Chapter Forty-Three
Keera’s brought a pot of coffee, some water and fruit, and they sit at the big olive table.
After some water and a little sip of coffee, Bobbi looks better, as if she’s waiting for a mere moment before she launches into telling Keera just what she’s doing wrong.
That’s probably her mother’s plan, Keera thinks.
What was that little saying Rose had about looking for help in the wrong places?
Keera’s the one who has to change.
She leans closer to her mother and says ‘I love you, Mom,’ which surprises Bobbi.
‘What?’
‘Love you, Mom, I know you’ve been there for me for a long time but I can’t have this argument with you.
’ The words race out of Keera and she tells herself to slow down.
‘I’m not going back into the music business as a singer.
Maybe as a songwriter, yes, but I can’t do the touring or the performing.
If I do, I’ll be using meds again or drinking again. I can’t do that.’
‘You’re a singer – that’s what you do!’ her mother says heatedly. ‘That’s the only way to get the money back.’
Keera remains calm.
‘Mom, can you tell me why we’re so broke?’ she asks evenly. ‘How much money have I earned over the years? Where’s it gone?’
It’s like lighting touchpaper.
‘I looked after everything for you,’ screeches Bobbi. ‘You have no idea what I’ve done, what I went without in the early days …’
Keera stops listening to the tirade.
Keera knows her mother hasn’t heard her.
Maybe she never will.
The pebble she chose from the beach is suddenly heavy in her shorts pocket.
She takes it out of her pocket and holds it on the table in front of her.
‘Let’s not fight,’ she says. ‘We only have each other, Mom. But I have to do what I want to do.’
‘But—’ Bobbi interrupts.
‘No, Mom, let me speak. You left your home a long time ago and did what you wanted to do. Did your mother want you to move to LA? Nope, and yet what happened? You did what you wanted to do. I’ve got to do that now, Mom, so you’re either with me or against me.’
Bobbi glares at her.
‘No singing?’ she says tremulously.
Keera shakes her head.
Bobbi finds something very interesting to look at far out to sea. Keera thinks she might be crying. She’s not sure her mother has ever cried. Except possibly that time she met Garth Brooks.
‘You can sing if you want to,’ Keera adds.
‘Who wants me?’ says Bobbi.
‘I do,’ says her daughter and grabs Bobbi’s hand.
‘But how will we survive?’
‘We’ll survive. We’re both talented and we have lots of things we can do, they’re simply different things. It’ll be an adjustment, Mom, but we can do it.’
‘What if I can’t?’ asks Bobbi. She sounds like a lost child.
‘We’re all having lunch on the beach, Mom, I want you to come. You need a pebble.’
Everyone’s in the hall sorting out bills and luggage before they go down to the beach for a speedy lunch. Rose has a schedule of online therapy slots and she’s trying to organise one for everyone for a follow-up.
She’s interrupted by a loud shriek: ‘Dan, darling!’
Julia has just erupted from a taxi, wearing almost the same clothes she was wearing yesterday, India is sure. Although Julia might have had a bra on yesterday and, today, she’s clearly not wearing one. Her blue fringed vest top slips dangerously low on one side.
‘Dan!’ Julia and her breasts are pressed up against Dan and she’s French kissing him as if they aren’t in a public place.
‘Puhlease,’ mutters India. ‘I’m going to the beach.’
‘No, India,’ says Dan, unhooking Julia and grabbing India’s hand to stop her leaving.
‘What are you doing, DanDan?’ Julia asks with a dangerous glint.
DanDan? thinks Keera.
Rank.
Dan ignores his ex-girlfriend.
‘I don’t want it to end like this, India.’
‘You don’t want what to end?’ demands Julia.
‘What I have with India,’ says Dan firmly.
Keera holds her breath as he faces Julia.
‘Do you want to sit in the garden and talk about it?’
‘No! I want to do it here with that beatch!’ shrieks Julia. ‘What do you have with India?’
‘Julia—’ begins Dan, and Keera and India watch Julia’s face fall.
‘You slept with her, didn’t you. She’s the one.’
‘That’s private,’ says Dan politely. ‘We are not together any more. You ended it, remember?’
‘But I didn’t mean you to find someone else,’ wails Julia.
‘What did you mean?’
‘I wanted to have fun, to feel like we used to when we were kids, partying and …’
Julia trails off and Keera suddenly feels sorry for her.
Facing the real world is not always easy.
‘I’ve understood something since I’ve been here, Julia,’ Dan is saying. ‘We’re no good for each other. You want something else in your life and so do I. Time has simply made us stick with each other.’
‘I don’t want something else!’ squeals Julia. ‘I want you.’
She glares at India as she says it.
‘You only want me because I told you I’d been with another woman,’ Dan says wearily. ‘You told me you didn’t want to see me again two weeks ago.’
Julia looks outraged that this information is out there in the open.
‘Is that her?’ she asks, pointing at India. ‘She’s a slut!’
India glares back. ‘A woman does not call another woman a slut!’ she says firmly.
‘Julia,’ says Keera suddenly. ‘You can have anything you want in life. You don’t really want Dan, do you?’
‘He understands me,’ protests Julia.
‘What you mean is that he’s safe,’ says Keera. ‘You split because you’re bored and you don’t want to hurt him, but you’re not in love with Dan any more, are you?’
Rose is wondering if she should intervene here but Dan surprises her.
‘Keera’s right. You don’t love me,’ he says to Julia.
‘I don’t love you. We’re stuck together by time and experiences, and because we’ve grown used to being glued together.
But we’re not good for each other. You need to stop taking drugs and get some sort of normal life.
I can’t believe I’ve never told you that before. ’
‘That lifestyle doesn’t age well,’ Grazia adds, rejoining the group to everyone’s surprise.
‘Party girl in festival outfit is not so beautiful when you get older. Our bodies change, we can’t take it any more.
I must give these up,’ she adds, holding up her cigarette packet.
‘I spend a fortune on injections to hide the lines.’
‘You look wonderful,’ says Julia.
India beams. ‘She does, doesn’t she? Yes, it was me: I slept with Dan. It was glorious fun but I’m not tying him down.’
Julia eyeballs India.
‘He loves me. He’ll be back,’ she says carelessly. ‘I’ve had other men and Dan comes back to me.’
Dan waits for the ache in his heart but it doesn’t come.
‘True,’ he says thoughtfully. ‘I have done in the past but not any more, Julia. You can sleep with whoever you want.’
Julia bites her lip and finally, Keera sees behind the facade to the fragile woman underneath.
‘Julia, why don’t we go inside and have some calming tea? Rose has some Magic Tea that will help with everything. Even hangovers.’
‘I do have a bit of a headache,’ Julia admits.
She stares at Dan.
‘You’ll still be my friend,’ she says.
Dan hugs her.
‘We’ve known each other since we were seventeen,’ he says.
‘He was such a nerd,’ Julia says, laughing.
‘I think he still is,’ says Keera.
India and Dan stand at the water’s edge on the Kri Kri beach feeling the sea lap luxuriously around their ankles. India’s still holding Dan’s hand.
If he lets go, it’s a sign.
If he stays holding her hand, that’s another sign.
‘I’m sorry I abandoned you,’ says Dan. ‘Can you forgive me?’
India looks at him. ‘That depends,’ she says. ‘I’m a different person from the woman who came here at first,’ she adds.
‘I fancied that woman,’ says Dan.
‘No you didn’t!’
‘I did.’
‘You were in pain talking about Julia,’ says India.
‘Didn’t mean I was dead,’ Dan says.
‘Why did you run?’ she asks.
‘I realised I’d fallen for you. It felt a huge deal given that I’d been so upset about Julia. It seemed hypocritical. I thought if I got away from Xanthe …’
‘Never hurt me like that again,’ commands India.
‘Promise,’ he says. ‘I also promise I’ll never bring you to a sporting event or make you miss a date with your girlfriends,’ he vows.
‘I’ll never hold you to ransom,’ vows India.
‘Guess we’re sorted then,’ he says and kisses her as the water rises and laps higher and higher.
He lets her hand go but only because he’s wrapping his arms around her.
The remaining group eat a barbecue lunch on the beach, one last time. Taxis are coming soon to take people to the airport and everyone wants to spend more time in Rose’s calm company.
When Christos has finished cooking, he lies on the cushions under the beach umbrellas and pretends to go to sleep.
‘He’s joking,’ says Adriana, poking him with a bare foot.
‘I’m not,’ says Christos, eyes still closed. ‘It was a hard week.’
‘Made harder by my husband,’ says Grazia, apologet-ically. ‘I apologise again.’
Rose thinks of the sheer worry about her and Adriana’s past coming out, and just smiles gratefully.
She hasn’t been able to fully process it yet. But she will. She’s going to contact her former therapist, Vida, again.
Everybody needs help, after all.
Bobbi is on the beach too, eagerly eating the dips that Christos brought with his famous barbecue bread and drinking vast glasses of water, all the while staring at her daughter.
Keera looks different: stronger, more vital, Rose thinks. As if she’s totally in charge of her new life.
Keera is telling her mother about India’s new shop idea. Bobbi is full of ideas for it.
‘The sandals I had on yesterday – now they’re true vintage. De Havilland. I have four pairs. I could sell them to you …’
The women are laughing, and Dianne is explaining that she has a few vintage bits and bobs herself.
‘My daughters tell me most of my clothes are very old fogey,’ she’s saying to Grazia.
‘Pah, you never had a chance to buy lovely clothes,’ Grazia interrupts her. ‘We should stay in touch, yes?’
‘Yes,’ says Dianne, pleased. ‘You could come and stay with me?’
‘And you come to stay with me. Wake up your family to see you have a life.’
‘I wasn’t fair on them,’ Dianne says. ‘I should have told them where the anger came from, but then I felt I’d be ruining their vision of a happy childhood.’
‘How’s the anger now?’ Rose is curious. Dianne is the person she’s arranged the first Zoom therapy sessions with. But everyone will have them. The retreat was never just about one week.
Dianne thinks about it.
‘Sometimes, I am full of rage. It takes me over but it’s not about here or any of you: it’s about the past. I get so angry when I think about my husband but I understand that now.
The rage was because I wanted to make sure nobody ever treated me like that again.
In truth, I am not entirely in control of it but I will learn how to be. ’
She looks sad but, this time, Adriana takes her hand.
‘Never apologise for how you had to behave to survive,’ she says.
‘Do you think we should come back next year?’ asks India. ‘For a top-up?’
‘Yes!’ says Keera. ‘Mom, you could come too!’
Bobbi rolls her eyes. ‘Like, no way,’ she says.
‘I would do it,’ says Dianne.
‘Me also,’ says Dan, gazing at India.
‘I can book you in,’ says Christos from his position on the sand.
‘Let’s see how we all get on with our Zoom therapy sessions,’ Rose says.
Later, Keera, India, Bobbi and Dan are all about to head off in the same taxi.
Marceline, who drove Keera to her meeting in Corfu Town, is chatting away merrily to the music of Fleetwood Mac.
Phone diaries are being consulted.
India can’t wait to get some business management skills under her belt.
‘Not a normal belt,’ she tells Rose. ‘A vintage …’ she looks up for inspiration, ‘rope belt from a Breton fisherman that will look fabulous over a floaty 1970s midi dress!’
‘I expect nothing less,’ Rose says happily.
Dan, who is sitting in the front, beams.
Keera is planning to travel to Donegal to see her grandmother. She’s going alone.
‘On a budget,’ Keera says. ‘I need a job so bad.’
Bobbi is not going because Keera says they need time apart.
‘That’s a good idea,’ Bobbi says, trying to make the best of it. ‘My mother’ll kill me stone dead because I haven’t been back in so long.’
Keera is also planning to work on songwriting.
‘I’m good at it and it’s a job where you get to sleep in your own bed at night,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to go back to LA and hang around the scene any more. I need peace.’
Dan has a lot of work to do, he says, but he’s delaying it so he can stay in London to spend time with India.
‘We’re not a thing – yet,’ India advises him. ‘We’re seeing if we’re compatible.’
Dan nods.
‘Good plan,’ he says. ‘We need to take it slowly …’
‘Make sure we’re compatible and not in a co-dependent relationship,’ adds India. ‘You need to meet my dad and Georgie.’
‘You could meet my sister,’ says Dan.
‘That’s a lot of family meetings for two people who aren’t a thing yet,’ teases Keera.
Dan beams again and reaches back into the taxi to grab India’s hand.
‘Byeee Rose, Adriana, Christos, Alexei, Lydia, Beata …’
They’re down the sweep of the drive still calling out names and then the taxi disappears.
Ten minutes later, Grazia and Dianne’s taxi rolls up.
They’re flying to Athens together, then splitting up.
Grazia flew in with Bernard on a private jet but she doesn’t want to go home that way.
To her complete astonishment, she’s received a message from her stepdaughter, Viola, saying Bernard has telephoned her about Grazia and is distraught.
‘I can’t handle him,’ Viola said in her message. ‘Grazia, you can’t be serious about a divorce. Daddy needs you.’
‘These people?’ Grazia says, hands held up in appeal.
‘You’re not going back to him?’ asks Dianne, horrified.
Grazia shakes her head. ‘We were good together once, but not any more. I have more life left to live and if my stepchildren want to be part of that, then I would like it. Bernard, he is what you call toast.’
‘Will you explain any of this to your children?’ asks Rose as Christos puts their suitcases in the car’s boot.
‘Possibly,’ says Dianne. ‘Not yet, though. I have a lot to process.’
‘We have quite a while of therapy ahead of us,’ Rose agrees, looking forward to their first conversation. ‘You’ve both been very brave,’ she says to Dianne and Grazia.
‘So have you,’ says Grazia. ‘Same time next year?’
Rose breaks protocol and hugs them both.
She waves and waves until the taxi is gone and allows herself a mental pat on the back.
She’s done it: run a successful island retreat.
Dan, India, Keera, Grazia and Dianne can all change their lives from things they learned in Villa Artemis. Even Bobbi has a new world view.
Bernard, not so much.
Rose thinks she’ll take a walk in her little Greek garden before she goes into the villa to do some housekeeping.