With his new-found awareness of sensitive people, he doesn’t want to screw up.
‘Yes!’ shrieks India, pulling her arm out of his grasp.
Dan backs off.
That’s pretty conclusive: she’s OK and she doesn’t want to be touched.
Fine. He can do that.
They continue heading in the direction of Paleokastritsa where Dan thinks, from looking on Google Maps earlier, that there’s a small cluster of shops on the way into the village. He doesn’t have his phone because he likes thechallenge of finding his way without a smartphone app helping him.
That may have been a mistake.
It takes another hour of walking down through tangles of gorse and dense forest and loud insects that make India shriek, until they reach a road. It’s dusty, very narrow and is definitely not the main road from Xanthe into Paleokastritsa.
Dan decides he won’t say this because India is displaying definite on-the-edge signs that he’s unhappily familiar with.
She’s drunk nearly all her water and he’s been eking out his last bottle. Dan is beginning to think that heat stroke is next on the agenda and he’s wondering if he’d be able to carry India to safety.
She’s skinny but taller than Julia, he thinks. A tall dead weight will be hard to carry but he won’tsaythis. Even he knows that implying a woman is overweight is a fatal mistake to make.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ demands India, who is now red-faced from the heat and holding her second water bottle which she has nearly drained.
‘Think so,’ Dan says, which is a total lie. They are completely lost but it’s easier to worry in his own head. They’ll make it to civilisation soon.
At ten to six, Rose and the team set up the small beach for the pre-dinner beach meditation.
Christos and Stavros, who manages the grounds, have carried down the mats, tiny bolster cushions, sunloungers and sunshades the group will need to meditate that evening.
‘Is it going to be too warm?’ worries Rose.
Bernard worries her in particular because of his age.But then, when he’s not in sessions or eating, he’s down at the cliff-face infinity pool baking himself the colour of mahogany. So perhaps she shouldn’t worry about him.
‘This is not hot,’ says Stavros, Corfu born and bred. ‘This is nothing.’
Christos laughs.
‘True,’ he agrees. ‘It was cool last night. I have to wear my sweater in the evenings.’
‘We’re used to it,’ sighs Rose, who feels at home in the heat after five years in Corfu. Here the blindingly hot summer sun has swirling sea winds to take the sting out but in LA, where she lived for years, it was hot desert sun that baked the land and Rose’s skin like old leather.
Now she uses organic face oils from the Sia sisters who run the spa and is never out without a hat. Her skin has improved no end.
‘The guests all like the heat,’ points out Christos.
‘I suppose,’ says Rose but she has the oddest feeling that something is wrong. It’s a fleeting sensation that skips across her brain and then vanishes.
Today’s sessions were excellent. Everything is going so well …
Rose tells herself to stop worrying and admires her handiwork on the beach.
It’s tough to move everything up and down every day but the beach does not belong to Villa Artemis, so they cannot leave valuable things out overnight.
As usual, Rose has put out towels, bottled water on a small table, as well as some throws should anyone feel cool. She has her teeny gong to use at the start and end of meditation. Everything is perfect.
‘Rose!’
Rose, Stavros and Christos all look up to see Keera,blonde hair bouncing in a plait behind her, running down the wooden path from the hotel.
