And at quarter past eight this beautiful Sunday morning, the airport was… rammed.
About an hour after their arrival, they’d established that there was no way that they’d be getting on a flight today. Instead of partying last night – or skulking in a bedroom pretending to be getting changed into swim kit in Matt’s case – they should have been here, queuing overnight for a flight. The commercial flights had already been fully booked – Matt knew that because he’d been unable to book one for today when he’d booked his Athens to London flight for this evening a couple of months ago, so he’d had to book himself on a ferry to Athens – and the private ones were also booked up.
‘If we come back this evening we should be able to book one for tomorrow,’ Alfredo said, after a final recce.
‘Can we not book it now?’ Lily asked.
‘No. Apparently not. Something to do with schedules and aeroplanes being in the right place at the right time and the expected temperature of the tarmac, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is there’s no possibility of a flight today unless we have a friend with a private jet and even then there might not be space for them to take off, and we need to be back here at eight p.m.’
‘D’you know what?’ Carole said after they’d all finished grumbling. ‘We should all look on this as a bonus holiday day together. We can have a lovely time. I’m going to organise some tourist things.’
It took a lot less than a second for Matt to work out that he’d be a lot happier if he avoided Lily as much as possible today. No point being reminded of everything he loved about her.
‘Normally I’d love to join you,’ he told Carole, ‘but I have a ton of work to catch up on. So I’ll probably just stay at the house and get on with that, if that’s alright.’
‘I’m pretty sure that I’m speaking for Alfredo too when I say that we’d adore to sightsee but I’m also wondering whether we should make hay while the sun shines and do some more photo curation with lovely Lily.’ Felix slipped an arm round Alfredo’s waist and Alfredo hooked an arm round Felix’s shoulder and they leaned into each other; and Matt looked sideways at Lily and thought about all the times that they’d been just sotogether, like a solid unit, like Felix and Alfredo were. Although it had just been an illusion, hadn’t it? He clenched his hands into fists to try to rein in his emotion. Once he and Lily had gone their separate ways, this would all feel a lot better.
He bloody hoped so, anyway.
‘Okay, here’s the plan.’ Carole started herding them out of the airport building towards her car. ‘You get on with your work, Matt, and you can all do your photo thing now for an hour or two, and then we’ll gather at about noon for an outing, and then you can work again and then we’ll come down here, organise the flights for tomorrow, and then we’ll have a big end-of-holiday dinner tonight. And Lily, you need to talk me through this photo curating thing because I think I could find you a lot more clients.’
‘Oh, wow, thank you so much. And that sounds like a lovely Sunday you have planned for us. So thoughtful. We’re very spoilt.’ Lily smiled at Carole, without making any eye contact with Matt, who was standing right next to his aunt.
‘It does sound perfect.’ Felix plonked a big kiss on Carole’s cheek and Alfredo smiled at her.
And Matt said, ‘Thank you so much, Auntie Carole, that sounds great,’ because what else could he say?No thanks, I just want to hide in my room and never see Lily again because right now it’s like I can’t actually cope with seeing her because I really love her but it’s too late for us? Nope.
‘You’re the biggest so you sit in the front with me, Matt,’ Carole instructed, ‘and the other three can squish up in the back.’
Lily and Felix talked and laughed incessantly all the way back to the villa, with Alfredo chucking in the occasional great one-liner. They were already planning to meet up in London, not just to finish the photo curation but for Felix and Lily to go to a singalong film screening and also fruit picking together (apparently Alfredo was a musical film philistine and also had no interest in jam making). At this rate, Lily would be a bridesmaid attheirwedding, which apparently they were planning for a couple of years’ time, because they wanted it to be perfect. Well, Felix did.
‘An adorable groomzilla in the making,’ Lily had said when Felix told her that, twinkling at him.
‘Matt, what are you doing Saturday lunchtime?’ Alfredo asked.
‘Erm.’ He’d hesitated too long. Always have a good excuse prepared.
‘Perfect, sounds like you’re around. You have to join us. You can help me stop Felix and Lily bursting into song every five minutes and trying to involve me in berry picking.’
‘Great,’ Matt said. For God’s sake. He wasn’t having lunch with Lily in London. He was going to be busy getting over her again. He’d have to remember to manufacture a good excuse for Saturday.
And they were back at the house. Matt was out of the car and striding towards the interior while the others were all still laughing about something.
An hour and a half and a little bit of progress on the guesthouse plans later, Carole hollered for them all to come and join her in her big reception hall.
‘I have a big treat for you all,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there, but you need to be wearing trousers. Jeans are fine. Off you go.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Quick as you can. You too, Norm.’
Norm scowled at her but trotted off with everyone else to get changed.
They reassembled fast, although not fast enough for Carole, who’d been doing a slow – and very loud – clap for the past couple of minutes, and she ushered them at a bit of a run into the car.
‘We might be out for slightly longer than you were planning,’ she shouted over their yelps as she threw the car round a hairpin bend, ‘but it’ll be worth it. You’re going to have an amazing afternoon. I’ve brought lunch for us to eat en route.’
‘En route where?’ Matt was in the back with Felix and Alfredo again while Norm and Lily sat up front.
‘Aha,that’sthe secret.’ God. The last secret outing Carole had taken Matt on had involved a visit to a burlesque club that he hadn’t totally enjoyed. Carole beamed at him over her shoulder and the car swung to the right and Lily grabbed the wheel and pushed it back in the opposite direction.
‘Cheeky,’ Carole said to Lily.
