He scoffed. ‘Did you miss the bit when I said I hated this thing?’
‘Why?’ Stathis asked, stepping a little closer than the perimeter Kostas said he wanted to observe to avoid any detection. ‘It is proportionally accurate. They got your biceps on point.’
Kostas shook his head. ‘From that time, of that particular leap. Not now.’ He kept in shape, but back then he had been in the best condition of his life, physically and mentally.
‘It is the action shot from the cup final, I see it now,’ Stathis said, hands trying to frame the statue like it was a TV.
Sometimes the flashbacks of the club team’s glory, him being hailed as the lone hero who made that victory happen singlehandedly, felt good. Other times it was like a reminder of everything he had lost and all the victories of the future he had never got to participate in. For his club. For his country too.
‘There are things on the statue. Oh, we have to look what people have put there,’ Stathis said, striding forward. ‘It is like… a shrine!’
‘No,’ Kostas said. ‘Stop.’
‘What? Come on, Kosta, do you not want to know what the people of Corfu have left for your icon?’
‘No,’ Kostas said. ‘We are supposed to be here to have coffee with the influential man in planning, no?’
‘We have a moment. A moment to pay homage.’
‘Do not go up to that statue! Stathi!’ Kostas yelled.
But it was to no avail. Stathis wasn’t listening to him and was striding towards the bronze effigy like he himself was going to make a bow in reverence. Kostas stood still, checked around him. Was it better to stand here, out of the way? Or take a look too? He followed.
‘Ha! Someone brought a fizzy lemon drink,’ Stathis said, getting out his phone. ‘Look how faded it is.’
‘Like that endorsement contract as soon as my career was over,’ Kostas remarked.
No one wanted someone in recovery linked to their products. It was all about success and winning rather than the battle to get back on form. A couple of brands stuck with him during the first surgery but, bit by bit, when he wasn’t quite the player he had been, everyone had left.
‘There’s a scarf with your face on like someone’syiayiahas handmade it,’ Stathis continued. ‘Aww and look at this, someone has drawn you and made you a beard out of wool!’
‘Why do we need to see this?’ Kostas asked him. ‘Really, it is feeling like we are at the side of somebody’s grave. The cenotaph to my career.’
‘Kosta,’ Stathis said, taking photos with his phone. ‘We need to use this.’
‘What?’
‘You being the hero of this island, someone the people regard in high esteem; this is what is going to buy you the goodwill you need to get people onside and to get people to believe you when you tell them problems have led to you having to outsource.’
He swallowed. ‘Use it how?’
‘We need to go big, Kosta.’
He was already shaking his head. ‘I am not the grand announcement kind of guy, Stathi, you know that. I let the big projects speak for themselves, and they are not for the masses, let’s face it.’
‘Hear me out,’ Stathis said, palms up. ‘You pay me to advise, steer and manage. I am going to tell you what I believe is the best course of action because it’s my job to do that.’
Kostas sighed. ‘Fine.’
‘We hold an event. We invite the local schools. We make a big media splash of you visiting the island you were born on, you sign things, have photos taken. Then, a few days later, we will host a lavish reception here in town and invite all the influential people. You will make a large donation to a local worthy cause and you will loosely talk about thinking of returning to your roots for a new business venture. Very vague but hopeful and very positive as far as this island is concerned.’
He was listening. He was trying not to think about all this appearing in public, which he felt so uncomfortable with these days.
‘And, in the background, we will be finding out about the problems with regard to the protected nature and the possibility of removing at least one of the hotels from the picture.’
Hotel Margaritári. He knew which hotel had to go. The hotel Bella Mare was on the opposite side of the bay. It would, of course, be no competition for his resort and it was not in the way of construction. And he also knew how Faye was going to react to that. He swallowed, bent down and picked up a metal badge someone had put at the foot of the statue. It was the basketball team crest, the eagle in flight, his name at the bottom. He ran a finger over the wings, then over the letters. Petsas. He wanted to say it was nothing personal but, with this project, everything about it was personal…
‘So, what do you think? To my proposal?’ Stathis asked.
