When Sophie Taylor’s life falls apart, there is only one thing to do: escape and find a new one.

Dragged to Montenegro by her best friend Anna, Sophie begins to see the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. But when she stumbles into an old, run-down house on the Bay of Kotor she surprises even herself when she buys it.

Surrounded by old furniture, left behind by the former inhabitants, Sophie becomes obsessed by a young Balkan couple when she discovers a bundle of letters from the 1940s in a broken roll-top desk. Letters that speak of great love, hope and a mystery Sophie can’t help but get drawn into.

Days in Montenegro are nothing like she expected and as Sophie’s home begins to fill with a motley crew of lodgers the house by the bay begins to breathe again. And for Sophie, life seems to be restarting. But letting go of the past is easier said than done…

Also by Rose Alexander:

Garden of Stars

Under an Amber Sky

Rose Alexander

ROSE ALEXANDER

has had more careers than is probably strictly necessary, including TV producer/director making programmes for all the major broadcasters, freelance feature writer for publications including The Guardian and secondary school English teacher, not forgetting cocktail waitress, melon picker and interior designer.

Writing a novel is, however predictable the line seems, the realization of Rose’s childhood dream and the result of finally finding ‘a voice’. The triumph is that the voice was heard above the racket created by her three children plus rescue cat (tabby white, since you ask).

Follow her on twitter at @RoseA_writer

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Author Bio

Notes

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Excerpt

Note

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Alongside the Serbian calendar, the central coastal region of Montenegro has its own names for the months of the year. They are both beautiful and poetic which seems to encapsulate the spirit of the country – one that is small in size but big in heart.

January / sječani – cutting wood

February / veljača – big winter

March / ozujak – wind blows

April / travanj – mowing

May / svibanj – dawning

June / lipanj – flowers

July / srpanj – harvest

August / kolovoz – back from holiday

September / rujan – everything is red like wine

October / listopad – leaves fall

November / studeni – cold

December / prosinac – gathering

The Montenegrin love of liberty and fair play and the Montenegrin sense of honour have made me feel more at home in this far corner of Europe than in any other foreign land.

Edith Durham, British traveller and writer, Through the Lands of the Serb, 1904

NOTE ON THE LANGUAGE

What to call the common tongue spoken in Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina is a matter of some controversy. Many readers will remember past times when it was referred to as Serbo-Croat, but this is outdated now. In Montenegro there seem to be two main schools of thought. One is that the language is Serbian and should be named as such. Advocates of this approach maintain that citizens of the USA have no problem saying they speak English and have not attempted to rename it ‘American’. On the other hand, proponents of calling the language Montenegrin claim that there are enough differences, subtle though they may be, for it to be a separate language and that as a source of national pride, it should bear the name of the country.

Equally confusing – to an English speaker – is the interchangeable use of two alphabets: the Latin and the Cyrillic (again with a few small differences from the Russian/Serbian versions). A professor of the Montenegrin language turned estate agent whom I asked about this said that in schools, the time spent using each alphabet is equally divided. Most people seem to fiercely protect this system. Recently, it was proposed that school certificates would be issued in the Latin alphabet only, and parents would have to pay if they wanted them in Cyrillic, which sparked nationwide outrage.

I have settled on using the term Montenegrin for this book, though you will note that Sophie’s language learning book is called Total Serbian. You will not find language primers in any shop that I know of that promote the learning of a tongue called Montenegrin, which is probably unsurprising when the population, at less than 650,000, is so tiny.

Prologue

Pushing her bicycle over the crooked slabs of the path and into the front garden where it lived chained to a metal rack under the hedge, Sophie breathed a deep sigh of relief. Friday at last and nearly the holidays, too. Six weeks off work over the summer was definitely the best thing about being a teacher, almost making up for the long hours, stress, and exhaustion of the rest of the year.

As she fumbled for her house keys, she ran through her and Matt’s plans for the weekend. Relaxing at home tonight, dinner out with a gang of people on Saturday, and a walk on Hampstead Heath with their good friends, Sam and Suzie, on Sunday. She also hoped to fit in a trip to John Lewis to choose a new stair carpet.

Alongside all of this ran the frisson of excitement that thrilled through her every time she thought about the fact that she and Matt had, only a couple of weeks before, started trying for a baby. Of course it was far too soon to expect to be pregnant, but the prospect of motherhood in the not too distant future floated tantalizingly before her, eclipsing all other hopes and dreams.

Her phone rang and, fishing it out of the detritus that always seemed to accumulate at the bottom of her bike basket, she noticed that it was an unknown number. She pressed accept and then immediately found herself inwardly cursing; it was bound to be someone she didn’t want or need to talk to, someone selling something or one of those irritating automated PPI calls.

‘Hello,’ she said warily, hovering half on and half off the doorstep, wanting the phone call over before she entered the sanctuary of the flat. There was a pause during which she almost hung up, and then someone said her name, hesitantly, as if testing that it were really her.

‘Sophie?’

She didn’t recognize the voice, though there was something familiar about it.

‘Speaking. Who is it, please?’

‘Sophie!’ The voice had a forced jollity about it that quickly faded. ‘Sophie, it’s Alex here, Matt’s work colleague.’ Alex faltered, then resumed. ‘We’ve met a couple of times, remember?’

Sophie nodded, vague recollections of Alex filtering through her mind. He was a typical city lawyer type, bold and brash, full of himself. He didn’t sound like that now, though. His words were tentative whilst at the same time carrying an undercurrent of urgency. It made her feel uneasy.

‘Nice to talk to –’ Sophie began, but Alex cut in.

‘Sophie, it’s Matt. He’s – well, he’s been taken ill. He’s on his way to hospital.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sophie’s head spun and she reached out her hand to hold on to the door surround, needing to steady herself.

‘The ambulance only took a few minutes to arrive; lucky we’re so near.’

‘Ambulance?’ The juddering realization that Matt must be really sick if it was bad enough to have called an ambulance seared through Sophie and she broke out into a cold sweat.

‘You need to get to the hospital as soon as you can.’ Matt named which one it was but Sophie hardly registered.

‘What’s happened, Alex? Is he OK? Is Matt OK?’ She was shrieking, frightening herself with the noise she was making. It echoed between the houses, rending apart the tranquillity.

‘He’s fine.’ There was a brief, telling pause. She could hear Alex whispering something to someone, but could not make out what he said.

‘I mean, I’m sure he’ll be fine.’ Alex was talking to her again, sounding suddenly much too loud. ‘Look, a cab will be with you in three minutes – it’s already been ordered.’

Sophie was crying, tears pouring down her cheeks and dripping onto the flimsy gauze scarf that kept the wind off her neck when she was cycling. ‘What’s going on?’ she sobbed. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

Her nose was running but she didn’t have a tissue and didn’t want to put the phone down for the time it would take to find one, as if losing hold of Alex for even a few seconds would mean that Matt was also lost.

Alex coughed. ‘I don’t know anything else, Sophie. When you get to the hospital – they’ll be able to tell you everything.’

The deep, low rumble of a diesel engine indicated the cab’s arrival. Slowly, trancelike, the phone still in her hand, Sophie moved towards the vehicle and indicated for it to stop. As she clambered in, a feeling of dread lodged in her heart and stayed there for the torturous duration of the drive, the cab constantly impeded by traffic lights, junctions, and queues. Staring out of the window, willing the cabbie to drive faster, to break all the rules, to just get her there as soon as possible, Sophie almost convinced herself that Matt would be all right.

***

Matt wasn’t all right.

When she got to the hospital, Sophie was ushered into a side room and left there to wait. She felt numb, dazed. She knew what the side room must mean but couldn’t accept it, couldn’t even begin to process it. He was probably in the operating theatre or something, having tubes stuck in him or observations (is that what they called them?) taken. That must be what was happening.

A doctor came in, knocking hesitantly on the door before swinging it open. He was accompanied by a nurse and another woman who wasn’t wearing a uniform but was dressed in ordinary, workaday clothes, trousers of the kind usually called slacks and a shirt that gaped where it was stretched over her bosom. She had a name badge proclaiming her to be Jan. Sophie stared at them, trancelike.

The three seemed to take a long time to settle down, arranging themselves carefully: the two women on adjacent chairs, the doctor finally alighting on the edge of one of the plastic armchairs. He was tall and looked incongruous and uncomfortable there, like a gangly heron on a tiny perch. All avoided eye contact with Sophie.

‘I’m really sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs, um …’ The doctor looked down at the notes in his hand. ‘Mrs Taylor.’ He gulped and fiddled with the stethoscope slung around his neck. ‘I have some bad news for you, I’m afraid.’

‘Bad news! What do you mean? How bad?’ Sophie could hear the panic in her voice. If Matt were disabled, brain-damaged, whatever, she would still love him. In sickness and in health – that’s what she had committed to.

‘Mr Taylor – your husband – came into A&E unconscious and unresponsive. We did everything we could.’

Sophie’s sharp intake of breath interrupted the doctor’s speech but did not seem to reach her lungs and she found herself gasping for air, floundering, drowning.

‘What are you saying? It’s not serious, is it? Tell me it’s not serious.’

‘I’m really sorry. Your husband has – he’s – passed away. I’m so sorry.’

‘No. No. What are you talking about?’ Sophie’s head spun, from the impossible words she was hearing and the lack of oxygen and the disbelief and denial that coursed through her veins. ‘He’s only thirty-two, he was fine this morning –’

‘We couldn’t … It wasn’t …’ The doctor’s words cut across hers. ‘He didn’t ever regain consciousness. I’m sorry.’

‘You mean … you mean he’s dead?’

Everything went black, the room and all that was in it swallowed up into an atramentous darkness. Sophie started to vomit and a cardboard tray was thrust into her hands. Jan was beside her, patting her shoulder, whispering soothing words that Sophie couldn’t process. When she had finished being sick, Jan removed the tray and gave her some water.

‘I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.’ Sophie was conscious of repeating the words, her voice a harsh, rasping whisper, even whilst she knew they could not be lying.

‘Tell me it’s not true,’ she said, again and again.

But neither the doctor nor the nurse nor Jan did so.

The next few hours were a blur. Her parents, Helena and Tony, came to the hospital, and Matt’s parents, too. All were speechless, stunned. Matt’s mum and dad went to see his body but Sophie didn’t, couldn’t. She couldn’t bear the thought, screamed when they tried to make her, telling her she’d regret not going. What did they know about how she would feel, did feel? Was it their husband, their lover, their soulmate who was lying on a hospital trolley, lifeless?

No one knew what to do. Jan made them tepid tea in plastic cups but she couldn’t stay with them long. Sophie watched her walk away, perhaps towards another grieving family, other bereft relatives, perhaps simply going off shift and heading home. She realized she herself would never walk in that free, purposeful way again. There would never be any point in walking anywhere, ever, if it were always to be without Matt.

A discussion ricocheted back and forth about where they should go, which Sophie was only dimly aware of. Someone had given her a pill to take and she was able to breathe again but everything felt as if it were happening far away, to another Sophie who was just looking on, observing wryly how at sea they all were. Death had been neither expected nor prepared for. Thirty-two-year-olds do not, generally, drop down dead. They were asking Sophie did she want to go to her house, to her flat, or back to her parents’ place in Farnham. Which would be best? Which would she prefer? Fear clenched at her heart and made her blood run icy cold, her breath once more refusing to come, at the thought of home.

What was home, without Matt?

She let herself be guided along hospital corridors and through the sliding exit doors to her parents’ car. There was a yellow ticket pinned beneath the windscreen wiper; her father, in his haste and distress, must not have completed the pay-by-phone parking properly. Sophie looked at it numbly. Could they really issue fines to the bereaved?

She watched as her father detached it from its lodging, barely glancing at it. He placed it, carefully and deliberately, in the breast pocket of the smart jacket he was wearing despite the heat. She opened the car door. Inside, it was solid and capacious, leather seats spotless, seat-wells clear of the detritus of water bottles, books, and discarded newspapers that littered hers and Matt’s. She slid into the back and shut her eyes.

She only opened them as she felt the car drawing out of the parking space and into the exit lane. And then she realized that she was leaving Matt behind and that she’d never see him, ever again, and she began to scream. She screamed and screamed and flung the car door open, hurling herself out of it and running back towards the hospital doors, aware of people stopping and staring, gaping open-mouthed at this mad woman.

She cared not at all. She couldn’t leave Matt. He wasn’t dead. She’d make him come alive again; the power of her need for him would resurrect him. She tore headlong through the traffic and the pedestrians and the smokers gathered around the entrance until she finally got back inside the hospital where she knew Matt was waiting for her, smiling, wondering what all the fuss was about.

Chapter 1

The room was utterly silent, hushed in that way of places that have been devoid of life for too long. Sophie wandered around, every sound she made deafening in the emptiness that surrounded her. At the open window, she stood and looked out. The sea lay almost directly below, separated only by a narrow road and fringed by the bushy green of a row of juniper trees. There was no wind and the azure water beyond the dusty tarmac shone glass clear and still. On the far side of the bay, dark mountains rose majestically upwards, towering over the red-tiled rooftops of the clustered stone houses that colonized the waterside.

She watched as an enormous Italian cruise ship plied its way towards Kotor, ploughing the deepest course that curved around the opposite bank and which would bring it right up to the city’s ancient walls. Sophie thought of all the people the ship was carrying, all the lives and futures, all the hopes and dreams of those on board. Were any of them like her, only thirty-two but already widowed? She doubted it, but then could hardly believe it was true of herself.

That Matt was dead was undeniable. They had had the funeral. Everyone had been there – family, friends, people she hadn’t seen since their wedding. People who she hardly knew and wasn’t sure she liked. She hadn’t cared. She knew her husband was gone for ever but still she kept expecting him to arrive, to walk in the room as if nothing had happened, to be by her side as he always had been since they were seventeen years old.

The ship sounded its horn and the reverberations echoed between the enveloping mountains. There would be many tourists in the old town today; even in just five days here, she and Anna had learnt to avoid the place when these vast vessels disgorged their multitudes of linen-clad sightseers. It had been her best friend Anna who had persuaded her to come on this holiday, who had insisted she must begin to get back on her feet. But that was easier said than done when you felt as if you had no feet, had nothing to support you or to propel you forwards.

Nevertheless, Sophie had complied, too numb with grief and pain and sadness to find the resources to do anything else. And despite the heartache, she had been instantly beguiled by Montenegro, its beauty and tranquillity. It felt like a healing place, even though she doubted she ever could be healed. And having come here at Anna’s behest it seemed a small leap now to be, at her insistence, looking around a house for sale. The fact that said house was near derelict merely added to the surreal nature of it all.

Anna had been indulging in a solitary game of ‘spot the property that’s ripe for renovation’ ever since they had arrived and had studiously scrutinized Kotor’s real estate office windows, swooning over what was immaculately restored and exclaiming in astonishment at the low prices of what was not. It had probably been inevitable that, at some point, Anna would succumb to temptation and insist on a viewing. But even Sophie, dazed and confused as she was, had been taken by surprise when it happened.

Having spotted a ‘for sale’ sign outside one particular stone house, serendipitously accompanied by a businesslike woman in smart clothes armed with a glossy brochure in her hands, Anna had summarily screeched the car to a sudden stop. And now here they were, Sophie inside, while Anna, her small son Tomasz, and the estate agent were on their way in. Sophie really had no idea what they were all doing. What she was doing. She felt as if she were permanently on autopilot, acting unthinkingly, without direction, just conforming with whatever she was told to do by someone who had a handle on the world. All her actions were immaterial; nothing mattered now that Matt was gone.

A noise in the background and a clattering on the stairs alerted Sophie to the fact that the others were almost upon her. She walked towards the door – her feet in flip-flops that softly flapped against the wide wooden floorboards – and rejoined them. Jovanka, the estate agent, led them around the rest of the house, revealing room after room, all equally dusty and neglected but full of charm and promise. In each one, she opened windows and threw back shutters, unleashing priceless view after view.

Sophie looked on, stupefied. It was her dream project, something she could transform as she had done the flat in Belsize Park, painstakingly remodelling and redesigning it until it was completely unrecognizable to the wreck she and Matt had bought. But the idea was ridiculous, nonsensical.

‘What are we actually doing here?’ she hissed in Anna’s ear, taking advantage of Jovanka’s temporary distraction with a recalcitrant window bolt.

‘Shh,’ Anna hissed back, and continued to follow Jovanka around, asking a constant stream of property-related questions designed, Sophie assumed, to make her sound like a clued-up potential buyer.

In one third-floor room with no electricity, a pile of grey plaster dust lay forlornly in the centre of the floor.

‘Damage from the 1979 earthquake,’ pronounced Jovanka, sagely. ‘It brought down most of Kotor,’ she continued. ‘But this is a good sign.’ She pointed at the mound of debris.

‘How do you work that out?’ questioned Anna, a note of challenge in her voice.

‘If that’s all the damage the quake caused,’ Jovanka explained, ‘then you know that this is a house that can withstand anything.’

Anna nodded, purporting a knowledge of seismic activity and its effects that Sophie knew was utterly feigned.

Outside, behind the house, the garden rose up from a courtyard through five terraces until right at the top the cerulean sweep of the water became visible again above the pantiled rooftops. Fig, pomegranate, lime, and grapefruit trees grew wild and untended, and the fragrance of wild mint scented the air as their legs brushed against its leaves. A plump tabby cat lay on a stone, basking in the heat.

‘How much is it?’ asked Anna. Sophie surreptitiously kicked her but Anna took no notice.

‘It has just been reduced significantly, and it won’t hang around at this price.’

Jovanka named a sum which, translated into pounds at the current exchange rate, was a steal. The price of a studio flat in London.

‘The owner of the house is ninety-four,’ the estate agent continued. ‘And she wants to sell. She’s set her heart on ending her days in a retirement village on the Croatian coast where it’s nearly always sunny. She’s already sold up in Zagreb.’

Sophie thought she might cry. She wanted the old lady to have sunshine and happiness in her twilight years, and was sorry it wouldn’t be them who made that dream come true. She comforted herself with the knowledge that – as Jovanka asserted – the house was definitely a bargain; someone would undoubtedly snap it up.

‘So the owner would probably negotiate,’ continued Jovanka, cutting through Sophie’s ponderings and going on to present her with exactly what she had been dreading. ‘She’s spending a week or two here in the hope of getting everything sorted – she’ll be back any moment now. Her neighbour takes her for a little stroll to the café every morning. Let’s go in and meet her.’

Sophie and Anna exchanged glances: Sophie frowning, Anna beaming.

‘Lovely,’ said Anna, before Sophie had a chance to say anything. ‘Let’s go.’

Reluctantly, Sophie followed. The last thing she wanted to do was give the poor old lady reason to believe they might really be prospective buyers when they were anything but.

Mileva Golubovic proved utterly delightful, apologizing for speaking better Italian and German than she did English, and then proceeding to converse fluently in said language. Sprightly, bright-eyed, and petite, she looked years younger than she was. She made no secret of her desire to clinch a sale, talking of how much she worried about the house when she was far away in Croatia, about how she couldn’t afford the maintenance and upkeep any more and how she just wanted to be free of all responsibilities.

It turned out that she was a fan of the art form known as abstract expressionism, something she had in common with Anna – a talented artist who currently scraped a living from the paintings she produced in a dilapidated shed at the bottom of her garden. Amidst their avid conversation, Tomasz fell asleep on the aged sofa with a fraying fabric cover whilst Sophie found herself wandering off again, unable to resist the temptation to explore the house further, drawn to the rooms at the front with their gracious proportions and views over the glittering water of the bay.

An antique bureau stood beside the window in what had obviously once been the formal sitting room, its dark wooden furniture still precisely arranged for receiving guests. As Sophie stood there admiring it, thinking how good it would look once restored, the sun must have minutely changed its position in the sky so that it fell upon the heaped-up piles of papers, ornaments, and books shoved into its open front. The light caught something bright and shiny, a diamond sparkling amidst the clutter.

Drawn towards it, Sophie found herself shifting an ancient concert brochure to one side and revealing beneath it a finely carved wooden jewellery box with a mother-of-pearl inlay lid. Without thinking what she was doing, that she was intruding into someone’s private possessions, Sophie opened the lid. Inside, tied together with a ragged piece of ancient string, was a thin bundle of letters. There was something strange about them that at first Sophie couldn’t quite put her finger on. Tentatively, she reached into the box and picked them up.

Immediately, she saw what was odd. The letters were all unopened. They were also heavier than expected and as she handled them, an old-fashioned man’s watch slipped out from the middle of the bunch and tumbled into the box with a solid thud.

‘I’m sorry.’

The old lady’s voice sliced through Sophie’s absorption, causing her to jump and break out into a cold sweat. She had been caught prying into personal papers. How shaming. She turned slowly towards Mileva, flushed red with her guilt.

‘No, it’s me, I must apologize for –’

Mileva, interrupting, shook her head. ‘I’m sorry for the mess, the house is not tidy like it once was; everything has got too much for me.’ She was resting on her stick, breathing heavily. Sitting down she had looked so fit and well but standing as she was now, slightly bent, clearly finding all movement an effort, her years began to show. ‘Many of the things in that bureau I inherited with it and the house. I’ve never gone through it all. I started this summer when I arrived, but as you can see –’ she waved her hand to indicate the disarray ‘– I don’t think I have the energy to finish the job.’

Sophie nodded and smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to, is there? If it’s been here for so long, there can’t be anything vital.’ She looked down at the box, then hastily replaced the letters. Unimportant: possibly, and without value in monetary terms: almost definitely. But they were without doubt intriguing.

Mileva shook her head. ‘I suppose not.’ She fell suddenly quiet, her head drooping, her stick wobbling beneath her hand and threatening to destabilize her.

Instinctively, Sophie moved towards her to support her, weaving her way between the heavy furniture. ‘Are you all right? You look like you need to sit.’ She escorted Mileva back to her sofa.

‘Old age,’ Mileva murmured, as she sank down. ‘It’s a terrible thing, but I try to make the best of it.’

‘You seem to be.’ Sophie couldn’t think of anything else to say. She seemed like such a brave old lady, not lonely and needy at all despite being ninety-four and having lost her husband twenty years before, a fact that Sophie had gleaned from Jovanka earlier. A vision of herself, growing old without Matt, flitted through Sophie’s mind and she swiftly banished it.

She looked towards the wide-open window and the bright sunlight on the water. How much better it would be to end one’s days in a place like this than in grey, dreary England. She was envious of Mileva’s sun-soaked future.

Jovanka appeared at the door, looking at her watch, Anna beside her.

‘Ladies, I don’t want to hurry you but I have another appointment. And –’ she glanced meaningfully towards the sofa ‘– I think we should probably leave Mrs Golubovic to rest.’

‘Oh yes, of course,’ replied Sophie, not wanting to exhaust poor Mileva, but for some inexplicable reason not wanting to leave the house without knowing the fate of the box with its mysterious cache of letters.

‘If you buy the house you can have everything in it.’ The old lady seemed to have read Sophie’s mind. ‘Otherwise the house clearance people will take it all to the tip, and I’ll probably be heading for the human version soon so none of it’s any use to me.’

Her light-hearted tone did not mask the prescience of her words. This time, the thought of Matt was almost too much, reminding Sophie of his coffin disappearing behind the curtain at the crematorium, making her think about where he might have gone, where he might be now. She wasn’t sure if she believed in heaven, but couldn’t bear to think that he was nowhere, that he simply no longer existed, was not even a soul soaring somewhere far above the sky.

Mileva was talking again, and Sophie forced her attention back to her. ‘My third husband bought the house many years ago, in 1960 I think. I wasn’t married to him then, of course. We didn’t meet until the late Seventies.’ Mileva smiled, a wistful, nostalgic smile, as if looking back on good times, gone but not forgotten.

Sophie nodded, inwardly absorbing both Mileva’s ability to talk about her past love without the taint of sorrow that marred all her own memories, and also the fact that Mileva had been married three times. What had happened to husbands one and two? It felt too intrusive to ask.

‘He purchased it from a Serbian man who had rented it out for years. An absentee landlord, I suppose you would call him now,’ continued Mileva, dreamily. ‘The last family to live here had long gone. Apparently, they were tenants all through the Thirties and early Forties, but after the war they moved away from the area. The Serbian man was already ill and infirm and he simply left the place unoccupied and untouched until Zoran – my husband – bought it.’

‘Gosh,’ responded Sophie, inadequately. ‘It seems strange to think someone had no use for a property so beautiful, but …’ She left the sentence hanging, unsure where she wanted to take it. There were so many derelict houses around, testimony to people leaving for work, family, or myriad other reasons. Then she thought of something. ‘Where did the old tenants go?’ She wondered if they wanted their things back. Surely not, after the passage of so much time.

‘I’ve no idea what happened to them, or where they went,’ continued Mileva, as if reading Sophie’s mind. ‘They left so much behind, including that bureau, but people had no money in those times to pay for packers or removal firms. My husband and I came here only during summer, and somehow we never quite got round to sorting it all out.’ Mileva paused for breath, and met Sophie’s eyes. ‘So anything you want you are welcome to keep.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Sophie blurted out, holding back tears with difficulty. ‘Thank you.’ She had no idea why she was saying this when it was clear she was not going to be the house’s purchaser.

‘I’m sure,’ she vaguely heard Mileva say, her voice faint with tiredness. ‘And God bless.’

***

Stepping out onto the street, Sophie was momentarily blinded by the sun’s glare. The heat was stultifying. Anna, dragging a whinging Tomasz – who was unsettled by being disturbed from his impromptu nap – followed. After her came Jovanka, shutting the door behind her.

‘Are you going to put in an offer?’ she asked, addressing Sophie whilst Anna was half hidden inside the car. ‘The house will not stay around for long at this price.’ Her tone was forceful.

‘Oh no …’ Sophie began.

‘I’m not sure.’ Anna’s voice, as she emerged, rose above Sophie’s. ‘We’ll have to think about it. It’s a lovely house but there is a lot of work to do, so –’

Jovanka was momentarily distracted by her phone ringing.

‘Be careful,’ hissed Sophie. ‘You’ll make Jovanka think you’re in the running.’ She caught the glint in Anna’s eyes and stopped, abruptly.

‘I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m not sure I like it, whatever it is.’

Anna merely shrugged and smiled in response.

Jovanka was off the phone again now.

‘That was the representative of the Russians who saw the house yesterday,’ she said. ‘They will definitely be offering, later today or tomorrow.’

‘OK. That’s interesting to know. We’ll be in touch.’ Anna’s voice had an affected air of disinterest about it. She shook Jovanka’s hand and opened the driver’s door. ‘Speak later.’

In the car, Anna decisively clicked her seat belt into the catch. ‘Never let estate agents think you’re too keen,’ she stated, definitively. ‘And if she thinks we were taken in by that Russian buyer story, well, she must think we were born yesterday.’

Sophie put her head in her hands. ‘Why are you playing games?’ she asked, when she had recovered enough composure to speak. ‘You’re not even thinking of buying that house, are you?’

‘I’m not,’ replied Anna, speeding off along the shimmering bay road amidst a cacophony of horns at her sudden pulling-out. ‘But why don’t you?’

The strobing sunlight streaming through the trees that lined the road was like a flashing neon sign, impossible to ignore.

‘Me?’ Sophie wasn’t sure whether to be angry or amused.

Anna slowed down as a cluster of houses approached. ‘Think about it.’

Chapter 2

The route to the beach took them all along the waterfront, past numerous other ancient stone houses, many restored, others even more romantically dilapidated than the one they had just viewed, with dark ivy growing thickly up crumbling walls and through broken windowpanes. Everywhere were tiny konobas, all boasting prime waterfront positions, the many piers that jutted into the flat blue sea bright with tables laid for lunch. Fishing boats of all sizes lazily drifted on the calm water and seabirds swooped and soared above. Alongside one house, a quaint but rusting communist-era, banana-yellow Trabant – barely bigger than a motorbike sidecar – was chocked up on bricks and awaiting restoration.

‘It’s like I imagine the South of France – Nice or St Tropez – circa 1950,’ mused Sophie, gazing out of the hire car window. ‘I keep expecting Princess Grace to appear in front of me, all priceless elegance and white gloves, and get into an open-top car and drive off to lunch somewhere divine.’

Anna laughed. ‘I know what you mean. And apparently, according to the guidebook I was reading on the plane, she loved it here.’ She paused for thought, frowning. ‘Or maybe it was Ava Gardner. I forget.’

‘Well, both always had immaculate taste, didn’t they?’ replied Sophie. She saw Anna glance at her, as if trying to work out what she was feeling before replying.

‘Sure did.’ Anna clunked the gears as she had to suddenly slow down for a fast-approaching vehicle. ‘So are you glad we came? Despite the reluctance?’

***

In the immediate aftermath of Matt’s death, Sophie had cocooned herself at her parents’ house, the house in which she had grown up, where she had lived until she and Matt had left home to move in together. For days, she had been unable to get up but had lain in bed in the bedroom that had been hers for so many years. Flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, the tears slid off her cheeks and soaked her pillow and nightie.

Her mother had lent her the nightdress, which was long and white and ethereal, like something a Victorian consumptive might wear whilst waiting to cough up her lungs. It was supremely unsexy and Matt would probably not have allowed her into bed with it on. But now Matt would never comment on her night attire, or any other aspect of her, ever again.

At short-spaced intervals, her mother Helena would come in with tea and biscuits and a look of quiet desperation in her eyes that grew ever more despairing as the days passed. Sophie would regard her, and the steaming mug on the bedside table, from beneath half-closed, swollen lids, unable to respond to either. There was no point in any of it.

‘You need to have something, love. You’ve hardly eaten or drunk anything since … You didn’t have any dinner last night, or the night before.’ Helena pursed her lips and inhaled deeply. ‘It won’t do any good for you to get ill.’

The absurdity of this remark temporarily stemmed Sophie’s tears. ‘What does it matter what happens to me? It doesn’t, does it? Nothing matters.’

Helena swallowed anxiously. ‘I know you feel like that now. I understand but …’

‘I don’t think you do understand, Mum.’ Sophie’s voice was harsh and shrill. She heard how she sounded and hated it. ‘I’m sorry, I just mean – I know you’re trying but you can’t possibly understand. You haven’t lost Dad, have you?’

Helena had wept then, her tears replacing her daughter’s on the white bed linen. ‘No. No, I haven’t. But you’re only young; you can’t give up on life now, at your age. You’ve got all your life ahead of you.’

Sophie wanted to scream, to tear the walls of the suddenly claustrophobic room apart, to bring the ceiling down and rock the house’s very foundations to replicate how her own had crumbled and disintegrated in just a few short seconds.

‘That’s the problem, Mum, isn’t it? That’s exactly the problem.’

She turned on her front, shoving the pillow away and burying her face into the mattress, the duvet up around her ears. She stayed like that for hours, her mother beside her, her eyes burning with tears already shed and those not yet released. Her heart had been ripped out from inside her and behind it had been left a lacuna that would never be filled. Her mind was utterly empty, unable to comprehend her insupportable loss.

She drifted in and out of sleep, remembered waking once, unclogging her sticky eyes, pushing back the bedcovers and raising her head to look around her. She was alone and the sun had disappeared to the west-facing side of the house. In the distance, she could hear the sound of a lawnmower; the faint scent of newly cut grass drifted through the half-open window.

She wanted to get up, to go and see who was cutting the grass, but it required too much energy so she didn’t. She merely turned onto her side and stared at the floor over the edge of the mattress, at the mustard-coloured carpet that was so dated now it had almost come back into fashion. Almost, but not quite.

Against the wall stood her washstand, the one she had bought from a junk shop in town and dragged home, with Matt carrying one end and her the other, too impatient to wait for her dad to hire a van to transport it. She had stripped it down with Nitromors, rubbed it with sandpaper, and lime-washed it in the popular style of the time. Eventually, she’d found and saved up enough money to buy a bowl and jug to fit in the hole and she saw now that her mum must have crept back into the room while she’d been asleep and filled the jug with white roses and peonies, her favourite flowers. The very ones she’d chosen for her wedding.

Her eyes closed and she wept again, sure that at some point her body must become so dehydrated with all the shedding of liquid that she would shrivel up like a desiccated leaf in autumn.

***

Back in her married home in London, she had spent days sitting, staring at the rain, contemplating how different the drops looked slamming against the huge panes of her London sashes rather than the small ones of her childhood home’s casements. They seemed bitter and angry, in a way she had never noticed before, hitting the glass and running evilly downwards until they met the wooden surround and accumulated in vicious pools. She had imagined the water eating away at the paint, the elements always trying to destroy what was manmade and protective.

Determined to rescue her, Anna had descended bearing homemade fish pie and the green olive soap that Sophie loved. Anna had also dealt with the flood caused by the blocked washing machine filter that Sophie knew existed but didn’t know how to fix because she had always let Matt take care of such things and, before that, it had been her father who had dealt with everything. Because of the constant availability of male help, she had allowed herself to become totally useless and dependent, possessing no practical skills whatsoever.

‘Good thing you live on the ground floor,’ was all Anna had said as she got down on hands and knees to clear the filter and mop up the water, Tomasz occupied with digging the soil out of the yucca plant pot and Sophie looking dazedly on. Anna had always lived alone, manless, and so she knew how to do useful things. Sophie would have envied her, if she had had the will or energy.

When she’d finished, Anna had shown Sophie the culprits: two five-pence pieces, a paperclip, and half a metal popper. Sophie picked up the popper. It was black and bore the brand name of Matt’s favourite make of cycling clothing. Just seeing the familiar logo had caused all the pain and grief and disbelief and shock to rise up inside Sophie once more. Anna soothed and patted and rocked her until the weeping had ended, and then ran her a bath and helped her in. Sophie had known that her hair was rank and that she smelt, but had not cared enough to do anything about it. As if she were a child, Anna had washed her hair for her.

The next day, she had returned and taken Sophie’s passport and bankcard hostage, telling her she’d found cheap flights to Montenegro and they were going on holiday.

‘Monte-where?’ Sophie had replied, not really focusing on what Anna was saying. Let her take charge; what was it to her where she went? And then, ‘I think the Caribbean’s a bit too far, isn’t it? I don’t like long plane journeys.’

‘It’s not the Caribbean, you dozy cow.’ Anna had laughed, with characteristic brusqueness. ‘It’s Europe, between Croatia and Albania, opposite Italy. You’ll love it.’

A few clicks on the laptop later, it had all been booked.

***

And now here they were. Sophie looked out of the car window again. They had left the bay behind, passed through the tunnel under the mountain, and were heading towards the peninsula. The slopes behind them were purple in the heat haze, the sky above huge and blue. Wild gorse exploded in bursts of hopeful yellow among the browning vegetation of late summer. She reflected on Anna’s question.

‘Yes, I’m glad I came,’ she said, finally responding. She turned to her best friend, steady hands firm on the wheel, always so confident and assured, always so certain. So unlike Sophie, who was more often than not filled with doubt until impulsion overcame her and she did something spur-of-the moment and perhaps unwise.

Like the time she’d vacillated for months about changing her hairstyle and tried to get Matt to give his opinion, which he never would because he said she was beautiful whatever her hair looked like, and then on an impulse she’d had it dip-dyed, badly. She’d hated it and Matt had too, although he wouldn’t say as much. The kids at school had teased her about it relentlessly and she’d ended up crying so much that Matt had paid for her to go to a really expensive salon and have it cut into a bob, removing all traces of blonde from her chestnut tresses. She simply couldn’t cope without people like Anna. And Matt.

She gave Anna a gentle, grateful pat on the knee. So many people had patted her since Matt’s death – her knee, leg, back, shoulder, arm – sometimes tentatively, quickly withdrawing their hands as if death might be infectious, sometimes with overfamiliarity or a boisterousness that made Sophie cringe. It felt good to be the patter rather than the pattee for a change.

‘Thank you for thinking of it and sorting it out. I needed to get away from … To get away for a bit.’

It occurred to her that, fleetingly, whilst absorbed in viewing the house, the grief that she had been imbued with since the day of Matt’s death, that felt so much like fear – shaky, shivery, insidious – had been absent. The beautiful old stone house, with its perfect setting on the frontline to the sea and its captivating views over the expanse of the bay, had driven away her pain, if only momentarily.

Silently contemplating this, she started as something soft and wet landed in her hair, accompanied by a cry of ‘Gophie’ from the back seat. It was toddler Tomasz’s best approximation of her name and clearly designed, like the flying missile, to get her attention. Instinctively, she put her hand to her head to retrieve the object. It was a soggy, half-chewed cheese stick.

‘Thank you so much, Tomasz,’ Sophie said as she showed it to Anna.

A giggle erupted from behind them. Both adults started to laugh and once she’d started Sophie found she couldn’t stop. They were still laughing when they pulled up at the beach ten minutes later.

As they got out of the car, the heat was even more intense than earlier, the sun burning high in the sky. Sophie lifted her face towards it and shut her eyes, relishing the sensation of its rays upon the skin that she knew was pallid and grey from lack of fresh air, good food, exercise, and happiness. Perhaps the sun, here where it shone with such brilliance from dawn to dusk, would sear the loss of Matt out of her soul, enough to begin to live again.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.