On the western side of the island of Sirenos, the white cliffs of the caldera rise 500 metres, creating a deep, ultramarine horseshoe bay. To the east, lie the black volcanic beaches where tourists feed the tame and playful dolphins. In the middle of the island, lie rolling green fields where horses graze. Their black and chestnut flanks gleam in the sun and their manes flick in the afternoon sea breeze. Vineyards of shiraz grapes run down the hills towards the beaches.

Cal had just finished a seven year stretch in the Royal Navy. He didn’t know what to do with his life and didn’t much care as long as Hannah was with him. He’ d bought them a two-week holiday in a whitewashed cottage overlooking the beaches. They wanted to get away from their parents, their friends and most of all, their pokey one bedroom flat on the outskirts of Birmingham.

For the first five years of service, Cal was posted to shore bases in England and Scotland. Hannah would pack up the flat and move near the base to be close to him. Scotland in winter was hard. She felt alone. Then he was posted to a destroyer for two years sea duty, while she stayed in Scotland. They kept their love alive through emails and video hook ups.

Hannah was in one of her moods. Distant and bristling. It was best to leave her alone. She walked in to town and was gone until early evening. Storms flew across her face and would then leave as quickly as they came. Her hand still felt warm in his and she still laughed at his stupid jokes. But the tiny fidget wheels of time had worked on her while he was away. Loneliness made her tougher. They had talked about having a baby. Now she steered the conversation around to paying the mortgage and putting food on the table.

It was late when she returned.

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been walking by the cliffs,” she said, “and then I walked around town for a couple of hours. Did you know there’s a small fishing village on that small island? It’s called Circe’s Palace.”

“You were gone a long time.”

She looked at him, smiled and said she was going to take a shower and go to bed early to read. Cal rolled a cigarette and looked at his jagged and bitten nails. It had been years since they had showered together and laughed, ‘you wash my back and I’ll wash yours’. But love could be like that.

They awoke early to find the cottage shrouded in a sea mist. Unusual in summer. In the distance, a sea fog horn blew a melancholy note. The air smelled of brine.

“Bacon and eggs?” he asked.

“And two serves of toast.”

He smelt that healthy, erotic smell Hannah had first thing in the morning.

They ate breakfast and walked to the paddocks where the horses were standing. They whinnied and hooved the ground. Hannah buried her hands deep in the pockets of her Burberry coat. They returned to the cottage and Hannah lay on the divan and pulled a throw rug over her legs. She opened up a book by the Scottish novelist Michael Faber while Cal read an old Men’s Health magazine left by a previous tenant.

Hannah had started reading serious authors. In her bag were library books by Joseph Conrad, Salman Rushdie and Andrew O’Hagan. When they first met, she read Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire. He had never been a big reader. As a kid, he helped his Dad sail a small ketch on weekends around the bay. Above the galley there were sea stories about Drake and Nelson. He’d lie in his bunk at night and get lost in the navy battles against the Spanish and the French.

The fog lifted around mid-morning, as the first plane load of tourists circled to land.

“How about we catch a ferry over to Circe’s Palace?” Cal said. “We could have lunch over there.”

Hannah propped herself up with a pillow under one arm. She had never looked more beautiful. An Aphrodite in tracksuit pants.

“I’m happy reading,” she said with a brief smile. “You go if you like. The ferry leaves from fisherman’s wharf. It only takes 20 minutes, so I’m told.”

Cal wasn’t going anywhere. He sat next to her and ran his hands over the nape of her neck. She knew this was the clumsy first stage of foreplay. Next would come the forefinger around her ankle and kissing her ear. It was unerringly predictable.

“Would it be alright if we just stayed here then,” she said curtly. “I’d like to finish my book. We could go in to the village later and buy pizza for dinner.”

Cal left the divan hurt and confused. She’d rebuffed him ever since they’d come to the island. Ever since he’d come out of the navy for that matter.

“Is there anything wrong?”

Hannah put her book down and stared at him, then smiled.

“I’m alright. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been distant of late. There’s not much intimacy between us, like the old days”

“The old days? What old days?” she said with more venom than she realised. “The early Greek period of Pericles? Rome under Augustus? Can you please be more specific?”

Cal didn’t know what she was talking about. The smile fell from her face, replaced by a cold stare. Then her eyes flicked down to the page. Then they were back on him, narrowed like a cat’s.

“As for intimacy, I would have thought a navy man would know how to handle lonely nights on ship. I suggest if the tension is getting too much, return to those one-handed habits.”

A stone sunk in his guts. He was losing her. Cal walked outside, started the scooter and rode slowly to the island’s northern cliffs. He found an empty car park on a small promontory. It was popular with young lovers at sunset. He pulled the scooter back on its pegs and buried his hands in his face. The tears were hot and salty. The pain of rejection washed over him and then the fear of a future without her. Was there someone else? Was she enjoying this stranger, like she used to enjoy him, when they first met? He pushed the thought away. No need to tack yourself up on the cross just yet.

He wiped the tears away and noticed hollyhocks growing at his feet. He hadn’t noticed them before. They were Hannah’s favourite flowers. The colours were iridescent. The worse he felt, the brighter the colours grew. He got off the bike, walked over to the cliff and pulled a pair of small binoculars from his coat, he used for bird watching.

You’re too sensitive, he thought as he scanned the sea and Circe’s Palace. Too much time in the bloody navy. I need to make it up to her. If something’s broken, I can fix it. On Dad’s boat, I fixed frayed ropes. I mended sails and straightened propeller shafts. I can fix this too. The tenderness and patience had gone. But I can fix that too he thought, as he held the binoculars on to a small ferry leaving the port for the island.

He rubbed his eyes and adjusted the focus. Hannah stood at the stern of the ferry. She was wearing her black tracksuit pants, white sandshoes and a black Kathmandu jacket over a baby blue windcheater.

The ferry pulled in to a small jetty and the passengers got off. Hannah waited a moment, then threw her backpack over her shoulder, got off the boat and walked in to the arms of tall man with greying hair. The man took her rucksack and they walked hand-in-hand along the jetty, up a hill and out of sight.

Cal fell to his knees, pressed his forehead against the dirt and felt the side of the cliff move a fraction. In his mind, he saw a fissure run behind him. The promontory was falling, with him on it. He stood up quickly and felt the blood drain out of his head.

Cal awoke surrounded by Japanese tourists. An old man held his head while a young woman offered him water.

“You’ve had a fall,” she said above the rumble of the tour bus idling nearby.

“This is Sirenos?” Cal asked.

“Very much so,” the woman said. “Do you need a doctor? Your head has a small cut.”

Cal rose wobbly to his feet. His scooter stood sitting on its pegs. The keys were in the ignition.

“No, no, I’m fine thanks. Right as rain,” Cal said. “I’ll make my way to the village and pick up some band-aids. Once again, thanks.”

He started the scooter. They probably thought he was a pisshead coming down from a bender. He flew around the tight corners. Large succulents had grown through the hedges. He opened the throttle and imagined Hannah kissing the tall man and smiling and telling him how difficult it had been to get away. He flew over a rise and saw as fields of sunflowers stretching to the horizon, their yellow and black faces staring up at the sun. People had parked their cars and were walking through them.

He pulled the scooter over. A woman in a red sunhat holding a baby walked over to him.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said breathlessly. “It’s a miracle. An absolute miracle. It’s like something out of the Bible,” she said.

“They grow sunflowers on the island,” Cal said softly, “but this is very unusual. For one thing, the season is wrong.”

“No, not that,” she said. “My baby had a large birthmark across her forehead but look now. Look!” she said and pulled the shawl away.

Cal stared at the child. He’d seen paintings in Italian churches of the baby Jesus, painted by medieval masters. The woman’s child was like that. There wasn’t a blemish on her skin.

Cal rode towards the village. For the briefest moment, he felt Hannah’s arms around his waist. He passed open fields where children were picking flowers to sell to tourists at roadside stalls. Their arms full of huge white lilies. The stems were as thick as a man’s wrist. The road swung close to the cliffs and he thought of gunning the scooter and flying through the flimsy wire fence and over the edge.

He parked the scooter outside a petrol station and walked down the main street. Gleaming white marble replaced the black bitumen. The veins of the stone had worked their way up the walls of the buildings. Every small laneway and thoroughfare was marbled. It dazzled in the sun. The village shimmered and the reflected light created a riot of prisms. A small girl tugged at his sleeve.

“Are you the flower man?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you darling, but no. I’m yesterday’s man,” he said.

“My mother said the flowers are some sort of spell put on the island, like in the old days of magic and flying horses. Do you have a flying horse?”

Cal pointed to the scooter. “It could fly if I wanted it to fly. Are the shops closed?”

“Everyone’s in the fields,” she said. “They think a miracle is happening”

“Why are you still here?” Cal asked.

“I’ve seen flowers before.”

She offered Cal a small peony, smiled and skipped away.

The little girl had Hannah’s blonde hair and button nose.

Cal walked down the street. He felt disorientated by the marble’s glare. There was too much of it. He sat down on a small park bench overlooking the ocean and rolled a cigarette. A large sea eagle rode the thermals above him. He flicked the match over the cliff but the wind blew it back in his face.

When he clung desperately to his station on the destroyer during that storm in the northern Atlantic, when the waves towered over the bridge, all he could think about was Hannah. What was Hannah doing now? Was the tall man undressing her as he sat on this bench? Should he write her a letter and leave it on the cottage table and go? The sea eagle swooped across the cliff.

Hannah put her t-shirt on and sat at the end of the bed. The Scot had gone to the bathroom. Something wasn’t right. Like a piece missing from a jigsaw puzzle.

It all seemed so childish, this weighing up of affections, she thought. The affair had gone on too long. It was only meant to be a one-night stand but the Scot had called her the following week and she felt flattered. He was direct and charming while Cal was nowhere to be seen. She could have said no. But his lips on hers felt right. He knew how to please.

She pulled her tracksuit pants on and looked out the window over the sea. A sea eagle had landed on one of the buoys. She heard the toilet flush. She would have to go to Cal and explain this. Her stomach flipped. The Scot would not be happy. No one would be happy. She would catch the ferry back now.

The village shimmered in the sun. To the left of the headland, Cal could hear the ripping and growling as the trees drove upwards. In his mind, he still pictured the children playing with the horses. The island had become more beautiful than he could stand.

Below his feet, a carpet of thick moss grew like a rising tide. A rich, fecund smell enveloped him. It was the flowers and the trees, breathing in and out. The whole island smelt of Hannah’s perfume. Her signature was etched across his senses. How could he leave the island? This transformation was of his making. His misery had sowed the seeds.

The small flower the girl had given him had crystallised into sugar. It sat in his hand like an ornament from a wedding cake. He hurled it over the cliff. He took off his shoes and stretched his hamstrings.

Hannah sat on the port side of the ferry deck and watched in amazement. Sirenos had become a forest. The air smelt of fruits turning over ripe. The Scot was angry. He couldn’t understand why she had to leave. She was going back to Cal to make it right. She would beg for forgiveness. She had been a cow. Those cold winter nights in Glasgow had turned her inside out. The Scot would get over it but she doubted Cal would. He was so sensitive. There was danger there.

The ferry pulled in to the port as vines, hundreds of metres long, hung over the cliff. An oak tree had come up under one of the houses and pushed it over the edge. She made her way to the taxi stand. The drivers were standing by their cars.

“I must get to the Minoan Cottage,” she said, “up by the northern cliffs. Can you take me?”

An old man wearing a floral shirt, a Greek sailor’s cap and bare feet stepped forward.

“There are no taxis, madam.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are no roads.”

“But I need to get to my boyfriend. I must see him. Is there no other way?”

“I am afraid not. Most people are trapped in their resorts or apartments. The middle of the island is a jungle.”

“Is there any way I can get to the village?”

“I have a boat,” he said. “I will charge you 30 euros. This man of yours, he is worth finding?”

“Very much so.”

Hannah sat in the bow of the small fishing boat, amongst the tackle and nets, as the old man started the motor and headed north.

Cal remembered as a child how he had climbed to the top of a large poplar tree. His mother had run out of the kitchen and yelled, “Cal, Cal, get down. You’ll fall and hurt yourself!” She had a tea towel draped over one arm and her auburn hair was pinned back. His father walked out the backdoor carrying the morning newspaper and a cup of tea. He saw Cal perched on the upper most branch.

“Ahoy matey,” he barked. “Do you see the great whale?” his father said in a salty sea dog voice. “I feel it in my bones. She be around here. I tell you boy, my wooden leg has the shivers.”

Cal knew his next line.

“What colour is the whale captain?”

“Damn your eyes boy, it is white! A white whale. The colour of alabaster, the colour of marble. As white as God’s teeth after proper dental hygiene. Keep alert boy – and ignore your mother.”

His mother hit him with a tea towel, called him a ‘fool’ and slammed the screen door behind her. Cal could see a lost tennis ball sitting in the gutter of their house. He would get that later. He saw old Mrs McGovern hanging out her washing three houses away. The red tiled roofs of the tenements stretched down to the cricket oval. A breeze hit the tree and it felt as if the whole world was moving below him.

When he was 12, his mother packed her bags and left. She had fallen in love with an architect who lived in Kent. Dad said love was mercurial. No matter how you juggled it, it slid out of your hands. A year later he hung himself from the poplar tree.

Cal looked over the cliff and saw purple-flowered kelp moving out to sea. Cal flexed his shoulders. The sun stood at one o’clock behind high, white cirrus clouds. It would be a beautiful red sunset tonight. He took off his watch and left it with the shoes and socks. Before him stretched 30 yards of white marble path, leading to the cliff’s edge.

The old man in the fishing boat cursed.

“It will take us longer. I have to find a path through this seaweed. But I will get you there.”

The old man looked up at the cliff, raised his left hand to shield his eyes from the sun, and pointed. Hannah followed the line of his finger and saw a man dressed in shorts and a red t-shirt sprinting down a white path. His arms were pistons. At the cliff’s edge, he flew out in to a swan dive, his head held back.

“My God” the old man cried.

Hannah turned away. A gentle breeze arose from the southwest carrying the scent of pine over the water.

The old fisherman crossed himself and turned the boat away from the cliffs.

Hannah looked up and saw the beautiful horses charge through the dying forests and race for the cliffs.