Harriet kicked at some pebbles by her feet. ‘Not as daft as spending the rest of my life never doing anything exciting or interesting. Which is all that lies ahead of me at the moment.’
‘Come on, blooming Marco Polo, we’d better get back into town before it gets dark,’ I said.
‘And the crime rate here is lower. I checked,’ she said defiantly.
‘We are off for two days in Rab tomorrow morning,’ Anna said. ‘I expect you will want to go and live there next.’
‘I probably will,’ Harriet said, lifting her chin, ‘and if I do you can come and visit me there instead.’
I pulled out my phone, feeling it rattling in my pocket with another message.
Ben
Jenna says her father needs another cat on his farm, and he wants to give Mrs Fluffy a home. Jenna wants to adopt Buster and Darth. Would you like to keep Buzz? He’s very sweet and playful. He especially likes smoked salmon which we brought home for him, leftovers after we had dinner last night. He probably wouldn’t expect it every day *smiley face emoji*.
Me
I suppose I could. By the way I’m sure there is a tin of beluga caviar in the cupboard if he gets peckish.
25
‘We will be arriving in Rab in about two and a half hours,’ Rocco said the next morning at breakfast. ‘As you know, Rab is famous for cake.’
‘I like the sound of that already,’ Harriet murmured.
‘Rab cake was invented by the nuns in tribute for the visit from a pope back in the twelfth century. It is mostly made from almonds and maraschino cherry liqueur,’ Rocco continued.
‘Do they do one that is gluten free and non-alcoholic?’ Dawn wondered out loud.
‘Unlikely, but you can ask,’ Rocco said patiently. ‘While we are here you can visit the place where it is made. The tour guide is a very old friend of mine, Ludmilla. She will take you through the old town, to the monastery, to magnificent viewpoints. The rest of the day is yours to do as you please, and we are here most of tomorrow too, so plenty of time to enjoy this lovely island. This evening dinner is on board at seven as usual. The menu is up on the information board.’
‘Hmm,’ Evelyn said sometime later as we went to see what the chef had in mind for our evening meal. ‘Stuffed peppers and beef stew with prunes. I hope it’s better than it sounds. I haven’t had a prune since the day I left boarding school. And then we only ate them so we could count off the stones on the side of our bowls. Tinker tailor soldier. Mine said the day I left school that I would marry a spy, which in fact was probably true, although I never did get to find out exactly what it was that Douglas did. He seemed to know a lot of important people and made a great deal of money. Eleanor, a friend of mine, married a man called Douglas too, but he was the dullest man on earth. Still, it was a popular name back then. You wouldn’t do that to a child these days, would you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. All those old-fashioned names are coming back. My great-niece is called Winifred and her brother is called Herbert,’ Marjorie said.
‘Good heavens, poor little chap. I stand corrected,’ Evelyn said. ‘Now then, we have half an hour before we have to meet up on the quayside for our walking tour, so I shall go and get ready.’
By eleven thirty, we had docked in Rab, alongside an impressive and very high town wall made of huge chunks of golden stone. Heaven knows how they built it. It was another bright, sunny day, and this time a lot of people wanted to join the tour group.
We disembarked a few minutes later and our guide Ludmilla was waiting for us by the side of the boat. She was a petite, attractive woman of about forty, and she greeted Rocco with a broad smile and a very fond hug, while Anjelica looked down on proceedings from the upper deck of the boat, leaning perilously over the rail with narrowed eyes and a rather intimidating twist to her mouth.
‘Here she is,’ Rocco said, ‘the best tour guide on the island. Ludmilla knows a lot of things.’
‘She certainly does,’ Anjelica called out from her vantage point, ‘many things. Take full advantage of her as others before you have done.’
Rocco ignored her.
‘Ludmilla will take you up through the town walls, to the upper street and the monastery and describe some of the history of Rab through the centuries.’
‘History,’ Anjelica snorted. ‘She has a lot of history, I can assure you.’
Rocco sent his wife a furious look and she disappeared back into the ship.
‘So now, I will leave you in Ludmilla’s capable hands and look forward to hearing all about it when you return.’
Our little group shuffled off, following Ludmilla, who was heading towards an archway into a garden. Looking back, I saw Rocco still watching from the quayside for a few minutes, with a rather wistful expression on his face. And then Anjelica appeared at the side of the ship and threw a bowl of salad over him. And then she threw the metal bowl as well, which clanged at his feet.
‘Ti si lasica,’ she shouted, ‘you weasel!’
