‘I’ve found the kitchen door under all this,’ she said, meaning the mound of sludge she’d been clearing, ‘or what’s left of it.’
Together, they lifted the door off the ground and set it against the wall.
Now, all they needed was a handy villager to repair it and hang it once more in its rightful place.
13
By the end of the day, Cleo was hungry and exhausted and the trek back up the mountain seemed interminable.
When she finally reached the campsite, she went straight to the kitchen for some food, passing by Lesley and Fran’s tent. Through the open door, she saw Lesley dramatically draped on her sleeping bag like a Victorian heroine, with Fran hunched up beside her.
‘I’m faint with hunger,’ Lesley groaned, ‘but I can’t eat any more of those lentils. And my back’s seized up. You’ll have to give me a massage.’
Fran spotted Cleo just outside and seemed to draw strength from her smile.
‘No,’ she said quietly, straightening up and starting to rise.
Lesley rolled onto her side and stared at her sister. ‘What do you mean,no?’
‘I’m tired,’ Fran said. ‘And I’m going to dinner with Cleo.’
Lesley sat bolt upright. ‘Dinner? Without me?’
‘You don’t want lentils,’ Fran replied in a surprisingly steady voice. ‘And they might need me to help with serving. So yes, I’m going.’
Cleo felt a spark of admiration. It was the second time that day Fran had used the word no, and each time it seemed to sand away a millimetre of the shell she’d lived in all her life, growing up as she had in Lesley’s shadow.
Lesley turned white and rigid with anger.
‘Well if that’s how it is,’ she snapped, ‘don’t expect me to speak to you later. I’m deeply wounded.’
Fran simply gave a small, apologetic smile and walked out.
Volunteers had made an enormous communal pot of rich vegetable stew which had been placed on a large table outside for everyone to help themselves.
Fran was obviously popular with the villagers, some of whom beckoned to her to sit down with them, then both women tucked in gratefully. Cleo was impressed Fran had absorbed a few Greek phrases, which she tried out on the locals, much to their delight and amusement.
Around the campfire, someone began playing a battered mandolin. Maya joked with Achilles while Cleo braided the hair of a little girl who wanted ‘long princess hair’. Fran laugh – really laughed, for the first time since Cleo had met her.
When they finally peeled off to bed, Cleo slept soundly and by dawn, the campsite was stirring again. The villagers were anxious to get back to work.
Cleo rose quickly and dressed, pulling up the hood of her sweatshirt against the morning chill.
Behind her, the sun hit the mountains at an angle that made broken Villa Ariadne shine gold and copper. Even in ruins, there was a fierce beauty about the place, the kind that comes from resilience.
Safe from the floods, it seemed to whisper, ‘Don’t worry about me, you can fix me later.’
Cleo hadn’t spoken much to Katerina since the disaster, but she’d seen her about the campsite, offering help to whoever needed it. Now, she spotted the old woman sitting at a table outside the kitchen area, eating breakfast.
Konstantin – Mr Makris – was at the other end of the table with Marina beside him, but after a few moments, she rose and went to sit with Katerina instead.
This struck Cleo as odd. Why weren’t they all eating together? Konstantin and Katerina were connected through Marina, after all, and must know each other well.
It wasn’t till later in the day, when Cleo and Marina walked down to the village together to help with the ongoing clean-up, that Cleo learned the truth.
Marina explained it was Konstantin’s father who had betrayed Katerina’s father to the Nazis in World War Two.
‘The two men had been friends,’ she said, ‘but they fell out big time when Katerina’s father joined the Cretan Resistance, and Konstantin’s father, my grandfather, didn’t. Then, after the Resistance helped some Allied troops hiding in the district escape from Crete, there was a huge witch-hunt. It’s generally believed my grandfather accepted a bribe from the Nazis and named Katerina’s father as one of the perpetrators. He was executed in September 1941.
