Page 33 of Never Too Late to Date

‘The message may be, but the game’s simple. We take it in turns to tap each other’s eggs, and whoever ends up with an unbroken egg at the end is the winner and will receive good luck for the whole year.’

To her astonishment, Vicky was the one left with the complete egg, after much squealing and laughter.

‘Yes! I’ve never won anything in my life. And I could do with some luck right now.’

Why had she said that out loud? It was true, but fortunately the others were too busy talking to notice.

After eating the hard-boiled egg with yet more bread and wine, a yawn eventually escaped her that she couldn’t hold in any longer.

Angeliki stood up and gestured towards the empty plates.

‘Right, everyone’s tired. And we need to prepare. This is nothing, just the warm-up. Remember, there’ll be twenty of us here tomorrow.’

Vicky glanced at her phone. It was already two o’clock in the morning. She’d been up for nearly twenty hours. Luckily, she’d agreed to stay at Suzie’s tonight, which meant a short walk into town, rather than going all the way back to the sanctuary.

Maeve and Seamus had insisted they would stay with the animals over the main Easter celebrations, and they’d asked for a couple of volunteers to stay too.

Vicky had been prepared to do it and forgo her meal at Angeliki and Nick’s, but she was relieved she didn’t have to. Aoife, the young woman in the neighbouring room, and the guy she’d arrived with, Jordan, had stepped forward. She’d noticed him coming out of the bathroom on their floor a couple of times, even though Aoife had described him as just a mate. From the amount of giggling coming from Aoife’s room late at night, things had obviously moved on. Young love was cute, and she was sure the two of them would relish some time alone, so she was guilt-free and ready to party.

Feeling guilty about one thing or another had been part of her DNA for so long, it was hard to shake off. Guilt that she wasn’t enough wife for Ian, enough mother for Tasha and enough daughter for her parents. It was easy to look back now and see exactly how her husband had manipulated her emotions and toyed with her self-confidence, but hindsight was a wonderful thing.

Ian had been all too ready to blame her for every little thing that went wrong in his life. Sometimes she’d felt like just putting her hands up the moment he walked in the door in a foul mood and saying, ‘Whatever it is, it’s my fault,’ to shorten the inevitable sequence of events. It was something she didn’t have to worry about anymore, but in her experience men never seemed to be overly troubled by guilt; it was very much a female condition.

Angeliki and Nick stood with their arms round each other at the door to wave them off. Not so young love could also be very cute. She wasn’t looking at it for herself, but still.

Angeliki shouted after them into the night.

‘Don’t forget, back here at eleven sharp, for coffee and koulourákia, my special Easter biscuits. Spitikó of course! And then the feast!’

She and Suzie smiled and waved in Angeliki’s direction. Vicky wasn’t sure her stomach could take any more nasty surprises.

Chapter Eight

Back at Angeliki and Nick’s house late the next morning, as instructed, she and Suzie had enjoyed their coffee and biscuits while sitting outside on a couple of blue-painted wooden chairs, looking at the sea, fully aware it was the calm before the storm.

Suzie had warned her not to take more than two Easter biscuits; otherwise there was no way she’d fit everything in. Vicky couldn’t believe that the meal would be that much more filling than a proper British roast with all the trimmings, so she took three. Angeliki had made a pretty good fist of them, and she could taste the lashings of butter, along with subtle hints of vanilla and orange.

Angeliki and Nick had insisted that, as their guests, they stay away from the kitchen, or rather the enormous gas-fired barbecue that Nick had oiled within an inch of its life. It looked capable of taking a family of four on a week’s camping trip, let alone dealing with a tonne of lamb.

Vicky regretted that her work at the sanctuary and lack of a kitchen meant she’d not had a chance to make anything spitikó, but she’d bought lots of handmade chocolates from the zacharoplasteío, literally the sugar shop. The Greeks didn’t bother to hide their sweet tooth; indeed, they celebrated it. Suzie’s contribution was plenty of alcohol from the bar’s stock. There looked like being enough to sink a battleship.

As the first of the guests made their way up the path from the beach, Vicky gave Suzie a rueful smile that their moment of peace was over. They stood next to Angeliki and Nick to welcome the partygoers.

Dressed in their finery, the women in soft flowing fabrics with metallic touches or skintight white jeans and heels, and the men in smart shirts and chinos, they all carried covered containers of home-cooked food. There were shrieks of delight as people recognised each other and the noise level on the terrace went from nought to a hundred in seconds.

Wine bottles were opened, beers were popped and the shouts of Yamás! combined with clinking glasses and the explosions from the ever-present fireworks created a cacophony that made Vicky’s head whirl.

She could have sworn that shots were being fired somewhere off in the distance.

‘Surely that’s not a gun?’

Suzie laughed as she poured them both some wine, after helping serve the other guests. Although they were honoured guests themselves, it was second nature to her friend to make sure everyone had a drink.

‘Oh yes. The hunters like to let off their rifles up in the hills to add to the fun.’

It was certainly very different from the traditional roast lamb and trifle she was used to on Easter Sunday, but wasn’t that the point of coming here, to celebrate another culture?

Vicky took the glass that Suzie handed her and raised it into the air.