Chapter 4
An air-conditioned Mercedes had been waiting for them at the airport and, in less than a five-minute drive, Cara and Margot had arrived at this luxury hotel. It was the essence of cool, from the no-fuss exterior – a single olive tree at the entrance – to the relaxed, modern yet bohemian décor inside. It was all comfy couches with textured cushions, muted colours and rattan and seagrass feature lampshades. It was like the best vogue elements of the 1960s had had a baby with sleek, modern-day conveniences and swaddled it in a laid-back style. From the buzzy vibe around the pool, a DJ playing chilled tunes, to the restaurant where you could order frankly orgasmic-looking dishes from a dedicated app, it was wall-to-wall luxury, including their room, which had its own private terrace and swim-up pool. It was all definitely very Margot.
‘Isn’t this idyllic?’
Margot had taken less than ten minutes to expand her Maxi-Go case to its natural state, remove all the items and hang up those clothes that needed it. Then her aunt had slipped into a bright yellow bikini and slathered Factor Not-Adequate-Enough-For Sunrise-In-Arbroath on her skin before lying face-up on one of the woven rope loungers facing their pool. In contrast, Cara was making sure every inch of her exposed flesh was covered in Factor 50. Despite the Jones gingery genes, Margot always seemed to achieve the colour of beautiful soft tan leather while Cara was often more smoked salmon…
‘It’s beautiful,’ Cara answered, rubbing the oil on her calves. ‘Is this where the wedding is?’
‘God no!’ Margot exclaimed. ‘Knowing Sofia she’s probably rented a palace.’
Cara swallowed. She and Seb hadn’t booked a palace, but they had been choosing between a windmill and a whisky vault. Her heart had felt fully committed but she’d soon discovered that Seb’s heart hadn’t been anywhere but wrapped up in her career. He had been there for the highs, but when Yodi happened and things unravelled, suddenly he thought they needed time to re-evaluate. Cara had thought that meant time for her to get herself together – with his help and support – but what had actually happened was they never went back to finalising that venue and Seb’s ‘re-evaluating’ took the form of actual ghosting. It had hurt. It still did. Losing her career was one thing, but losing the man she’d loved, wondering how she was ever going to trust again, that was the bitterest blow.
‘Anyway, we have ages until the wedding. Plenty of time to relax, unwind and sink a few cooling cocktails before the hen party tonight,’ Margot said. ‘We’re meeting at this delightful bar and then there’s a show at a theatre.’
A show sounded very upmarket for a hen night. The one and only hen night Cara had attended – for Destiny, one of her backing vocalists – had involved Cherry Sourz and leopard-print thongs. There had been no tickets for anything, just a free front row seat of Destiny getting up close and personal with a rapper called Jericho.
With her sun cream done, Cara got ready to lie down. And then her phone rang.
‘That will be your mother,’ Margot said with an irritated sigh.
Cara checked the display and, sure enough, her aunt was correct.
‘Always calls when we’re having alone time away from the business. Have you noticed that?’
Cara hadn’t noticed that but, for some reason, it obviously ticked Margot off. She stepped to the very edge of the pool and connected the FaceTime.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Oh… hello, angel. Actually, the whole “mum” title is one of the reasons I’m calling you.’ She paused. ‘Sorry, that sounded a bit much, didn’t it? Ow!’
Margot tutted and Cara looked to her aunt who made a show of lying on one side and turning away from the conversation. On the call, her mum seemed to be fighting to get vegetation off her face. And what had she meant about the ‘mum’ title?
‘Sorry,’ her mum carried on. ‘We’re in the middle of a rainforest and Deepak likes to go a little off-piste, well, off the beaten track, not on the path most taken, you know?’
Cara didn’t know. All her paths usually led through the warehouse of Carried Away.
‘So, we’ve decided to change our names,’ her mum continued before Cara could reply. ‘Dad and I. Or should I say Nettlewood and I.’
Margot snorted and Cara edged a little further away until she was right in the corner of the terrace, toes almost in the pool.
‘Mum, I don’t understand.’
‘We are adopting names more suited to our transcendence into the deeper realms of Mother Nature. Your dad is Nettlewood Aurora and I’m Briarbanks Wisteria.’
Cara swallowed as a side-eye to Margot meant she saw her aunt beginning to titter into her towel. ‘So, what do I call you?’
‘I thought you could call me Wissy.’
Margot was going to pull a muscle if she carried on trying to keep in her laughter. Cara needed to do what she always seemed to have to do with her parents – cut through the minutiae and get to the point. ‘So, is everything OK? I mean, you’re calling me from a rainforest so it must be important.’ And there was no chance she was going to call her mother Wissy.
‘Oh no, nothing planet-imploding,’ her mum carried on, whipping leaves out of her path like she was Indiana Jones. ‘Just wanted to touch base in case the next camp doesn’t have signal. And, of course, to find out the latest plastic consumption catastrophe of the luggage industry.’
Now Margot wasn’t laughing. Now her aunt looked like she was about to get up and join the conversation. Cara beat a hasty retreat back into the suite and slid the glass doors to a close, locking Margot out.
‘Mum, Margot works really hard to limit the impact to the environment in her production.’
‘Because people only need luggage to get on planes and planes are such captains of clean air. And, didn’t you hear me? It’s Wissy now.’
‘Mum,’ Cara said as Margot grabbed the handles of the glass doors and attempted to pull them apart. ‘Is everything OK? Where’s Dad?’ It was unlike her dad not to appear on a FaceTime call.
‘He’s travelling in the wagon. He got a henna tattoo yesterday and has had some reaction. To be frank, Deepak was talking about all the different natural poisons there are in the plants round here and your dad started feeling queasy after that.’
Her dad had a tattoo. Plant poisons. New names. This was a lot. And Margot was still fighting for entry.
‘Cara, where are you? Or has my sister redecorated again? It looks very spa-like.’
Cara drew the curtains across the patio doors, blocking Margot out. ‘We aren’t in London. We’re in Corfu. It’s one of the Greek islands.’
‘Cara, I’m a seasoned virtually carbon-neutral traveller. I know of the existence of Greece. What poor, unsuspecting entrepreneur is my sister getting to know now?’
Cara was well aware of her mum and aunt’s sibling rivalry but usually it was casually sarcastic, not laced with bitterness as it sounded now.
‘It’s not business,’ Cara said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘We’re going to a wedding. One of Margot’s old college friends.’
‘Wait, Margot is putting business to one side and making time for a friend? I didn’t even know she had friends she actually communicated with.’
Her statement made, Elizabeth/Wissy sliced at a tough-looking piece of bamboo and took it off at head height. Cara wasn’t going to be drawn into giving an opinion on Margot and, as her aunt had done nothing but support her in every way since life as Cara had known it had crumbled, she only had positive things to say. The mood her mum was in, that wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.
‘It’s a beautiful hotel. We’ve just arrived and they’ve given us a room with a swim-up pool.’
‘Oh, Cara, a few nights ago I went swimming in a water hole while baby elephants showered themselves down no more than twenty feet away.’
Cara sighed. She didn’t realise this was a game of one-upmanship. ‘Well, I don’t think they have elephants in Greece so I suppose I’ll have to make do with co-existing with cats or something.’
She’d spotted many cats on their short drive from the airport – waiting in doorways expectantly, standing on the edge of large wheelie bins.
‘I expect Margot has asked for all traces of nature to be removed from her veranda. Is she still smoking?’
‘Mum,’ Cara said.
‘It’s Wissy, darling.’
‘Why don’t you phone Margot and speak to her if you want to know how she’s doing?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! She won’t have time to speak to the likes of me. In my sister’s opinion, with my “beatnik” views as she calls them, I’ve taken a deeper fall from grace than Huw Edwards.’
‘Personally, I think you’re both as bad as each other. Anyway, I’m fine by the way and I think I actually saw a baby elephant heading this way from the all-inclusive restaurant, so love to Dad and… bye, Wheezy.’
Cara ended the call, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, she felt exhausted.
‘Cara!’ Margot yelled, her voice loud through the glass. ‘Tell your mother to bog off back to life in Bogota, or wherever she is, and come and choose something from room service.’
Now one of those cooling cocktails did sound incredibly tempting. She got up off the bed. ‘Coming.’