Chapter Eleven #2
‘Trauma Central feels comfortable when our lives are shitshows or when we recreate past relationships with drugs or alcohol or guys,’ Keera goes on.
‘So the intelligent bits of us are dialled down to almost nothing while Trauma Central makes all these senseless decisions. That,’ she finishes emphatically, ‘is what the whole The heart wants … schtick is about. Good on Instagram but not in life.’
India sighs gloomily. ‘It did sound too good to be true,’ she says. ‘You won’t say anything?’ asks India, feeling stupid, which she so often feels.
‘What’s said on location, stays on location, right?’ replies Keera.
‘Thank you,’ India says gratefully. ‘Do you think Rose gives out prizes at the end?’
‘We’re going to be happier and understand ourselves better,’ Keera says. ‘That’s the prize. She can be fairly brutal, though. I’d forgotten that. I didn’t expect it to be so hardcore so early.’
‘I know, right?’ agreed India. ‘Poor Dan. All that stuff about him doing everything for Julia in case she leaves him.’
‘That’s very on point in rehab world, I can tell you,’ Keera says with a hint of gloom. ‘On family day in rehab, it can be carnage.’ She shudders at the memory. The pain in the room. Her mother hadn’t come. Very Bobbi.
India nods slowly.
‘There’s a lot of self-discovery,’ Keera continues. ‘If you can’t be honest with yourself, you might as well not bother being there.’
‘What were you in for?’ says India. She’d never normally ask twice but, now, it feels OK. She feels as if she and Keera have a bond.
‘Coke, prescription drugs and alcohol. Mainly the drugs. Xanax to lower anxiety during the day, lorazepam at night, Ritalin and dexies to bring me up. Sleeping tablets because I couldn’t sleep …
all washed down with a cocktail or six. Coke, too.
I loved coke. I’d be lying if I said it was easy.
I have to feel my feelings now and that sucks,’ Keera says. ‘Really sucks.’
She strings out the word Really.
‘If I’m anxious, I have to stay anxious until it passes. No tablets, not even a tiny glass of wine. It’s tough.’
‘That sounds like hell,’ says India, ‘but the right thing if you needed it. My mother’s partner is in a band and he had a problem with drugs. Not any more, though.’
Now Magnús meditates and does Iron Man competitions. On the beach with her mum, he looked like a medical school’s illustration of the body’s main muscle groups with his tanned skin stretched painfully tightly over them all.
‘Not wishing to embarrass, but you are the singer from the kids’ channel, right? That’s a wig?’
Keera nods and puts a hand up to adjust it.
‘I should have dyed my hair instead. Wigs are very hot.’
‘You’ve black hair, right? We could dye it,’ says India helpfully. ‘That’s something I’m really good at. I bet we could get some quality hair dye around here. So many Greek women have black hair, so I bet the bleach is stupendously strong. With hair as black as yours, it needs to be strong.’
Keera peers around the beach to make doubly sure they’re the only ones there. Evidently everyone else in this part of Xanthe is sitting by a pool or having lunch.
She pulls her blonde hair back in one swift move and India gasps.
Keera’s perfectly shaped head is shaved down to the skin, only a bare millimetre of dark stubble covers her skull.
‘Whoa,’ says India. ‘It looks fabulous, have to say it.’
Keera shrieks with laughter.
‘I love it too!’ she says, rubbing her almost-bald head.
‘Can I feel?’
Keera bends her head and India touches the exquisite skull with its covering of soft fuzz.
‘It’s gorgeous!’
‘Feels freeing,’ Keera shrugs. ‘I buzz cut it every few days. Of course, I know my mom will hate it!’
She instantly wishes she hadn’t said that. She can’t talk about her mother yet. Not even with India, who feels like a kindred spirit.
But India says nothing about Keera’s mom. Instead, she says: ‘Maybe worrying about other people is the problem. If your mom hates your hair, well, it’s not her hair, is it?’
Keera giggles.
‘I worry what people think,’ India confides. ‘All the people in my family are successful except me – I want to make them proud of me but I don’t know how. Possibly, I shouldn’t even try.’
‘What do you do?’ asks Keera.
India grimaces. ‘I’ve sold clothes in posh boutiques, tried being an influencer, worked for an events management company – mainly jobs I got into because of my stepmum’s connections. Georgie, she’s so lovely. More like a mum to me than my real mum,’ India says, and feels a jolt.
She’s never thought of that before. But Georgie has the lightest touch and helps India in so many ways. Her mother lives a different life and left India with her father because floating around the world going to rock concerts wasn’t the ideal life for a ten-year-old.
‘OK, so you’re on the island to figure out what to do with your life, right?’
‘Not just jobs but a career, something I love,’ India puts in.
‘And to figure out if you can have a child on your own …’
‘Yes!’ cheers India delightedly. ‘I could, couldn’t I? I mean, who says I need a man? I am bad with men. I fall in love so easily.’
India shudders thinking of how she’d see a guy for two, maybe three weeks and start planning a future. Was that her truth …?
‘We all worry about what people think, India. Plus, you’re not killing people or taking meth,’ says Keera, ‘so I wouldn’t call falling in love too easily a huge problem.
Rose can figure it out, I’m sure. Give you a prospective boyfriend checklist and if they’re dreadful on paper, you don’t go out with them. ’
India laughs delightedly.
‘You can watch out for red flags, yellow flags or green flags,’ Keera says. ‘Red means avoid at all costs, yellow means watch out and green is “Yay!”’
‘I have definitely gone out with some yellow flag guys,’ says India. ‘A few self-absorbed idiots.’
‘Dan and his girlfriend’s relationship sounds like a yellow flag racing towards red,’ Keera says. ‘I wonder what the other three are in for?’
‘For Grazia, I’d say being married to Bernard’s the main issue,’ India jokes.
‘She looks as if she’s locked down all emotion.’
‘Bernard’s tricky. Telling us he’s a sir? What’s that about?’
‘No idea what his problem is, apart from getting old and there’s no cure for that,’ Keera says. ‘Dianne holds her cards close to her chest, as my mom would say,’ she adds.
‘She’s sort of frozen,’ India says thoughtfully, ‘but furious at the same time? Scary too when she got angry with Dan. She clearly doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her.’
Keera snorts.
‘Everyone has something wrong with them. Everyone.’
‘Do you think Rose can fix us?’ asks India wistfully. ‘I’d love to feel I know what I’m doing in life.’
Keera shrugs. ‘Don’t know. Rose’s book was amazing and she has all these fans who say she’s changed their lives. It’s just …’
‘A bit high speed?’ says India. ‘That’s what worries me too. Rose is going in deep – what if it’s the sort of programme that rips you apart in a week and then doesn’t put you back together?’
Keera shivers.
‘Rose is legit,’ she says. ‘She was brilliant on the TV.’
‘Yeah,’ agrees India. ‘She wouldn’t do that to us.’
They’re silent for a while.
‘Maybe after this, we’ll be ready to live in nature,’ Keera says suddenly, grinning. ‘We could live in a commune in the middle of nowhere with a shaman and some sheep. We could make our own soft cheese and wear only clothes we’ve made from their wool.’
‘Can we have alpacas? I like alpacas,’ says India.
‘We’d have to have dogs,’ says Keera. ‘And those big cats that look like baby lions – Maine Coons. I bet they’re very cuddly. Or the ones with no fur at all. Naked cats. Sphinxes. Someone could make them little sweaters. Not us, obviously. I can’t knit. Can you?’
‘No!’ says India, laughing.
They both stare out at the shimmering Ionian Sea.
‘No matter what Rose does, it’s got to help,’ Keera says. ‘I do like her. She’s got something really kind about her. She wouldn’t hurt us. But she looks so different now than she looked on TV.’
‘Right,’ agrees India. ‘She was very lady CEO on The Talisman Effect but now she’s sort of hippie-ish. It’s cool though, right?’
‘She can totally carry it off,’ Keera says. ‘Suits her better, to be honest. I like the floaty clothes and the hair …’
‘Yeah, the hair!’ says India. ‘Silver really suits her. She looks beautiful but I would never have recognised her if I hadn’t heard her voice.’
‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could lock ourselves in a room with Rose and get the high-speed fixing done on us first and then we can sunbathe the rest of the week while the rest of them get sorted.’
‘I like that plan!’
They look at each other and laugh again.
My mother loved him. Adored him. When I brought him home that first time, it was as if I’d found a prince among men.
‘I’m so delighted to meet you,’ he said, practically bowing to her. He took her hand and kissed it and my mother adored that.
Who the hell kisses hands? Nobody, that’s who.
Except for people like him, people who instinctively know which buttons to press. Even with my mother who was the supreme button-pusher.
‘It’s so lovely to meet you. Finally,’ my mother said in her phone voice, which was a bit pretend-posh to make our family seem better than it was. The dig about her finally meeting him was very her. Always a dig. A little bit of poison on the knife.
‘I can see where your daughter gets her good looks,’ he said, beaming at her.
She was beaming right back. Preening. Glad she’d worn lipstick and her frosted eyeshadow. She’d put in her overnight hair rollers too. A lot of work for a man.
‘Oh stop,’ she said, and she actually patted his arm with the hand that wasn’t holding her half-smoked cigarette.
My mother was not a toucher.
Affection was weaponised in our house.
Smiles and, sometimes, hugs in public. No real affection.
I should have let them have each other. Not that it would have lasted. Two raging narcissists.
Of course, I didn’t know what they were then.
I was naive.
There were four-year-olds out there with more awareness than I had.
I thought I was seeing my new man being happy to meet my mother, and I thought she was glad I had found someone to love me. I was so wrong.