Chapter Thirty-Six
‘Come here! We’ve got a slight problem!’
Rose meets India and Keera at the French doors to the left of the villa’s huge wooden front door.
For once, she is not the picture of calm serenity.
Her silvery hair is tousled as if she’s been putting her sunglasses on and off her head, and there’s a hint of panic in her voice.
‘Follow me,’ she commands and takes them around the rear of the reception area and into an area marked Private.
She leads the way past an office and into what’s clearly the family part of Villa Artemis.
It’s decorated in the same pale colours as the rest of the hotel, but it’s different, with bookshelves and lovely paintings on the walls, with green fronds from many plants spilling from macramé hanging baskets.
‘You are not going to believe what’s happened,’ Rose says.
India begins to mouth the words but Keera says them first.
‘That’s Julia out there, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ says Rose. ‘It is. We have ourselves a bit of a situation here and we have to be careful – I honestly have no idea why she came.’
India bites her lip.
She’s not sorry that she slept with Dan.
But Julia is now here and it is going to get very awkward. Just when India thought she was going to have a lovely, romantic fling with Dan.
No, she chides herself. Not romantic. Just the opportunity for lots of delicious sex with a handsome, very
talented man who is the first man ever that she doesn’t want a relationship with.
‘She doesn’t have to know anything, does she?’ asks India, feeling more than a little bit sad. But they have to be kind to Dan’s former girlfriend. She needs kindness and understanding.
‘Er—’ begins Keera but Rose interrupts her.
‘The problem is not so much that Julia is here,’ says Rose and she sinks down onto a big squashy cream couch. ‘The problem is that Dan isn’t here.’
‘Again?’ says Keera in exasperation. ‘What’s wrong with him? He hasn’t got lost in the mountains again, has he?’
‘Where is he?’ says India sharply.
‘I hoped you might know,’ says Rose.
India and Keera just stare at her.
‘We know nothing,’ says Keera.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ agrees India.
Rose sighs. ‘According to Julia, who must clearly have booked the first flight from London this morning, he phoned her last night and begged her to come, and he left her a message telling her he was “upset”. Her word. She just told all this to Adriana who is saying that she can’t give out details of the other guests. Which is true but also to buy time.’
‘Shit,’ Keera says. ‘I honestly didn’t hear him telling her to come to Corfu.’
It’s Rose and India’s turn to stare.
‘I heard Dan on the terrace last night leaving the message,’ Keera admits. ‘I walked onto the terrace when I got back from Corfu Town and he was there, he didn’t know I was there and I overheard a lot of it.
‘I’m so sorry, India,’ she wails. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you, I knew it would be hurtful. He was apologising to Julia for being with another woman – he didn’t name you, which is handy! And I sort of understood where he was coming from. But running off? What sort of an idiot is he?’
India’s mouth trembles and Keera puts an arm around her friend.
‘Shit,’ says Rose in the most un-therapist way possible. ‘We can only assume that this is the reason he’s gone. Lydia went to clean his room this morning and he was leaving it with his rucksack – but without his suitcase. She didn’t think anything of it but nobody’s seen him since.’
‘What an idiot!’ says India. ‘Running away from your problems never works. Wherever you land, there you still are with all your damn problems.’
‘Excellently put,’ Rose says.
India leans back against the wall.
‘Is it my fault?’
‘No, it’s not your fault, India,’ says Rose briskly, sounding more like her old self. ‘Dan is an adult and if he wants to sleep with you, then that’s his business. Nobody died, right?’
Keera grins.
‘Well, there’s that,’ she says. ‘I like that as a therapy quote. We could have wall hangings with it on: At least nobody died.’
Rose smiles.
‘The problem is that we don’t know where he is and he’s not answering his phone.
Now Julia’s here and, unless Dan has been lying through his teeth, she has some mental health issues, which is what worries me.
She’s clearly vulnerable and I am assuming she has a mental health team.
But who knows what’ll happen when she finds out that he’s left. ’
‘Or when she finds out who he has a thing going with,’ says Keera and then claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m nervous. My mouth just says stuff.’
‘What if she does find out? What if she …’ India’s voice tails off.
‘You are not responsible for what Julia does or doesn’t do,’ says Rose sternly. ‘The same as with Dan. Julia is an adult. But she won’t find out because we’ll make sure she doesn’t,’ adds Rose.
‘I only heard some of the message but he didn’t use your name, India.’
‘It’s my fault for sleeping with him,’ India says mournfully.
‘It’s not,’ Rose and Keera say at the same time.
‘This is not rehab,’ says Rose. ‘It’s not ideal to have people having relationships on the retreat, but I can’t stop people being people. I need to talk to Julia but I wanted to see you both and find out if you knew anything.’
She gets to her feet.
‘Rose, stop,’ says a voice.
It’s Adriana, with Christos following her. ‘Please, hold on. Another problem. I am so sorry, Rose.’
‘What is it?’
Adriana turns to Keera. ‘Your mother is here too.’
Keera feels the world turn. ‘I wasn’t imagining it! I thought I saw her in the taxi.’
She and India peep out of the door.
Dr Bobbi has opened a huge suitcase on the reception floor and is rummaging through its contents looking for something. Finally, she triumphs and holds up a small electric fan. She gets to her feet and comes up against a tall blonde.
‘You!’ says Bobbi, looking Julia up and down as if she’s something unsavoury Bobbi has found stuck to her shoe.
‘Oh no,’ breathes Keera to India, who is doing her best to hide behind her much shorter friend. ‘Mom can go extra when she’s mad. I mean, totally extra. I don’t want to be here—’
‘You can’t go!’ hisses India, not watching Keera’s mother but staring at Julia, who is every bit as glamorous as Dan had implied. She’s less fairy child than Dan described and while not beautiful, she’s something, India thinks.
Julia’s quirky with those very long legs shown off in small white shorts like she’s in a tampon commercial and just needs to get her roller-skates on.
She looks like the woman everyone wants to party with: wild, fun and ready for absolutely anything. No wonder Dan’s been in love with her for ever. India feels jealousy stab her with its green, poisoned dagger.
‘You!’ says Dr Bobbi to Julia again, more loudly this time.
‘You!’ snarls Julia. ‘You stole my taxi at the airport.’
‘You stole my seat on the plane,’ hisses Bobbi.
Keera looks at India with horror.
The women have met before? Help!
At least they’re not on to rude words yet, Keera thinks. Her mother has a vocabulary that can raze paint off a door.
‘They only give people seat numbers so they know who you are if you crash,’ snaps Julia dismissively. ‘Who cares about the damn seats?’
‘I care,’ says Bobbi, fingers jabbing in Julia’s direction.
‘Is that why you’re here, then? Coming to get fixed because you worry about aeroplane seats!’ Julia is scathing.
Her accent is a weird combo of a cut-glass accent with hints of something a bit off, India thinks.
‘I don’t need to be fixed, lady,’ growls Bobbi.
Keera winces. When her mother says lady, which sounds polite, she’s actually only one step away from Look here, you dumb bitch, have you got any idea who you’re talking to!
‘You Americans are very wearing. Always taking things so seriously …’ Julia’s saying.
‘She’s not the emotionally fragile person I was expecting,’ India mutters to Keera.
‘I think Dan has an idealised vision of her from years ago,’ Keera says thoughtfully. ‘You know: when he met her, she was the perfect fantasy woman and that’s what she still is to him. Even if the real Julia has changed.
‘I’ve seen my mother in arguments before: she gets very angry, very quickly,’ whispers Keera.
‘You can’t deal with your mother if she goes postal,’ says India. ‘I won’t let you. She pushes all your buttons.’
‘I won’t let you deal with Julia,’ promises Keera. ‘I’d say she could push buttons very easily too.’
Still in the private part of the hotel, Adriana has stopped her sister from rushing into the reception.
‘Hold on,’ she says.
Adriana opens the door and listens.
Definitely a fight brewing. What is wrong with people?
Holding on to her sister’s arm, Rose knows it’s all her fault.
‘I can’t believe I tried to do this again, Adriana.
I must have been mad. Everything’s going to explode.
Julia’s unstable; we are not insured to deal with someone who’s been through so much!
We have to get her under psychiatric care in case she needs help.
Keera’s mother is obviously a total nightmare. Dan’s AWOL! It’s all falling apart.’
Adriana and Christos look at each other instead of concentrating on the catastrophe Rose is demanding they pay attention to.
‘Rose,’ says Christos gently, putting one huge arm around his sister-in-law. ‘I promise you it will be all right. We will come through this.’
‘How?’ demands Rose. ‘The last time I tried to help people for work, a man came to the studio with a gun and was shot by the police. It was a miracle he wasn’t killed.
That was my fault! Now a patient has gone missing and it’s my fault again, not to mention the two interlopers.
I can hear them shrieking at each other! It’s chaos!’