‘I hate myself for wallowing in this self-pity. I mean, it’s my job to keep the family together and I failed. I feel as if Megan’s taken my life away with her.’
‘And you resent it, and then you feel guilty?’
Zoë nodded, then downed the last of her Guinness.
‘What we need is a holiday!’ Trisha grinned. ‘Come on, let’s make a plan. You used to drive me crazy going on about Crete. Let’s go and find the terrifying old goat you told me about. Give him what for.’
Zoë closed her eyes and the memory of that last Cretan holiday came rushing back, Frank’s comforting arms around her shoulders after she’d seen the kri-kri.
Two weeks had passed since she’d received the divorce petition from Frank. Somehow, she never believed it would happen – but who could blame him? Not her, not after everything she had put him through these last seven months.
Frank was wedded to his career, and sometimes it was a relief not to have him around, even after their twenty years together. He was an MP with ambition, and his social life was exhausting. Frank needed a Stepford Wife: a sexy, undemanding robot, great cook and entertainer, athletic in bed and full make-up 24/7. Zoë had done her best, but never quite fitted the bill.
There were times when she loved him with an intensity that defied description. Even now, any small thing could light that spark. She recalled moments when they were so happy, always in each other’s arms. Frank was clever, driven, funny, fun – and they made a great team. Ironically, it was this very support for each other, as they ascended their respective career ladders, that had led to the collapse of their marriage. With Zoë at his side, Frank became a respected MP, a fighter for the return of family values. The last thing he needed was a marriage breakdown after the next election. Better to get it over with now and enter the race in a stable relationship.
As far as Zoë’s ambition was concerned, she had risen through the ranks in the law firm that she had joined after university, much to her mother’s delight. The offer of a senior partnership, the very week before Megan’s disappearance, had been the highlight of her career.
Without her mother, Anna, managing the household and two demanding teenagers, these achievements would not have been possible.
Since their last holiday, the Johnson family had spent little time together. Then Megan ran away, leaving only a short note that said she needed space to find her own way. The fact that her family life, her marriage itself, was seriously flawed, had been the biggest shock of Zoë’s life.
CHAPTER 2
SOFIA
Crete, present day.
I FELT A HAND ON MY SHOULDER.
‘Come on, Yiayá,’ the elderly bus driver said. ‘We’re at the bus station, end of the line.’
I blinked and got to my feet. The driver cupped my elbow and helped me down the bus steps. He dipped into his pocket, then placed a couple of euros in my hand. I thumped myself in the chest and lowered my eyes humbly.
‘Get yourself a coffee. God keep you,’ he said. ‘Stay safe, Yiayá.’
I ambled to the small café next to the ticket office and bought a bottle of water, then found a seat in the shade and rested my weary body. Was it really a year since I was last in Crete? It seemed less, and now perhaps I would never come again. The journey took too much out of me. Nobody would miss me. Yet, even as I resigned myself to these facts, I still hoped to hold my daughter one more time, before I passed away.
Everywhere seemed busy, everyone rushing. Many school and university students were making use of the bus station’s free Wi-Fi; their thumbs worked furiously on smartphones.
This generation – they have no notion of who I was, or how many people once threw flowers at my feet. They have never heard the roar of the applause, felt the adoration, seen the standing ovations in my honour. To them, I am nothing more than an old woman.
A family at a nearby café was clearly celebrating one of their children’s name days. The father beckoned a balloon seller. His child picked a helium-filled foil Pokémon from the brightly coloured selection that hovered like a parachute over the seller’s head.
I noticed several children clutched balloons and toys, while adults carried boxes of cakes or chocolates.
‘Yiasou Thalasa! Big year to you!’ somebody cried. Then I realised it was Saint Thalasa’s day. Such a beautiful name: thalasa, the sea. Every Thalasa and Thalasos in Greece, young or old, was rejoicing in the same way that other countries celebrated birthdays. ‘Congratulations! Big year!’ strangers called to those marking the day. Everyone was smiling, happy in the spring sunshine.
A young girl in her party dress twirled with her arms out. The skirt billowed to make a pool of shadow beneath her. She swayed dizzily, just like I had on the day my life changed forever. The moment came back with such clarity that I hugged myself, feeling the strong arms of a theatre usher, Big Yiannis, around me. The tragedy of that long-past Christmas Eve came spinning back and, with it, the things my husband had told me so many years later. Secrets that had broken my heart – and yet shaped my life.
CHAPTER 3
SOFIA & MARKOS
Sofia, Syntagma Theatre, Athens, 1944.
FOR MAMA’S PERFORMANCE, I WORE my emerald-green taffeta dress she had made for my tenth birthday, with its full net petticoat. I knew every song Mama would sing that evening. Keeping out of her way in the corner of the theatre dressing room, I watched her apply lipstick as vibrant as a poppy in spring. Mama wore her brunette hair rolled up and back in the latest style, made popular by women working in the munitions factories. It was safer to have long curls pinned away from the cogs and wheels of machinery. My mother said her new hairstyle was a way of supporting those workers. She used a pencil to define her dark eyebrows, then added a beauty spot above her jawline.
‘How do I look, Sofia?’ she asked, turning her head left and right.
‘Oh, Mama, you’re perfect as always,’ I whispered.
And she was. The darling of the soldiers, Alexa Bambaki, my wonderful mother, was about to perform a collection of Christmas carols and popular songs before visiting British dignitaries. The Christmas concert was a significant occasion for her. She hoped the event would lead to venues all over Europe now that the war was ending.
The day before, after my piano lesson, I had strolled across Athens with my parents and two older brothers. We passed the Acropolis, then climbed through the pine trees and gardens until we reached the top of Mount Lycabettus, the highest point of the city. I had never been up there before. Since the war began it had been out of bounds, and before that I was too young for the steep path. The walk had two purposes: to calm Mama before her big performance, and to reach the chapel of Saint George to celebrate the name day of my oldest brother, Ignatius. Pavlos, two years older than me, had his name day on 29 June, the day when all the Pavloses in Greece handed out cakes to their friends and anyone who wished them ‘A big year!’
We had honoured the feast day differently this year. Terrible food shortages in Athens had led to people huddled on steps, dying of starvation. One morning I’d ventured onto our balcony at daybreak and, looking down, I saw the open wagon that collected the poor souls who had perished in the night – skeletons in rags that had fallen, starving, in the street. They were tossed into the truck like rubbish, faces gaunt and stretched. I had cried long and hard, and from that day Papa said I was not allowed on the balcony until after breakfast.