ChapterOne
It was going to be extremely hot in Greece, and she’d need enough clothes for three whole months.
Grace Foreman went to bite the price tag off a floaty pink dress, before remembering her recent dental work and the five hundred pounds she’d had to pay for the crown now sitting atop one of her back molars.
A quick ferret in her makeup bag produced some nail scissors and she snipped off the tag without looking at it too closely. The items she’d chosen weren’t expensive; it was all high street stuff, and in any case there was no one around to pass comment on what she’d bought. Phil had never questioned how much she spent on clothes when he was alive, which had been one of his many good points.
Behind her, the bed was covered with her purchases, the blue and white stripes of the duvet cover barely visible. Free accommodation was provided with the job she’d scored for herself at the language school on a little-known Greek island. But she had no idea about the washing facilities, or whether launderettes were even a thing there, so she’d need to cover all options. Or that’s what she told herself.
She’d only gone for the job on the spur of the moment and had been surprised to even get an interview. Surely there couldn’t be many other sixty-one-year-olds applying. That was borne out when she arrived at the company’s London office to find herself in the middle of a sea of twentysomethings.
Confident that her experience, forty years as a teacher and tutor, couldn’t be bettered, Grace had held her head high as she entered the interview room. She prided herself on being able to read people, and she’d been convinced that the initial reaction of the glamorous language school owner, Mrs Kokkinakis, to her had been relief, which was odd.
But the woman with the sad eyes had rung that same afternoon to say she’d got the job, so she wasn’t going to waste any time worrying about it.
Salaries were lower in Greece, but the money wasn’t such a big issue as she had her teaching pension to top things up. It was more important that she stopped herself going mad with boredom. The last thing she’d ever admit to in public was being lonely. She had friends, of course she did. Her days were filled with tutoring, the occasional lunch and plenty of walking and swimming. It was the evenings that killed her. Sitting alone in her Thameside cottage with an empty place at her side. She was so familiar with the output of the many TV streaming services that she could have been a critic.
Grace stared down at the bed. She’d possibly overdone it a little on the jewel-coloured shorts in blues, pinks and yellows, the leopard-print dresses in pastel tones, and the vests in every colour of the rainbow.
Strappy gold sandals and good old white pumps were also in the mix, and Grace turned to look at herself in the mirror one last time before she packed. She’d always been told she had good legs, hence the number of pairs of shorts.
She sucked in her stomach and pulled her top tight. Two pregnancies and two very big babies hadn’t helped her stomach, or her stretch marks, but they were marks of love, or that’s what she’d read in a soppy pregnancy book someone had given her many years ago. She’d bought a couple of tummy control swimsuits in navy and red to help things along, but at the last minute had thrown a leopard-print and a gold bikini into her basket. Bikinis hadn’t featured in her swimwear for a while, butyou never knowwas her new motto.
The hairdresser had been able to fit her in at short notice, and her blonde hair was newly highlighted, which covered most of the grey. As usual, the hairdresser had suggested she had her hair cut, especially as she’d be in Greece at the hottest time of the year, but Grace was determined to keep it long. Shoulder-length bob be damned! She could always tie it up. If it was good enough for Jerry Hall, it was good enough for her.
Her younger daughter was due to arrive any moment, so she needed to get a move on and stop parading herself in front of the mirror, as her old dad would have said. She tipped an imaginary hat to her father and got down on her knees to feel under the bed for the suitcase.
Her hand grasped the edge of the fabric, and she tugged hard, but it seemed stuck on something. Lying flat on the floor, Grace edged under the bed on her stomach, the fronds of her beloved pink sheepskin rug tickling her nose. The murky world underneath the bed was a revelation. There wasn’t much light in the room at the best of times. It was north-facing, and she’d deliberately made it dark and womblike when she’d redecorated last year. The line of dust began where the boundary of how far she could get the vacuum cleaner under the wooden frame stopped.
A small collection of tissues, hairbands and a cheap pair of reading glasses rode above the dust like the curls of a wave. She’d never been what her mother would have called ‘a good housekeeper’, and she’d never wanted to be. Vaguely tidy and hygienic was more her style. Grace smiled, remembering her mother’s wince each time she’d entered the kitchen and her soft voice saying, ‘Do you mind if I give that oven a clean?’ No, she most certainly had not. Both her parents were long gone, but not forgotten.
The bulky suitcase rose up from the oatmeal sisal carpet– in fashion at the time, but a nightmare to clean, especially if you had an ancient rescue cat who had trouble keeping his food down. She missed Clooney, but not his tendency to vomit regularly in his final days.
Grace stretched out her arm to grab the handle. As she pulled the case out from under the bed, she saw something small and dark that it had been snagged on, which lay just out of reach.
She took a deep breath and dived in, grabbed the offending item and held it up to the light.
It was a sock, a navy-blue sock with a Father Christmas motif on the ankle. Phil’s sock, part of a pair he’d been given for his last Christmas, just a few months before his death. There certainly hadn’t been any other men in her bedroom in the past three and a half years. Grace held it to her face and sniffed. Nothing, except a vague musty tang. No trace of Phil.
She sank to the floor, still clasping the sock.
Why were her hands suddenly wet?
Silent tears had crept up on her and the overflow was threatening to run all the way down to her elbows.
‘Mum? Mum, where are you?’
Flo’s voice floated up the stairs and Grace stood up carefully.
‘Coming!’
Her voice sounded shaky, even to herself, but she couldn’t let her daughter find her slumped on the carpet crying over a sock.
Flo and her wife, Jilly, were waiting in the kitchen, their own brightly coloured backpacks at their feet. Her daughter flew into her arms.
‘It’s so lovely to see you, Mum.’
She held Grace at arm’s length and narrowed her eyes.
