The architecture of the house suggests it was once an old farmhouse, with remnants from its past hung on the wall as vintage ornaments – old breast ploughs, some fairly mean-looking pitchforks, and the wheel of a chaff-cutter, as well as cow or goat bells. A room at the bottom of the stairs features a rocking chair – I remember sitting there last night, hunched over and trembling – and a beautiful inglenook fireplace that smelled of burnt toast.
The kitchen looks different in daylight – long and brightly lit, with a large range oven, refrigerator, white granite worktops, and a wooden table in the middle surrounded by four wooden chairs. A little decrepit and dusty, but nowhere near as creepy as it seemed last night. The room has an earthy odour about it, as though it’s been unused for a long time, though as I head towards the cooker it gives way to the rich smell of grilled tomatoes and fresh pitta. Sariah says, ‘Let’s get you something to eat,’ and makes for a pan on the hob.
Joe walks me slowly to a chair by the table, then makes for the sink. He’s a good deal younger than I’d placed him last night. Maybe early twenties, a whiff of the undergrad about him. Long, pale, and thin, his black hair standing upright on his head in a gelled quiff, black square glasses shielding his eyes.
He hands me a glass of water, which I gulp down. Sariah fills a plate with the contents of a pan. Dressed in a red skirt and floaty kimono patterned with orange flowers, she looks magnificent: long dark fingers ringed with gold bands, heavy strands of colourful beads looping from her neck, ropes of black hair coiled on top of her head and tied with an orange scarf. She sets a plate of food in front of me – fried cherry tomatoes, olives, pitta bread.
‘Thank you,’ I say, and she grins.
‘Mind if I take a little look at your head?’ Joe asks.
I feel his hands gently touch the wound through my hair at the back of my head.
‘How does it look?’
‘Clean. Some bruising around the area. How’s the neck?’
His fingers brush the sides of my neck gently and he tries to move my head from side to side.
‘Stiff.’
‘I’ll find some painkillers.’
A kettle whistles to the boil on the hob. Sariah walks towards it and begins to make coffee, asking if I’d like milk. It all feels so strange and disorienting. I say yes to the milk but even that seems odd, the sound of my voice distant and distorted. I dart my eyes around the room, willing it to make sense, to become familiar. It doesn’t.
The other woman – Hazel, I hear Joe call her – scuttles in from somewhere else, rubbing her hands and muttering about tea. She’s short and thin, orange curls leaping on her head like springs, an oversized black woollen jumper pulled over a bottle-green skirt. She holds something in the crook of an arm. A notebook.
She stops in her tracks when she spots me, as though she hadn’t expected me to be here. ‘Hello,’ she says warily, and she sits down, placing the notebook carefully on her lap. Her accent is English, like Joe and George.
‘Hello.’
‘Are you going to stay with us?’ she asks.
Sariah answers from the sink. ‘We’re still working out how to get her to see a doctor.’
Hazel glances from me to Sariah. ‘Joe’s a doctor, isn’t he?’
‘I do first aid,’ Joe corrects from the other end of the room.
‘I found these,’ he says. ‘Paracetamol.’
‘Thanks.’ I press a couple of tablets out of the foil and take them with a swig of coffee.
I feel Hazel watching me, her small grey eyes absorbing every inch of me. ‘You were in quite a state last night,’ she says. ‘It was all very exciting. Do you remember what happened?’
I suspect she means if I remember what happened before I ended up in their kitchen. There’s a smile on her face, as if the sorry state of me amuses her. It makes me wary.
‘And you still don’t remember how you ended up here?’
‘I don’t think so …’
‘What about your name?’
I open my mouth, because this should be right there, right on the top of my tongue. But the space in my mind that should be bright with self-knowledge is blank, closed, emptied.
Hazel’s eyes blaze with excitement at my hesitation. I see Sariah giving her a look of caution, and instantly she looks away, shame-faced.
‘Don’t sweat it,’ Sariah says. ‘You’ve had a rough night, a bump on the head. Give it a few hours. It’ll all come back.’
The sound of heavy footsteps grows louder at the back door. Moments later, George appears, glistening with sweat and exhaustion, his grey vest soaked through. Hazel fidgets in anticipation as he heads towards us.
‘Did you find it?’ Sariah asks.
George shakes his head, too worn out to speak. He’s very overweight and so red in the face that I brace myself for the sight of him falling to the ground with a tremendous thud. He pulls a towel from the shelf above the sink and wipes sweat from his brow and face.
‘You mean, the boat?’ Hazel says in a shrill voice. ‘We’ve lost the boat?’
No answer. Hazel and Sariah watch George as he leans back in the chair and catches his breath. Both of them look worried. The mood in the room has plummeted.
‘What boat?’ I ask, and my voice is small and hesitant. It sounds odd to me, as though someone else is speaking.
‘We rented a powerboat from Nikodemos so we can travel back and forth to Crete for supplies,’ Sariah says in a low voice.
‘The only reason we found you was because Joe and I went out to check that the boat was moored properly during the storm,’ George pants, pulling off his wet boots, and then his socks. The sour smell of sweat hits me instantly. ‘And then we came across you. But the boat’s gone.’
‘I thought Joe said it would likely be washed up on one of the beaches,’ Hazel says.
George tilts his head from side to side, emitting loud cracks from his neck. ‘I’ve checked everywhere, trust me. Boat’s gone. Sunk, most likely.’
‘What will Nikodemos say about his boat sinking?’ Hazel says. ‘He’ll be cross, won’t he? Very, very cross.’
‘What will Nikodemos charge for his boat sinking?’ George corrects. ‘That’s the question.’
‘We’re covered by insurance, aren’t we?’ Sariah says, turning back to the hob to crack eggs into a pan. Her movements are rough, erratic.
George scratches a rough belt of stubble under his chin. ‘We’ll need to work out another way to get supplies from the mainland. Not to mention delivering our guest back to wherever she came from.’
I feel that this is my fault. I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be here, and I feel helpless and awkward. George and Hazel acknowledge this with a quick glance in my direction, which only confirms that they feel I’m to blame. ‘I’m so sorry about your boat,’ I say.
‘We’ll work it out,’ Sariah mutters without turning, and I wonder if she’s detected that I’m feeling pretty awful. Joe is at the back door, a bundle of peaches gathered in the hem of his black T-shirt. George opens his mouth and begins to tell him about the boat situation, but Sariah cuts in.
‘Want some breakfast, Joe?’
Joe dumps his peaches on the worktop. He rubs his hands and