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Mary was confused. Hadn’t he grown up poor? This was as lush as any villa at the retreat, and the gardens were vast and beautifully planted.
‘Where are we?’ Mary asked.
‘This is my mother’s gift for tomorrow,’ Costa explained. ‘If you knew the hell I’ve gone through to keep this secret...’ he explained. ‘Roula is the only one who knows.’
Bloody Roula, Mary thought.
‘Let’s go and see...’ He took out some keys and unlocked the door.
They walked through the cool villa, which was a mixture of old and new. Antique ornaments sat next to a gorgeous picture of Yolanda on the beach, laughing as she caught a wave. And on the white mantelpiece were smiling photos—some of Costa. He had been a big baby, and that made Mary smile. There were also pictures of a younger Yolanda with friends.
‘Are there any of your father?’
‘Yolanda would just smash them. I don’t have many good memories of my father.’ He put his arm around her. ‘You have some good ones of yours, though.’
‘I do...’ Mary nodded. She was starting to remember them now. It felt as if this short time away, the space to breathe, was allowing her to look back on things differently. ‘He was always so together; now he’s just a shell.’
‘Poor man,’ Costa said.
She had never heard anyone speak of her father with empathy, let alone kindness, and it made her feel a little muddled as they headed outside and sat by a stream.
The air was so fresh and clear and they could see for miles—the azure ocean below, and the retreat, and the tiny white puffs of cloud that were burning off even as she gazed up at them.
‘Eat,’ Costa said. ‘Here’s your chocolate cake...’
There wassoumathato drink—an almond syrup topped with icy sparkling water—and so many delicacies to try. Mary looked over to Costa and knew that even with the pain of the goodbye to follow, this would always be the best day of her life.
For now Costa let her in...
‘There are a few main families on the island.’ He pointed his finger to the expanse that stretched around and beneath them. ‘The Kyrios family way over there. Then the Drakos family have some of the western shore.’ He pointed towards the village: ‘The Barios family.’ He guided her to the thick trees behind the retreat. ‘That land was owned by the Hatzis family.’ Then he tapped the ground.‘Here and some of the shore was Argyros. There were others, but those five had most of the land. It was worth nothing then. Oh, and Jimmy had the hotel, but he’s gone now.’
‘Jimmy?’
‘Came here for a holiday and never left.’
‘What about the Leventis family?’ Mary asked.
He shook his head. ‘The only thing they owned was a poor reputation. They moved to the mainland long ago, but my father returned on occasion. He was a drifter,’ Costa explained. ‘But my mother was Yolanda Argyros and got into trouble at fifteen—that trouble being him...and subsequently me. There was a lot of pressure on them to marry.’
‘From her parents?’
‘From everyone. I think he tried to settle. He worked over on Santorini,’ Costa said. ‘And he made some good money for a while—at least by Anapliró standards. He took the ferry each morning, but then he started to forget to come home one too many nights. Still, that secret stayed in the family. Myyayawas a mean-spirited woman,’ he told her. ‘She punished my mother and shamed her.’
‘For getting pregnant?’
‘For that, and for her husband leaving, for being ill, for needing medicine... She choked on a chicken bone a couple of years back, thank God, or she’d have lived to be a hundred.’
‘Costa!’
‘What?’ he said. ‘I’m cold because I don’t pretend to love someone who didn’t deserve it?’
‘No...’ She didn’t know what to say. She did not want half-truths, or for him to feel he had to hide anything from her.
‘I worked hard...got lots of jobs. I made sure my mother always had her medicine, and every six months I got her to Athens to see a specialist.’
‘How?’
‘Catching fish, gutting fish, selling fish...’ He didn’t tell her how the fishermen had at first laughed at the skinny kid who had pleaded for work. ‘I loved night fishing, and those men turned out to be the best teachers. At night we would listen to the laughter carrying from the parties on the yachts, where they were all deciding our fate...’ He saw her frown. ‘Someone developing the island was just a matter of time. We all knew it. “You should be at those parties, Costa,” they would say to me. I told them I intended to be.’
