Chapter Twenty-Four #4
‘Do you miss not being able to drink or use drugs?’ asks India, arching her body luxuriously on the sunlounger.
Keera’s sitting upright on hers and, in reply, she pats India’s skinny bare knee.
‘Thank you for asking,’ she says. ‘People don’t. Not many people know I’ve been in rehab but the ones who do don’t ask about it. It’s like this big Not My Problem area that people walk around and try very hard to pretend is not there.’
‘Oh sweetie. That’s hard. Does your mom get it?’
Keera winces at the question. Everything comes back to her mother. ‘Sort of. Mom doesn’t do failure and being an addict is a failure. She’s all about winning and being the best.’
‘Competitive?’
‘Yes. She wanted me to be the absolute best, both for me and her. But she was kinda ruthless with it.’
India’s fascinated by the intricacies of Keera’s relationship with her mother. It’s all so intense: nothing like India’s relationships with her parents and stepmother.
Sonja’s less of a mother than a lovely godmother who dances into India’s life every now and then. Georgie’s always careful not to overstep. She can’t imagine either of them pushing her the way Keera has clearly been pushed to succeed.
‘In what way was your mom ruthless?’ India asks.
Keera shrugs. ‘Where do I start? “You don’t get in the charts by being ready to settle for second best”: that’s my mom’s motto.’
Keera begins to list it all:
‘Being the right shape was really important. Skinny but not worryingly skinny – not that I ever managed too skinny,’ she says ruefully. ‘Wearing the right clothes from the right people. Being “on” all the time. Which is exhausting, to be frank. “It’s all part of it!” Mom used to say.’
‘Gosh, that’s pushing you straight into an eating disorder,’ India says, sitting up. ‘It must have been hard.’
‘Yeah, it was. It is. My mom is one of the most driven people I know, and she can be really funny. But tough. Very tough. We lived out of a suitcase for years and she never had relationships. Not that she didn’t date, but it was never about men: it was about my career.’
They both digest this.
‘I used to weigh myself every morning,’ Keera goes on. ‘Part of Mom’s rules but I stopped doing it in rehab. It was all so much about self-hatred.’ She shudders.
‘You’re so gorgeous and lovely, you shouldn’t hate yourself,’ says India earnestly. ‘Body-shaming is so toxic and it’s everywhere. I could never do what you’ve done, for that reason. Everyone saying you’re too thin or too fat. It’s horrible. Are you going back to that world after this?’
Keera hugs her knees to her chest.
‘I don’t know. It’s lovely here: nobody knows I’m here, nobody’s trying to pap me coming out of a shop or a club. I’m not on all the time. That’s lovely. If I’m honest, I …’
She pauses. Even saying it feels weird.
‘I could totally retire from music and TV but we have very little money left and if I want to settle down somewhere and do something else, I’ll need some more money.’
There, she’s said it.
Said to another person that she wants to retire from music.
Not from writing it, she thinks, but from performing.
Saying it aloud has real power.
India seems to sense this and smiles at her new friend.
‘Georgie likes to say “Courage, ma chère.” Be brave, darling. So be brave, Keera!’
‘Hey ladies,’ says Dan appearing behind them, tall and wonderfully tanned from barely a day and a half in the sun. ‘Lunch is ready.’
‘I can only achieve that colour with fake tan,’ says Keera jokily.
‘This?’ Dan holds out an arm in confusion.
‘Yeah, that,’ Keera replies.
Dan looks happier than he did yesterday, India thinks.
Lighter, almost.
The women leave their sunbeds and India grabs Keera’s hand as they leave, squeezing it in sisterly support.
‘This place is beautiful,’ Dan says as they walk up to the terrace. ‘If my job allowed remote working, I’d love to live here.’
‘What about your girlfriend? Would she like it?’ asks India guilelessly.
Dan is stumped.
‘It’s a bit quiet for her. She’d like a wilder island. She likes Ibiza. And she’s my ex,’ he adds formally, as if he feels obliged to correct this information.
Keera and India nod and say nothing, but India secretly pokes Keera in the ribs.
‘He’s absolutely gorgeous,’ she whispers to Keera as they make their way back to their seats on the terrace.
‘I thought you were here to work out why you keep dating the wrong men,’ Keera hisses back.
‘Am I?’ asks India, and they grin at each other.
Lunch is a buffet in the dining room and there’s not a lot of talking. Grazia hasn’t turned up at all, while Bernard takes his plate and heads out to the bar where he orders a glass of the villa’s best wine.
Adriana serves him herself.
‘Is this to your liking, Sir Bernard?’ she asks formally.
It gives him no option but to be polite back.
‘Yes, perfectly acceptable, thank you.’
India and Keera try to get Dianne to join them at their table but she shakes her head.
‘I think she was crying, don’t you think?’ India says to Keera when Dianne’s gone.
‘Looks like it,’ says Keera sadly.
Dan sits with them and they eat Greek salads with freshly baked soft rolls and talk about plans for when they’re not in session.
‘I’d love to go on a hike,’ says Dan wistfully. ‘I cycle a lot at home.’
He begins to tell them about his bike and they tease him cheerfully about it.
‘I like reformer Pilates and barre,’ says India.
‘I like strawberry shortcake ice cream,’ jokes Keera.
They’re still joking as they carry their plates into the kitchen.
Christos begins to tell them about tonight’s barbecue.
‘Do we help with the cooking?’ Keera wants to know.
She actually enjoyed last night’s session in the kitchen: it felt gloriously normal.
She’s suddenly imagining a life where she has a small house with a yard out the back and a barbecue. She can have people over, friends like Cat and Taniqua, some of her NA people. India, definitely. India is a friend, for sure. Maybe dogs – she’s always wanted a dog.
‘Of course you can cook,’ says Christos, who really likes this earnest girl with the blonde hair and the friendly smile.
His wife tells him she is very famous but she does not behave that way. In his hotel career, before he and Adriana came back to live in Corfu to run his family’s restaurant, Christos had met many famous people.
Some had outlandish demands and didn’t want any member of staff looking into their eyes.
Some were charming, polite and decent. It’s clear that Keera is in the latter group, so he smiles at her.
‘Let me tell you what we are making,’ he says.
Rose arrives on the terrace after lunch in a haze of freshly applied lime and mandarin perfume. She scans the retreaters skilfully.
Keera, India and Dan look relaxed. They know the next session isn’t going to be about them.
Rose beams at them and wishes for a moment that she had two weeks with the whole group – then she’d really get down into the weeds with them. But nobody would come to a two-week retreat, would they? Maybe.
She saves the thought to talk about with Adriana and Christos later.
‘Let’s go back to you, Grazia and Bernard,’ Rose says. They need to unpack the tricky situation that is a second marriage, difficult adult children and resentment.
‘Earlier, we were looking at the dynamics behind your blended family. How long have you been married?’
‘Twenty-five years,’ says Grazia.
Rose notes that Grazia is sitting bolt upright now, no more elegantly lazing in her chair.
‘I was thirty-seven. Bernard, he is fifteen years older and his wife was dead a long time. I am not stupid. I knew there was a risk; I thought it would be OK. I thought that Stephen and Viola would accept me because I was not trying to be their mother, and yet they did not accept me.’
Rose is astonished to learn that Grazia is sixty-two: she looks a decade younger.
‘The children did their best,’ Bernard says gamely.
For the first time Rose sees Grazia’s face really flare with anger as she looks at her husband.
‘You still think that?’ she asks frostily.
‘Because they did not try as far as I can see. They never tried. Did Stephen and his wife let us take the children to the cinema or to our house on Sundays? No. Only if I was not involved. I was not a grandparent and they made that very clear from the first. And Viola …’ Grazia snorts.
‘She was the worst. I tried to help her. That stupid man she married. He was a user. He hurt her and even then, when I tried to step in and save her, she did not want my help. I knew what she was going through, but my help wasn’t needed.’
Grazia looks tense, the memory obvious from her body language.
‘In what way was he a user?’ asks Rose mildly.
‘He was only interested in her for money and contacts,’ Grazia says bitterly. ‘He loved that she had a rich father, knew lots of other rich people. Then he ran up debts, got her to apply for huge loans for investments – all failed, of course.
‘He was a whiner and a parasite, leeching off the family. Pretending the money was his to his useless friends. Unfortunately, I understand men like him. Bernard had to pay in the end to get rid of him.’
She looks at her husband with approval for a moment.
‘It took a long time for Bernard to understand that the man was a parasite. He helped Viola. I tried to help too. Yet still she was against me.’
Grazia’s sorrow is evident now. Even Botox cannot hide the utter misery in her eyes.
‘After all I did to help her, Viola still believed I was like her ex-husband. Leeching off them all, fattened up with cash like a proper blood-sucker. Can you imagine how that made me feel?’
She turns to her husband and his benign, unworried face seems to enrage her.
‘You knew how hurt I was and you did nothing, you let her speak to me as if I was a worthless gold-digger. That is the most painful thing.’
Rose sees that Grazia’s anger is unsheathed now: white hot with the memory of how her husband’s children made her feel.
‘Now hold on, darling, this is not the time nor the place—’ begins Bernard.