Chapter 52
THE TREEHOUSE, KERASIA
‘What are you doing?’
‘I have put things in the crate! Turn the lift on.’
‘I am not turning on the lift until you tell me what the things are.’
Kostas sighed in exasperation. He was having a conversation in woodland, shouting up towards his grandmother’s head that was barely visible between the foliage, and the heat of the morning was already getting to him.
He had had to strap the box to his motorbike and worry about his balance the whole ride over here.
Now his grandmother wouldn’t winch it upwards and her stairs were still blocked off.
‘Yiayia! Parakaló. Please.’
‘I already know, no matter what these things are, that I can live without them. If you want to have coffee then the only thing needed in the crate is you.’
Kostas looked at the box, then at the crate. He wouldn’t fit in the crate with it, there was no way. He made his choice.
‘The right decision,’ Kyriaki said as she helped to pull Kostas in at the window moments later.
‘You know you could make a bigger window here, with a door that opens out so visitors do not have to climb through,’ he said, legs bending and stretching to work his way inside.
‘That would be a wonderful idea,’ Kyriaki answered, ‘for someone who actually wants visitors. You would like sugar in your coffee?’
Kostas shook his head. ‘No, why would I want sugar? I never have sugar.’
‘For extra energy after you have rescued a turtle last night.’
‘How do you know this?’ There hadn’t been anything on the news pages that he’d missed, had there?
When the experts had arrived last night he had stayed in the background for two reasons.
One, because he didn’t want to get in the way, and two, because he knew he was going to have to come clean to Faye about his reason for coming to Corfu.
His grandmother touched a finger to her nose. ‘I have a network, you know. We do not have to see each other every moment of every day to stay connected.’
‘What do you do?’ Kostas asked her. ‘Send messages through the trees with scops owls?’
‘You make fun of me,’ Kyriaki said, ‘yet I am the one with knowledge.’
He smiled, shaking his head. Without any further hesitation he chose a seat covered by a pink crocheted square and sat.
‘So, what is in your box of things I do not need?’ Kyriaki asked, pouring coffee into two small cups.
‘Things I thought you might like,’ Kostas said. ‘Things that might make your life easier.’
‘I see.’
‘Gifts.’
‘Ah, gifts.’
He frowned. ‘Why are you saying “gifts” like these are bad things?’
‘Is it my birthday?’ Kyriaki asked, handing him one of the cups.
‘No.’
‘It is my name day?’
‘No,’ he said again.
‘Then the summer is over and it is Christmas?’
‘No.’
‘Then I do not need gifts, Konstantino.’
‘Let me help you,’ Kostas stated, cradling the tiny cup with one hand.
‘I do not need help from you, Konstantino. But I think you might need some help from me, no? That is why you bring me… I do not know… a television or maybe a fancy coffee machine.’
He sat up straight. How did she know that those were the exact things in the box at the bottom of the rope?
‘I do not need things. I will help you because I am your grandmother and I love you. That is all we need between us. So, you tell me what you have done that you want to fix and I will help you try to fix it.’
Kostas breathed deeply, let the little chair support the small of his back. ‘How do you know that I need help to fix something?’
‘It is written inside your eyes, Konstantino, like it always is.’
* * *
He told her everything about his Erimitis land project.
She was the only person he had told it all to.
Because although Stathis knew the extent of the scale of the luxury resort and some of his idiosyncrasies with regard to how he wanted things created, he didn’t know the full family history and his motivations.
And now he had laid it all bare for his grandmother.
This resort was to show everyone on this island that the Petsas family did not associate itself with Kerkyra or its people, because the people of the island had led to the ruination of his father and his family.
He hadn’t been giving to Avlaki, he had planned to strip it away.
His vision had been to ensure that no one on Corfu would be employed by him – not workforce, not staff for the hotel or marina – and that the villagers, who he blamed for his father’s death, got to look out at this sleek, modern, nothing-like-the-traditional buildings around it every day and remember as it took the richest tourists away from their tavernas.
Kyriaki wasn’t saying anything as he concluded, and her expression was just as static.
‘Please, yiayia, say something. Say anything. Shout at me. Say that I am stupid, that I am one of those rich people who doesn’t care about anything or anyone and lives in a million-euro bubble.’
Kyriaki shook her head. ‘Why do I need to say any of that?’ She got down off her stool.
‘What would be the point? You have just told me exactly what type of person would drive a stake into the very heart of the nature of this island. A person who has lost his values, a person who has surrounded himself and tried to support himself with weak things.’
Kostas swallowed. He couldn’t deny she was right. And shame wrapped around him like a traitor’s cloak.
‘But this is not entirely your doing. We are all responsible in some way. Your father definitely, your mother too, although she most probably did not even realise it, and some of the blame has to fall on my shoulders.’
‘Yiayia, this is not—’
‘No, I am culpable. Where you are concerned I should not have hidden away. Did I know you thought I was dead? Perhaps. Could I have reached out to you? Yes, at any time and I did not.’ She took a breath.
‘The truth is I hide here in this treehouse because I am ashamed. While you were trying to find someone else – anyone else – to pin your father’s mistakes on.
I very much knew what he had cost other people on this island and in Athens.
Yes, I still loved him because he was my son, but I did not love what he did or the traits of the person he grew into.
People were not unkind but, Konstantino, they deserved to be.
’ She sniffed. ‘But before I removed myself as far as possible, I made sure that the debts I knew about were paid in full.’
Kostas baulked. ‘You paid money to people? Why did you not say?’
Kyriaki flapped her arms. ‘Which bit did you miss? My shame? My hiding with my shame? My not reaching out? It was not your problem to fix.’
‘And it was not yours either,’ Kostas reminded her.
‘But when he left us it was my problem. I created him. And, when all is said and done, that is the only fact.’
‘Well, he created me,’ Kostas said. ‘And all I can see now is that my plans made me the same as him. The real him. And now the person he actually was, not the person I wanted to believe he was, isn’t the kind of man that I want to be.’
‘Then there is your answer,’ Kyriaki stated softly. ‘For everything.’
He took a breath and nodded.
‘So, take back the television and the fancy coffee machine. I will let you do one thing for me,’ Kyriaki said. ‘And one thing only.’
‘What?’
‘Promise to me, no matter what choice you make in life, Konstantino, make it with true, authentic intention. Every decision can be weighed up with logic or balanced by asking for advice, but when the moment for choosing arrives, make your mind up this way… Lead with your values. That sensation you get inside, that instinct you feel when something is just right, that is how you know. And it does not matter the opinions of others, whoever they are; if your choice makes you feel lighter, to breathe a little more free, to be quietly, perfectly grounded in that time and place, it is the correct path on the journey.’
He dashed a tear from his eye with a clenched fist as emotion threatened to overwhelm him in this tiny house in the trees. ‘Se agapó, Yiayia.’ I love you, Grandmother.
‘Se agapó, Konstantino mou.’ I love you, my Konstantinos.