‘Kalimera,’ Dora nodded round at them – a mistake, as they grinned and replied with a flood of incomprehensible Greek to which she could only nod and smile. She was relieved when after one stop she recognized the tiny church above the road that led down to the beach. She could easily have walked it, she decided as she waved goodbye to the enthusiastic gathering of grannies – pushing away the uncomfortable thought that they were probably not much older than she was – and started down the overgrown path. If she had known or cared about nature, she might have appreciated the yellow broom growing all round her, the thyme-scented hills behind her or even the lavender she bruised underfoot as she made her way along. Suddenly she felt the touch of rough fur, and shrieked loudly to find she had almost been bulldozed by a goat.

Quickly she stepped out of the way as two more followed. Behind them was Ariadne, Takis’s daughter, presumably on her way down to the beach bar.

‘Hello Ariadne, are these your goats? They gave me the fright of my life!’

Ariadne nodded. Her pale face with its thick black eyebrows and slanted almost-black eyes reminded Dora of a young Frida Kahlo. ‘They are my grandmother’s. She keeps them for the yogurt.’ She shrugged irritably, and Dora glimpsed the strength of character beneath her smile – also not unlike Frida’s.

‘Shouldn’t you be at school or something?’ ventured Dora, realizing as she spoke that actually she had no idea how long Greek children had to stay in education.

‘My grandmother says I don’t need to pass exams to work for my father.’

‘And you have other ideas?’

‘I would like to study plants, the pharmacy of nature.’ She gestured around her. ‘We have so much here – oregano for sore throat, fennel for bad stomach, orris root for when you are . . .’ She squatted down and scrunched up her face in a gesture of such expressiveness that Dora had to laugh.

‘Constipated!’ replied Dora.

Ariadne gestured at a clump of young green leaves, just unfurling in the morning sun, with a white flower-like stem emerging from the centre. ‘Holy basil,’ pronounced Ariadne, ‘blessed by the saint.’ She didn’t expand as to which saint, but Dora assumed it must be the one with the unpronounceable name who was paraded round on his feast day each year.

‘Is that why it’s holy?’ enquired Dora.

Ariadne looked shocked by her ignorance. ‘Holy basil was found around the tomb of Jesus Christ after the Resurrection. That is the greatest feast day of the year in Greece. The church uses basil with their holy water, but if you have a cough –’ again she staged a demonstration, this time of a coughing fit – ‘a tea of holy basil is the best cure for it.’

‘What else is medicinal?’ Dora was surprised that she, the arch-sceptic about all things naturopathic, was actually interested.