Chapter Thirty
When Dan and India walk tiredly into the foyer of Villa Artemis, dusty, sunburned, exhausted, it is filling up with people, all, it turns out, assembling ready to search for them.
‘India!’ screams Keera. ‘We thought you were lost!’
‘We were,’ says India, half grinning, half crying now because they’re safe and she feels shaky after the adventure of it all.
‘It’s my fault,’ says Dan, going straight up to Christos and a man in a police uniform. ‘I didn’t take my phone with me and India’s had no coverage and then ran out of juice.’
‘You’re here now!’ says Christos, vastly relieved as Rose hurries over to hug India. Grazia has to sit down on one of the cream couches as she’s overcome with an adrenaline rush.
‘I don’t think I can meditate tonight, Rose,’ India says, and Rose laughs with relief.
‘I don’t think any of us can,’ Rose says fervently. ‘We need tonight off after what’s happened.’
In the dining room later, Adriana insists that Dan and India have her special fish pie followed by bougatsa, the filling Greek custard pie that India has refused to eat up to now on the basis that it’s a fat-filled pleasure that girls should avoid.
After one forkful of bougatsa, India moans with pleasure and keeps eating.
She doesn’t know why Dan keeps glancing at her as she eats, but she laughs when she catches his eye.
Guilt, probably. He was the one who was supposed to know where they were going, idiot man. Nonetheless she blushes. The hike had been a funny kind of bonding experience.
‘You need food and to sleep,’ fusses Adriana, allowing them only a small glass of wine each.
Christos hovers with his special brandy but Adriana shoos him away.
‘Spirits will stop them sleeping, agapitós,’ she says.
‘What’s “agapitós”?’ asks India, now in a lovely happy haze of being physically exhausted, safe and satiated.
‘Beloved,’ says Christos, putting an arm around his wife.
Dan gazes at them soppily.
India decides that the heat has addled his brain. Keera and the others have gone off to the terrace for a mini slow-breathing session without them, so India has nobody to laugh with over Dan.
Adriana goes back to reception and, as soon as she’s out of the room, Christos whisks over with some brandy and three crystal glasses.
‘It’s my best brandy,’ he whispers. ‘Just a small sip to celebrate your return. Metaxa Private Reserve. It’s too strong for most people but a sip won’t hurt you. Quick!’
He pours them each a giant measure, then holds up his own glass to clink against theirs.
‘To your safe return, oi fíloi mou – my friends.’
They all cheer and India takes a sip.
She’s no brandy aficionado but it tastes hot, somewhat spicy and definitely celebratory.
‘Gorgeous!’ India raises her glass again.
Definitely time to celebrate – this week, she’s learned she’s addicted to men, has got lost in the Corfu countryside and escaped back to her luxury hotel, all in the same day! Cheers!
By the time Adriana is back in the dining room, Christos has magicked the glasses away and belted back into the kitchen.
‘I could sleep for a week,’ says India, yawning.
‘Come on.’ Dan holds out his hand. ‘I’ll walk you to your room. It’s the least I can do after nearly losing us both in the mountains.’
‘It’s not totally your fault—’ begins India and then adds: ‘Actually, it is! You were doing the map stuff. But – I could have done the map stuff.’
Being the cute, fragile unicorn-butterfly woman is simple – women don’t read maps. But why not?
Programming, that’s why. She gives a little shiver as Dan takes her hand to pull her up.
India pretends they’re going the wrong way as they head upstairs.
‘Ooh, let’s take this door, it might lead to my room,’ she teases, passing a door marked Staff only. ‘Oh no, we’re lost!’
‘I’m sorry,’ mutters Dan.
‘It’s a joke, you muppet,’ she says easily as they reach her room. ‘There was nothing to stop me finding my way. You weren’t in charge. I’m a grown-up.
‘Eos,’ she says to him when they reach her door, pointing to the name carved beautifully on a piece of wood. ‘Goddess of the dawn, which is funny because I’m not good first thing in the morning. What are you?’
‘Phoebe, bright intellect,’ he says grudgingly. ‘No sign of bright intellect today.’
‘Give yourself a break, Professor,’ India says, poking him in the chest with her left index finger. ‘We all screw up.’
‘But we could have died …’ Dan says.
‘Come down off the cross,’ India says, parroting something she heard Dianne say. ‘Somebody needs the wood. Nobody died, OK? Do you want another brandy? There’s definitely some more Metaxa in the minibar, but probably not amazing stuff like Christos’s.’
She’s walking ahead of him into her room, which is still slightly dishevelled since she got back earlier and dropped her clothes on the floor before showering.
‘No.’ He’s still in the doorway, looking hesitant.
‘Why not?’ she demands. ‘You afraid I’m going to climb onto your lap and fall in love with you?’
‘No,’ he says, looking mildly insulted. ‘One drink,’ he says and shuts the door. ‘You’re impossible.’
‘That’s what they say.’
India’s examining the contents of the minibar.
‘It’s a mistake to invite strange men into your room,’ Dan goes on.
‘You’re not strange – well, not that strange. Definitely got some spectrum stuff going on there, but you’re OK, Professor Dan,’ India’s saying idly as she examines the alcohol.
Spectrum stuff? thinks Dan, knowing he should be insulted by this but, somehow, he’s not.
India talked today about the limerence concept. She’s not shy about it. She accepts it.
‘’Kay, so we’ve got brandy, vodka, smoky rum, whatever that is, and special gin made with …’ India peers at the little bottle, ‘orange and pomegranate?’
‘Brandy. Just one, no ice, thank you.’
Dan has opened the terrace door and sits on one of the curved rattan chairs outside.
Night has arrived and the sky is lit with sprinkled stars, jewels shining down on the islands where wise people mapped them and gave them their names.
‘I’m glad we didn’t have to wait for the stars to guide us home,’ India says, following his gaze as she puts two glasses, a bowl of ice and a tiny tin of tonic on the table. She’s gone for the orange gin, which smells lovely.
‘Although now that I’m in touch with my inner limerence, I wouldn’t have let you live if we were still in the woods at night: I’d have killed you for making me get lost.’
Dan laughs and India remembers that she likes making him laugh.
Why has she never bothered with this before? Being funny is way more fun than being a girlie girl and falling in love with every third man who smiles at her.
She’s been waiting to be picked all her life.
No more – now she does the picking, girlfriend!
‘You think the retreat is helping you?’ she asks.
Dan grimaces. ‘Yes and no. It’s no fun.’
‘It’s not supposed to be fun,’ India says, with a shrug.
‘I thought it would be at first but seeing Keera open up, and then having Grazia get so emotional over Bernard’s children …
well, it’s hard, isn’t it? I can understand why people don’t want to look inside themselves but …
’ she stares into the sky pensively. ‘Once you do, you can’t go back, can you? ’
Dan laughs dryly. ‘I can easily understand never sampling the inside of my head ever again.’
‘That’s the cowardly way out,’ India points out. ‘You’re not really a coward, so you don’t mean that.’
They drink their drinks and look out at the view, Xanthe glittering below them with tavernas decorated with trails of prettily strung lights, the lights around the tiny harbour where the fishermen come in.
There’s a main street in Xanthe where all the local shops sell their wares interspersed with a couple of high-end boutiques where tourists can stock up on Missoni, Melissa Odabash and Zeus+Dione.
India was going to meander down there with Keera this afternoon but they’ve missed their chance. Tomorrow evening, perhaps?
India knows that buying stuff is another aching-personal-abyss-filling activity but she still likes it.
‘I’d never even heard of limerence until yesterday,’ she says dreamily. She likes the way the word rolls off her tongue. ‘Should I get a tattoo? “Limerence Lady”?’
‘Julia has an “om” symbol on her ankle,’ says Dan. ‘She said it was very painful getting it done as it’s not a fatty area.’
‘My mother has a peace symbol on her right wrist, and a butterfly and a unicorn with flowers around them on the lower curve of her back. My mother is probably very into limerence, now that I know what it is,’ India sighs.
‘I guess Rose would say we’re products of both our past experiences and our inability to see patterns.’ Dan seems sanguine. The brandy helps.
India goes into her en suite to pee and, afterwards, stares at herself in the mirror as she washes her hands. She’s mildly sunburned after the afternoon on the mountains.
She looks, she is startled to realise, beautiful.
There’s no artifice to her look. Her eyeliner has melted off, she has no lip gloss on, no careful sculpting of her face or tweaking of her cascading copper hair.
Without trying at all, she looks healthy and very, very alive.
She feels alive as if jolts of electricity are zapping through her.
Into her groin.
Is it the near-death-ish experience?
Grabbing her toothbrush, India speedily brushes her teeth. She knows what that means and doesn’t care.
This is not a good idea, she tells herself, but she takes the hotel’s mouthwash and swills it around in her mouth anyway.
Not a good idea at all for a recovering romantic.
She adds some perfume – a blast of Byredo’s Gypsy Water – and puts cherry lip balm on her wide, full mouth.
Also bad.
India can’t help it.
Outside, Dan’s on his feet, smiling a polite smile.
‘I should go,’ he says. ‘Rose said we’ve an nine a.m. start, but thank you for the drink. See you in the morning.’
In reply, India stands in front of him, reaches up to put both hands on his face and kisses him.