‘Your namesake, Penelope. Odysseus was away so long, everyone tried to persuade her to marry again. She had hundreds of suitors. So she said she’d choose one when she’d finished weaving a shroud for his father. But at night she unpicked it so that it was never completed.’

‘Clever Penelope. She must have loved him.’

‘I too have waited a long time because I loved someone,’ Nikos said softly.

Penny held her breath. Was he telling her he loved her? Surely she had to be imagining it. How could a man like Nikos be in love with her, gauche, plain Penny, who, as Colin pointed out, hadn’t even earned anything since they’d been married?

‘You always put the world’s value on yourself,’ Nikos added, reading her thoughts. He had to shout because the wind was getting up. ‘But that is not the only value that counts. Kindness counts, and generosity of soul. You have a generous soul, Penelope.’

She didn’t have to answer, to her immense relief, because they were coming in to a small bay and Nikos gently took over the tiller. ‘There are rocks underneath, just here as we turn. They protect the bay and make it a haven that few people know about. I am hoping we will have it all to ourselves, you and I.’

Penny felt a wave of desire and apprehension, confusingly tangled together.

Nikos threw down the anchor and began to fill the small boat they towed behind with the things they would need on shore.

Penny stared down into the sea. ‘I’ve never seen water as clear as this. I can even see the shells on the sea floor.’

‘Do you want to swim ashore?’

Penny hesitated, thinking of how she would look with her hair all wet, maybe eye makeup running, and then stood up, took off the linen shift dress she was wearing over her swimsuit, and dived in.

The beauty of the underwater world somehow added to the unreality of this whole experience. She could see purple sea urchin shells, the pointed perfection of a tiny topshell, the whorled beauty of a whelk, and yet when she put her hand down to pick any of them up they were swept away.

She got to the beach at the same time as Nikos and helped pull the small boat up onto the shore. The sun beat down on them, as hot as if it were summer.

‘It’s amazing!’ Penny looked around her at the empty white sand beach, curving gently round the empty bay, the sea a dazzling aquamarine. ‘You could be in the Caribbean!’

Nikos carried their stores over to a sheltered spot at the side of the cove and began to look for stones to put round a fire he wanted to make to cook their lunch. Penny watched, fascinated, as he produced kindling and matches and even a metal grille to put over the flames.