‘Let’s spread the risk and get a stash.’
‘Excellent,’ Eleanor said as she turned to reveal the basket slung over her arm, already stocked with a variety of chocolate bars and honeyed nuts.
They continued around the supermarket together, Eleanor gathering generous supplies of fruit, vegetables, herbs and fresh bread. Once they’d finished and paid, Robyn wheeled the trolley into the sweltering heat of the afternoon.
Ana was standing beneath the shade of the supermarket canopy, a flame-orange headscarf knotted over her braids, a mobile pressed to her ear. Now here was a woman who didn’t have problems with leaky tear ducts, Robyn decided. They’d met for the first time on the flight, Robyn learning that she was a single mother to a fifteen-year-old and had put herself through night school to finish her degree. Now she worked as a freelance sign-language interpreter – inspired by her sister’s deafness – juggling a busy work schedule to make herself available outside of school hours for her son.
When Robyn found herself apologising for currently living with her parents, Ana had fixed her with a firm, level stare: ‘Don’t you dare apologise. We do what we do to get by. The bravest thing any of us can do is ask for help.’
Having not noticed them approach, Ana was speaking in a low voice into her phone. ‘It was a mistake to come here,’ she said, eyes down, brow creased.
Robyn slowed her pace and, at her shoulder, Eleanor did the same. A mistake? Why?
Ana looked up. Seeing them both, her eyes widened fractionally. ‘Talk later,’ she said hurriedly into the phone.
‘Everything all right?’ Robyn asked, then wondered if it would’ve been better to pretend she hadn’t overheard.
‘Fine.’ Ana slipped her phone away, smoothed down her dress, then came to the side of the trolley. Her expression lightened as she eyed the bottles of ouzo, gin, Metaxa, Prosecco and beer. ‘The alcohol to food ratio is excellent.’
Eleanor smiled and, after a moment, Robyn did, too.
As they unloaded the goods into the taxi, Robyn couldn’t quite believe that this was the start of Lexi’s hen party. The news still felt so fresh, so surprising. Lexi had always claimed she’d never marry – and they’d believed her. She’d spent most of her twenties as a backing dancer for a host of pop stars. She’d partied on tour buses, in penthouse suites, and tripped through Soho knowing every club owner’s name. And then, two years ago, she’d fractured her tibia and, just like that, the dancing, the partying, the lifestyle, was over. But life had a habit of slamming one door, only to open another. Well, it did where Lexi was concerned. Lexi retrained as a yoga teacher, met Ed, fell in love, and agreed to get married. Now here they were, in Greece, ready to celebrate. How was that for an about-turn?
Maybe that was the problem with Robyn’s life. She’d never lived it hard enough. Never gone for broke. She’d always followed the straight path: law degree, homeowner, career, marriage, baby. Tick, tick, bloody tick.
Where had it left her? Thirty years old, living with her parents and an eighteen-month-old baby, with a career she’d been sidelined from and an ex-husband under her belt.
The B-list, she thought.
Always the bloody B-list.
We were a group – a party of hens – but we were never the same.
Not by a long shot.
Don’t forget that.
Some of us started the day with a sun salutation, or a run, or by clutching a pillow to our chests in an empty bed. Some of us arrived on the hen weekend wanting to step out of our ordinary lives and dig into our wild, free selves, to remember that’s where we roamed. Others wanted only to get through it, to chalk off the hours until we returned home.
We all had different reasons for being there. But one of us – well, she had a very specific reason for saying Yes to the hen weekend.
The problem was, none of us realised until it was too late.
3
Fen
Fen’s body tensed as she turned the key in the lock, as if bracing for a blow.
She took a steady, low inhale, then pushed open the door.
Stepping into the cool expanse, the villa greeted her with its familiar chalky breath. She tried to recall arriving here seven years earlier, wide-eyed at the sheer beauty of the island, the fizz of possibility bubbling in her chest that a new world was unfurling before her. Back then, she’d only just cut ties with her parents and their strict, church-led demands, so Fen had been entranced by her aunt’s bohemian lifestyle, filled with friends who visited with their paintbrushes and sketchbooks and wildly seductive ideas of how life could be lived.