‘Faye, why would you think I would be of any other mind? You think I am going to accept an offer where the new buyer will rip up our home, the home of our friends and neighbours, destroying animals and nature we try hard to protect? Yes, there may be more jobs for the people of the island but at what cost to our habitat?’ She threw her arms up in the air. ‘And, Faye, Katerina tells me my hotel, our hotel that we have worked so hard to re-establish after the Coronavirus, is set to be demolished! A change of purpose I could live with, but to have the very stones that my Spiros and his father laid as foundations gone? Never!’
Dimitria had raised her voice so much Saffron was now looking their way and seemed concerned.
‘Is everything OK?’ Saffron called.
‘Yes, Saff,’ Faye answered quick.
‘Signómi,’ Dimitria apologised, getting a tissue from the pocket of her blouse and wiping her eyes.
‘No, don’t say sorry,’ Faye told her. ‘I feel exactly the same.’
‘And something like this is the very reason I insisted with Alexandros that I meet with the buyer. So I can look into their eyes, I can feel their energy, and I can work out if I am leaving a legacy in the right hands.’
Faye nodded, swallowing down bubbling emotions. ‘OK.’
‘But my darling, are you going to be OK?’ Dimitria put a hand on Faye’s arm. ‘Sitting with Kostas at thetaverna? Hearing what he has to say? Because I do want to hear what he has to say. I want to listen to his reasoning behind this insanity and see if he has the audacity to think this is a deal that can be done.’
Faye nodded immediately. ‘Yes. Of course. I want to know what he will say after a night’s sleep and some thinking time.’ Not that she thought his plans would change, but perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so confident that they were going to succeed after what she had said to him last night.
‘So, Faye, enough talking about the hotel. We are here for you, and this beautiful little place practically on the sand!’ Dimitria spread her arms wide for another time and Faye looked again at the scene before her.
It was so peaceful, a few near neighbours across the small road, the little white house that could be hers facing the vast expanse of sand and shingle beach and the fizzing sea beyond. It could be a new sanctuary, something she had bought and paid for alone, somewhere she could decorate entirely to her own taste, a place that wasn’t accommodation attached to her career, somewhere Saffron could come to any time and call her Greek home.
‘I really like it,’ Dimitria whispered, linking arms with her.
Faye smiled. ‘I love it.’
Dimitria squealed. ‘Good! That is so, so good! And great news now that Saffron has a cat.’
Faye laughed. ‘Well, we still don’t know if I can afford it yet. Especially if I soon might not have a job.’
‘Pa!’ Dimitria said, waving away the suggestion that there were any obstacles in the way. ‘When the universe wants something to happen it always provides. Come on, let us find out what Saffron has decided to call the animal.’
Faye nodded, watching Dimitria leave the terrace and head towards the grassland where Saffron was still fussing over the black and white feline. She took a deep breath of the salt-tinged sea air and, as Dimitria joined her daughter and they began chatting together, she wondered exactly what the universe could possibly have in store next.
59
KASSIOPI FOOTBALL PITCH, KASSIOPI
Kostas stood in the centre of the astroturf pitch and closed his eyes. It was like going back in time. Him, fourteen years old, being made to play a sport he had never been very good at.
‘You were always such a terrible football player,’ Kyriaki said, stomping across to him, the motorbike helmet still on her head but not, apparently, preventing her from reading his mind.
‘I was,’ he agreed. ‘There was never going to be any chance for me to play for anyone in the A division here, let alone for my country. ButYiayia, why do you have the helmet still on? You should have left this with the bike.’ He started to try to take it off.
‘Why must I do that? With it on no one can see it is me.’
Kostas looked her up and down. Her boots would give her away immediately to anyone who knew her. But that was not his main concern. ‘Why would you not want anyone to see you?’
‘Too much talking. Too much asking where I have been. Too many questions about how my grandson is. Questions I have only answers they do not want, or answers I cannot provide.’
‘OK, come on, enough, it is too hot to be wearing that helmet for more than the ride.’ He didn’t listen to her protests any more, he just unstrapped it, took it off and put it on the ground. ‘And you should not avoid people.’
‘I do not avoid people,’ she insisted, flattening her headscarf with her hand. ‘I see the people I want to see when I want to see them. I like to protect my peace and there is nothing wrong with that. Solitude does not have to be isolation you know.’
Kostas smiled. ‘I keep forgetting how wise you are.’
‘And all that wisdom without a coffee machine or a television,’ Kyriaki answered. ‘Why are we here at the football pitch? I thought you said lunch at ataverna.’
