Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘It’s all fine!’ says Mercedes confidently on the phone. ‘We were worried over nothing!’
Mercedes is happy as she talks to Rose and Adriana early on Wednesday morning.
‘I have to apologise for worrying you,’ Mercedes is saying.
‘The weird messages are not about you at all,’ she says happily. ‘Haters. See: I’ve sent the screenshot to you, Adriana. The message is for an Alys Flint …’
Rose feels her legs grow weak but, somehow, she holds herself upright.
If she collapsed either physically or metaphorically, it would scare Adriana, and the thing Rose is proudest about in her whole life is how she has taken care of her baby sister.
That will not stop now.
‘I see,’ says Rose with infinite calm.
Adriana’s eyes are huge as she stares at Rose.
‘Don’t send any messages or block them,’ Rose tells Mercedes. ‘I’m in touch with someone about identifying them.’
‘But none of these crazy posts are for you,’ protests Mercedes. ‘We don’t need to do anything—’
‘This poor person clearly needs help and, given that our business revolves around emotional health, we can’t ignore this,’ interrupts Rose smoothly. ‘Send me all the log-in details. I’ve got someone looking into this.’
When a clearly confused Mercedes is off the phone, Rose sits at Adriana’s laptop and begins to write another email.
‘Rose, is it going to be all right?’ asks a scared Adriana.
Rose wants to be truthful. It’s never just one lie, she has found.
Once you start lying, you’re committed to a tangled web of mistruths.
‘Yes, of course it’s going to be all right, darling,’ she says to Adriana, even though she doesn’t know any such thing. ‘Nothing’s going to get in our way now. We’ve been through enough, darling. I’ll sort it.’
‘But they said Alys Flint—’ protests Adriana.
‘It’s going to be fine, I’ll sort it out,’ repeats Rose.
She thinks briefly about Dan and his co-dependent relationship, about how he tries to fix all aspects of Julia’s life.
Rose has protected Adriana since they were children. It’s not the same thing at all.
The disco beats of ‘Love Hangover’ have given them a yen for disco music, so Keera’s playing a speedily curated soundtrack of Earth, Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan and Nile Rodgers’s music while she and India sit in India’s bedroom.
India’s twirling in time to ‘Ain’t Nobody’ while holding out the skirt of the cream dress with its swirling designs in lemon and pale green.
‘This one’s vintage Ossie Clark,’ she says. ‘It was my mum’s but it was torn so I fixed it. Look …’
India holds up the bottom tier of flounces which have been beautifully sewn on and patched with another similar fabric.
‘This is amazing work,’ says Keera, impressed, studying the tiny, neat stitches.
‘It’s not nearly well done enough,’ India goes on, examining her own work. ‘Some of his dresses are in the V&A, so me fixing this one up is a bit risky. Still, there were so many holes in it that I had to try to not change the design with my repairs.’
‘Seriously, you’re really good at this,’ Keera repeats. ‘You could do this professionally.’
‘Sew things? No, I’m not good enough—’
‘No, I mean sell vintage. Fix things up and sell them on.’
‘Nah,’ says India, adding a tangle of orange beads to her neck. She examines the look in the mirror with the narrowed eyes of the expert. ‘It’s just a hobby and a way to save money.’
Keera finds her fingers automatically playing the bass line of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir Duke’ as she listens. She has her own skills, she thinks happily.
Despite the heat, everyone is drinking coffee on the terrace this morning.
‘We’re going to have a little break this afternoon, an hour and a half off,’ Rose announces.
‘We’ll recommence on the beach at half three but once we break here at twelve, the spa is ready for anyone who wants a massage or a facial.
Alexei is around for yoga again too. I’ll be on the beach later if anyone wants to talk to me.
Or if anyone wants a little walk down to Xanthe between half one and half two, I’m available.
‘OK then, India.’ Rose turns in her chair and sees that India is both nervous and waiting for her turn to come.
‘I know, I’m next. I’m really bad at talking in front of people, Rose,’ India says nervously. ‘I warn you, I’m really hopeless at it.’
Rose smiles at her warmly.
You can do this, she seems to be trying to say without words.
India feels a wild sense of love for Rose’s kindness. But still, this is hard.
‘I’m scared my stuff sounds silly, compared with everybody else,’ she adds.
‘Have you heard the phrase: comparison is the thief of joy?’ Rose asks.
Rose can be intense when she prods people, India thinks, but she understands human pain.
It’s just that what India has to say seems so silly compared to everyone else …
Keera’s had to be so brave about addiction. Dan’s had so much pain to wade through with poor Julia, and as for Bernard’s horrible children …
India can’t compare. She fidgets with her floaty Ossie Clark dress sleeves.
‘My stuff is all first-world problems,’ she says lamely. ‘I didn’t fully think this out. I thought it might be more spa treatments and a bit of shamanic work. I was stupid, really—’
‘Please don’t call yourself stupid, India,’ says Rose. ‘You’re certainly not that. Breathe deeply and think about the first question: what trouble brought you here?’
India nods, and takes a deep inhale. She’s here and she’s going to be brave.
Jake was one of India’s first boyfriends: the son of one of Georgie’s clients, he was deliciously handsome.
He had olive skin, muscles from lots of time spent in the gym and perfectly tousled hair.
That he’d never worked a proper day in his life and dabbled as a part-time DJ didn’t worry India.
She’d been nineteen at the time, a very young nineteen, she knows now, but then, she thought she was the last word in cool.
She’d just spent the summer in the Caribbean with her mother, Sonja, and Magnús and a retinue of beautiful people, all of whom were forty years older than India and vaguely famous.
They were a lovely group to hang out with, all athletic and yoga toned, wise beyond their years and always smoking rolled-up cigarettes on the beach.
They ribbed each other, and were very kind to India and the only other young person there, a fourteen-year-old boy called Phoenix, whose dad was a drummer in a German stadium band.
Phoenix was wildly shy and barely spoke to India, which everyone thought was cute.
‘I think he likes you, honey,’ Sonja had said. ‘But why wouldn’t he?’
It was as if the universe was telling her it was the time to find her Great Love.
Back in London, she applied for a foundation course to study interior design along with a friend.
In the evenings, they went to each other’s homes to study but the studying ended when India began dating Jake.
He was twenty-one, took himself very seriously and wanted to be a music producer. The DJ gig was just for fun, he told her.
‘You’re so beautiful, India,’ he said the first time they slept together.
He stroked her face as he gazed into her eyes, saying she should be on the cover of the first album he produced.
India almost died with love.
She belonged to this gorgeous boy/man, they were twin souls, destined to be together for ever.
At night, India could hardly bear to leave Jake.
What if something happened to him when they were apart? What if he found another twin soul?
India couldn’t bear the thought. She stopped concentrating on her foundation course and spent hours daydreaming about her life with Jake.
Where they’d live, what they’d do, where they’d go on holidays …
They had six glorious weeks together.
Six weeks where India didn’t eat, listened to Jake talking about music and football, and pretended she had no needs of her own.
She cancelled a night out with Lizzie and Cleo, her friends since school, because Jake wanted to go to Barcelona for a night to see a football match.
Lizzie and Cleo had gone out anyway without her when she’d cancelled.
They’d had the best time, while India was stuck on a charter flight with loads of men, all getting horribly drunk.
Turns out she’d hated the football. All that shouty screaming made her nervous. Men pumped up on testosterone and football fever.
Not that she’d said that to Jake.
‘I love being with you,’ she’d said eagerly when he’d asked her – the bastard had actually asked her if she was having fun. He must have seen that she was fibbing?
Lizzie and Cleo were hurt.
‘Sisters before misters,’ they reminded her sadly. India knew she could never make it up to them.
Jake broke up with her a week later.
He didn’t want to be tied down, it seemed.
‘Live together? Nah.’
Plus, he’d fallen for a girl he met in a club.
India had been heartbroken but recovered quickly because Jake’s older brother, Nicky, had told her his little brother must be mad to have dumped her.
‘You’re a jewel, nobody could leave you. Little bro’s a moron. I know you must have heard this before but you should be a model like your mum. I love your stepdad, Magnús, too: he’s so cool.’
Nicky was twenty-four and liked Formula One.
India studied it diligently. But it transpired that she hadn’t liked that sport much either. The noise!
Then Nicky had dumped her and she’d been heartbroken.
A furious Georgie told her that Nicky and Jake were spoiled and she ought to date outside their circle.
‘Don’t let men walk all over you, sweetie,’ Georgie said grimly, which was in direct opposition to the sort of thing her mother said.
Sonja believed that your man was your lodestone. The yang to a woman’s yin.
That a woman could only be free when she had the right lover by her side.
‘You need to concentrate on college, India,’ Georgie said firmly, which was as close as she ever came to criticising her predecessor.
Had Georgie seen that India was falling for the wrong guys?
In college, India kept rediscovering her love of interior design, but each time she knuckled down, she fell for another guy.