‘A daughter and a son,’ she laughed, then added, ‘And three grandchildren!’ She didn’t know if she wanted to ask the next question, but knew she had to. ‘And you? Are you married?’

‘No.’

The answer was stark in its simplicity. ‘I have had relationships, many of them, some good, some bad. But not the right one.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t wait for you with a broken heart, but somehow I didn’t meet the right woman that I wanted to marry.’

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘Twenty years. I went to university in Athens and lived there afterwards, sometimes travelling to other countries. It wasn’t a bad life, but when you come from an island it’s hard to live in a city.’

He stared out at the dazzling blue sea, dappled with deeper turquoise, to the perfect straight line of the horizon, as if it somehow held the answer to the question neither of them was asking.

‘You are doing a good thing here,’ he said, as if wrenching himself back from the unanswerable to manageable reality. ‘The island is dying. The young all leave. The Greek economy is shattered. The shipping which once brought wealth to Greece is now international – from Korea, or even Russia.’

It was true, Penny realized; when she was young, people had often talked of Greek shipping millionaires instead of Russian oligarchs.

‘The old ways of farming and fishing are too hard for the young people. They want a different life. So we need tourists. Do you think you can make these boathouses attractive?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Penny smiled.

‘Then you are staying in Kyri for a while?’ Again his eyes fixed on her face.

‘I don’t know . . .’ she faltered, knowing that she had been avoiding this question. ‘Perhaps.’

They looked at each other for a moment in painful silence.

‘One thing,’ Penny rescued the situation with practicality. ‘That man Xan. He said we would need a building permit. Is that true?’

‘Not if the house is already lived in.’

‘Are the boathouses lived in?’ she asked.

‘I think you could make that argument. Fishermen do sleep here sometimes.’

‘I wonder why he said that?’

‘He is trying to make trouble before we decide about his building plan,’ said Nikos. ‘There will be a public meeting. The olive grove is sacred to some.’

‘Especially Ariadne’s goats,’ Penny laughed. ‘Dora says they’re in there all the time.’

‘I doubt they will be welcome when he builds his mansion.’

‘But can’t you stop him?’