Kostas shook his head. ‘My mother told me?—’
‘Ah!’ Kyriaki said, raising a finger in the air. ‘A familiar sentence. “My mother told me” or “Cassia said this and that”. You should have remembered, Konstantino, that your mother was also the woman that married my no-good son. How can you trust someone with judgement like that?’
That was harsh. This woman was fiery and spirited.
‘Why do you always say he is no good? Even now, when he is gone and is not here to defend himself?’ Kostas asked.
‘Defend himself is exactly what he always did. Defend himself. Not his family. Not you. Especially not you.’
Kostas shook his head. ‘He was right, you know, no one was ever on his side here.’
‘Here?’ Kyriaki questioned, leaning forward on her chair. ‘In this world?’
‘Stin Kérkyra. On Corfu.’
‘Still you speak the name of this island like the word burns your tongue,’ Kyriaki said, shaking her head.
‘Because nothing has changed. The people here have not changed. They are still the same people who bullied my father and got him into trouble, and he paid the ultimate price.’
Faye swallowed as Kostas’s voice became more and more loaded with emotion. This was what he hid behind the persona.
‘The ultimate price,’ Kyriaki said, getting up from her seat and going back towards the stove. ‘I think we will agree to disagree on that one.’ She poured more water into her cup.
Faye could feel the tension in the air as intense as the humidity in this house in the trees. She wasn’t sure she should really be party to it.
‘Tell me, Faye,’ Kostas said. ‘Is paying with your life not the ultimate price when it comes to bullying?’
‘I’m really not sure it’s my place to comment on your family business.’ She felt awkward now and was disappointed in Kostas for trying to bring her into it in such a way.
‘Why not let Faye know the whole truth?’ Kyriaki said, coming back to her seat but not sitting down. ‘That your father was the king of making bad decisions from the moment he had conscious thought?’
‘Mrs… Kyriaki, I really don’t think that?—’
‘He had bad situations,’ Kostas continued like she hadn’t said anything. ‘Limited choices.’
‘That is what he told you! Or that is what he told your mother to tell you! Konstantino! I thought, now you are grown, you would have worked things out!’ She raised her arms in the air like she was a large bird about to take angry flight. ‘Otherwise, you would not have thought for so many years that I am dead!’
Kyriaki had shrieked the last part of the sentence and her voice reverberated around the small shack like a furious echo. Faye felt it was definitely time for her to depart. She got to her feet.
‘I am going to leave you to it.’
‘Faye, no. We came here together. You are not going back to the hotel alone,’ Kostas said, standing too.
‘It’s fine,’ Faye said. ‘I can call someone to pick me up and?—’
‘Ochi. No. Konstantinos is right. It is time for you both to go. This conversation is best left for another time,’ Kyriaki stated. She turned back towards the stove and picked up a large ladle, then, with her other hand she found a plastic box. ‘Like thegigantes plaki.’ She scooped a large portion of beans into the container and put on the lid. Then she thrust it at Kostas. ‘Fýge. Go.’
35
‘She is fucking impossible, you know that? Fucking impossible! Why am I surprised she is not dead? Death could give her an order and she would flat out refuse or trick them into taking someone else!’
Kostas was powering back through the trees, long, fast strides, barely feeling the ground beneath his trainers such was his rage. He whipped at the branches in the way, not caring that they were scratching his arms. He needed to get out of here; all the nature and its sounds were squeezing the air from his lungs. On top of all those ‘comfort’ crochet shapes on his grandmother’s table, in tiny frames on the wall, little ornaments of ballerinas, donkeys, lilies, it was all so oppressive.
‘Kosta, slow down,’ Faye called.
‘I shouldn’t have come here. I should have made enquiries, like you said.’
‘There’s no point in going over what you could have done. You made your choice and let’s remember the positives. Your grandmother is alive,’ Faye reminded.
