by Karen Swan
Her footsteps echoed behind his, falling back, giving him space as he walked through the many rooms with his usual briskness, but there was an energy to him that hadn’t been there when she’d shown him the much larger, more expensive admiral’s house on Poros or the rich Athenian’s mansion on Aegina.
The bedrooms – all four of them – were incredibly basic with just one electrical socket and a pendant wire hanging from the ceilings, but they were large and sunny with doubleaspect windows, plain white walls, old wooden floors (some with gaps she could get her hand through) and slatted shutters at every window. They had high ceilings, and although nothing was en-suite, there were two bathrooms upstairs, one of which could easily be knocked through to the main bedroom if he wished. As for the bathrooms, they were also undeniably simple – rough-walled showers with plain green tiles in one, blue in the other; the basins were old stone water troughs set on concrete piers, and the toilets came with old-school chain flushes. There was no limestone, no glass, no bronze fittings, but each room had an authentic rustic charm that all the leading-edge designers in Manhattan were aping with overpriced reclaimed pieces and vintage finishes.
Downstairs, she could see the space had indeed originally been used for the animals. The flagstone floor was uneven and heavily worn – and all the more beautiful for it – and there was a sense of a past vitality emanating from within these thick wattle walls, as though the generations of animals that had slept and fed here had somehow seeped into the fabric of the building. The kitchen, off to the right of the stairs, was enormous but clearly a practical area that had been carved latterly from the overall open-plan space. Rustic, hand-made olive-wood units were pressed back against the walls, their surfaces rubbed as smooth as marble; the butcher’s block was stained dark from use and a long preparation table ran along the side wall with a stone basin and garden tap at one end. The stove was an electric one that looked fifty years old and fairly kaput, but she supposed that was easy enough to replace and wouldn’t threaten the ‘immediately habitable’ stipulation that he had given in his brief. Personally, she liked best the stone staircase which rose between the kitchen and old stables – chalky and thick, with deep treads and low risers, it was dimpled with dinks, scuffs and knocks from over a century’s use.
She had opened up the shuttered doors of the old stables while Joe was upstairs and she watched him as he came back and stood in the centre of the space that could, in theory, become a living room. He had his hands on his hips as he turned on the spot. The roof beams splayed out high above his head, the three walls behind and to the side of him as rough as the cliffs outside, the rockfaces simply painted white. If he wanted any shelves they would have to be freestanding, she mused, although the floor curved in subtle dips in some places. But the three enormous open doors gave onto the small, cracked terrace and the patchy lawn, drenching the room with warmth and light, as she’d predicted. If he installed glazed windows here, perhaps Crittall . . . it could look stunning.
‘So, clearly the big drawback with this property is that there’s no sea view,’ she said quietly, hesitant to intrude on his thoughts.
‘I don’t mind that,’ he murmured.
‘Really?’ It seemed somewhat pointless to her to buy a holiday home all the way over here, on a Greek island, and not actually have a sea view; again, it was another reason she had left this one till last.
‘No. The sea’s easy enough to get to if I want to look out over it. I want privacy, privacy, privacy!’
‘Oh! Well, good,’ she shrugged. It was to be his house after all. ‘And I guess you could always put a bench down there if you wanted to catch the sunsets. Or even build something perhaps – a pergola, have a table and chairs.’
‘Yes, maybe.’ He nodded. ‘What about wifi? Mobile reception? Connectivity?’
‘Patchy at best. You can get some 4G at the top of the sea steps and at some points in the garden, but that’s about it.’
He nodded, looking pleased. He looked back at her. ‘You’ve done a good job, Chloe. I only briefed you – what, eight days ago?’
‘I leveraged our network; that’s what we do.’
‘You do it well.’
It was like being praised by her old headmaster when she’d won the school spelling competition, and she felt ridiculously proud and pleased with herself. She stood back as he wandered into the kitchen, again watching as his hands trailed on the deep stone sills, seeing how his eyes narrowed as he examined the integrity of the wooden windows. She stayed where she was as he bounded up the steps for yet another look at the bedrooms; let him explore, this would be his playground. She could tell he loved it, and strangely, as unpredictable as he could be – charming one minute, abrupt the next – she liked him all the more for the fact that he wasn’t seduced by the more obvious super-deluxe modernist condo or four-storey palatial mansions that his budget could buy. To her, it spoke well of him that he wanted something authentic and fitting. What did a single thirty-something like him need with a ten-bedroom villa anyway? She liked that he valued having peace and quiet over owning a status symbol, that he preferred his trees ancient and wild rather than clipped; that he would rather his only neighbours be wild goats. It said something about him, to her anyway – he had integrity, substance, soul.
Finally, his inspections complete, he came back to where she was waiting, sitting on one of the window sills. ‘It’s perfect. I’ll take it.’
‘If we can persuade the owners to sell,’ she said, having to temper his excitement with a dose of reality. He’d insisted on seeing only not-for-sale properties but that came with inherent risks.
‘Don’t worry about that. They will. Just give me their details,’ he said with a confidence that bordered on arrogance.
‘Or I can negotiate for you. I’m used to it. In normal circumstances, I head up our Corporate Partnerships department so I’m more than used to—’
He shook his head, looking back at the room again. ‘No. I’ll do it myself.’
She felt offended; didn’t he believe she could get him a good deal? She pushed herself back to standing. ‘Well then, once you’ve done that, we’ll start getting the paperwork drawn up. Procedure out here is that once an offer is accepted, you have to pay a ten per cent deposit to reserve the property.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll pay whatever they’re asking, in full, upfront.’
‘Well, it may not be that simple. We’ll need to sort out importation of funds and that needs to be overseen and approved by the Bank of Greece. But we have a lawyer who can lead you through the process if you’d like, unless you want to use your own team?’
‘There’s no need,’ he shrugged, turning away and walking back into the kitchen. ‘The money’s already in place.’
She frowned. ‘It is?’
He turned back to her and blinked, nonplussed. She could tell he was distracted, thinking about things other than financial practicalities. ‘Of course. I have business interests all over the world,’ he murmured. ‘But there is something else I’m going to need you to do for me.’
She suppressed a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest, feeling frustrated that he wanted her help, yet didn’t at the same time. ‘And what’s that?’
The spreading smile across his face was languid, charming, even excited. ‘We’re going to need another plane.’
Chapter Eighteen
Provence
Her leg twisted around his like a vine, his thigh muscle firm even at rest, his body banded by tan lines at the wrist, ankle and neck. She rested a hand on his chest and looked up at him. He was dozing, his dark lips parted slightly, lashes throwing spidery shadows on his cheeks, dark hair curling on the pillow.
Across the small room, the thin cotton curtain fluttered at the open window, the babbling sounds of the market below drifting up like a rising tide. One of the pale-blue shutters hadn’t been pinned back properly and was knocking against the wall intermittently in the breeze, sparrows fluttering onto the m
etal balcony balustrade for fleeting moments before flitting to another perch, always in search of the next crumb. Overhead, the ceiling fan whirred, a steady drumming that circulated the hot air, much like the jumbled thoughts in her head.
She dropped her head back on his chest. Why couldn’t it always be like this?
His hand tightened around her shoulder. ‘What are you thinking?’ he murmured, voice heavy with sleep. She knew he was tired; he had been called out twice last night and his clinic had been full again this morning. She wasn’t the only person he rescued.
‘Why can’t it always be like this?’ she whispered.
‘It can.’
She closed her eyes, one hot tear falling from her skin to his. ‘. . . No.’
Neither of them spoke. It was an argument they had had too many times; sometimes she started it, sometimes he, but the conclusion was always the same: these moments were the exception to the rule – snatched, stolen, rare; a fantasy for them both. Love wasn’t the answer, it wasn’t enough, it couldn’t break the seal of reality that covered and smothered them both like a plastic-wrap tomb, in sight of each other but always a step removed.
The sound of the grille being pushed back from the pharmacy windows opposite made him sigh; it was the cue they had both been dreading, the moment they had been hoping to keep pushed back with their kisses and urgent touch. But they couldn’t stop the clock’s incessant march and his afternoon clinic would be starting soon, patients already arriving, their slow treads audible on the stone steps.
He kissed the top of her head, his lips lingering against her hair for several long moments, his stomach muscles hard against her hand. Then he rose from the wooden bed, walking naked across the room to where their clothes still lay in a tangle on the floor by the door.
Pulling the sheet against her, she watched as he stepped into his boxers, shrugging his shirt on with downturned eyes. His body was slim but not built, he spent too much time behind a desk for that; there was a quiet elegance to his physique: long legs and arms, narrow hands, oval face behind wire-rimmed glasses. He was younger than her by three years, but he had been her lifebuoy in the storm, her only safe anchor and she had grabbed on to him with the zeal of a drowning woman. She despised herself for drawing him into the entropy of her world; he was still fresh for life – open and calm, optimistic, hopeful, and she knew without question that although their love might save her, it would ruin him. How could she claim to adore him and yet knowingly continue to put him in harm’s path? But the very thought of forsaking him . . . she wasn’t strong enough to do this alone. He had saved her in more ways than one.
He buttoned up the white coat, hooking his glasses over his ears, and he looked at her, that familiar mix in his eyes of yearning and resignation that it would always be like this; that it couldn’t possibly continue. For how much longer could they go on, sneaking around like this? All it would take was one sighting, one whisper and if her husband ever found out . . . She went cold. He was away for the week but he would be back at the weekend. He didn’t yet know that things had changed. ‘Thursday then?’
Their day. She nodded. ‘Of course.’
A last longing look, the door closed with a click behind him and for a few minutes more, she stared at the painting on the opposite wall – a cliff scene with turquoise seas, white-sailed boats on the horizon. She felt hollow, scooped out, as she always did when their time together came to its inevitable end. It was the only thing she had to sustain her, the only thing that was true in a life built around lies, but the hours here were too fleeting and always, always felt as fragile as a butterfly’s wing. She might be crushed at any moment . . .
Feeling the familiar prickle of fear, she rose and dressed quickly, taking care to tread lightly on the boards; his surgery was directly below. She could hear the hum of his voice coming up through the rafters, the scrape of a chair.
She got down on her knees to ensure nothing had rolled under the bed – not an earring or key, any lingering proof she had been up here. The clinic door was opening and closing frequently now, the buzz in the waiting room beginning to grow. But she didn’t take the main stairs down. Heading through the small kitchen, she opened the door onto the fire escape and, with her shoes in her hands, silently picked her way barefoot down the iron treads. The feel of the hot ground on her soles was a relief but as she pushed her feet into her sandals, she knew she wasn’t in the clear yet; she wouldn’t be safe even in the back alleys that would bring her out to the Place Bonnet, three hundred metres away. No. Only when the crowds swallowed her whole and she was one of the faceless multitude could she breathe again and know she would live to see another day. At least until Thursday.
Hydra
They were panting again as they emerged through the pines. The combination of the craggy, hilly landscape and merciless sun made for a bootcamper’s dream – in fact, Joe was more like a drill sergeant than an engineering boss the way he’d led their march – and they both stopped with their hands on their hips as they looked down at the view. The bay was small and deeply curved, the water an inviting turquoise, so clear she could see the rocks and stones from here. Some sunbathers were lying on brightly coloured towels on the fine-shingled beach – it was the nearest they got to sand here. A small building hugged the beach at the back, pale-blue wooden chairs and tables shaded beneath a woven rattan awning; she could see people sitting there already, their drinks glasses bubbling with condensation, elbows on the railings as they looked down towards the water. A few swimmers were splashing and playing bat and ball games in the shallows, others floating like starfish; a little further out, a few small motorboats were all bobbing out of time with one another.
Joe looked at her and grinned. He had taken off his t-shirt halfway up and the sweat trickled down his tanned, finely muscled body. She hadn’t allowed herself the same privilege – she didn’t have any swimwear with her and was wearing plain grey jersey Calvin Klein underwear beneath her new vest and shorts.
‘Lunch?’
‘Oh God, please,’ she groaned. They had been ‘exploring’ for most of the morning. She had come down to breakfast to find he had already been into the port and ‘settled everything’ with the elderly couple who owned the farmhouse. She had no idea what he’d done or how, but the agent had sent her a follow-up text, confirming the deeds would be with them by mid-afternoon, hence his idea of this excursion whilst they waited.
They began to walk down the slope, the stony path making it hard going with the threat of turned ankles. ‘The locals must be as fit as fleas,’ she mumbled, grateful that her boxing classes had meant she could keep up with him reasonably well.
Within half an hour they arrived in the bay of Limnioniza and headed straight for the tiny taverna, led by their noses and the wonderful aroma of freshly grilled fish.
‘Two, please,’ Joe said, holding up his fingers as a waitress met them on the deck.
She led them past a giant tank where lobsters were crawling, their pincers banded shut, antennae twitching and feeling hopelessly against the glass. They sat at a table in the back corner, overlooking the beach. There were only five tables in all and the others were taken, couples talking in low voices, everything in the dim shade seeming muted and gentle out of the fierce heat. Music played quietly in the background, the clatter of pans and the sudden sizzle of fish coming through from the kitchen.
‘Last table? We got lucky,’ he said to her, as the waitress handed them their menus.
‘I get the feeling you were born lucky,’ Chloe quipped, sinking back in the chair and basking in the relief that came from finally being in the shade. She checked her shoulders and arms for signs of sunburn. Unlike him, she couldn’t expect to just turn golden; any colour she got would have to be earned, emerging slowly from beneath hundreds of applications of SPF.
‘I think luck’s a state of mind. What’s the saying? The harder I work, the luckier I get?’ he said, eyes flicking up to her, before flitting off again as he scanned th
e menu. ‘Shall we have beer and the fish of the day?’ he asked her as the waitress set down paper napkins and fresh cutlery in front of them.
‘Sure,’ she nodded, as he ordered that.
She checked her phone. She had missed a call from Pelham. She dialled voicemail and put it to her ear, marvelling that she could get reception here.
‘Chloe, darling.’ His voice was like warm caramel being poured into her ear. ‘The river cruise was splendid! So special. It was raining torrents of petals. Rissa simply loved it. Well, apart from the petal that hit her straight in the eye when she looked up. We were worried it might have scratched her cornea but the doctor gave her some drops and said it should be fine in a day or two. But apart from that, darling, just wonderful. I don’t know how you do it, coming up with these things!’ Chloe suppressed a smile. Poor Rissa. Pelham’s seduction techniques ought to come with a health and safety warning. ‘Anyway, we’re just heading over to Washington – the state, not the city. A friend’s granddaughter is getting married and they’re letting us barge in. I don’t suppose you could be a sweetheart and think of a gift for the girl? She’s twenty-two I think . . . Is she? Yes, I think that’s it. Brown hair anyway.’ Chloe arched an eyebrow. That was it? She was supposed to find a wedding gift on the strength of that? ‘We’re just at the airport now but I’ll send you our address for where we’re staying in Seattle. Thanks ever so – you’re a darling. Toodlepip.’
She disconnected with a sigh. Joe was watching her. ‘They’re a high-maintenance breed, your clients,’ he said with a wry look, pouring them both some water which the waitress had brought over, along with olives, bread and oil.
