‘We are here because there is no basketball court.’
‘And that makes no sense.’
‘There should be, don’t you think?’
‘Ah, you have thought about a new plan. Instead of wrecking Avlaki and Erimitis you are going to tear up all the local football pitches and replace them with basketball courts.’ She scoffed. ‘I think you underestimate how much the Corfiots love football.’
‘But they also love basketball,’ Kostas said. ‘Or they would not have a statue of me in the capital.’
‘I would bet money on that being decapitated if you decide to go ahead with the grand marina resort.’
Bet money. He swallowed. His father had let betting wreck his whole life, take his life, and he had given his own money way too much importance.
‘Konstantino, I should not have said that like that. I only meant?—’
‘It is OK,’ Kostas told her, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I know what you meant and, yes, you are probably right. Perhaps I will help them remove the whole thing and replace it with a statue of someone who truly deserves it. Maybe the guy who createdMaestro in Blue.’
‘That would not be the worst idea,’ Kyriaki said, nodding. ‘So, I say again, why are we here?’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I do not want to tear up the football pitches.’
‘Bravo.’
‘I am getting Stathis to work on a different idea. To create something I hope you are going to be proud of.’
‘Konstantino,’ Kyriaki said. ‘I do not want you to do anything at all based on anyone else’s feelings. Least of all mine. Remember what I told you about being authentic in your decision-making?’
‘I know,’ Kostas said. ‘I am.’ He sighed. ‘And I know there is also a lot more work to be done. Most of all on me.’ He sighed. ‘And that is going to take some time.’
‘Konstantino—’ She reached out and rested a hand on his arm.
‘I am OK,Yiayia.’ He smiled. ‘The time I have spent here, even before talking with you about my father, something shifted yet I did not want to see it, did not want to admit it, because it went against everything I had made myself to be.’
‘Now you are not talking about being back on the island. You are talking about Faye,’ Kyriaki said.
‘Yeah.’ He nodded, put his hands to his head, scrunched his hair. ‘I don’t want to have lost her.’ He shook his head. ‘What am I saying? Did I even have her how I should have had her? She is this amazing woman and I was… loose with my actions, because I was too stupid, too guarded, to tell her how it felt different with her.’
‘And it is too late?’
‘Very early on, when we first met, she told me how she valued honesty above everything else. And that was one of the things I never fully gave her.’ He sighed. ‘And now she thinks that none of it was real when every single thing, apart from not telling her about the development, was as real as it’s ever been for me.’
‘Then what are you going to do?’ Kyriaki asked him.
‘I don’t want to give up.’
‘OK…’
‘I want to make things right. And I want her to know the truth, to feel the truth.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I… care about her.’ He swallowed, feeling his heart contract at the realisation within him. ‘That I care about her more than I have ever cared about anyone.’
‘And how are you going to prove that to her?’
He mused on his grandmother’s question. ‘By fighting for her. Fighting for what we’ve started to have together. By… being completely honest with her now.’
Kyriaki shook her head. ‘If she is the kind of woman that I think she is, Konstantinomou, you need to go further than that.’
