The last thing Penny did as she climbed into the bottom bunk, her large feet sticking out the end as she stretched, was to open her wallet and take out a blurred photograph of a small Greek village with a blue-domed church and bright white cube-shaped houses climbing up a steep hillside, above a ridiculously blue sea.

There was silence in the cabin apart from Dora’s gentle snoring. Penny put her head down on the pillow, trying to do her mindfulness exercises to help her sleep and not think of Colin’s last words to her. That he certainly felt sorry for her friends if she’d organized the whole thing. That she couldn’t even put a sandwich in a paper bag without screwing it up.

But sleep wouldn’t come. Colin’s words kept going round and round in her head, until she sat up and fumbled in her backpack, checking the printout of their accommodation for the twentieth time. Her daughter Wendy laughed at her for relying on pieces of paper instead of her phone, but Penny found paper reassuring.

There it was. ‘Traditional Greek house with four bedrooms and sea view.’ It had been surprisingly good value. Probably because it was early in the season.

Penny tucked the confirmation into her handbag, and finally fell asleep.

Two

Nell woke up with a jolt. They had docked already. Penny and Moira were still asleep but Dora stood looking into the small mirror on the wall, perfectly made up at six in the morning.

Nell closed her eyes again. She had gone to sleep with Zanthos so clear in her mind. In some ways it was still the biggest adventure she’d ever had. On the night they’d arrived all those years ago their ferry had been delayed, and it was much too late for the little Greek ladies who waited on every dockside offering rooms for about five pounds a night to foreign visitors. They certainly couldn’t afford a hotel and there didn’t seem to be any sign of a hostel.

That was when Nell, to her eternal shame, had sat down on her suitcase and wept.

It had worked, too. A young English guy had materialized out of the dark and offered them all somewhere to stay for the night. Nell would never forget the moment she’d woken up the next day, sharing a bed with Penny, Moira sleeping on the floor on one side of the bed and Dora on the other in sheets thoughtfully provided by their host, in a dazzlingly bright white house, a Greek blue sky blazing outside and the smell of patchouli joss sticks mixed with a sweet, pungent scent she didn’t recognize. ‘The Dawning of the Age of Aquarius’ from the musical Hair had been blaring up through the floorboards.

‘What’s that smell?’ Nell had asked shyly. ‘Is it a scented candle?’