Chapter 32
Faye took a sip of her water and looked up from her paperwork, gazing over the hotel gardens towards Saffron, floating belly-up in the pool.
It was the late afternoon – hot but with a welcome breeze scudding the sea – and most of her guests took this time to go back to their rooms and nap or refresh for the evening.
Faye liked this time of day. It was quieter, even in the height of the season, and it was when she felt she claimed the island back for herself a tiny bit.
She watched a butterfly with black stripes dance from shrub to shrub at the edge of the gardens and contemplated again what Saffron had said about a reconciliation with Matthew.
It was a ludicrous suggestion, obviously an unfounded older woman’s wishful thinking in that marriage-is-for-life-no-matter-what-the-circumstances kind of way.
But Matthew’s mother’s opinion shouldn’t be held up to Saffron like a controversial relationship advertising banner.
Saffron had understood the separation and subsequent divorce, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been hurt by it.
Perhaps she needed to say something to Matthew.
Although Matthew had always taken his mother’s side in everything.
She looked back at her studies. Dolphins.
This was one of the things most visitors wouldn’t know about living on an island.
The beautiful creatures they pointed at and videoed, if they were lucky enough to see them from a boat, needed to be protected and cared for.
She was going to be a volunteer, but right now, it was a case of difficult timing.
But, then again, when was there ever a right time?
‘You are taking an exam? You are wishing to become a doctor of hotels?’
Kostas. Faye looked up to see him standing right by her. Linen shorts, linen shirt, that scent of something expensive on his skin. The way her body reacted it could possibly be some kind of pheromone cologne. She needed to shut that down.
‘If you need something for your room I’m sure Katerina can arrange it for you.’ She dropped her eyes back to her paperwork.
‘Katerina’s parents invited me for dinner actually,’ Kostas said, pulling up the chair next to hers. ‘I signed six basketball jerseys for their family alone.’
She looked up. ‘Did you accept the invitation? You could take the woman from this morning as your plus-one.’
Argh! Why had she said that? That was not shutting anything down, it was being… unhinged.
‘Faye,’ he said. ‘Are you jealous?’
At least he wasn’t having the audacity to smirk.
‘No,’ she answered coolly. ‘Because I have had dinner at Katerina’s home many times. Her mother is an excellent cook.’
He smiled then. ‘Listen, Faye—’
‘Please, there’s no need to say anything else. It’s none of my business what guests do on the mattresses. Or anywhere else in their room. It’s only my business to arrange the cleaning up of the mess.’
‘Look, last night, it was—’
‘OK, for the record, I definitely do not need details.’
‘OK, for the record, nothing happened and… you know I hated seeing you with Alexandros.’
No smirking still. Seconds elongated, him looking at her, her looking at him. It needed to stop.
‘I am studying,’ she reminded him.
He picked the file up off the table and looked at it. ‘What is this? Dolphins?’
‘And whales,’ Faye added.
‘No sharks?’
‘I hear they all play basketball.’
He put a hand to his chest. ‘Ouch.’ He looked at the work. ‘You have an interest in this?’
‘I’m going to be learning how to save them.’
‘From plastic straws?’
‘From dying if they become stranded in the bay.’ She snatched the file back.
‘Seriously?’
‘Very seriously. If you find a beached animal here, what do you do?’
‘Call for help?’
‘So, who do you call?’
As expected, he had no answer.
‘Exactly, which is why it’s important to know what to do and who to call.’
‘And you will have a test? To make sure you know what to do?’ he asked.
‘A demonstration and then we will have to show that we understand.’
‘Do they beach a whale for you to practise?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
He sighed and she could sense, somehow, there was so much going on in his mind, behind that celebrity, professional athlete persona she had seen him turn on earlier. It wasn’t her place but also…
‘So,’ she began. ‘Your impromptu event went well.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I saw it all over the Enimerosi news Instagram account.’
‘Really?’ He nodded. ‘Well, the kids turned up at the door of my suite.’ He held a hand up. ‘I don’t want a complaint form. And, well, Stathis, he took care of the rest.’
‘Good PR,’ Faye said, nodding. ‘But I am curious what you need good PR for.’
‘Doesn’t everyone like good PR? I am sure the hotel looked beautiful in the photos.’
‘I don’t know,’ Faye said, musing. ‘People who were really insistent on privacy when they first arrived don’t often then organise a public event where half the north of the island turn up faster than they escape the church after the Easter candles have been lit.’
‘Sometimes we have to adapt the plan though, no?’ he asked her.
‘So there’s a plan now?’
He smiled. ‘Don’t you have a plan, Faye? Perhaps one that keeps getting changed by other people? Like your friends? Your family?’ He indicated Saffron, perfecting another starfish float in the pool. ‘That is the daughter whose entrance into the world gave you that sexy scar on your belly.’
She wasn’t going to gush over that comment. ‘Yes,’ she answered stiffly. ‘Family. The thing you told me you don’t have.’
‘What?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I get it now. You’re a casual kind of guy. No need to tell any of your hook-ups a truth.’
‘What?’ he said again. ‘Are we talking a different language?’
‘You told me you don’t have any family on Corfu.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I did. Because I don’t.’
‘So, what, you don’t count your yiayia in Kerasia?’
She watched him take a heavy breath. ‘Well, obviously, I had family here before they died.’
Faye swallowed, uncertain what was coming next. ‘What?’
‘My grandmother. She did live in Kerasia when she was alive.’ His long fingers toyed with the edge of the table.
Had Dimitria got this wrong? What should Faye say next?
‘Oh,’ she managed, hesitant. And then: ‘It’s just, Dimitria, she was talking the other day, about your grandmother, and I’m pretty sure… she’s still alive.’
She watched the colour drain out of Kostas’s skin like the ghost of his grandmother had floated across the garden and said ‘boo’ in his face. He looked as shocked as she had seen anyone look shocked before. And then he stood, abruptly, knocking the table with his hip.
‘Kosta, I…’ She stood too. ‘Maybe I got it wrong. Dimitria listens to all kinds of gossip from all kinds of less than reliable sources and—’
‘And there’s only one way to find out, right?’
‘Ask Dimitria?’
‘Ochi. No.’ He turned to leave.
‘Wait, where are you going?’
‘I’m going to Kerasia. To find out if my grandmother is as arisen as Jesus at Easter.’
Faye’s eyes went to Saffron in the pool. She was talking to one of the guests in the water now – a girl her age.
‘Just wait,’ she said to Kostas. ‘Just let me tell Saffron where I’m going.’
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘With you. To Kerasia. To make sure you don’t crash that motorbike.’ She swallowed. ‘I wouldn’t want any blowback on the hotel if the island’s basketball saint got injured again.’