The Winter Folly (42 page)

She stepped inside the house and closed the door, leaving Delilah alone on the terrace as the sun began to melt behind the brow of the hill, turning the golden evening light to grey.

Delilah ordered breakfast in her room. She didn’t think that she could face Teddie and Paul, or any of the other guests in the dining room. A tray of fruit, yoghurt and
crispbreads was brought to her room, along with a cup of strong black coffee. She poured sugar in and drank it very sweet, wrapping her hands around the cup for comfort as though it was a freezing
winter’s day back home, and not another blazing day in the Aegean.

She was still stunned by what had happened the previous evening and the interview with Alexandra. Somehow she had imagined that connection she had felt with the young woman in the photographs at
home, with her name in the photo albums and in the visitors’ book, would carry over into real life, and now she felt a quiet devastation that that had not happened. She realised that she had
nurtured secret hopes that she could mend a broken family and help to heal her husband’s soul. Instead she had brought more suffering and made a reconciliation even less likely. And the
mysteries still remained.

The shutters were open, letting golden sunshine flood into her room along with the sounds from the courtyard below. A light breeze fluttered the strips of veil that served as curtains. She
wondered what she would do with this day. The ferry would leave the port tonight and she had a cabin booked for the return to Athens. When she’d imagined that journey, she’d seen
herself going back with answers, perhaps even with the woman herself. She’d imagined performing a kind of miracle, bringing Alex back from the dead and taking her home. ‘Look, the
mother you thought was dead is alive!’

She had made no plans for a future in which she would have found Alexandra but failed to find out the truth and even, perhaps, made things worse.

On top of that, she had to decide what to tell John. Could she put the knowledge of Alexandra’s existence out of her mind, go home and pretend that nothing had changed? She couldn’t
imagine how she could live with such a huge lie between them. The alternative was to confess what she had discovered and tell him what she had done, condemning him to live with the knowledge that
his mother hadn’t died but had abandoned him out of choice and never shown the slightest interest in him since. How could Delilah convey Alexandra’s seemingly absolute conviction that
she had acted for the best, in order to protect her son from whatever her ‘good reason’ was? Delilah felt sure that Alexandra implied it was more than the frightful experience of
accidentally causing her daughter’s death. Or was that the heart of it? Was it a good enough reason to abandon your other child? That didn’t seem to make sense.

‘Oh God,’ she said, sighing. ‘What a terrible mess I’ve made of this. What a terrible mess.’

No matter how hard she thought about it, she could see no way out.

Delilah packed her things and left them behind the desk of the hotel, and then walked first down the hill to the port, and then along the beaches and bays, following their
trails of silver sand and pebbles until she found a place to have some lunch. Afterwards, she retraced her steps, thinking all the while about what she should do. By the time she was climbing the
last few steep yards up the path to Chora, she’d come to the conclusion that she really had no alternative. She would have to tell John the truth. Such a large deception had the potential to
tear their marriage apart after all. He might be angry with her now for her interference, and he might need all her help and support to get through it, but if he discovered what she had done after
the fact, that would be the death knell for them. She felt sick at the idea of telling him but there was no alternative: she would have to take the consequences.

Something that Alexandra had said the night before had been playing through her mind all day. She’d said that she’d had the love of Nicky and the children and so could have survived
the house. Her mind kept returning to the words, provoking something wistful and sad that she couldn’t identify until, as she stopped on the hill by the village walls and got her breath,
taking in lungfuls of warm afternoon air, she suddenly knew what it was.

Without John’s love, she herself could never hope to survive the house. Love was all that could make it bearable. Alexandra had known that. That must be the key to what had happened. Was
it just the loss of Elaine then? No. It had to be the loss of Nicky’s love as well.

Delilah took off her sunhat and brushed her hand through her hair. Her scalp prickled where sweat had cooled at the roots. She shook out her damp hair and turned to gaze out over the island,
down the rocky hillside to the magnificent dark blue silver-touched sea, thinking hard. Surely she could work it out. Perhaps one of her early theories about Alex had been correct. Maybe Nicky had
been a Lothario, sleeping around and betraying his wife, destroying their marriage that way. But Erryl’s words came back to her: that Nicky had been drinking to forget, that Erryl had never
seen a man so sad. That was hardly the behaviour of a cold-hearted playboy. Another thought occurred to her: perhaps Nicky had blamed his wife for the death of their daughter and had ceased to love
her. Without that, Alexandra had not been able to go on.

‘So she abandoned her son forever?’ Delilah said out loud. Her voice didn’t carry on the still air. She frowned. It wasn’t enough. The vital piece of the jigsaw was
missing.

Arriving at the hotel hot and thirsty, she decided to take her luggage down to the port and find a place to eat before the ferry left. It would be a long journey back home,
with a night on the ferry, a taxi ride back to Athens and then the plane home to Gatwick. She was in the lobby wondering if she could order a taxi when she heard her name.

‘Delilah! I was wondering where you’d got to.’

She turned to see Teddie striding in out of the bright sunshine. She smiled. ‘Hi. Sorry I missed you since the monastery. Was the museum good?’

‘Excellent! You missed a real treat.’ Teddie held up a bag of paprika-flavoured crisps. ‘I just went out to get Paul a snack. He’s really taken to these things. He likes
them with some of that Greek beer. Aren’t you heading off this evening?’

‘I’m afraid so. It was a flying visit for me.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Teddie nodded, her soft fleshy face beaming at Delilah. ‘Well, it was great getting to know you a little. If you’re ever in Milwaukee, you know you’ve got
a place to stay. And did you get your letter?’

‘My letter?’

‘Yup. A lady came in and left a letter for you. I heard her at the desk saying your name – at least, I don’t think there’ll be many other Delilahs staying here, will
there?’ Teddie laughed. ‘Now, you take care and have a good journey home.’

‘Thanks, I will.’ Delilah tried not to be distracted but her eyes slid to the desk. ‘Give my regards to Paul and enjoy the rest of your stay.’

‘Oh, we will. Bye now.’ Teddie took her crisps and headed for the stairs. Delilah hurried to the reception desk and rang the small bell. The woman from the previous day came out.

‘Hello, madam, can I help you?’

‘Yes, I’d like to collect my luggage and order a taxi to the port. And I believe you have a letter for me.’

‘A letter? Oh, yes.’ The woman started searching behind the desk and a moment later she lifted up an envelope and handed it to Delilah. ‘Yes, here it is. I’ll have your
luggage brought out and order you a taxi right away.’

Delilah was barely listening. She was looking at the delicate script on the front of the envelope that spelt out her name. She tore it open and pulled out the letter inside.

A slim folded envelope addressed to John was inside the one that had held her letter.

There it is
, she thought.
John will have to know.

Delilah drove back from Gatwick as slowly as she could, telling herself it was because she was tired but knowing that really she was afraid of what would happen when she got
home. How long could she go before she had to reveal what she’d done? She tried to imagine giving John the letter. ‘Oh yes, it’s from your mother. Did you think she was dead?
Well, here’s a funny thing – I’ve just visited her in Greece actually.’

He was hardly likely to take such news bouncing up and down with joy and wreathed in smiles.

Despite everything, it was wonderful to be home. The sight of the lush English fields and the water-rich green of the hedges and trees refreshed her in a way that the baked rocky scrub of Greece
never could. She allowed the mellow warmth to flood into the car and cheer her up, trying to banish her worries, but as she turned the car into the driveway of Fort Stirling she had a vivid and
horrible flash of a girl on a pink bicycle pedalling in the path of an oncoming car, her fragile body not standing a chance against it. She gasped at the vision, overcome not just with the horror
of the child’s death but the fact that her mother had been behind the wheel. She felt a tiny echo of the guilt and despair that Alexandra must have felt.

But why leave Nicky? And why not take John with her?

As she went over the brow of the hill and began the descent to the house, she noticed a flash of silver as the sun caught the bonnet of a car parked out the front. Was someone visiting the
house? John wasn’t due back from his trip for another day. Perhaps it was someone to see Janey, or a visitor for Ben.

She parked her car, got out and examined the strange vehicle. It was extremely flashy, much smarter than most cars around here. John’s friends drove battered old Land Rovers and
knocked-out Volvos the same way he did. Nothing glamorous like this would continue looking so pristine in the country past a week. Once it had been coated in mud, fallen leaves, blossom and bird
mess, it would look like all the other cars around here.

Erryl came around the corner of the house with a wheelbarrow full of clippings and stopped short when he saw her. ‘Hello, ma’am,’ he said a touch awkwardly. ‘Mr Stirling
didn’t say you were coming back today.’

‘Well, here I am!’ she said gaily. ‘How’s everything here?’

‘Fine, fine.’ Erryl’s eyes slid to the silver car.

‘Whose is this?’ she asked.

‘Mr Stirling has a . . . er . . . a visitor.’

‘But he’s away, isn’t he?’

‘Oh no, ma’am. He got back yesterday. Apparently the trip ended early.’

A chill rippled over her skin. ‘That’s strange. He didn’t ring me.’ She picked up her bags, waving away Erryl’s approach to do it for her. ‘Don’t worry,
I’m fine. I’d better go in and see who this visitor is.’ She hurried up the front steps, anxious to hear that John was back before she’d expected him. Why hadn’t he
rung her once he was back in range? What had he thought when he’d returned to find she wasn’t here? She’d assumed she’d be back before he was. But at least a visitor meant
that she was off the hook for a while as to explaining where she had been.

Walking down the hall, she was surprised to hear the tinkle of laughter from the drawing room. John never used that room. She had to force him to use it for drinks when they had guests,
otherwise it would stand empty at all times. She went up to the drawing room door and pressed her ear against it. There was the cadence of a female voice and then another burst of laughter. She
recognised John’s laugh at once.

Well, that’s good. He’s in a cheerful mood.

She opened the door and walked in, saying, ‘Hello! I’m back.’

John was sitting on the old green silk armchair, leaning forward to whoever was on the sofa with its back to the door. The sofa table, with its Chinese vase and pair of alabaster doves, obscured
the sofa but Delilah saw the shimmer of golden hair and the white of a spotless linen jacket. John looked up and saw her.

‘Darling,’ he said, standing up, looking a little flustered. ‘You’re home.’

Delilah looked at the figure rising from the sofa and turning to her. It was a face she recognised although she didn’t quite know how: elegant and slender with chiselled cheekbones and a
curtain of perfectly polished blonde hair.

‘Hi!’ said the woman brightly, and Delilah knew at once who it was before John said anything but she could only stare as John gestured towards their guest and said:

‘Delilah, this is Vanna. My ex-wife.’

It was a strange and awkward afternoon. Delilah felt obscurely betrayed by the fact that Vanna was here, even though it was all explained very smoothly. She had come to England
on holiday and been invited to stay with friends who by chance had rented a country house close to Fort Stirling. She hadn’t intended to visit but being in the vicinity had awakened so many
happy memories that she had felt compelled to drop in. And wasn’t it lovely to see John again, and the house, and also get the chance to meet his charming wife? Goodness, the place
hadn’t changed a bit, and neither had John!