Chapter 49
Faye observed the turtle now it was on its front.
Breathing slightly better? It wasn’t conclusive.
They had shifted stones from around it, making the area as comfortable as possible before they carefully turned the animal over, making sure they only held its shell.
There was no injury as far as Faye could tell – no wounds, no rope or wire caught around any of its flippers – and she hoped it was just exhaustion, that rest and expert help would work.
‘There is nothing else we can do,’ Kostas told her. He was standing now, eyes down on his phone. ‘Unless it is too hot. Could it be too hot?’
‘I don’t think so, but if it was, then it will be better on its front now. We just have to wait for help. Or I will, if you need to go.’ She sat down on the stones, near enough to the turtle but not too close. It was important to keep it calm, especially after the stress of moving it.
‘You want me to leave?’ he asked, coming closer.
‘I wasn’t saying that,’ Faye said. ‘Just that this is part of my job and it’s not part of yours, so if you have somewhere else you need to be that’s OK.’
‘I was just sitting on the beach drinking this. That is how lit my night was.’ He indicated the empty beer can he was going to dispose of later then sat down next to her.
‘Ooo, beer in a can. Things must be bad.’
‘It is worse. I took it from the hotel bar and put nothing in the honesty box.’
‘I might have to arrest you,’ Faye said.
‘Will you have handcuffs?’ he asked, dipping his head into her space a little.
‘Stop that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we are in trouble, you know that, right? You saw the photographs.’
‘What photographs?’ he asked.
She had to look at him to check his expression, and the moment she turned her head he laughed out loud.
‘You really think I did not see the photos?’ Kostas exclaimed. ‘Everyone on this damn island…’ He paused then rephrased. ‘Everyone on this island has seen the photos. I would have called you but today was crazy.’ He sighed. ‘I should have called you. It was my fault that the reporters were there.’
‘And if you had called me, what would you have said?’ Faye asked.
‘Probably sorry. And that I hoped your daughter had not seen the photos.’
‘Yes, well, she has seen them.’
‘Shit, Faye, I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘So she was cool?’
‘No,’ Faye said. ‘She was not cool but that’s my issue to deal with.’ She took a breath. ‘Saffron found the break-up with her father difficult. Even when you’re nineteen, your parents going their separate ways is hard.’
‘What happened there?’ he asked.
Her heart pulsed, a reminder that told her thinking back still hurt.
‘Sorry,’ Kosta said. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I—’
‘No,’ Faye interrupted. ‘No, it’s OK.’ She took a breath. ‘Things weren’t right for a while but, you know, I tried to brush it off, focus on taking care of Saffron, be the supportive wife and mother I’d always been, and then…’
‘Then?’
‘Then I found out he’d been cheating on me.’
‘What?’
‘And it wasn’t the first time. The first time I forgave him even though he left me, left Saffron too for over six months and—’
‘Fuck, Faye, are you serious?’
She could almost feel the bristling furious energy emitting from him. He was incensed.
‘It’s OK. It happens.’
‘No, Faye, not when you’ve made a commitment to someone. If you’ve made a commitment, a contract, a vow, that’s it.’
She shivered at his impassioned words. Did he mean that? Or was he saying what he thought she wanted to hear? That was the thing about being taken for a fool; you always wondered who was going to be next if your defence was down.
‘Listen, your ex, he is a maláka,’ Kostas told her.
‘We can agree on that.’
‘But do you know what I would have really said to you about the photos? Apart from not wanting your daughter to have seen them?’
She shook her head.
‘Maybe that the only thing I am sorry about is that there are not more photos. They did not get any of you making me kiss you on the motorbike.’
‘Oh, I made you kiss me, did I?’
‘You begged me to, if you remember.’ He trailed his index finger up and down over the back of her hand.
She smirked, tingles shooting up and down her spine. ‘I think it was more an order actually.’
‘And I was too terrified to think of what my punishment might be if I did not comply.’
‘Of course you were.’
‘God, what do you do to me?’ he exclaimed, hands in his hair in frustration. ‘I should go away and sit with the turtle.’
‘No,’ Faye said. ‘You will frighten it.’
‘Do I frighten you?’
‘No. Because I’m always in charge, Kosta.’
‘Argh! Honestly, we have to stop.’ He laughed. ‘Now I am too hot, not the turtle.’
He linked their hands, locking their fingers together, then he used his thumb to toy with hers. She liked it. It was cute. ‘You know I almost called the Corfu news people,’ he continued.
‘What were you going to say? Make a complaint?’
‘No,’ he breathed. ‘To ask them to email the photos. To ask if they had any more.’ He smiled. ‘I liked how we looked together, Faye. I liked it a lot.’
‘Really?’
‘Did you not?’
‘A lot of people seemed to have a lot to say about it. Katerina wants to hear every detail of my sex life. Some of my staff are smiling at me – mainly the guys – others are doing the sign of the cross whenever I appear. And then there’s Saffron, like I said.
’ She sighed. She’d had to leave her daughter, what with the turtle emergency, and the situation hadn’t changed.
Saffron had refused to listen to anything Faye had to say and she had locked herself in Faye’s bedroom, unresponsive even on text message.
‘She thinks I am not worthy to be with her mother?’ He nodded. ‘She is right, of course.’
‘No, Kosta, it isn’t you specifically. It’s just change.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, change. Like today I find out my grandmother has a mobile phone and steals internet from one of the villas nearby.’
‘You went to see her again?’
‘Yeah. I went to see her again.’
‘Was it OK?’
‘Not really.’ He nodded as if he was affirming that statement in some way. ‘It was… difficult.’
Faye could sense there was so much more than ‘difficult’ but she didn’t want to push him. She was discovering he kept his emotional door locked tighter than hers.
She shifted a little closer to him on the stones, just enough so their bodies were touching…
‘Can I… tell you?’ he asked her, in a tone so soft and quiet it was almost inaudible amid the shush of the sea against the stones.
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes, of course.’