Chapter 58
ALMYROS
It was the next morning and Faye’s sunglasses were hiding puffy eyes both through lack of sleep and tears she hated herself for spilling as she pulled her car up outside the little white-washed house on Almyros beach.
Last night, almost as soon as Kostas had left, she had curled up on the sofa bed and when she heard Saffron returning from Maddie’s, she had feigned sleep to avoid conversation.
What was there to say? She had been well and truly used and she only had her own naivety to blame.
This was what happened when you diverted from your perfectly curated pathway when you should have known better.
But today was a new day and her personal feelings were nothing compared to the plans to build a Petsas Palace on her piece of paradise…
‘Oh, Faye!’ Dimitria exclaimed, getting out of the car first. ‘It looks delightful, absolutely delightful!’
Faye smiled and got out too as Saffron rushed from the backseat, almost racing Dimitria to the front door. Perhaps her daughter was a little interested in this potential new home after all.
‘Do we have to wait for Alexandros for us to be able to get in?’ Dimitria asked, looking like she might be ready to jimmy the door open.
‘No,’ Faye answered. ‘He actually had to be in Corfu Town so he dropped the keys to reception earlier.’ She reached into her handbag and shook them.
‘The flowers are nice, Mum,’ Saffron said, pointing to the bright pink bougainvillaea winding around lattice and spilling petals and fragrance all around this neat area of front terrace.
‘I love the bright blue door,’ Dimitria remarked. ‘And have you seen how close it is to the sea!’
Faye put the key in the lock and turned.
Despite everything else, she knew how she felt about this house was dependent on one thing and one thing alone.
Gut feeling. Her own instinct. Not switching things up or taking other people’s advice that riding around on motorbikes might be nice.
Whatever initial reaction she had to this place – good or bad – that was going to guide her decision-making. She took a breath and stepped inside.
* * *
‘So, it has taken Saffron only ten minutes to find you a cat,’ Dimitria remarked as they stood on the back terrace of the little house, only footsteps from the water.
Faye looked to Saffron, a few metres away, running around in circles, a small black and white cat at her heels.
‘I’m surprised it took that long,’ Faye replied.
‘No, this is Greece, after all,’ Dimitria agreed.
‘But, Faye, this place. It is like it was made for you. Even the style it is now. It is plain but homely, it is organised, but it has things in all the right ways. The cute kitchen, the bedrooms are a good size, a dining area and the archway with the sofa and TV, and this outside space facing the sea.’
Faye nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Then what is wrong, Faye mou? Has something happened I do not know about?’ Dimitria asked.
She shook her head. She had made up her mind not to say anything to Dimitria about Kostas’s plans yet.
She wanted to see this businessman make his offer for buying the hotel and watch Dimitria tell him where he could stick it.
If he even had the balls to turn up. And, whatever happened at that meeting, afterwards she was going to tell Katerina to leak the news to the press.
If there was even the remotest chance of the project gaining any traction, they needed to strike first and get ahead of the game.
‘No, just perhaps a little anxious about the meeting this afternoon,’ Faye said.
‘Me too,’ Dimitria admitted. ‘I know it was my idea to sell but it has to be the right offer, you know, not just the most money, but the right person with solid ideas, even if it means changing its purpose.’
Changing its purpose.
‘You really don’t think the new owner will keep it as a hotel?’ Faye asked.
‘I would love that to be the case. But who knows.’ She sat down on the low wall that separated the terrace from the grassland leading to the beach.
‘And I know, with you thinking about buying a place of your own, you need a secure job, but Faye, I am confident there will be many opportunities for you, even if the worst happens. I know people have been trying to steal you from me for years.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Dimitria.’ She sighed.
She was concerned about having no job obviously, but there were far bigger things at play here.
‘I know we can’t be… na?ve.’ There was that word again.
‘But you wouldn’t want to sell the hotel if, you know, someone wanted to… I don’t know… knock it down.’
‘Well, I suppose that might be a consideration…’ She paused for a second before carrying on. ‘…if the person making the offer was Mr Petsas, ready to tear through the centre of Erimitis exactly like the developers who tried before.’
Faye gasped. ‘You know!’
‘And you know! And you haven’t told me!’ Dimitria fired back.
Saffron looked over from her play with the cat and both women waved a hand and made appropriate noises of encouragement.
‘Katerina came to me. But you should have, Faye, the moment you found out.’
‘I didn’t know what to say to you,’ Faye admitted. ‘And I didn’t know how to say it, and I also didn’t want to think about how I somehow facilitated all this by being there for him.’
‘This isn’t your fault. How could it be? I didn’t know why he was here. I hoped it was with good intentions, to see his grandmother, to do things like the photo opportunity he did with the children; how should I know he was planning whatever this is? And I asked you to look after him!’
Faye nodded. ‘And I fell right into his lap… trap, I meant trap.’
It would have been mildly funny if her feelings weren’t burnt and bruised and aching with regret for allowing him space inside them. She hurt. A lot. Definitely more than she should.
‘You asked him about it?’ Dimitria asked.
She nodded. ‘Last night.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘A whole lot of nothing much.’ She sighed, determined to keep her emotions in check. ‘Just admitted it was his plan, the reason he was here.’
Dimitria shook her head. ‘O po po.’ It was a phrase of disbelief and disappointment. ‘And you think that is why he was… close to you?’
Faye sighed, disappointment in herself still renting space in her stomach.
She nodded. ‘It should have been obvious to me. A guy like that with all his status and his money and, I don’t know, probably hundreds of matches on Tinder.
I mean, he brought someone to the hotel, and that was fine because I don’t know what I thought we were and…
’ And she was talking far too much about a failed situationship when she should be totally focussed on the fact Kostas was planning to order in heavy-duty excavating equipment.
‘Anyway, that isn’t important. What’s important is us putting a stop to his plans, right? ’
‘I do not believe he is going to meet us at Cavo Barbaro and tell us these intentions and expect a favourable outcome to his offer for the hotel,’ Dimitria said, waving at Saffron again.
Faye breathed a sigh of relief she didn’t even know had been giving weight to her chest. ‘I am so glad you said that.’
‘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 the taverna? 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.