Chapter Twenty-Six
Diana Ross’ disco classic ‘Love Hangover’ is belting out of the yoga studio as India and Keera approach.
The yoga studio is underneath the pool area, a vast glass door slightly open as Diana breathily purrs along to the pumping beat.
‘Love this,’ says India, shaking her hips as they slip past a trellis hanging with bougainvillea.
‘Hello ladies,’ says a polite voice as they enter.
India and Keera nearly collide.
‘Sorry—’
‘Uh, hello!’ says Keera.
Neither of them have met Alexei before but their eyes meet in astonishment as they settle down on the two pale-blue yoga mats laid out on the floor.
‘So lovely to meet you,’ says Alexei, turning off ‘Love Hangover’ with a click of a button. ‘Adriana tells me you both do yoga regularly?’
‘That’s not entirely true,’ admits Keera. She does not want to embarrass herself in front of this beautiful man.
Adriana or Rose should have warned us! He’s a Greek god!
She has no idea why Alexei’s not modelling for billboards in Times Square: his face is like a sculpture made by some Italian master and his bare bronzed chest speaks of many, many hours of yoga or something.
Keera finds herself flushing at the thought of the ‘something’.
‘Phew, hot in here,’ she says to India, who grins.
India doesn’t seem as affected by the sight of Alexei. She’s doubtless seen many beautiful people with yoga/gym bodies at home and she’s immune at this stage. India’s always felt she’s too gangly; she thinks that no self-respecting gym bunny wants a girlfriend without visible muscle.
After ascertaining what their preferences are, Alexei leads the two women in forty minutes of energising viniyoga flow.
By the end, he’s not even sweating but Keera feels her legs wobbling as she gets up after five minutes of a relaxing savasana.
‘I don’t know if I can make it onto the beach for meditation and a barbecue,’ she says as they slowly climb the stairs to their rooms.
‘A cold shower and you’ll be fine,’ says India, still bouncy.
‘How come you’re not in a coma too?’
‘I’m hyper flexible,’ says India, folding her torso onto her legs in a perfect yoga fold to show Keera.
‘Wow. I’m not even normally flexible,’ says Keera in awe.
That evening, the beach is transformed.
‘It looks wonderful!’ Rose says to Christos, gazing at what he’s done.
There are mats on the sand along with the villa’s dark wooden loungers and sun parasols in deep cream.
In keeping with the quiet luxury of Villa Artemis, Christos and his team have laid out soft lounger cushions and beautiful blue beach towels, as well as light throws in azure blues and sunshine yellows in case it’s cold.
Small tables beside the loungers hold water, fruit and the handblown blue glasses that Rose loves.
Citronella candles glow on two low tables, while Christos has already perfumed the area with herbs on the barbecue, set up a hundred yards away from the meditation end and already full of white-hot coals.
Adriana and Beata have been arranging everything prettily, Christos explains, and Rose already knows that his cousin’s teenage sons were keen to earn extra pocket money hefting all the umbrellas, sunbeds and the barbecue things onto the beach.
Rose feels a sense of pride in the Villa Artemis staff as she watches everyone arrive onto the beach.
She, Adriana and Christos have created this beautiful escape from the world and it is already a success.
‘Hello!’ chorus Keera and India, arriving together. They’re laughing about external oblique muscles, while Dan walks a step behind them, looking both weary and wary.
Dianne, who Rose noticed sitting high up in the acropolis the previous evening, walks slowly down the sandy path with a big glass of wine. She’s bright in an emerald-green tennis top this evening and looks just as wary as Dan.
Grazia follows Dianne, cigarette in a long, elegant hand, looking as if she’s about to join an international cocktail party instead of a beachside meditation.
While Grazia gets herself some wine, Rose thinks it’s a pity she didn’t stipulate no drinks before meditation but realises that it’s too late now. Christos, ever the super host, has put it out.
Bernard’s the last to arrive and ostentatiously sits apart from his wife, setting himself up like a pasha on his lounger with several cushions behind him.
Dianne glares at Bernard but he pretends that he doesn’t notice.
Rose feels it’s time to extract Dianne’s hidden story, but she knows it won’t be easy.
Dianne is clearly determined to walk away with her secrets intact.
Rose recalls what Dianne’s daughter, Lauren, told her: their father had died tragically a year earlier and Dianne had changed afterwards. How exactly had Dianne’s husband died? Rose wonders.
For now, Dianne is on the to-be-done list; Grazia and Bernard are on the ‘today’ Post-it.
Despite the chatter, the group are certainly tired out.
Rose knows that deep emotional work is physically exhausting but people rarely realise it. It’s the intensity of the work – and the exhalation as great monuments of walled-up pain begin to crack.
Time to do more cracking, Rose thinks, and bangs her tiny gong.
‘We’re going to do fifteen minutes of guided meditation but, beforehand, let’s look over today. How did we all get on with the homework?’ she asks. ‘Your notebooks.’
Keera and India, both stretched out luxuriously on loungers, look at each other with dismay.
‘It was difficult, this homework,’ announces Grazia. ‘I do not tell lies so there’s nothing to write.’
Rose gives her a knowing look.
‘Really?’
‘I don’t lie!’ protests Grazia.
‘That’s commendable,’ Rose goes on. ‘But what I mean really are the small lies we tell ourselves. That we are not hurt by someone else’s actions, that we are strong when, actually, we feel fragile and vulnerable.’
She just throws it out there and Grazia doesn’t pick it up.
Grazia tries to adopt her usual haughty expression but it no longer works on the group or Rose. They’ve seen behind her mask.
She’s rattling around in the handbag again, searching for her cigarettes.
Hell, thinks Rose. Grazia’s going to get lung cancer from trying to sort out her life.
Rose tries another tack.
‘It can happen,’ she says, ‘that when one parent is gone and another person comes into the family to stand in the metaphorical place where the first parent has been, the natural instinct for some offspring is to see the person as an interloper. Like a virus in the family body, and they want to stamp out this virus.’
Everyone but Bernard and Grazia looks suitably appalled.
Grazia is nodding.
‘But when the children, grown or otherwise – and incredibly, grown children often find this harder than younger ones – succeed in pushing out the so-called interloper, then they are astonished that nothing goes back to the way it was before.’
‘Exactly!’ says Grazia. ‘They are so stupid – they have no idea what it would mean if I left.’
‘They might feel shame,’ Rose goes on, ‘because they made their parent pick who mattered most: their children or their new partner. They couldn’t be bigger people and understand that a human can love their children and their new wife at the same time. Both things can be true simultaneously.’
Rose gazes meaningfully at Grazia and Bernard.
‘If you were gone from Bernard’s life, Grazia, his children would suddenly be called upon to be there for their father in new ways. He’s older. He’s more likely to die first. Sorry, Bernard,’ Rose says, with a little bow to him.
‘You’re only telling the truth,’ he says magnanimously.
‘So who’d go with you to doctor’s appointments, play chess with you in the evening, do all the things you do with Grazia …?’ Rose asks.
Astonishingly, Rose realises that tears have appeared in Bernard’s eyes.
Real tears? She’s not sure.
Is he thinking of the enormous loss in his life if Grazia wasn’t there? Or perhaps these are merely the tears of the wily old crocodile realising that he loses no matter what happens.
Grazia might make him choose: them or me.
Grazia says nothing but stares at the barbecue.
Rose moves slightly to see what she’s looking at.
Stavros, Christos’s nephew, is on the beach busily helping Beata and Christos ferry food for the barbecue. He’s twenty-five, Rose knows, a sweet, handsome boy who possibly reminds Grazia of the children she doesn’t have? Grazia has said she doesn’t have children, but did she want them?
Who knows?
‘Rose, I think it’s important to note that I was all the children had when Maria died,’ says Bernard, now speaking like he’s at a board meeting and minutes are being taken. ‘You know how it is, when they were older, I was the only stability.’
Grazia turns to look at him with disdain.
‘They were like big kids even when they were fully adult. You got them out of scrapes all the time,’ she points out.
‘When Stephen’s investments failed, who picked up the pieces?
You did. Same with Viola. She knew Daddy would always help.
They have never had to behave in the real world like adults because Daddy was always there for them. ’
‘Do you agree with what Grazia’s saying?’ Rose asks Bernard.
His eyes are misty with unshed tears and he says nothing, shaking his head as if he can’t speak.
Rose wants to leave some time for him to think about what she and Grazia have just said.
‘I love them and I love you,’ Bernard finally says in a croaky voice. ‘I am so sorry, Grazia, so sorry—’
To Rose’s astonishment, given Grazia’s previously steely demeanour, Grazia gets out of her chair and puts her arms around her husband.
‘Would you like a moment or two?’ asks Rose.
Grazia nods.
‘We’ll start the meditation in five minutes, OK?’
‘Thank you,’ says Grazia and she and Bernard walk down the beach.
‘I hope they get all sorted out with his kids,’ says India a bit tearfully. ‘They’re a sweet couple and I don’t understand why children wouldn’t want their dad to be happy. Doesn’t everyone want the people they love to be happy?’
Rose loves India’s genuine kindness.
‘Sometimes the people who are our nearest and dearest don’t want us to be happy. If we are, the contrast is too great. It is easier for them when everyone is unhappy. Does that shock you?’
‘It doesn’t shock me,’ says Dianne.
‘Not everyone is as lovely as you, India,’ Dianne continues. ‘You need to be aware, that’s all I’m saying. Be aware. Red flags!’
‘What sort of red flags, Dianne?’ asks Rose.
Dianne holds a hand up. ‘No, you’re not catching me that easily!’ she says, and her face goes blank.
It’s incredible how she does that, Rose thinks.
One minute, her face can be all I’m putting your head in the blender, and the next minute, it’s a flat mask. Incredible really.
Rose moves on to Dan.
‘How are you feeling, Dan?’
Dan hesitates a beat, as if scanning his body for tension or any other issues.
‘I’m fine,’ he says, sounding slightly surprised.
‘Excellent. And you, Keera?’
Keera smiles sunnily back at Rose.
‘I have pains in muscles I didn’t know I had,’ she says, then adds by way of explanation: ‘India and I met Alexei.’
‘Ah yes,’ says Rose sagely. ‘He’s an excellent yoga teacher.’
‘He is!’ agrees India. ‘Really top notch.’
This time, it’s Rose and Keera whose eyes meet knowingly.
‘Well, if everyone’s heart rate has come down enough, let’s meditate,’ says Rose, and Keera smothers a laugh.
Truly, Rose loves running this retreat. She’s really getting places with the guests.