Page 82 of Villa of Secrets

‘Wasn’t she totally selfless in her efforts to get the war to end?’ Rebecca said. ‘I wish I’d inherited a little more of that quality. Being selfless I mean. You’ve got it, Naomi. You’ll do anything for anybody and you’ve always been like that. I remember that from our childhood.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Except, to be honest, I always saw you as an adult. I was only five when you were Dora’s age, but I remember how much I wanted to be exactly like you.’

Naomi smiled, her mood lifting. ‘You were so pretty, Rebecca. Whenever Bubba made me a new dress or knitted me a jumper, she would make an almost exact replica for you out of the leftovers. It was like having my own real live doll.’

‘I recall being totally heartbroken when you moved over to Crete to study nursing. I was so lonely.’

‘You were? I didn’t realise I meant that much to you to be honest.’

Rebecca lowered her eyes shyly. ‘I still have all the letters you sent me. Do you remember them? I must have been eight or nine. Every time you wrote to Bubba you’d include a little note for me? In one of them you told me you’d helped sew someone’s finger back on. I was so proud of you, I took it to school and showed everyone.’ She laughed. ‘You were my absolute hero.’

‘And you kept all the letters? All these years?’

‘I wanted to show them to my children . . .’

Naomi’s heart went out to her sister. ‘How are you now?’

‘Okay, I guess. I’m still afraid all the time, and I’ve become terribly superstitious about talking about it.’

‘Okay, we’ll avoid the subject for now.’

‘Thank you, Naomi. You know, I can’t believe how quickly Dora grew up. She seems to have gone from a silly girl obsessed with kissing to a fully blown freedom fighter in a matter of weeks.’

‘Don’t forget that in her era there was no such thing as a teenager. You were a child, wearing children’s clothes and playing childish games, then you were a woman with all the responsibilities adulthood brought with it. Any clue where the story’s leading?’ Naomi asked.

‘Not yet. She’s just saved Tassos’ life. She dismisses it as nothing because Tassos had saved her life by killing the soldier at the lake.’ Their eyes met. ‘That’s what I mean, Naomi: when someone does something for me, it never occurs to me to repay the favour. I appreciate what they’ve done but that’s it. Was I very spoiled as a child?’

Naomi laughed. ‘You were indeed. Very loved too. I think you were all the more special because our parents died a couple of weeks after your birth, and everyone was sorry for you. I was devastated when they were lost at sea and I can’t imagine what Bubba went through, losing her only child. So all the cooing and admiration you got lifted our spirits. We all doted on you.’

‘I wish I’d really known them, you know. I remember the stories you used to tell me about Papa and his boat.’

‘Telling you the things Papa had told me helped me get over my loss. I loved him very much, and the first thing that attracted me to Costa was that he looked a little like Papa.’

Rebecca frowned for a moment. ‘I can’t remember what made me fall in love with Fritz . . . but I do love him intensely.’

Naomi recognised a cue to investigate another chunk of Rebecca’s obvious unhappiness, but after glancing at the clock she ripped off her apron and said, ‘Changing the subject, I need to get to the grocer’s before all the best tomatoes have gone. Will you listen out for Bubba?’

‘Of course. Look, why don’t you take a break? Go and have a coffee with Heleny or something. Take your phone and if I can’t manage, I’ll call you.’

*

The moment Naomi closed the front door, Rebecca heard Bubba’s TV go on in the next room. She wondered how long her grandmother had been awake, perhaps listening to their conversation. She popped her head into the room that had been the family’s lounge when she left for London.

‘How are you today, Bubba?’ she asked brightly.

‘I have to do my exercises. Where’s Naomi?’

‘Ah, she’s slipped to the shops. She’ll be back soon.’ She stopped herself. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you have to do and I’ll help,’ Rebecca said as she sat on the edge of the bed.

‘That’s kind, Rebecca, thank you,’ Bubba replied with a twinkle in her eye. ‘I need that round cushion under my dead knee, then I have to try to lift my heel off the bed ten times.’

‘Simple enough. Let’s get going, shall we?’

‘Tell me about the diary while I do my gymnastics, child.’

‘I’m up to where you’re learning to shoot with Kapitanos Nikos.’

‘Ah, that man filled me with an uneasy mix of trust and terror.’ She stared into the distance, clamping her jaw every time she lifted her heel. ‘He took me to a narrow clay ditch about three metres deep, at the bottom of a gorge. The place was a deeply eroded riverbed that contained little more than a stream.’

‘That’s where he taught you to shoot?’