Chapter 34
‘Well, I have never been in a treehouse before.’
Faye smiled then, lifting the cup of no-clue-what-kind-of-tea-it-was to her lips.
It was small talk she was making because after Kyriaki had taken her on a thirty-second tour of the home there had been no conversation and the only sound had been the kettle boiling on the small gas stove and the cicadas from the branches mainly outside, but sometimes protruding through the open windows.
There was one main room comprising the living space, a sectioned-off area with a bed and then a tiny ‘shower’ room the size of a cupboard, consisting of some kind of pumping system and a bucket. It was as rustic as it got.
‘It is the only way to live,’ Kyriaki stated. ‘Here I am away from everything I do not want and in the middle of everything that I do.’
Faye looked at Kostas. They were sitting in the central area on tiny wooden chairs, his tall frame making them look like furniture for dolls.
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘As long as I want to remember,’ Kyriaki answered. ‘Conformity had me in a house made of stone while my son grew up and then, when my husband died, I made here my home.’ She nudged Kostas’s leg with the toe of her shoe. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Why are you not dead?’ Kostas answered.
‘Kosta, I don’t think—’ Faye began.
‘If you are not his wife,’ Kyriaki said, ‘you do not have to speak for him.’
Faye felt significantly reprimanded and she wondered if it might be better if she left. ‘Maybe I should go.’
‘No.’ This came from Kostas. And then: ‘Please.’
‘Wanting someone around you, Konstantino? This is a new development.’
‘The new development I am struggling with, Yiayia, is you being alive. Did you want to be dead? Did you ask to be dead?’
Kyriaki shook her head. ‘As you can see, I am not dead. And I pretend to be nothing else. You thought I was dead because you listened to what people told you and did not trust your instincts or look with your own eyes.’
Kostas shook his head. ‘My mother told me—’
‘Ah!’ Kyriaki said, raising a finger in the air. ‘A familiar sentence. “My mother told me” or “Cassia said this and that”. You should have remembered, Konstantino, that your mother was also the woman that married my no-good son. How can you trust someone with judgement like that?’
That was harsh. This woman was fiery and spirited.
‘Why do you always say he is no good? Even now, when he is gone and is not here to defend himself?’ Kostas asked.
‘Defend himself is exactly what he always did. Defend himself. Not his family. Not you. Especially not you.’
Kostas shook his head. ‘He was right, you know, no one was ever on his side here.’
‘Here?’ Kyriaki questioned, leaning forward on her chair. ‘In this world?’
‘Stin Kérkyra. On Corfu.’
‘Still you speak the name of this island like the word burns your tongue,’ Kyriaki said, shaking her head.
‘Because nothing has changed. The people here have not changed. They are still the same people who bullied my father and got him into trouble, and he paid the ultimate price.’
Faye swallowed as Kostas’s voice became more and more loaded with emotion. This was what he hid behind the persona.
‘The ultimate price,’ Kyriaki said, getting up from her seat and going back towards the stove. ‘I think we will agree to disagree on that one.’ She poured more water into her cup.
Faye could feel the tension in the air as intense as the humidity in this house in the trees. She wasn’t sure she should really be party to it.
‘Tell me, Faye,’ Kostas said. ‘Is paying with your life not the ultimate price when it comes to bullying?’
‘I’m really not sure it’s my place to comment on your family business.’ She felt awkward now and was disappointed in Kostas for trying to bring her into it in such a way.
‘Why not let Faye know the whole truth?’ Kyriaki said, coming back to her seat but not sitting down. ‘That your father was the king of making bad decisions from the moment he had conscious thought?’
‘Mrs… Kyriaki, I really don’t think that—’
‘He had bad situations,’ Kostas continued like she hadn’t said anything. ‘Limited choices.’
‘That is what he told you! Or that is what he told your mother to tell you! Konstantino! I thought, now you are grown, you would have worked things out!’ She raised her arms in the air like she was a large bird about to take angry flight.
‘Otherwise, you would not have thought for so many years that I am dead!’
Kyriaki had shrieked the last part of the sentence and her voice reverberated around the small shack like a furious echo. Faye felt it was definitely time for her to depart. She got to her feet.
‘I am going to leave you to it.’
‘Faye, no. We came here together. You are not going back to the hotel alone,’ Kostas said, standing too.
‘It’s fine,’ Faye said. ‘I can call someone to pick me up and—’
‘Ochi. No. Konstantinos is right. It is time for you both to go. This conversation is best left for another time,’ Kyriaki stated.
She turned back towards the stove and picked up a large ladle, then, with her other hand she found a plastic box.
‘Like the gigantes plaki.’ She scooped a large portion of beans into the container and put on the lid.
Then she thrust it at Kostas. ‘Fyge. Go.’