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And then there were her mother’s things. Ava could price a regency giltwood mirror or mid-century Murano chandelier with her eyes shut, but that little room was beyond value.

Flora took another sip of her sherry, flumped her wet hair with her hand and, glancing around said, ‘I’ll tell you who does have some interesting stuff, have you met Tom yet? Bought the vineyard on the hill. He’s poured some money into that house. It was practically derelict when he bought it. You wouldn’t recognise it now.’

Ava shook her head. ‘I’ve never met him,’ she said, but she’d heard all about Tom-On-The-Hill as well. Retired actor. Kept Val up with all the drilling and banging during the renovation, but made up for it with a bottle of expensive brandy when she climbed the steps to complain. They’d smoked cigars on his terrace together apparently, and Ava had always wondered if they were having an affair.

‘He’s over there by the bar,’ Flora said, nodding towards the people drinking inside. ‘Tom!’ she shouted. ‘Come over here, darling.’

Ava sat up in surprise when the guy at the bar turned at the sound of his name.

Oh my God! She tried to act completely natural.

‘He was very famous once,’ Flora said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘But I’d never seen anything he’d been in.’

Ava couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

This was Tom-On-The-Hill.

Walking towards her was not the eighty-year-old retired actor that Ava had imagined having brandy with her grandmother on his terrace, the two of them perhaps holding hands.

Tom-On-The-Hill was none other than Thomas King. Probably the biggest television star of Ava’s teenage years. The fresh-faced, chocolate-box heart-throb who had shot to fame on Love-Struck High. She could remember the recording of the final episode being passed around their school like gold dust. Everyone impatiently waiting their turn, and secretly praying that their VCR wouldn’t be the one to chew up the tape. She and Louise had queued to see him at the National Television Awards, but Louise had started hyperventilating when he’d walked past and had to be taken off by the St John’s Ambulance crew for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.

Now as he stood in front of her, all faded shorts and crisp white shirt, his hand held out for her to shake, looking pretty damn perfect and far too pleased with himself, Ava could barely get the words together to say, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m Ava’. She didn’t want to shake his hand, her palm suddenly a little clammy from the proximity to fame, his rough and cool in comparison.

‘Tom,’ he said.

And Ava filled the silence by saying, ‘Thomas King,’ as if he might need reminding of his own name, and immediately regretted it.

‘I am indeed.’

Flora put her hand on Tom’s arm and said, ‘Val was Ava’s grandmother. She’s here to pack up the house.’

Ava nodded, mute. Wishing she’d been able to play it cooler. Her brain chastising her for even admitting that she knew who he was. How cool would it have been to have had no idea who he was, or at least manage to carry out a pretence as such.

Tom was talking, saying how sorry he was about Val and that he’d been away for the funeral. ‘It’s all done so quickly in Spain,’ he said, and Ava nodded, shamefully distracted from his respectful sympathy, trying to work out whether he was wearing tortoiseshell glasses and had grown his hair a bit long to try and hide the heart-throb jaw and eyes.

He seemed to be able to sense her distraction and paused, his mouth twitching into a smile. His whole demeanour switched to predatory with just a roll of his shoulders and a lean against one of the awning pillars. ‘So how long are you staying?’ he asked.

Flora cut in, saying, ‘I should go.’ A couple of tourists were inspecting the menu on one of the far tables. She stood up, but as she did she leant forwards and added in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘The problem is I’ve started to hope they don’t sit down at all. I want them to just leave me alone.’

Tom raised a brow. ‘Not a good thing for a café owner.’

‘I know! It’s no win,’ Flora said, hoisting her sarong up where it had slipped down over her boobs and making her way through the network of chairs to chat up her potential customers with a lacklustre smile.

Ava wasn’t sure whether to answer Tom’s question or if too much time had now passed. She hated that she was agonising over such trivia, so readily trying to impress him.

‘May I?’ he asked, pointing to the seat Flora had vacated.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘So,’ he said, reclining, hands in his pockets, all cool and relaxed like he owned the place, his beer bottle half-drunk on the table in front of him. ‘How are you enjoying it?’

‘Good thanks,’ Ava said quickly.

He nodded.

She started to say more – pleasantries about her trip into town – but realised his attention had been diverted by a woman in a skin-tight red dress and glossy brown hair heading into Nino’s.

‘Sorry, what was that?’ he asked, glancing back.

Ava shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

The silence gnawed.

Tom looked out towards the beach. Ava looked too, at the long shadows of the palm tree leaves on the sand, at the dangerously lilting fig tree and the potted orange trees, their perfume intensifying with the evening.

Unable to bear the silence any longer, she said, ‘So, Love-Struck High . . .’, not really sure where she was going with the comment.

Tom took a swig of beer. ‘You were a fan?’ he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, smug half-grin on his face.

‘I watched it,’ she said, a little dismissive. ‘If I was home and it was on.’ Given his expression she was hardly going to admit to the Love-Struck High parties at Louise’s house, where they watched their favourite episodes back to back, his face emblazoned on Louise’s spare bed duvet set. Or the countless school trip games of Shag, Marry or Dump that had seen the whole minibus shacked up with Thomas King.

The two other guys at the bar finished their drinks and stood up. One of them shouted over to Tom that they were leaving.

He waved a hand in acknowledgement, downed the rest of his beer and said, ‘Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Ava.’

Ava nodded. ‘You too.’ Although she wasn’t quite sure that she meant it.

He stood up, then paused, hands resting on the back of his chair. ‘You staying at the house?’ he asked, nodding towards her grandmother’s place across the little square.

‘Yes.’

He shuddered slightly. ‘Spooky.’

Ava glanced over at the dark windows of the house that seemed to loom in the twilight. ‘I’m trying not to think about it too much,’ she said, once again feeling the tendrils of fear that had been itching all afternoon at the prospect of going to bed alone in the house.

‘Not worried it might be haunted?’ he asked, almost as if deliberately trying to wind her up. His friends had headed out of the bar and were starting to walk towards the path leading up to the car park.

‘It’s not haunted.’

He backed away, seeming to contemplate something for a second, then shrugging one shoulder said, ‘Well, if it all gets a bit too scary you’re welcome to come and stay at my place.’ He gestured back towards his own house on the hill. ‘Anytime,’ he added, with a slight narrowing of his eyes. A flash of blue. His gaze steady. The hint of a smile.

And she finally understood what he’d been driving at. She almost laughed. Thomas King was living up to exactly what the papers always said about him.

‘No, you’re alright,’ she said, her tone incredulous but amused. ‘I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine. But thanks for the offer,’ she added, finishing her drink.

Tom laughed. ‘Well, if you change your mind . . .’ he said, hands outstretched before turning to join his mates.

‘I think I’ll be OK,’ Ava replied, but he was out of earshot.

She got up to leave, shaking her head with disbelief, laughing to herself as she walked away past the orange trees and the fig. The tension of going back inside popped, her attention diverted from the possibility of ghosts, from the blast of memory waiting in the little room, from the sadness of the scrap of soap.

Lying on the living room sofa, all the lights blazing, she spent the next hour Googling Thomas King and WhatsApping Louise.

Louise is typing . . . Not surprised he owns a vineyard – he was a pretty terrible actor. Did you know he has a daughter? At college in Barcelona apparently.

Ava is typing . . . COLLEGE! How old is she?

Louise is typing . . . 16. It was while he was still doing Love-Struck High. God I loved that show. Do you remember crying when his girlfriend died on the beach? It was so sad. I’d forgotten how OBSESSED with him I was! If you sleep with him my teenage self might stab you through the heart.

Ava laughed out loud. Having been afraid that she would be lying in the dark in hopeless panic, she suddenly found the familiar links to her childhood – the Google images of Love-Struck, her mother’s possessions, her grandmother’s knick-knacks – strangely comforting, coupled with the gentle lull of the waves, the scent of warm dust and juniper and the heat pressing down like a blanket as she curled up around her phone.

CHAPTER 10

‘You’ll be alright on your own?’ Rory said, putting the last bag in the car and closing the boot. It had stopped raining and the sun was somewhere behind the fog of early morning cloud, making the air smell like a greenhouse, warm and muggy like wet grass.

Claire nodded. ‘I’ll be alright. You’re sure you’ll be alright?’ she asked, her hands on Max’s shoulders, stroking the tips of his too-long hair, her son just on the cusp of an age that he would allow it.

They had decided at three a.m. that Rory would go to Spain for a couple of weeks, or however long it would take for all this to die down. And given that Max was due to break up in just over a week he would go too. It didn’t seem healthy for him to weather the Twitter storm alone at school. And it felt like a good bonding opportunity.

Claire would stay for the time being. She had her interview coming up and Home Style magazine, where she was currently deputy editor, was so busy this time of year that taking a last-minute holiday would crucify her chances.

They also both seemed to know instinctively that this was something Rory needed to do alone. That somehow being together wasn’t delivering their most successful selves at the moment.

Max picked up his battered old school rucksack.

‘Hang on,’ said Claire, taking the bag from him.

Max looked confused as she rested his hand luggage on the wall and unzipped it. As she pulled out his laptop, his little face fell. ‘What?’ he said with a whine. ‘No way.’

‘You’re going to go on a digital detox,’ she said.

Max kicked the wall. ‘I don’t want to go on a digital detox. I like digital. What am I going to do without my laptop? What am I going to do on the plane?’

Claire ruffled his hair as he sulked. ‘Get your dad to buy you a book at the airport.’

‘I don’t want a book. I want my laptop.’

Claire shook her head.

‘This is so unfair,’ Max said. ‘This is so unfair.’ He turned to look at his dad, but the deathly paleness of Rory’s face and the aura of holding-it-together-hopelessness meant Max didn’t repeat his protest for the third time.

Rory opened the passenger door. ‘Come on, mate. In the car.’

Max tried Claire one last time. ‘Please let me take it, Mum?’

‘No.’

Rory had an inkling the laptop ban was as much for his benefit as Max’s. To stop the obsessive Twitter refreshing. Rory himself had reverted to an old Nokia that could do nothing more whizzy than send and receive black and white texts of 160 characters.

Max stuck his bottom lip out.

Rory saw Claire hold back a smile as she bent down to hug him. Reluctant at first, he rolled himself round into her arms and Rory heard her whisper in his ear something along the lines of, ‘Be good, look after your father, and I love you,’ as she gave him a huge, bone-crushing hug. Then she stood up, face to face with Rory.

‘Take care of yourself,’ Claire said, pushing her hair back behind her ears, then clearly not knowing what to do with her hands, folding her arms across her chest.

It started to rain slightly. Just the odd tap-tap on the pavement.

Rory nodded.

‘Be nice to your sister,’ Claire said.

Rory nodded again.

‘Have you told her you’re coming?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Rory!’

‘I will.’

Claire rolled her eyes.

The rain tap-tapped heavier.

Rory stepped forwards. ‘We’d better kiss so I don’t leave on an eye-roll,’ he said.

She smiled.

He bent down, a bit nervous, and kissed her on the corner of her mouth. Claire reached up and held his face, kissed him square on the lips, quickly. Then she put her arms around his neck and hugged him.

Rory could smell the Chanel and Max’s shampoo because she’d run out of her flash stuff. He thought he might cry again. Hold it together, you pussy, he told himself.

‘Have fun,’ Claire said brightly as she stood back.

‘I’d have more fun with my laptop,’ said Max, cheeky this time.

Claire swiped his hair.

‘I love you,’ she said as they both went round to their respective sides of the car, and Rory wondered how much of it was for him.

CHAPTER 11

The café was almost unrecognisable in the morning. Ava had woken early, the air humming with oppressive heat and the sound of car horns, street sweeping and bells ringing. From the window she could see the café tables full of people, hear the scraping of chairs, see the hands waving in greeting. A completely opposite atmosphere to the previous evening.

Showered and dressed in denim shorts and a white T-shirt, she tried to do her make-up and sort out the kink in her hair, but the gradual pooling of heat in the room got the better of her and she left the house, rubbing the line in her cheek from the pillow and trying to ruffle up her hair. As she went to shut the front door she caught a last glimpse of her indent on the living room sofa cushions where she’d slept, and remembered waking at three o’clock in the pitch-dark morning. She had felt exactly as Tom had suggested she might. Spooked and afraid, absence filling the space with the same intensity as the heat. She had felt the same unease as she had at her grandmother’s funeral. That of having a life not quite lived right. But lying there she found herself perplexed as to what one did with a second chance. She was still Ava, just Ava in Spain. The problem was that she had taken herself with her on her adventure. Afraid still of her aloneness. Afraid of everyone pairing off and moving on. Afraid that her closest next of kin was Rory. Who was right this minute ringing, presumably to have a go at her for coming back to Spain. She looked at his name flashing on her phone screen and made the instant decision to silence the call. Remembering that she’d had the courage to defy him by coming out here, and the unfamiliar frisson of power that decision had given her, was enough to make her shut the door on the view of her night and go and find out why Café Estrella was suddenly doing such a roaring trade.

The air outside was still as glass. Electric fans whirred on the bar, ineffectual against the mirage of heat. Ava took a table in the shade of the ripped awning. The café was less packed than she’d thought when looking down from the window, but there were definitely more bums on seats. All of them pensioners’ bums, dressed in polyester trousers, drip-dry powder-blue skirts and opaque tights, brown tweed slacks and polished black lace-up shoes. She recognised faces from the funeral. There was knitting. There was chatter. The sound of newspaper pages turning. The scents of warm bread, cigar smoke and strong coffee merged with the salty sea air. Everyone, it seemed, over the age of seventy-five descended on Café Estrella for breakfast.

As she was staring intrigued at the colourful array of customers, a figure plonked itself down in the seat opposite.

‘Hello.’ Thomas King pulled off his sunglasses.

‘Er, hello,’ Ava said, surprised at his arrival.

He looked terrible.

She surreptitiously ran her hand through her hair all the same, still under the spell of wanting to impress simply because he’d been famous.

‘I had the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in years,’ he said, reaching forwards to toy with the menu, tapping the laminated corner on the table. ‘You kept me awake.’

Ava almost snorted. ‘Me?’

‘Yes.’ He tried to catch the waiter’s eye. ‘God I need a coffee. You need a coffee?’ He turned back to Ava who said, ‘Yes,’ still unsure what he was doing at her table. Tom signalled to the waiter then sat back, rubbing his neck as he thought about what to say. ‘I think that maybe yesterday I wasn’t quite as supportive as I could have been.’

She raised a brow.

Tom shook his head. ‘And I don’t think Val would have been impressed.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘She’d have killed me. I felt pretty bad. All night. That’s what kept me up. I think she was haunting me,’ he said, his expression giving the sense of a smile just lurking below the surface. ‘So. Well . . .’ He held his arms wide. ‘Sorry.’

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