Lessons in Love. Kate Lawson
out Jayne’s business until we work out exactly what to do with you. To be perfectly honest I don’t really know how she fills her time on a day-to-day basis, so if you start with something that really needs doing, we’re both going to have to make the rest of it up as we go along.’
He lifted his coffee cup in salute. ‘To the new Jane Mills.’
Jane tried out another smile and Ray beamed back.
Maybe she was being oversensitive, worried that the job was too good to be true. Maybe it was going to be all right after all.
‘To the other Jayne Mills,’ she said.
Meanwhile, the other Jayne Mills set her handbag down on one of the unforgiving airport seats and stared up at the departure board to check the flight times. She felt strangely nervous. Although she’d been flying round the world for the best part of twenty-five years, this flight felt special. She smiled. Twenty-five years—it seemed impossible. Then she had never imagined herself ever being this old.
The airport clock rolled over another minute. Another fifteen minutes and they would start boarding. Jane tucked the boarding pass into her jacket pocket and then glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see Andy loping towards her through the crowd, in his famous baggy blue shorts, a rucksack slung casually across broad shoulders, long blond hair flapping like unruly wings. Catching herself, Jayne smiled and let the ghost fade away. There was no Andy, no long blond hair, just an appraising and appreciative look from a good-looking guy in a suit from behind a copy of the Telegraph.
She smiled back while reminding herself that this wasn’t about the past, it was about the future. Her future. A bright shiny new future. This was about looking at where she had been to try to make sense of where she wanted to go next, and where better place to start than in Kos?
Kos—Jayne let the word linger in her mind and then very slowly roll over her tongue. It was a word heavy with memories of newly baked bread, and honey and olives and creamy feta cheese. Kos, so very ordinary now, but so unfamiliar then. Hardly a great adventure, hardly exotic in the twenty-first century, but all those years ago it had seemed so very far away, and so very foreign. Now it was just another short-haul flight, barely a hop across a globe that she had crossed and recrossed God knew how many times since. But then it had seemed a million miles away for a hick from the sticks.
So, while Greece might not appear the bravest of starts to an outsider, it had been the first step on her journey all those years ago, so what better place to start again now?
In a homage to travels past she had booked into economy class, and having toyed with the idea of taking pot luck on arrival, in the end had succumbed and booked into a little hotel in Kefalos old town, at the far end of the island of Kos, a steep climb away from the night life and the bars.
The taxi dropped her off at her hotel in late afternoon, and once she had booked in Jayne dropped her things in her room, and made her way back down the hill, down steep flights of steps to the beach, past the little church with its white walls, pale blue dome and roof, surrounded by trees and a field of what looked like cotton. Everywhere was remarkably green, despite the heat, the steep hillsides covered in low bushes and shrubs that followed the sharp rocky contours of the bay. She had forgotten how breathtaking the view was.
Below the old town of Kefalos, new bars and tourist restaurants lined the beach like a string of bright beads, colourful flotsam and jetsam stranded at the high-water mark, and windsurfers and sailing dinghies cut back and forth across the glittering water on the edges of the sun-warmed wind.
Once she got onto the coarse gritty sand Jayne slipped off her sandals and walked along the water’s edge, down past the sleeping cafés and shady restaurants, down past the boat-hire shops towards a little island caught in the curled arm of the bay. Although the sun was well past its zenith it was still wonderfully warm, the waves reflecting the sunlight like the shards of a broken mirror.
The beach was completely empty except for a handful of locals swimming and windsurfing on the wind-ruffled sea where the harbour met the beach.
Jayne stretched, relishing the sensation of the warm breeze on her face, dropped her towel onto the sand and, slipping off her sandals and thin cotton dress, stepped naked into the welcoming water. Not that anyone saw or cared.
It felt like a cool caress over her body and was the perfect antidote to the long wait at the airport, the flight and the taxi ride from Kos town to her hotel. Jayne sighed and shimmied beneath the waves, the chill making her shiver, and then very slowly she rolled over onto her back, looking up into the cloudless azure blue sky. Kos. Still here after all these years. It felt as if her soul was slowly uncurling. She smiled, with an odd sense of coming home. It had been a good choice.
* * *
In Buckbourne, Ray helped himself to another olive from the little dish on the table and smiled. The restaurant was quiet.
‘So, why don’t you tell me some more about yourself?’ he asked. ‘What sort of things do you enjoy?’
Jane blinked as he carried on topping up her wine glass. She didn’t make a habit of drinking straight after work and this was her second, but after a day spent crosschecking names and addresses and postcodes for customers with special interests, unusual delivery instructions and various complaints, she hadn’t refused when Ray suggested they share a bottle and a toast to her first day with the company. The first glass had slipped down nicely, and—with Jane having had only a sandwich for lunch—had gone straight to her head.
‘Jayne tells me that you worked in the library before joining us. What brought you to the area? Is your partner local?’
The glasses seemed big and Jane was almost certain Ray hadn’t topped his up.
‘No, actually I don’t have one,’ Jane heard herself saying. It felt like he was asking way too many questions anyway. ‘Not at the moment.’
‘Really? I find that very hard to believe,’ said Ray, beckoning the waiter over. Since they had arrived the menus had sat unopened between them on the table.
‘Actually I’ve just come out of a relationship,’ Jane said, not meeting his eye.
‘Really? Ah, well, may I offer my condolences. But you know what they say about getting back in the saddle. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding a replacement,’ Ray said brightly.
Jane stared at him. He made Steve sound like a washing machine.
‘Now, what do you fancy? The seafood here is absolutely superb.’ He barely paused for breath. The waiter stood by the table, with his pen hovering over a pad, and Ray’s next remarks were aimed squarely at him.
‘How about we start with the goat’s cheese soufflé—for two—and then we’ll have the paella. And I think we’ll have another bottle of white with that—the Chenin Blanc and salad, maybe the green salad with poached nectarines that sounds rather nice, don’t you think?’
It was entirely a rhetorical question. Jane stared across the table at him; she hadn’t even had a chance to look at the menu, let alone choose. Meanwhile, the waiter was busy scribbling down the order, and far from feeling flattered or protected or in safe hands, Jane felt annoyed—or at least she would have been if it hadn’t been for the wine. Before she could protest the waiter had vanished off towards the kitchen.
‘Now,’ said Ray leaning a little closer, ‘where were we? Oh, I know, you were going to tell me all about what brought you to Buckbourne.’
‘Was I?’ snapped Jane.
Ray laughed. ‘I can see why Jayne thought you’d fit in,’ he said.
Jane stared at him, wondering what the hell he was going on about.
The meal was delicious but he seemed odd. For a start Ray appeared to be totally enthralled by her every word. He insisted she have a liqueur after dinner, and although Jane declined she had a strange feeling that there was booze in the coffee. This was hardly the nice shiny start she had anticipated. Looked like getting drunk during