Chapter Forty-One
The retreaters are at the beach before Rose.
The sun is lower in the sky, and Christos has yet again managed to arrange the wooden sunloungers beautifully, cream beach umbrellas and the blue-and-yellow throws for anyone who gets cool in the evening.
Dianne is sitting quietly on a sunlounger and looks remarkably at peace.
Rose knows the rest of the group want to know what Dianne’s story is, but she thinks that sharing it is up to Dianne herself.
Each person’s personal story is their own. The group concept is superseded by each person’s requirements.
Grazia is sitting upright on a chair, beautifully dressed in white linen. There is no sign of Bernard.
With Dan in Corfu Town, there are only four out of the six present but that’s OK.
Rose smiles hello to them all.
‘Love the no-wig,’ she says to Keera.
‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ asks India.
‘Thank goodness you’re here, Rose,’ blurts out Keera. ‘I’m terrified my mother will charge down here and interrupt us all.’
‘She’s in the dining room,’ says Rose, who had personally accompanied Bobbi there.
Keera groans. ‘I simply can’t face her.’
‘But you did face her,’ says Rose.
Keera nods slowly. ‘I did.’
‘Go you!’ says India to her friend.
‘I wanted to say more but I didn’t think she’d get it.’ Keera looks lost and Rose interrupts.
‘I just talked to your mother, Keera. Don’t give up hope yet.’
A surprised smile spreads over Keera’s face.
‘I can’t believe it’s nearly over,’ says India. ‘Feels like only yesterday we were all strangers and now look at us!’
Rose smiles.
‘Now look at you indeed.’
‘Can we talk about Julia?’ India adds. ‘I’m afraid she’ll rock up here too.’
‘She’s in an Airbnb,’ Rose explains.
‘Phew.’ India sits back cross-legged on her lounger. ‘I felt sorry for Julia when Dan talked about her but she’s not what I expected.’
She fills Grazia and Dianne in. ‘She’s saying she’s engaged to Dan. She said they’re getting married in October, that her father’s a millionaire, her mother has a wardrobe full of couture and that she’s a trust-fund person. It’s all made up!’
‘Julia sounds like totally the wrong person for him,’ Keera adds. ‘Can we tell him that?’
She and India look eagerly at Rose.
‘You can but it’s not up to you what Dan does in
the future.’
‘I know,’ groans India. ‘We can’t control other people but …’ She stops. ‘I care about him.’
‘I know,’ says Rose. ‘How are you, Dianne?’
‘Not bad. Tired,’ Dianne says thoughtfully. ‘It’s nice without the men. No offence but I’m nervous of men. It’s easier to tell the truth now that it’s only women.’
Everyone waits quietly.
‘I was in an abusive marriage – can I call it that?’ she asks Rose.
Rose nods fervently. ‘Absolutely.’
Dianne nods. ‘I need to work on accepting that. So it was a bad marriage for a very long time. A lifetime of abuse. All behind closed doors. My husband had a heart attack over two years ago. He died in front of me,’ she says to the group. ‘I let him die, didn’t call an ambulance.’
There’s silence.
‘How does it feel to say that to other people?’ asks Rose.
‘What do you think?’
Dianne sounds almost amused. Like a chat-show host asking a question.
She looks around at the group.
‘Relieved?’ asks Keera anxiously.
‘Happy, I hope,’ says India. ‘Horrible, horrible man. I am so sorry, Dianne, I thought you weren’t empathetic and—’
‘It’s fine, India,’ Dianne interrupts and she sounds like a different person now. ‘You couldn’t know what I was feeling because I didn’t know myself. I was filled with huge rage and had nowhere to put it.’
‘Because nobody knew what you had been through,’ says Grazia sadly.
‘You weren’t able to feel anger because you couldn’t get angry in real life. You suppressed it, squashed it down,’ says Rose. ‘Afterwards, your anger is telling the world that nobody should try to hurt you again.’
Dianne nods at this.
Grazia gets up and sits beside her. She doesn’t touch Dianne, just sits: being there.
There’s silence for a while and then Dianne takes them back over her life.
‘I feel stupid,’ Dianne says when she’s finished the story. ‘Why couldn’t I see it?’
‘The things up close to us are often very hard to focus on,’ Rose says. ‘And when that sort of abusive relationship is all you know, then it’s familiar. You know nothing else.’
Again, silence reigns.
‘I want to tell you all,’ says Keera, grinning.
She looks so vibrant, Rose thinks. Sitting there with her exquisite shaved head, her beautiful little face glowing.
‘I’m going to go back to San Francisco, see if I can get a job songwriting.
I’ve got contacts, I think I can do it. The singing is too hard for me, too exposing.
Some people are good at that world but I’m not ready for it again, might never be ready.
There’s no point being thin, beautifully made-up and dressed up, all the outside stuff, when I’m ignoring the inside. ’
She beams at them all.
‘I am anxious about facing my mother again because it’ll be a hard conversation – and she’ll go insane when
she sees that I’m not wearing my wig, but I’m ready for it. The retreat’s taught me that trying to please people all the time is a mistake. I have to unlearn people-pleasing.’
‘Which is hard,’ says Rose.
Keera nods. ‘At least I can identify when I’m doing it and ask myself why I’m doing it,’ she says. ‘I’ll know if I’m trying to make someone like me or if I’m trying to avoid difficult conversations or whatever. That’s life-changing. Thank you, Rose.’
Everyone claps.
‘India?’ asks Rose.
‘Let’s talk about limerence,’ says India and Keera giggles. ‘I’ve never looked at why I do certain things – like why I thought I needed a man in my life, or why I thought I couldn’t possibly have a child without a partner – I gave away all my power.’
She smiles at Rose. ‘My plans for a unicorn tattoo are now off.’
Rose grins.
‘In practical terms, I was going to do a business course and set up my own vintage shop. That was my grand plan. But my stepmother rang earlier and suggested I spend six months working with the person who manages the business side of her company, which is going to be nicer and I’ll learn so much.
I can start when I get home and see what I think. ’
‘That sounds wonderful,’ says Rose. ‘You’d like to do that? You’re not being pushed into it?’
‘Georgie’s brilliant about boundaries,’ says India. ‘She’s been an amazing stepmother with a very light touch. Same as you’d be if you have the chance,’ she says kindly to Grazia.
‘It is lovely to hear you say this,’ says Grazia. ‘I know that people look at me and think I am cold, removed, but I am not. It’s a protection. I have got so much from this week, Rose.’
Rose feels a blast of pleasure. She’s forgotten how wonderful it is when people tell her she’s helped them.
‘I would never have got where I feel I am now without you all. I am sorry that Bernard is not here, everyone, but we can’t expect him to change. I am only sorry it has taken me this long to realise that. And Rose,’ she adds, ‘I am worried that Bernard will strike back at you.’
‘What – what do you mean?’ Rose asks.
‘So he has started to hit back,’ Grazia says sadly. ‘I am disappointed in my husband but I know his ways.’
‘What sort of ways are they?’ asks Rose evenly.
Grazia takes a tiny pair of gold-rimmed glasses out of her little handbag.
‘I don’t like to wear these, I think they make me look old,’ she says.
‘What’s wrong with old?’ asks Dianne. ‘Old is better than dead.’
India laughs out loud.
Glasses on, Grazia finds her phone and begins to look through it. Rose does not remonstrate over this.
She sits, waiting.
‘He uses people to, how do I say it, blackmail sometimes. It’s a last resort, I think. You must understand that Bernard had a difficult childhood. Nothing was easy. He thinks he is entitled to abuse his power now.’
‘What form does the blackmail take?’ asks Rose.
‘I will show you an example,’ Grazia announces. ‘Then we can decide what we do next.’