Sunshine After the Rain: a feel good, laugh-out-loud romance

‘What are they?’

‘Keys to James’s villa in Corfu.’

‘And how come you have them in your handbag?’

‘James’s brother George dropped them in last week after he had closed the house up for the winter. I haven’t had chance to give them to James yet.’

‘So …’

‘Well, isn’t it obvious? You need some time and space to consider your future and what better place to do that than overlooking the crystal blue calm of the Ionian Sea? Maybe you could even indulge in a passionate fling with a handsome Greek guy to reacquaint yourself with what life is really all about?’

‘No! No way! I can’t stay in someone else’s house without their permission! Especially if that house belongs to the man who has just fired me!’

‘James did not fire you, you resigned.’

Pippa narrowed her eyes and raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. The determined tilt of her friend’s chin warned Evie to select an alternative submission in her argument for the defence.

‘Even if I did agree with your suggestion, didn’t you just say it’s been closed up for the winter?’

‘The house has, yes. But there’s a little studio above the garage next to the swimming pool, which James lets anyone use. Remember? Last year when our cleaner, Doris, and her husband, Stanley, enjoyed their very first foreign holiday there? And one of the clerks at Dad and James’s chambers went with his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago. James said they could use it for a bottle of Bolly. He even offered it to you and Dylan in the summer, remember, but you said you were too busy to take advantage of his generous offer? Go there, relax, gain some perspective. As long as you stay away from the main villa there’ll be no problem – no one will even know you’ve been.’

Pippa clearly took Evie’s gobsmacked silence to be acquiescence so she continued.

‘It’s the perfect location to recharge your batteries and it’s the ideal place to paint. You said it yourself: sun, sea, and sand – it has all those things in abundance. You have to do this, Evie. You have to get away from everything that has happened in the last twenty-four hours and rediscover what is important in your life – your passion for art and your dream of being an artist. Remember what Sam is always telling us? If you want to fly, you first have to jump! Get some distance and I know you’ll make the right decision about where your future really lies.’

‘But Pippa, it might not come as a surprise to you that I don’t even have enough cash for a train ticket to Penzance …’

‘You’ve got a credit card. Use that for the airfare. It’s the end of September – flights will be cheap. And you can live frugally when you get there – aren’t artists supposed to be at their best when they’re suffering for their work? No, sorry, I’m joking. Maybe you can find a job at the local bar or something.’

‘I don’t think so …’

‘Look.’ Pippa levelled her eyes to stare directly at Evie, her expression serious. ‘It’s time you put yourself first for a change. You’re always at the bottom of those long lists you insist on living your life by. Love yourself a little – come back refreshed and in control of your own destiny with a portfolio stuffed with gorgeous watercolours of Greece. You never know, maybe James will have missed your organizational skills so much that he’ll offer to host your debut show at the gallery!’

‘Whoosh, look, a pig just flew past the window!’ Evie giggled for the first time since Jaxx had appeared on the threshold of Bradbury’s to demolish her carefully constructed life.

She allowed the audacious plan Pippa was proposing to sink into her sluggish brain and begin to morph into a potential solution to her current predicament. Her suggestion had a number of advantages. Yes, it offered time away from her frazzled work schedule and the treadmill her life in London had become, but it would also afford her the opportunity to dissect the reasons why her relationship with Dylan had fizzled out. However, the thing that finally swung it was the opportunity to replenish her artistic coffers with golden-hued, sun-soaked inspiration. When would she get the chance to shoot for her creative dreams again?

Could she do it? Or, more importantly, could she live with herself if she didn’t? Would she look back and regret not grabbing this chance with both hands? A rush of optimism, mingled with a generous splodge of gratitude, shot through her veins. She leapt from her seat to envelop Pippa in a hug.

‘You are the best friend anyone has ever had, Pip.’

‘So you’ll go?’

‘Yes!’

‘Fantastic.’ Pippa clapped her hands, her chocolate brown eyes sparkling with delight. ‘I want regular progress reports and lots of selfies. No social media though don’t forget, not until this whole “Mystery Canvas Switch Fiasco” has been sorted out.’

Evie laughed as the concrete weight that had been bearing down on her chest shifted to allow her to breathe freely again.

‘There won’t be anything to report. If I’m going to Corfu, I intend to paint, paint, paint until my brushes are bare. Now come on, help me book a flight before my sanity returns!’

Chapter Six (#ulink_e3c0b0f8-51e0-52e6-b230-82b3b6657f5b)

Evie massaged her temples in an effort to alleviate the nagging headache that had burgeoned since the flight had left the runway at Stansted. The autumn sweater she had hastily selected in London for her last-minute dash to Corfu clung to her skin and perspiration collected around her neckline and beneath her cleavage.

She glanced out of the window of the speeding taxi as the driver pulled away from the airport – a chaotic experience in itself as she and her fellow passengers had been forced to wait over two hours for their luggage to appear on the carousel. She could have liberated her suitcase from the hold quicker herself. Tempers had frayed, children had moaned vociferously, and babies had screamed for their next feed. It wasn’t the serene start she had been expecting to her sojourn in the Ionian isles.

The next thing she knew she was head-butting the headrest of the passenger seat in front of her and the shrill screech of brakes reverberated through her ears like nails down a chalkboard.

‘Oww!’ she cried as a sharp spasm of pain shot through her nose.

‘Sorry. But the tourists around here are crazy!’ declared the driver, throwing his hands in the air and issuing a stream of Greek expletives at a gang of intoxicated revellers who had lurched into the taxi’s path from one of the tightly packed bars that lined the roadside before making their unsteady way to the narrow pebble beach on Evie’s right.

As she stared after them, one of their number whipped off his football shirt, circling it above his head like a lasso whilst he sang a raucous tune from the terraces. Evie prayed he didn’t intend to take a dip in the sea. She had no doubt it was a refreshing experience during the day, but at eleven o’clock at night the water looked like an infinite sheet of rippling tar and, to her mind, looked quite foreboding.

Through the taxi’s open windows, she could hear the thud of disparate tunes, from ballads to bouzouki music, echoing along the neon-bright strip. She sent up a missive of grateful thanks that she wasn’t staying in the resort, heaving a sigh of relief when the taxi left the partying resort behind to continue their journey north of Ipsos.

‘How much further is it?’

‘Nissaki is not far now,’ declared the driver, raking his fingers through the gelled tufts of his ebony hair. The young Greek Adonis in the front seat may have decided to emulate one of his favourite movie star heroes with his Mediterranean-hued good looks and toned biceps, but he had clearly modelled his driving skills on Lewis Hamilton.

Evie checked her seat belt before tipping her head back and allowing her thoughts to float over everything that had happened in her life in such a short space of time. A spasm of fear shot from her chest and radiated out to her fingertips.

Was she just as crazy as the drunken holidaymakers planning a midnight swim?

The answer was a resounding yes!

Why on earth had she let Pippa persuade her to catch the next flight out to Corfu? She felt like she had been unceremoniously evicted from her hectic life and sent into exile. Surely the right thing to do would have been to stay and face her problems, not run away like a frightened rabbit, which was how she was feeling at the moment, devoured by guilt, as she stared out into the darkness across the Ionian Sea. It was exactly the desolate view she expected to see from her self-imposed rabbit burrow.

However, she had no regrets about terminating her relationship with Dylan – that was something she should have done months ago. She couldn’t feel guilty because, if she knew Dylan at all, he would be camping out at his grandparents’ home until one of his musician friends offered him a bed, or, possibly a more likely scenario, he fell into a new relationship with one of the band’s numerous fans. Evie wasn’t surprised when there was no accompanying pang of loss and if this had been her only problem then she could have coped with that.

What she should have done when she woke up on Saturday morning was call James and explain what had happened at the gallery the night before. Told him that she had checked the documentation attached to the painting and that it had definitely been endorsed with his signature. James would have been able to check the paperwork, acknowledge the mistake and, utilizing his immeasurable conciliatory skills honed over a thirty-year career as a barrister, would have found a way to smooth Jaxx’s, and his agent’s, ruffled feathers. Then she could have carried on where she had left off.

But was that truly what she wanted? A tickle of excitement had started to form at the base of her stomach that she was here, in Corfu of all places, and she had her artist’s rucksack on the seat next to her.

Yet, despite the uplift in her spirits, her head was about to explode and her eyes sparkled with unshed tears because, in the mad rush to leave for the Saturday afternoon flight, she had left her mobile phone charging on the kitchen worktop. The fact that she had inadvertently severed all contact with the outside world left her feeling bereft, like one of those little rowing boats cast adrift and floating aimlessly in the open sea to her right. She felt like one of her arms had been amputated.

How on earth was she going to get through the next two weeks without her phone?

She took refuge in her misery – indulgent, she knew – but it was better than engaging in a falsely cheerful conversation with someone it was unlikely she would ever set eyes on again. She glanced out of the window and inhaled a deep steadying breath to continue analysing the catalogue of catastrophes that had befallen her when her reverie of self-pity was rudely interrupted.

‘Argh!’

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, her battered heart performing a backflip. What else could go wrong? Had they run out of petrol?

But Evie didn’t need a reply to her question. She too had seen the spectacular fork of light illuminate the scene in front of them, followed swiftly by a deep low rumble of thunder, and within seconds, the heavens opened. She had never seen rain like it. It was as though the Greek meteorological gods had decided to take a power shower.

The taxi’s windscreen wipers provided no competition for the downpour and the route ahead became obliterated behind a curtain of rain. Bearing in mind the road to James’s villa in Nissaki snaked around the eastern coastline, she wasn’t surprised when the taxi drew to a halt in an opening at the side of the road, which fell away sharply to her right where she could hear the waves crashing on the beach.