‘I’m glad he’s remembering all the happy times.’ She sighed. She had to remember she was a good parent, the one always putting Saffron’s welfare before anything else. That was the only important thing, even when she was being thrown under the bus by her ex-husband so many years after the fact… ‘Shall we go out after pasta? I could drive us to Acharavi for cocktails on the beach?’
‘Don’t you have a date?’ Saffron asked.
‘No.’
‘So I didn’t read “I will pick you up at eight” on your phone from someone called Alexandros?’
Faye sighed. Nothing was confidential when your apartment was almost as small as a treehouse in Kerasia. ‘I’m not going.’
‘Why? Because this pasta is for me and Maddie. I’m putting it in a box and we’re going to eat it on the sun loungers by the pool. That’s OK, isn’t it?’
Faye nodded. ‘Yes, Saff, of course it’s OK.’
‘There’s probably enough for three people if you really don’t want to go out with Alexandros.’
She smiled. ‘For one, Alexandros asked for my phone number and I didn’t give it to him so he’s taken it from client records at the estate agency – red flag. Secondly, he’s at the centre of helping Dimitria make a decision about selling the hotel, and it’s his job, you know, to get the highest commission, and I have mixed feelings about it because, as much as I want to be there for Dimitria and think with my friendship brain and my business brain, it also means losing my job and my home.’
And as those words fell from her mouth it really hit Faye how much this decision was going to cost her. Not just financially but emotionally, spiritually.
‘Well, I don’t think you should worry,’ Saffron said. ‘Because whoever is buying the hotel might be a nice boss to have and, you know, might even give you more time off or other things you don’t have now.’
Words of wisdom. Why had she been assuming that the new owner would do anything other than run the hotel exactly as it had been running for many years before? And they would need a manager, someone who knew how everything worked, and she was good at her job; great, in fact. Dimitria might not be at the helm any more, but she had been taking a backseat for a while. Even if it was a hotel chain making the offer, they might not replace her.
‘You could be right,’ Faye said, taking a breath. ‘I just immediately thought, you know, with all that awful stuff going on with Erimitis, the threat of destroying the natural habitat… I was just seeing bulldozers in my head, diggers tearing up the butterfly garden.’
‘But Mum,’ Saffron said, ‘you have also always told me that we need to be able to adapt to a change in circumstances, like a chameleon adapts its camouflage.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what I hang on to when I get sad about how things ended with you and Dad.’
Faye swallowed, chest contracting a little at her daughter’s words. ‘Saff?—’
‘No, it’s OK. I know you think Nan was a bit cray-cray talking about a reconciliation, but I think now you and Dad have had some time apart to think about your personal life goals, well, there could be a chance you might realise that being together wasn’t as bad as you thought.’
Wasn’t as bad as you thought? Saffron wasn’t serious, was she?
‘Saff, I’m going to say this again. Dad and I, we’re divorced.’
‘I know, but “divorced” isn’t like “death”, is it?’
‘Well, as far as the marriage goes that’s exactly what it’s like.’
‘But you can get re-married. People do that. Many people, in fact, when they realise they’ve made a mistake.’
‘Saff, I didn’t make a mistake.’
Saffron wasn’t talking now. She was eyes down in the box she was spooning green gloop into.
‘Saffron.’ She had used her sternest ‘mother’ voice and already hated herself for it.
‘Well, I know Dad doesn’t want to be on Bumble, I know it, but it’s a step up from him liking all the Facebook posts of his old girlfriends from school or finding women with mutual friends who are also members of The Corfu Grapevine. And you don’t want to date this Alexandros guy, you said it yourself, so why is it such a mad idea that you might… try again?’
Faye was already shaking her head.
‘Why not consider it? Dad is. I mean, I’m pretty sure he might be. And you said the reason you separated was because you had grown apart and wanted different things, but I don’t think that’s true. I know Dad was always super-invested with the business and I think you thought he would never leave it and?—’
‘He will never leave it, Saffron. But that and this stuff you’re saying about our relationship isn’t your stuff to worry about.’
‘I think he will leave it. Once he has something else to focus on. You know, he always needs a project.’
‘Good for him but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me now.’
