Chapter Twenty-Four #3
‘Maria died when they were in their teens,’ he says, another response from the newspaper-interview archives, Rose thinks acidly.
‘Stephen and Viola were very young, thirteen and fifteen. Maria’s was a sudden, unexpected death and we were all bereft. Brain haemorrhage. There one minute and gone the next. Tragic. None of us ever got to say goodbye. Tragic,’ he repeats.
He holds his hands up as if holding up an empty vessel.
‘We were alone, the three of us. Not a family but just three people. Maria made us a family. When she died, I was running the business so I wasn’t around a lot and I couldn’t stop working.
We got by with help: Stephen and Viola had a housekeeper to drive them around because by then I had money, and of course I was able to send both of them to public schools. ’
Rose would like to shake Bernard by the shoulders now, although her expression does not show it.
From the way Bernard speaks, there’s simply no sense of his grieving over the death of his first wife. It’s as if he merely replaced her with more staff. Telling everyone that the children went to public school is just another way of showing off his wealth.
She decides to give him a few minutes more to tell everyone his rehearsed story.
‘They had amazing educations – they’d both tell you that themselves,’ Bernard adds earnestly. ‘I’m a grammar-school boy myself, hauled myself up by my bootstraps.’
It’s his turn to beam around at the group.
Rose notes another line from his cheery business biography.
‘When they left school, they could walk into any university in the world. Stephen chose Exeter, which was where my first wife Maria was from, and Viola …’
There’s another pause.
‘The academic world was not for Viola,’ says Bernard, gaining confidence again and giving it a positive spin. ‘Clever girl, very clever girl, but she wasn’t happy burying herself in books. Went to Edinburgh, had a lot of fun but got into a bit of trouble.’
He looks down at his wrinkled hands.
‘I felt I should marry again to give them a mother figure.’
Dianne snorts.
Rose ignores this.
‘There was my lovely Grazia,’ Bernard says. ‘She came to the business long after Maria died.’
‘I was his executive assistant,’ says Grazia, now holding an unlit cigarette in her hand. She’s rolling it between her fingers as if waiting eagerly for the moment she’ll be able to light it.
‘I speak three languages,’ says Grazia, grimly giving her CV. ‘I have a master’s in business from Charles University in Prague – one of the oldest universities in Europe. I paid my bills my whole life and yet Stephen and Viola think I am a gold digger.’
Her eyes flash fire.
Rose wonders how she ever thought Grazia’s face was unemotional.
‘They never wanted me,’ says Grazia sadly. ‘We are married a long time and still I am an outsider.’
Grazia snaps her mouth shut as if she’s already said too much.
She’s still rolling the cigarette around in her fingers now as if she can’t wait to smoke it.
‘So, is that why you’re here, Bernard?’ Rose asks. ‘You want to fix things between Grazia and your children?’
Under his tan, Bernard looks old and slightly pale.
He doesn’t like Grazia talking about the less-happy facts of their life.
‘Once I relished a battle. It always was a battle in the early days in business and I loved it. But I’m getting older.’
Grazia makes a movement as if she’s going to touch her husband in consolation but reconsiders it. Her hand returns to her handbag.
‘I have grandchildren I rarely have in my home because Stephen doesn’t get on with Grazia, so that means going to visit them alone.’
‘Your home, Bernard?’ says Rose. ‘Not “our” home?’
‘You understand!’ says Grazia fiercely. ‘It is always his home, his everything. His children. I am just a second wife, I do not count.’
‘That bad?’ Rose asks.
‘Yes, that bad,’ says Grazia. ‘Worse, Bernard says he loves me but he never tries to get his children to accept me. He cannot issue ultimatums to them. I must suffer because they are in charge of his life.’
Suddenly Dianne interrupts.
‘Kids don’t always understand. Even when they’re grown up. They think they know more than you, comprehend more than you and yet they know nothing.’
The group turns as one to look at Dianne.
‘Children never understand their parents’ lives. No matter how bloody old they are.’
Rose does not want to jeopardise Dianne’s involvement.
‘Why don’t you think they understand?’ she asks mildly.
Dianne grins and it’s not a polite grin – more of a grimace.
‘They like to believe the fairy tale about life but it’s the Disney one they think is real. When it’s really the Brothers Grimm.’
‘They wrote some fascinating fairy tales,’ jumps in Keera. ‘I had to read a couple of them for a film script once. Didn’t get the part but it was interesting, you know, very dark stuff.’
She shivers deliciously.
‘Yeah, they’re dark,’ says Dianne. ‘Like the real world. But kids don’t want to know about the real world. They prefer the fantasy.’
No delicious shivering there, Rose notes.
‘They’re cautionary tales made up to tell people how to live. How to watch out for danger. We’ve made fairy stories into lovely tales for children but, really, they’re warnings about how to be safe in a bloody terrifying world,’ Dianne says. ‘You don’t see they’re warnings until it’s too late.’
She stops abruptly, then asks: ‘Are we on our break?’
Rose decides to call it. This has been an interesting session.
‘Yes,’ she says.
Grazia’s cigarette is lit almost before she’s completely out of her chair and she’s sucking the nicotine into her lungs as if it’s pure oxygen.
‘But there’s one final thought I want to leave you with for the moment,’ Rose says, her voice as clear as any bell.
Everyone’s half out of their chairs, keen to move on, but Rose’s words stop them.
‘We sometimes accept behaviour at the start of a relationship even though it hurts us. And perhaps that actual behaviour becomes less important and sometimes it becomes more important with time.’
She stares at Grazia as she says it.
‘When we decide that we can no longer live with ourselves because something is affecting us so much, then we act – if our actions do not change things, if the other party still treats us with contempt or belittles our feelings, then the relationship is in serious trouble.’
Rose pauses and looks Bernard in the eye.
‘There are many things a good relationship can withstand, but contempt is not one of them. When one partner chooses contempt, the other may never recover from it. Contempt is a fatal wound, you see.
‘The session is over now. It would be useful for you all to make some notes on this.’
Then she sweeps off the terrace.
Grazia’s long legs carry her quickly into their suite and Bernard follows her.
But for once, she doesn’t wait for him. She lets the door slam in his face so that he has to fumble for his room card to get in.
His wife is at the minibar, reaching for some ice-cold lemonade.
‘What are you going to talk about next?’ he asks, his voice anxious.
Grazia cracks the lid off the bottle of lemonade, takes a deep draught and turns to her husband.
‘Why?’ she asks with an edge. ‘Are you worried?’
‘No, it’s just that some things are private. I don’t hold with this sort of therapy stuff, Grazia, you know I don’t. This Rose has no idea what our marriage is like. She knows nothing, she’s merely prodding us. I love you but—’
She interrupts him.
‘I love you but,’ she snaps. ‘That’s what husbands always say. I am your wife, you could have made it clear to Viola and Stephen that I mattered. You chose not to do that.’
‘I couldn’t—’ he began.
‘You could. You chose not to. You let them insult me and then pretend it never happened. That is not love, Bernard. That was ignoring my feelings, not explaining to your children that I was a good person and that rudeness to me would not be tolerated. I always came second, after them, always. Rose is right – it is contempt.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Grazia,’ he says, and she turns away.
She has heard this so many times. She has had enough.
Bernard thought he’d placate her merely by coming to this retreat.
But it’s a hollow victory if he chooses not to listen to what she says.
‘It is a big deal. It upsets me,’ she says angrily. ‘I never understood the words for it before but I do now: contempt. You treated me with contempt and allowed Viola and Stephen to do the same.’
‘Grazia, they lost their mother so young, you must understand that,’ Bernard says in lofty tones.
‘I understand,’ she snaps. ‘What I don’t understand is how you don’t tell them how hurtful I find their behaviour.’
‘Please,’ he says wearily, ‘they do appreciate you, but I’m their father and there’s a special bond there.’
Grazia has heard all this before.
She knows that Stephen and Viola would behave differently to her if their father really cared about them doing so. But he doesn’t.
He has his life compartmentalised. There is his business, Grazia and his children, and all three have separate compartments. If she puts a boundary up, then Bernard flattens it. Only his boundaries matter, not hers.
Grazia doesn’t think she wants to live like this any more.
‘Let’s not fight, darling,’ he adds now. ‘It is not worth it. We love each other.’
Love can do a lot of things, Grazia knows, but compensate for contemptuous behaviour? No.
Grazia allows Bernard to hug her.
She has only one more trick up her sleeve.
She needs to talk to Rose, tell her the full truth about their marriage.
But Grazia knows that if she does, Bernard will never forgive her.
The September sun beats down on India and Keera as they sit beside the infinity pool and drink iced tea.
Letting the sun warm their limbs is a glorious release after the tension of the terrace. Even the cicadas and the sounds of tiny chirping birds add to the sense of a break away from the world. The heat of the sun makes every movement slow and languid.