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‘If only we had Andreas to advise us!’ her mother had said more than once, but Andreas had gone, feathering his own nest in a foreign land.

The bleak thought persisted until Francis Previn pushed the swing doors ahead of him, making his customary entrance. Involuntarily she glanced at the clock, a suggestion which did not escape his watchful eye.

‘How can I possibly arrive on time when the Market is in turmoil today, as every day! I stand for one whole hour waiting for a lost consignment of melons that nobody seemed to know about—or care!’ he cried, shrugging his massive shoulders as he discarded his linen jacket to tie on an immaculate white apron. ‘I must have those melons because they are on the menu for tonight and that is already printed!’

‘I could put in a substitute,’ Anna offered.

‘No way!’ Americans had also been among their clientele. ‘I have now the melons and all is well. It is the time that I can not afford to lose.’

‘I will send Elli Jacovides to help you,’ she offered. ‘Heaven forbid!’ His dark eyes rolled upwards. ‘I can cope. How do I not cope?’ he challenged.

‘You invariably do.’ She had reached the swing door. ‘I’m sure the lunch will be up to your usual standard, Francis.’

She heard him grunt as she walked away, wondering whether she should have offered her own help in the kitchen in such an emergency, but she had other things to do.

Taking a list from the office, she checked the bedrooms, making sure that towels and soap were replaced in the bathrooms and fresh fruit available in the little wicker baskets which graced every dressing table. There was also a complimentary bottle of the local wine to be found for the new arrivals, due in from Lamica that afternoon, and two wine glasses to be suitably polished. She went to find them, surprising her mother as she came out of the lift on the ground floor. Dorothy was alone.

‘What happened to your visitor?’ she asked. ‘Has he taken cold feet and departed before lunch?’

Dorothy shook her head. ‘Have you ever known Andreas to miss a meal?’ she smiled. ‘No, he is having a quiet look around on his own.’

‘Assessing everything.’

‘Anna, don’t be so hard on him! It must be a nostalgic journey as far as he is concerned,’ her mother suggested.

‘Does he think we should have done things differently?’

‘He realises that we had very little money to spend.’

‘Mother! You haven’t made him feel sorry for us?’

Dorothy shook her head. ‘Not in the way you mean, but you know that Andreas always expected the truth, even as a boy.’ She shifted the pile of towels she carried from one arm to the other. ‘I was taking them up to the store,’ she explained.

‘Leave them and I’ll do it when I go up with the wine,’ Anna said. ‘Why not put your feet up for half-an-hour?’

‘I’ve been sitting down drinking coffee since eleven o’clock,’ Dorothy pointed out, ‘and listening to Andreas’ ideas.’

‘Ideas about what?’ Anna turned sharply to look at her.

‘About catering in general. He thinks the new swimming-pool is absolutely essential.’

‘Two hours ago you were asking me why people couldn’t be content with the sea!’ Anna kissed her on the cheek. ‘Mama, don’t let him influence you with his charm. He has had six years to polish it, remember.’

‘You’re very hard on him.'

‘I have to be practical. I learned that when we first came into this business, and so did you. We haven’t much time for sentiment.’

Dorothy handed over the towels.

‘I’ll check the buffet,’ she offered. ‘Elli forgot to take the salad out of the crisper.’

She walked away across the stretch of newly polished parquet, small and distressingly frail-looking in her tight grey dress but with her head held high. There had been a new light in her eyes, however, when she had spoken about Andreas, and that could be dangerous, Anna thought, when he had no doubt come back out of curiosity and not affection. In her heart she had already accused him of that.

The wine and glasses delivered to the relative bedrooms, she glanced idly out of the window, admiring the view they had over the wide blue bay to the shimmering vista of Limassol where the trading boats came in. Today there was a white cruise ship waiting its turn to enter the harbour and several tankers queueing alongside. The island was growing more and more prosperous, she thought, and the harbour was already too small.

Beneath her on the sun-drenched terrace Paris was laying out extra loungers and adjusting the umbrellas to suit their guests while Hannibal was supervising the soft drinks at the beach bar. She could hear the automatic thud, thud of the liquidiser as he fed in the oranges and the clink of glass as the ‘empties’ were gathered into the wire baskets to be washed at the house. It was a never- ending task while the sun shone, and it shone most days even in April.

A speed-boat started up, breaking the silence as it towed a skier across the bay. It had come from the neighbouring beach where already a para-glider hovered under a red-and-yellow parachute before plunging into the sea. The new amenities, she thought, the almost essentials for a modern successful hotel. It was something they had always wanted to keep at bay, the high-rise concrete edificies which were so impersonal both outside and in. Of course, they made money for their impersonal owners who probably lived on the Greek mainland or even in Egypt. The one thing she had always appreciated was the fact that they were not overlooked because their original garden stretched on either side of them and her father had planted many trees. Certainly it was a prime site for an hotel; they had room to expand, but the only concession to growth they had made was to consider a swimming-pool at the end of the terrace. It was enough, she told herself, and the bank had agreed to advance them the money.

Fiercely independent, she was aware of the glow of satisfaction the transaction had brought, but it would be all the improvement they would be able to afford for a very long time. They would be in debt to the bank, but she could work harder to pay it off.

A figure moved at the end of the mole where their two boats were moored. Andreas! She watched him as he moved slowly towards the little stone ‘lighthouse’ he had helped to build so long ago. The trauma of his unexpected return made her catch her breath as he looked away from the sea to contemplate the villa and its environment in greater detail. What was he thinking? What was he planning to do?

Her heartbeats quickened. There was nothing he could do; nothing she wanted him to do now! Yet she continued to watch him with a scrutiny which was almost fascination. So far, he had told them very little about himself, but the suggestion of wealth was there, and power. Ruthlessness, too, in the way he had explained his long absence. ‘I had this overpowering desire to improve myself,’ he had said, challenging her to understand.

Well, he had been successful probably beyond his wildest dreams, but what did that prove?

She stepped out on to the stone balcony to adjust the chairs, placing the white wrought-iron table neatly between them as he moved back along the mole, and when she looked down to the garden again he was standing on the terrace beneath her.

‘Have you time for a drink?’ he asked.

A deep colour rose into her cheeks because she had hardly expected another confrontation quite so soon.

‘I’m sorry! I have things to do,’ she called down to him.

‘What sort of things that can’t possibly wait?’ he demanded.

‘Andreas,’ she pointed out reasonably enough, ‘I am trying to run an hotel!’

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Only “trying”?’

‘You know what I mean.’ She was angry with him now because he refused to take her seriously. ‘The morning is our busiest time.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘It is almost one o’clock. Your mother told me you’d be free by half-past twelve.’

The chef was late coming in. I had extra work to do in the kitchen.’

‘I saw him with your mother supervising the lay-out of the buffet. A mountain of a man who seemed to know his job,’ he remarked.

‘We were lucky to get Francis,’ she said. ‘He’s a dedicated cook.’

‘I never remember you being too fond of the kitchen,’ he observed, his dark head tilted to look up at her.

‘I had to learn.’ She drew back from the balustrade. ‘Quite often you have to do the things you don’t particularly like in order to survive.’

He thought about that for a moment.

‘How right you are,’ he acknowledged at last. ‘I think we have both changed a great deal in the past six years, Anna. Certainly I have.’

‘Change isn’t always for the best,’ she said, ‘but perhaps that hadn’t occurred to you.’

Why was she being so bitter? He hadn’t injured them in any way; just gone off when her mother might have needed him most, causing her unnecessary pain.

‘I’ll wait for you in the terrace room,’ he called up to her.

Perhaps her mother would already be there, Anna thought, although she would never have thrust Dorothy between her and someone she—distrusted in the ordinary way. She was used to fighting her own battles.

Andreas was standing in front of one of the long windows overlooking the terrace when she finally stepped from the lift, her dress changed and her hair tidied to meet the afternoon.

‘You look—refreshed,’ he commented, ‘and very practical. What will you drink?’

‘Nothing stronger than orange-juice, thank you. It is the best thing for quenching your thirst.’

He gave the order to Paris who was on duty behind the bar.

‘That’s what I missed most in England,’ he said. ‘Freshly squeezed orange juice with all the bits and pieces in it!’

‘Yet, you chose to make your home there,’ she challenged.

He found an empty table and waited for her to sit down. ‘I had very little choice, Anna,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t spend all the time in England. I travelled to France and Spain and America, learning my trade.’

She looked at him expectantly.

‘I worked my way up fairly quickly,’ he admitted, ‘from commis to head waiter at first in one of the smaller chain of hotels before I decided to go in for management.'

She gazed at him incredulously. ‘You’re in the hotel business? I can’t believe it.’

‘Why not? It’s lucrative enough when you do the thing properly,’ he suggested.

‘And you, of course, haven’t missed a trick!’

Paris put their glasses on the table between them and he paid for their drinks before he answered her.

‘I’m not going to ask you what makes you feel so bitter,’ he said, ‘because I think I know. I’ve waved the white flag as far as your mother is concerned, but I don’t think there is any need for further surrender. I’m in a position to help you now if only you will accept my offer.’

She stiffened in her seat. ‘We don’t need help,’ she assured him.

‘You do, if you wish to expand,’ he pointed out.

‘We’ll progress slowly,’ she answered firmly. ‘That’s the way we have planned it.’

‘Don’t you think you are being rather short-sighted?’ he suggested. ‘It would be to your mother’s advantage if you accepted help.'

He had pierced her Achilles tendon with the barbed arrow which could hurt her most.

'I try to make her rest,’ she said, ‘but she has such spirit. That is something you ought to know.’

‘And much tenderness. It was what I remembered most in all these years between then and now.’ He looked down at the contents of his glass. ‘Anna, why are we sparring like this when we once agreed about almost everything?’ he demanded. ‘I thought I could come back to things as they were, not conflict like this.’

Her fingers closed around her ice-cold glass. ‘Was that something else you set out to do deliberately?’ she asked in a very small voice. ‘Charm us back to accepting you as if the past had never been?’

He swallowed the remainder of his drink, appraising her with a distant smile. ‘I see you will not be convinced,’ he said. ‘You are determined to consider the past six years unforgivable.’

‘They were unforgivable! If only you had written from time to time—for my mother’s sake’ she added quickly.

‘She has accepted the loss of my first letter,’ he said quietly. ‘She believes I was speaking the truth when I said I wrote offering an explanation. She has come to terms with it.’

‘Which doesn’t begin to compensate for all the heartache you caused!’

‘No, that is true. I have already said I’m sorry.’

She turned to look at him. ‘If you had stayed here,’ she said, ‘you could not have achieved so much success. That meant a great deal to you, I suppose—more than friendship and understanding.’

‘It did mean a lot to me,’ he admitted, ‘but not more than understanding. I don’t know whether I expected you to understand or not, but I had looked for friendship.’

‘Surely that can’t matter to you so much now that you have everything else.’ She finished her orange juice as her mother came towards them. ‘Shall we go in now before the rush begins?'

Dorothy greeted him with a smile. ‘What do you think of our improvements?’ she asked. ‘I saw you out at the lighthouse.’

‘I remember helping to build it,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Nothing has really changed, although six years is a long time in one respect. I remember how you used to say that the years flew away without us noticing, and that is true. This morning could have been yesterday as far as I was concerned.’ He waited in the doorway of the terrace room for Anna to catch up with them. ‘This used to be your sitting-room,’ he remembered.

‘We’ve made changes,’ Dorothy acknowledged wistfully. ‘It is no longer a home.’

Oh, Mama, Anna thought, that’s the first time you’ve expressed regret so openly!

A table had been reserved for them at a window overlooking the terrace.

‘We’re going to put the swimming-pool out there,' Dorothy told him. ‘It’s a natural declivity and very suitable, I understand.’

‘It’s where we found the Roman coins,’ he mused. ‘We were all very excited that day, wondering if we had stumbled on a fortune and vaguely disappointed when they had to be handed over to the authorities. Where are they now?’

‘In the museum,’ Anna said, ‘where they rightly belong.’

He smiled as he made way for her at the buffet. ‘What do you recommend?’ he asked.