Suddenly, she was alone and it was totally silent. She looked down the road the bus driver had pointed along but she couldn’t see anything other than trees and hills. Was there really a magnificent villa tucked away there? She took the leaflet out of her handbag but it didn’t help very much so she set off at a smart pace in what she hoped was the right direction.
The sun had climbed high in the sky and Alice soon felt she’d been walking for hours but consoled herself with the fact that you couldn’t go far wrong on an island. Then, as she rounded a bend, she saw a large white sign with the words ‘Villa Argenti’ on it. She sighed with relief and followed a tree-lined driveway until she came to a pair of large gates which stood open in welcome.
What now? she wondered. There was nobody around to take her money and she suddenly felt shy about entering the garden but she had come all this way to see it and she didn’t want to miss out now.
‘Hello?’ she called but there was no reply. She looked around. She really was the only soul about and, if that was the case, surely a quick look wouldn’t do any harm.
She followed a neat brick path and descended some steps and, suddenly, it was there. The Villa Argenti. It was a large wedding cake of a building with pillars and balconies and enormous doors and sweeping steps. Alice had never seen anything like it in her life. Its honey-coloured stone glowed warmly in the sunshine and Alice had the peculiar feeling that the house was actually smiling at her and she smiled right back at it. It had every right to smile too because it had the good fortune to be in one of the most beautiful settings Alice had ever seen. Completely surrounded by gardens which Alice couldn’t wait to explore, the villa was also positioned high enough to have one of the best views along the coastline of Kethos.
What a pity the house was not open to the public, she thought, although there was plenty to see in the garden.
Leaving the house behind her, Alice walked down yet more steps into a world of green. There was an immaculate emerald lawn that looked as if no human being had ever dared to walk on it and Alice was loath to now but there were no signs to tell her not to so she walked as quickly and delicately as she could, crossing to a little path lined with low walls which had been planted with flowering shrubs. It was one of those times when you needed at least three pairs of eyes to take everything in so Alice slowed her pace because she wanted to see everything: each tree, shrub and flower, and every pond, fountain and temple.
Alice had always wanted a garden. Their family home had a long strip of uninspiring grass which had never been very well tended and her little cottage only had a tiny enclosed courtyard. She’d bought a plastic chair and a terracotta pot in which she grew a rose bush but it wasn’t the stuff of dreams.
But this garden was the stuff of dreams. It was laid out in wide terraces which ended in a large stone wall on top of a cliff which plummeted down to the sea. It was a dizzying vista and Alice stood on the terrace, daring to lean on the iron railings that were the only thing preventing her from tumbling onto the craggy rocks far below.
Gazing out across the coastline, she suddenly felt sad and couldn’t help wishing that her dad was there with her. He would have loved to have seen the villa and the gardens. She would have to send him a postcard or two so that he could at least appreciate it all from afar.
Turning her back on the sea for a moment, she spotted an ornate white bench underneath a fig tree. Sitting down on it a moment later, she closed her eyes, her face drinking in the warm rays of the sun. She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting there for or even if she nodded off for a few blissful moments but, when she opened her eyes, a young man was approaching her. He was tall and had dark hair and olive skin and he was wearing khaki trousers and a dark grey T-shirt. If Alice had worn such colours, her complexion would have drained away to nothing and her sister would have berated her for her bad taste but, on him, they looked wonderfully masculine.
‘Hello,’ he said in English as he pushed an ancient wheelbarrow in front of him.
‘The gardens aren’t closing, are they?’ Alice asked, fearing she was being rounded up and pushed out. ‘I’ve lost all track of time.’
‘This place can do that to you,’ the man said. ‘But, no, they’re not closing. Not for a few hours.’
‘Good,’ she said, liking his gentle accent. ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave yet.’ She looked up into his smiling face. ‘Do you work here?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I just like coming and pushing a wheelbarrow around the grounds from time to time.’
She blushed. ‘Sorry – it was a silly question.’
He grinned at her. ‘No, I’m sorry. And, yes, I do work here. I’ve worked here for a very long time.’
Alice smiled. ‘It must be a wonderful place to work.’
‘It is, yes,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else.’
‘You’re very lucky.’
‘I am,’ he said simply and then he put his wheelbarrow down and sat on the bench beside her.
Alice shuffled up a little, not used to having handsome men sitting so close to her.
‘And where do you work? You’re here on holiday, right?’ the young man asked her.
Alice nodded. ‘I’m here for a week – with my sister.’
‘And your job? You have a job back in England – right?’
‘Yes, I’m from England and I do have a job but do you mind if we don’t talk about it? I wouldn’t like to spoil this beautiful place by talking about something so dreary.’
The man nodded. ‘I’m sorry to hear that it is dreary. That is a great shame.’
Alice nodded again. ‘I don’t really know what happened. I mean, you never plan these things, do you? You don’t grow up thinking, I want a really dreary job when I grow up. I want to be bored out of my skull and fill my days doing meaningless things that don’t seem to add anything worthwhile to the world.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘But I said I wasn’t going to talk about it and I wouldn’t want to bore you.’
‘You’re not boring me,’ he said, his dark eyes warm and attentive and, all of a sudden, Alice was talking – talking like she’d never talked in her life because nobody had ever really listened to her before except her father. She told him about her job and her boss and how bored she was there and how nobody ever seemed to notice her or care about what she thought.
She told him about her father and how worried she was about him even though he always said he was all right and that she shouldn’t worry. She told him about her sister and how cross she made her and how she’d thought this holiday would change things between them.
‘Gosh,’ she said once she’d finished, ‘I didn’t mean to say all that. I’m not quite sure where it all came from.’
‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘You needed to talk it all out of you.’
She smiled at his funny phrasing but still felt horribly embarrassed at having unburdened herself to a complete stranger and so stood up and started looking for an escape route and then she remembered something. ‘I – er – I haven’t actually paid to get in,’ she said. ‘There was nobody at the gate.’
The young man waved his hand dismissively. ‘There’s no need.’
‘But this place must cost a fortune to keep going.’
‘Yes, but the owner has plenty of money. He doesn’t need yours.’ He stood up and followed her along a footpath and there was a moment of silence between them as their feet crunched along the gravel.
‘Did you come to see Aphrodite?’ the young man said at last.
‘Pardon?’ Alice said, surprised by his question.
‘The statue of Aphrodite – over there by the fountain. Most tourists come here to see her. Perhaps you missed her.’
‘I think I must have,’ Alice said, annoyed with herself. She thought she’d seen everything.
‘They say she grants wishes,’ the man said with a little smile.
‘Do they?’ Alice said.
‘If your wish is for love or beauty,
it will be granted.’
‘I don’t believe in wishes,’ Alice said.
‘Just because you don’t believe in something, doesn’t make it less real.’
She blinked in surprise. ‘Perhaps I’ll make a wish another day,’ she said, ‘if I come back.’
‘I hope you do,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
He turned to go and she watched until he was out of sight and then glanced in the direction of the avenue of statues. She’d walked that way earlier but now realised that she hadn’t been paying attention. She’d been thinking about Stella and her head had been full of worries which meant she hadn’t really seen the beauty of the place she was in.
She took out the leaflet from her handbag. She’d remembered reading something about the statues there.
The Goddess Garden is a place like no other, the leaflet proclaimed. Travel back to Ancient Greece and meet Hera, Athena, Artemis and Aphrodite whilst enjoying the lush beauty of the garden with its fountains and sea views.
It was, indeed, a beautiful part of the garden with its enormous urns spilling over with bright flowers and its fountains cooling the air with watery mist. Alice walked up to the first statue which was standing beside the protection of a cypress tree. Its figure was long and boyish and her hair was scraped away from her rather serious-looking face. She was reaching behind her shoulder to where she was carrying her arrows and her other hand was resting upon the head of a faithful hound.
‘Artemis,’ Alice said, ‘goddess of the hunt.’
She walked on and found the next goddess standing by a small pool. She was carrying a sheaf of wheat, a gentle expression gracing her face.
‘Demeter,’ Alice said, ‘goddess of the harvest.’ She smiled because she knew that her knowledge would have intensely annoyed Stella had she been there.
Alice walked on by the other goddesses and then she saw her. Standing in full sunlight at the end of the walk was Aphrodite. Alice recognised her at once because she was quite unlike all the other statues in that she was smiling. Artemis had worn the expression of a head teacher and Demeter had looked dreamy but Aphrodite was positively beaming with happiness, her long curls tumbling down her back and the finest of silken garments only just covering her curves as her arms reached up to lift her hair away from her face. Alice couldn’t stop looking at her.
‘So you’re the one everybody comes to see, are you?’ She took a step towards her. ‘Do you really grant wishes?’ she asked, looking into the blank eyes. She reached out, her hand resting on Aphrodite’s gown which was warm from the sunshine. ‘Heaven only knows I could use a granted wish or two right now.’
Alice thought for a moment. What exactly would she wish for? The health and happiness of her dear father, of course. A better, more normal relationship with her sister. But what for herself? If she was being really selfish, what would she wish for herself? Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty and the young gardener had said that wishes to do with those would be granted.
What would I wish for? Alice wondered, looking up into the beautiful face of Aphrodite. Should I wish to be as beautiful as you?
The warmth of the stone statue seemed to seep into Alice’s arm and she felt the strange tingling sensation that one feels after five minutes too long in the sunshine.
She shook herself out of her reverie.
This is silly, she told herself, and she quickly left the garden.
Chapter 9
It had been very remiss of Milo not even to ask the English girl her name. He should have found out a little bit more about her but, by the time he’d thought to do so, she had long disappeared.
He’d recognised her as one of the tourists he’d seen in Kethos Town the day before. She’d been with the beautiful blonde girl who had looked so moody. Milo now realised that this was the English girl’s sister. He shook his head. He knew the sister’s name but not the girl he’d sat with for half an hour. How absurd was that? He felt as if he knew everything about this girl’s life from the father whom she obviously loved more than life itself to the job that seemed to be swallowing her whole.
He smiled as he remembered the way her past had tumbled out of her mouth with no regard for what he might be thinking. There was something curiously endearing about that. She’d had a certain sweetness and he’d adored her honesty when she’d tried to pay her entrance fee and she had the prettiest blue eyes he’d ever seen. He should have kept her talking at least until he’d finished work and then he could have got to know her better.
Perhaps she’ll come back, he thought. Maybe he should make a wish on the statue of Aphrodite so that the English girl would return. He smiled at the thought. He didn’t really believe in wishes even though he told all the tourists that he did. It was all just a bit of fun, wasn’t it? Still, as he walked towards the statue before the last of the sun’s rays dipped behind the villa casting Aphrodite into shade, he knew that he wanted this wish to be granted more than anything else.
Alice felt strangely flat when she returned to the villa, which was odd, really, because she’d had such a wonderful day. She knew what it was, of course. It was the gardener she’d met.
Why did she tell him those things, she wondered, blushing at the memory of having revealed so much to somebody she’d only just met. Perhaps it had been part of the magic that was the Villa Argenti. Perhaps it had woven its spell over her and had broken down her inhibitions. She’d certainly never behaved like that before in her life. She never expressed her true feelings to anybody around her because nobody ever seemed interested enough but this gardener had really listened to her.
He seemed to have cared too. She remembered the gentle look in his deep brown eyes and the expression on his face as she was leaving. But then something occurred to her. He was a good-looking young man who probably met and flirted with hundreds of impressionable tourists every year. Alice had been just another gullible young woman who would fall for his easy charm and handsome face, hadn’t she? Only she hadn’t given him a chance and she was glad of that now.
Are you? Are you really glad? a little voice inside her asked. Why did you up and leave him so quickly when he was obviously interested in you? How many chances like that come along?
Alice laughed. No chances like that ever came along in her life. She thought about Ben Alexander at work and how the only time he looked at her was when he was handing her a member of staff’s sick note.
‘Here you go, Anna. Another one for the collection.’ His brief eye contact was what got her through whole days of boredom and that was a very sad way to live. But here, on this beautiful magical island, she’d held the sole attention of one of the most handsome men she had ever seen and she had batted it away as if she received such attention all the time. What had she been thinking of? And what was it about Kethos that was making her so reflective? She’d never really stood still and examined her life before but she was beginning to realise how unhappy she was and she knew that something had to change.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Stella said as Alice walked out onto the terrace. ‘You’ve been gone for hours.’
Alice couldn’t help but be surprised that her sister had even noticed her absence. Sitting down on the sun lounger beside her, she wondered whether to tell Stella about the young gardener she’d met but decided not to. For the time being, she wanted to keep him secret – a wonderful secret.
‘What are you grinning about?’ Stella suddenly asked, peering at her from behind her oversized sunglasses.
‘Nothing,’ Alice said.
‘Don’t lie – you’ve got a silly smile plastered right across your face.’
‘Have I?’
‘Yes, you have,’ Stella said.
‘I’m just happy.’
‘Are you?’ Stella said. ‘Well, I’m bored.’
‘I’m not surprised if you’ve just been sitting here all day doing nothing.’
‘What was your villa like, then?’
‘It was—’ Alice paused. If she told her si
ster just how beautiful it was, Stella might decide to visit it for herself and Alice knew exactly what would happen then. She would be bound to run into the gardener and then he wouldn’t even notice Alice any more. It was a pattern that had repeated itself since the girls had become teenagers and it had happened with at least two of Alice’s boyfriends.
Alice took a deep breath. She didn’t like telling lies but this was a time when a lie was definitely needed. ‘Oh, the villa was deadly dull,’ she said. ‘You were right. I don’t know why I went there.’
‘I told you!’ Stella said. ‘Didn’t I say?’
‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘I should’ve listened to you.’
Stella nodded. ‘Nobody ever listens to me but I’m always right and I don’t know about you,’ she continued, ‘but I’m going to spend the entire week right here.’ She stretched out her long legs which were gleaming with sun lotion and settled back to soak up the rays.
‘I thought you said you were bored.’
‘I am but at least I’m getting a good tan.’
‘You really shouldn’t lie out in the sun all day,’ Alice said.
‘Oh, don’t start!’ Stella said. ‘I haven’t come to Greece to remain all pale and pasty like you.’
‘I’m just saying that you want to take care of yourself.’
‘Oh, lighten up, Alice. Stop worrying about everything and start enjoying life!’
Alice sat stunned for a moment. Not because of her sister’s rude tone – she was quite used to that – but because perhaps for the first time in her life, Stella had actually given Alice some advice worth listening to.
That night, Alice couldn’t sleep. Stella’s words kept somersaulting around her head in a teasing chant.
‘Stop worrying about everything and start enjoying life!’
Alice sat up in bed. Start enjoying life!
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself. Stella was right. She was always worrying about everything, wasn’t she? Perhaps it was time to relax a little and have some fun.
Wish You Were Here Page 6
