Page 85 of The Island of Lost Girls

He straightens, his face purple. ‘You stupid, stupid woman!’ he shouts. ‘Did you not read what you signed? Did none of you?’

Mercedes watches them both. I know why he’s angry really, she thinks. He didn’t read it himself.

He rifles through the papers. Finds a section and shoves it at his wife, stabbing at it with a finger. ‘We. Will. Have. To. Pay. The. Money. Back.’

Larissa rears back. ‘What?’

‘All of it.’

‘What about the weeks she’s already worked?’

‘Doesn’t matter! He’s paying for the whole job, not part of it. Breach of contract.’

Silence. Of course it’s a job lot, thinks Mercedes. He knows no one would stay with that perra if there weren’t a penalty for leaving.

‘You get it? All those new fittings. That new kitchen. The new canopy. We’ll have nothing to pay with!’

Larissa’s jaw clicks shut.

‘And that’s before the compensation … ’ He hunts again, finds another sheet, brandishes it.

‘Compensation?’

‘Yes! Look! Penalty clause.’

Breathless quiet.

Larissa puts her face in her hands. Out on the terasa, Donatella pauses as she reaches into her apron for change, and stares.

At eight fifty-nine a.m., Tatiana appears on the gangplank and comes to the Re, all sunny smiles. Triumphant.

‘Ready?’ she asks.

Mercedes nods.

Tatiana turns and starts to walk away. ‘I need to sort out my wardrobe,’ she says. ‘You can give me a hand.’

She turns, and sees that Mercedes still stands in the restaurant, dreading the day ahead. Hating her. Feeling the burn of Felix’s gaze, from where he’s taking the dry nets down from the racks and folding them to go back on the boats when they come in.

‘Come on, Mercy!’ Her blue eyes sparkle in victory. ‘We haven’t got all day!’