jamie – my son – but he refused. He said he didn’t need a babysitter, least of all his gran. Don’t blame him really. There’s no way I would’ve wanted my gran round at his age if my mum was away.’
‘Me neither!’ Cleo said with a laugh, and she found herself warming even more to her companion. Long-limbed and slender, Tash had a narrow face and a V-shaped chin. Her straight, well-defined nose complemented her features and her hazel eyes were close together but bright. The overall effect was quirky, appealing and perhaps a little fragile.
She sounded reasonably confident, though Cleo couldn’t help noticing how she fiddled constantly as she spoke, either with the silver locket round her neck or the string bracelets round her thin wrists. She had lots of the bracelets in different colours and some had beads attached. Perhaps they held some special meaning for her.
Before Cleo had time to mention her own son and daughter, they were joined by two frumpish-looking older women, who introduced themselves as Lesley and Fran. They were sisters, they explained, from Cheshire.
‘We’ve had a terrible journey,’ Lesley said, frowning. She was of average height and round, with bowl-shaped, grey-brown hair. ‘There was a baby next to us on the flight which screamed non-stop. We couldn’t sleep and the food was inedible.
‘We’re both starving. If we’d known we’d have to wait so long for the ferry, we’d have bought something in town, but nobody told us 5p.m. could mean anything between five and five thirty.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Cleo, her heart sinking. She didn’t need to be around negative types; she had enough problems of her own.
‘Hopefully we’ll have a delicious supper. The food on the retreat looks amazing,’ she said brightly.
Lesley pursed her lips and didn’t reply.
