After the Honeymoon by Janey Fraser

sweatshirts. Then there was a wave of clapping and someone thrust a glass of something bubbly into her hand. Even though she didn’t particularly like the taste, she knocked it back for Dutch courage, as Mum would say.
    ‘Here’s to married life,’ declared Tom excitedly, clinking his plastic beaker with hers. ‘Feeling better now?’
    She nodded, tucking her arm into his. Of course she didn’t hate him, she told herself guiltily. That had just been because she was tired and upset.
    ‘Look,’ Tom said, pointing out of the window just as he’d done when they’d taken off at Heathrow. But this time, instead of lights in the darkness down below, she could see a vast expanse of blue sea and then the outline of an island in the early-morning light. It was like the toy car mat that Gawain had at home, with a network of tiny roads and a garage and shops and houses.
    ‘Which one of those is the Villa Rosa, do you think?’ she asked, caught up in the euphoria of seeing the tiny white houses with little patches of brown and green around them.
    ‘Maybe that one.’ Tom sounded like a child. ‘The L-shaped one with the pool.’ He gripped her hand tighter. ‘Hang on. We’re going to land.’
    It was much smoother than she’d expected, even though there was a terrible noise and a feeling of real speed, like being in a sports car, perhaps – though she’d never been in one. Then they stopped. At last! Emma jumped up before the seat belt sign had been switched off. ‘You’ve got to wait,’ said Tom, as if he was an experienced flyer. There was a ping. ‘Right. We can go now.’
    Almost unable to believe she had got through her first flight, Emma watched her husband(!) heave her hand luggage out of the overhead locker and gesture that she should go ahead.
    Nervously, she made her way past the stewardess and then clung to the top of the steps as the dry heat hit her.
    She was actually in Greece! Gawain and Willow felt so far away now that they might almost be in another world. Part of her wanted to dive back into the plane and beg for a flight home. But another part of herself, a part she didn’t recognise, was excited. Curious.
    ‘We’re here,’ said Tom unnecessarily as he shepherded her onto the airport bus behind a very pretty, tall, dark-haired woman holding hands with an even taller, well-built, bald West Indian with large sunglasses who kept looking nervously around. Now where had she seen him before? The woman looked a bit familiar too.
    ‘We’re here,’ repeated Tom, as though he could hardly believe it either. ‘We’re on our honeymoon, Em! Isn’t that amazing!’

TRUE HONEYMOON STORY
    ‘We drove to Wales but it rained so much that we went home.’
    Jo, still happily married after twenty years

Chapter Five
    WINSTON
    Had they been spotted? Winston looked swiftly around the airport bus, taking in the passengers, using his training to home in on anyone who looked suspicious.
    There were no obvious candidates. Even so, he ran through the options around him. There was that other honeymoon couple who’d had that tacky announcement on the plane which had made him cringe.
She
looked quite sweet despite her rather simple moon face and a body that needed to shed at least a stone. But her husband wore clear-rimmed glasses and a thick grey sweatshirt, despite the heat, with ‘I’M ON MY HONEYMOON’ written on the front in big bold red letters. How naff was that? He shuddered at the thought of ever wearing something like that.
    There were a couple of Greeks staring out of the window with no particular interest in anyone else. And there was a family of five who were making a right old racket because one of the kids had lost a toy on the plane and wanted to go back for it, even though the bus had already set off for the terminal.
    The high-pitched whining reminded him of Melissa’s girl, who was always moaning about something. Neither she nor the boy had bothered to hide their resentment at his intrusion