Page 1 of Villa of Secrets

Chapter 1

Rhodes, Greece, Present day.

Naomi shut the heavy door and slipped through a crumbling archway that spanned the street. She stood for a moment, eyes closed and face turned to the sun. Perhaps she shouldn’t leave her grandmother alone, but Bubba was sleeping and Naomi, desperate for some fresh air, would return in twenty minutes.

She tossed her dark hair back and power-walked along the village side road, pumping her arms and heading for the beach. Wild ox-eye daisies, poking from cracked kerbstones, nodded in welcome as she rushed by.

Sandstone walls lined her way, time-worn, dull and dusty. Pastel masonry broken by startling blocks of colour – her neighbours’ courtyard doors. Blue, mauve, turquoise, crimson and green.

A motley assortment of pots pinched the road into pedestrian narrowness. The containers housed a riotous collection of flowers: salmon geraniums, cerise dahlias, and top-heavy Easter lilies that exuded an exotic perfume. Vermillion bougainvillea, vivid and impenetrable, reached over a high stone wall halfway down the street, providing a much-needed patch of shade across scorching cobbles.

Nearer the beach, a web of familiar smells surrounded Naomi. She inhaled the scent of summer and the sea, and childhood scenes with their inseparable perfumes rushed into her mind.

She recalled piles of yellow net on the seawall, drying in the noon sun. The cement wharf was spattered with translucent fish scales, glinting harlequin sequins in the harsh light. Weather-worn canvas sails that had scooped endless journeys out of the wind ended their days hanging heavy and exhausted over harbour railings. On her arms, briny crystals sparkled like carnival face paint. When she licked the prickling salt off her skin, she tasted pure Mediterranean and longed to dive into the sea.

When she was five years old, Naomi helped to scrub sacks of blue-black mussels with her mother, on the deck of her father’s boat, inspecting each one carefully before dropping it into the bucket. Side-by-side, content and silent, her parents exchanged wide smiles, which only now Naomi realised were full of pride. She recalled leaping off the pier with her school friends, bombing the water, howling with laughter when they broke the surface.

Rowdy birds had screamed and jostled behind her father’s laden boat on its return to port each morning. Before school, Naomi would race along the shore parallel to the vessel, waving and calling, ‘Papa! Papa!’ over the sea.

On the beach, a row of weathered men with their arsenal of long fishing-rods, laughed and encouraged her. ‘Run, Naomi, Run!’ Papa would sound the foghorn in her honour and wave back.

Ten treasured years of love and laughter with her parents. Then Rebecca was born, and everything changed.

Naomi loved the sea, its sounds and its basic salty shape-shifting aroma – despite all it had taken from her.

She found the beach empty, apart from a lone fisherman who sat on an upturned bucket and stared out over the Mediterranean. Naomi had seen him there before, clean shaven, weathered face, well-worn expensive clothes. She returned his nod as she passed.

Smooth grey stones spliced by veins of white marble, clacked and slipped underfoot. She hurried towards a ribbon of wet sand, skirting the waterline. In the distance, a magnificent cruise ship headed for Kos, and she imagined her husband serving dinner in one of the sumptuous dining rooms.

At dawn, The Royal Sapphire had berthed in Rhodes Town. When Costa finished work, he had slipped home.

‘Surprise!’ he called, barging through the door with a bunch of yellow roses thrust at her.

‘Costa! Oh, Costa!’ She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him fervently.

Costa, a head taller than Naomi, lifted her off her feet and said, ‘You drive me crazy, Naomi love. I had to come.’

She stuffed the bouquet in a jug of water, and then grabbed his hand. With two months catching up to do, they rushed upstairs and spent the entire afternoon between the sheets. Tumbling and fumbling, laughing and loving, never needing to say how much they still cared for each other.

After, they showered together, kisses tasting of toothpaste, bodies slippery with bath foam. Scrubbing each other’s backs, they made plans for the winter, talked about their boys at university, the olive harvest, and what type of sofa to buy.

She glanced at the ship. I love you, Costa.

The day’s boisterous waves had abated and a path of orange light reached across the Mediterranean from the setting sun.

Startled when a white bird darted, arrow-like, from the bamboo thicket, Naomi pulled up. The little egret pursued a dragonfly, then folded its angelic wings and returned to the dense shoreline vegetation.

Stunned by the magical scene, Naomi thought of her sister in London. She longed to share the precious moment and imagined telling Rebecca what she had witnessed. Would Rebecca experience such beauty in the big city? Did Rebecca realise what she was missing and how much she was missed, or had the magic of Rhodes faded from her memory forever? Her life was probably full, with her handsome husband and the chaos of young children.

Naomi recalled Rebecca’s giggle whenever they got up to mischief, her self-effacing humour, the playful glint in her eye. The downturn of her mouth when she contemplated the less fortunate. Saddened that her sister was now lost to her, Naomi regretted not knowing her nieces or nephews.

She reached her turning point, a cement bunker in the shallows, remnant of the last war. It faced the Turkish mountains, visible across the sea. Although tilted by shore erosion, the grey pillbox appeared indestructible. Naomi sat on a rock. With her eyes on the cruise ship, her thoughts returned to her only sister.

At least Rebecca wouldn’t have money worries. London was a place for the wealthy, where people lived in luxury that they took for granted. Naomi hugged herself, wondering if she would ever see her sister again. She wished old wounds would heal and that they could exchange a few words occasionally.

No one doubted Rebecca and her husband were in love. If only Bubba had explained the reason for her wrath . . . perhaps Rebecca wouldn’t have retaliated with such vehemence. A decade had passed since Rebecca’s departure. Ten years of a crowded house, growing boys, exams and overstretched finances. But now, with Naomi’s sons settled at university, and Costa back on The Royal Sapphire for the cruising season, her home felt echoingly empty.

She turned and retraced her steps. On the way, she peered into the bamboo. The egret had vanished. Such a beautiful bird, yet there was no sign it had ever existed. Just like Rebecca, she thought.