Chapter 29
29
IMEROLIA
‘We should make a list. Of things that are wrong with the boat,’ Christos said above the noise.
Yes, the engine noise was one of the things that probably needed looking at but, right now, as they sailed out of Kassiopi harbour and turned to the left, it was only the blissful sound of the splash of the waves against the hull that Molly could hear. The sunlight on her face, the breeze on her skin, it was the most relaxed she had been since she had arrived on the Greek island.
‘There is a hole in the decking, dumbbell-shaped,’ she replied, uncaring.
‘Yes,’ Christos said. ‘How ironic.’
She looked away from the waves and back to him behind the wheel. ‘So, you do own a gym?’
‘Are we playing a game again?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Molly answered. ‘A game of honesty. An honest question for an honest answer.’
‘Whoa,’ Christos said, smiling. ‘One of the most tricky.’
‘So? Mr Gym Owner.’
‘Actually I have three,’ he answered.
‘Mr Gyms Owner, I stand corrected.’
‘Please, I do not like to brag,’ he teased.
‘You should,’ Molly told him. ‘Because owning a business is a huge achievement.’ And she should know – hers was still very much at the fledgling stage.
She was still watching him, caught his body language going between shrugging and staying still. He had conflicted opinions about his business-owning, that was interesting.
‘So, tell me about it,’ Molly said. ‘Sorry, them .’
He smiled, looking to her, then back at their direction of travel. ‘What would you like to know?’
‘How you started. How you developed from one to three. Your plans for workout domination, if you have them.’
‘OK, so, that’s a lot.’
‘Too much?’ Molly asked him.
‘We can do a deal,’ he answered.
‘I thought we said honest questions for honest answers.’
‘As long as you let me ask some too.’
She mused on it for a minute, looking ahead at the waves. She supposed she couldn’t expect someone to open up if she wasn’t willing to give them the same courtesy. And what harm would it do? It wasn’t like she had dark secrets hidden away that he was in danger of uncovering.
‘OK,’ she answered.
‘Are you certain?’
‘As certain as I can be.’ She smiled.
‘OK,’ he said, easing the wheel a little to the left. ‘Let us drop the anchor and see if there is anything in the cabin we can have to drink.’
They had stopped the boat a little way out from the shore, the water lapping at the edges of the rocks a beautiful clear turquoise. Dropping the anchor looked so easy on films and TV shows but here it involved picking up the heavy metal hook and reams of rope and casting it aside without hitting the side of the boat or launching yourself in with it. With a splash it was done and the rope unravelled so quickly Molly had to make sure her feet were out of the way.
‘I have found an unopened bottle of cola!’ Christos called like it was precious gold. ‘It expired in 2022 so I am thinking there will not be much fizz but…’
‘It sounds perfect,’ Molly said, suddenly realising, as she had abandoned her frappé, she was actually really thirsty.
‘OK, excuse what we must drink it from,’ Christos said, coming along to the seating area at the back of the boat. ‘One is a mug with more cracks than there is porcelain and the other is… I do not even know what it is.’
Molly looked at the slightly odd-shaped receptacle in his hands. ‘Can I have the mug?’
He laughed, placed both things on the seat between them and began pouring out the cola.
‘I think I saw one bubble, no, wait, it was the sun’s reflection,’ Christos said, passing her the mug.
‘Wow, it smells very sweet,’ Molly said, taking a sniff.
‘I think it is pure sugar. Yammas ,’ he said, knocking his vase-cum-jug-cum-whatever against the mug.
‘ Yammas ,’ she replied, putting the mug to her lips. ‘Ugh, OK, maybe not a flat-out ugh but… different. And should a guy who owns gyms be drinking something so high in sugar?’
‘Ah, that myth that because you train you should only eat kale and chicken,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘I like food too much to commit to anything like that. What can I say? I am Greek.’
‘But you committed to leaving the place you grew up in, moving somewhere else, and making a business and building it.’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘So, tell me how that happened. Your inspiration. What drove you.’
‘Now I feel like this is a magazine interview.’
He had said that last comment to buy a little time because, really, no one had asked him any of these things unless they were interviewing him. And his answers varied. Always the truth in some way but mostly leaning into the truth he felt people wanted to hear and the truth he was willing to share.
‘Sorry,’ Molly apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to make it sound so… intrusive.’
‘ Ochi . No.’ He shook his head. ‘Sometimes it is good to acknowledge where you have come from and where you’re heading, and all the stops along the way.’ He took a sip of the terrible cola. ‘So… I left Corfu with a few hundred Euro in a bank account and a backpack of clothes. Someone I knew gave me a sofa to stay on for a few nights and then I was on my own. I’d never been to Athens before but I knew there were many more opportunities there than here.’
‘Are you serious?’ Molly asked him, sitting forward a bit.
He shrugged. ‘When I say it now, it sounds crazy. But back then I was younger, risks didn’t seem like risks. When you feel like you’re trapped there really is not much to lose.’
‘You felt like you were trapped? On this island everyone wants to come on holiday to?’
‘Ah, well, the reality of life here is quite different to vacations. When the sunshine ends and the winter begins there is olives and football and that is pretty much it.’
‘Not into either of those?’
‘Oh, no, I love them both but neither would be enough to make the kind of life I want. Unless I was as good at playing as Messi.’
‘So how did you go from sleeping on a sofa to owning your business?’
She looked so genuinely, completely interested, like she wanted to know all the parts of the story and wasn’t going to pass judgement about the false starts and failures along the way.
‘Slowly,’ he admitted. ‘I got a really badly paid job at an awful cocktail bar where the cocktails tasted worse than this cola, but what it did have was a great storage area. I took the late shifts. I locked up. I slept there. And I got another job in the day, washing up at a café, and I worked both those jobs until I’d earnt enough to put down a payment on a small apartment. I’m talking so small everything except the bathroom was in one square room. Like Vaggelis’s place but without the views.’ He shook his head as he remembered that first apartment. It was nothing more than a studio where you could hear everything from the neighbours both sides, so much so, it felt like they were in the room.
‘And while I was doing that, any spare time I got I took free trials at all the gyms in the area. The private ones, the ones that were part of a bigger chain, I wanted to see what the competition was, what their USPs were, their clientele, gaps I could fill. And, in the background, I was working on the app. Because that’s key to my business. Simplicity in booking and keeping track of your activities. Then the trilogy that sets my gyms apart. Cost, comfort and community. I put more money into a creche facility than I put into the upgrades of my equipment. My gyms aren’t only about health and fitness, they’re about everyone being able to access something that’s going to improve their quality of life. And I mean everyone. I have basic packages that literally anyone can afford and, if they really can’t afford it, I have a bursary scheme.’
He was feeling light and heavy all at the same time and he knew his passion for what he did was shining as brightly as it ever had as he told Molly. Why did it feel so strange to admit that as well as making him a great income the gyms gave back to the community? Perhaps because it showed that beneath the businessman there was someone who always wanted to fight for the underdog. The underdog he had been. The underdog his father had always made him feel like.
‘Christos,’ Molly said, softly, ‘what you said about community and not needing help from anyone, and yet you are the one giving back and being inclusive in your business. That’s really amazing.’
It was only after she had spoken he realised how tight his throat was and it definitely wasn’t from the rancid cola. It was emotion, evidence of exactly what he felt for what he had grown.
‘ Efharisto . Thank you. I am just at that point now where I am wondering exactly how big I can grow things without having to compromise the foundations, you know. Because the last thing you want to lose when you have created something you think is special, is its initial unique concept.’
‘I get that,’ Molly said. ‘Completely.’
The words had been said so wistfully that his mind went from his own story to wondering about hers. She kept her cards even closer to her chest than he did, which was unmatched as far as anyone he had met before went.
‘Tell me,’ he urged gently.
She took a deep breath. The truth was, it was hard to begin telling him about her fledgling business she was terrified to take to the next level now he had just told her such a dramatic tale of sleeping in storage spaces. Except, apart from the slightly more stable living arrangements, her journey hadn’t been so different. She took a sip of the cola and breathed in the sea air.
‘The make-up I put on your wound, I created it,’ she said. Her exhalation after the words had left her was audible. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I made that noise. I’ve just proven what an absolute nervous nightmare I would be if I had to look for investment on Dragons’ Den .’
‘You created it?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I currently have six cosmetic essentials – some with a variety of shades – and I’m working on something I’m hoping will be revolutionary. But, you know, what if no one else thinks it’s revolutionary?’
‘OK,’ Christos said. ‘First, you need to work on your self-doubt with regard to other people, because they might help you grow the business, but they do not own the business.’ He topped up her cola mug. ‘So, tell me about this revolutionary product.’
‘It seems to be taking forever to be approved, I’m starting to wonder if it ever will be.’
‘More self-doubt and I still don’t know what it is.’
‘It’s a foundation,’ she answered. ‘But it’s one foundation. For every skin shade.’
‘OK, I am not a connoisseur of make-up, but I do know this is unusual. Has it been tried before?’
She nodded. ‘You can buy foundation that claims to do the same thing. It’s usually very very cheap and the results are far from conclusive. My foundation uses natural ingredients that not only replicates your natural skin shade, it also “locks” the product in place and it’s dermatologically better for your skin than anything like it currently on the market.’
‘Revolutionary,’ Christos agreed, nodding.
‘Maybe,’ she answered with another sigh. ‘I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve taken on too much or that I don’t have the skill set to see it through to the finish line.’
‘You have manufacturing on board?’
‘Yes.’
‘They are ready to scale up when they need to?’
‘Yes but?—’
‘You have an app?’
‘It’s ready to go live when I’m ready to make it live.’
‘It sounds to me like you’re ready, Molly. But, I do have one more question.’
‘O-K.’
‘Why make-up? Why this business?’
If she thought telling Christos about her foundation was going to be the toughest bit, she’d obviously underestimated. But she had promised him honest answers. And, after all this time, it really should only make her feel emboldened, not hark back to the trauma she should have long since dealt with.
‘Because make-up isn’t about making yourself pretty. It’s about empowerment. It’s about exploring who you are and who you want to be. And how you want the world to see you.’
As the words came out, she found herself back there. A time when she had saved every scrap of spare money Janette had palmed to her to spend in the make-up section at Superdrug. She might have been one of the poorest students at school, the one whose mum was a bit crazy, the one who lived in the worst area, the one without a dad… but no one was going to carry on bullying the girl who had skills that were going to make them look like Ariana Grande if they wanted.
‘I used make-up to get on in life. As a shield for myself sometimes, as a tool to make friends. For me it wasn’t a luxury, it was a necessity.’ She took a breath. ‘That’s why the range focuses on essentials. It’s mid-priced but you won’t need dozens of different products.’
He was smiling at her now, like she had said something sensationally inspirational. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘That’s the pitch you use to bring on outside investors,’ he told her. ‘A successful business has to have a heartfelt motivation.’
She nodded. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Ah, that is easy,’ he answered, swallowing the remainder of his drink. ‘Having a monster for a father.’
And with that said, he stood up and went back to the wheel of the boat.