Chapter Thirty-Three
India, Keera and Dan sit together on the beach and feel the sea breeze gently caress their skin.
India has come down in her bikini so she can swim. She stretches out on her towel, her body long and lean in the cherry-patterned bikini. Her skin is lightly golden and Dan tries not to look.
Keera lies back on her beach towel and closes her eyes against the sun’s rays.
‘I don’t want to go into Corfu with Bernard,’ she says morosely. ‘He’s appalling.’
‘I think it’s supposed to be good for him,’ says
India.
‘What about me?’ demands Keera.
‘I’ll come instead,’ India says.
‘We can both come,’ Dan suggests.
He knows it’s the right thing to do but he’s mentally sidetracked by India’s long bare legs beside him.
All he can think about all day is the night before and this morning. What it was like being loved by India: her laughter, the sense that making love could be fun.
She’s a bolt of wonder, truly sparkling. And she’s not asking anything of him.
‘That was lovely,’ she’d said this morning before he left and she’d kissed him lightly on the lips, leaving a faint taste of strawberries.
There had been no sulking over some perceived slight the way there always was after lovemaking with Julia.
Being with India and enjoying the way she liked her body has clarified things for Dan.
He has always known that if he doesn’t tell Julia how thin she is when they make love, she’ll freeze him out. She’s wonderful but there are so many complexes buried deep within her. He’s spent his life managing them all, handling Julia like a piece of fine pottery in case he breaks her.
But India – she’s a breath of fresh air.
‘No thanks,’ says Keera sighing. ‘I’ll go with Bernard – if he comes. He’s a good example of what happens when people refuse to see how their behaviour affects other people. Very Al Anon.’
When Keera heads off back to the hotel, India turns and smiles at Dan.
‘Don’t,’ he says but he doesn’t mean it.
‘I’m not in love with you, Dan,’ says India firmly. ‘But it’s fun being with someone when you aren’t planning the rest of your life, working out where you’ll both live and how many children you’ll have. Who knew that sex could be fun?’ she adds and, at that, Dan groans.
He no longer cares that they’re on the beach and that while it’s deserted now, anyone could appear. He stands up and reaches out for India’s hand.
‘Behind the rocks,’ he suggests, looking to the only hidden part of the cove.
‘You’re on,’ laughs India.
The tiny cove behind the rocks boasts one huge slab of rock that’s set at thirty degrees to the beach. The sun is burnishing it to a glorious, glittering warmth.
They sit on it and begin kissing, Dan’s fingers tangled in India’s hair, holding her tenderly, while her hands roam his body, loving the muscled arms, the flat plane of his stomach, the strength of his cyclist’s thighs.
‘You taste of strawberries,’ Dan says, letting his hands lazily skim her shoulders as he slips the skinny bikini strap off.
‘Do you like strawberries?’ says India playfully.
‘Never thought much about it,’ he groans as he nuzzles the erect nub of her nipple. He tries biting it gently and India arches beneath him.
‘Keep doing that,’ she instructs.
‘Then what?’ he asks jokily. ‘Is there a ten-point plan?’
‘Yes,’ says India, reaching for the button on his shorts. ‘But whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it.’
‘Do you want the whole hundred per cent or just fifty, like Bernard?’
‘Ugh,’ says India, shuddering. ‘No Bernard remarks. But one hundred per cent? I do like that.’
Then there was no more talking, only the smooth noises of skin on skin and the sound of cicadas and tiny birds, and then, soft moans of pleasure.
Rose is determined to see Keera to her taxi.
‘Take as long as you like, Keera,’ Rose instructs her as they walk out of the hotel.
Keera shoots an anxious gaze at Bernard, who’s emerging from the hotel ostentatiously carrying a slim leather folio which looks as if it has an iPad inside, and with the British Times newspaper folded neatly beside it.
‘I think Bernard might be a bit grizzly, so you sit in the front with Marceline.’
Bernard shoots her a look so hostile that Rose feels dizzy. What is he planning?
She quickly stuffs all her fears deep inside her and opens the taxi passenger door.
‘Hello Marceline,’ she says brightly to the taxi driver. ‘How is your mother’s leg?’
Marceline, a cheerful woman in her fifties with a mane of blonde hair with black roots, smiles out at Rose and waves a hand heavily braceleted with silver bangles of varying sizes.
‘Much better. She can manage the crutches so well now. Did I tell you she met a lovely man in the hospital and they’ve arranged to meet when she’s better?’
‘Single man?’ asks Rose, delighted at this news.
‘Widowed, many children – all of whom worry he’s lonely. He has a small hotel in Benitses.’
‘Sounds lovely. Listen, Marceline, will you take care of my friend, Keera?’ Rose lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘She has to travel with this grumpy man tonight and she needs a little kindness. She will be in town for two hours, perhaps, and then back here?’
Marceline examines Bernard who’s clambering into the back.
She pats the passenger seat beside her, which has a pink-and-white crocheted seat cover.
‘Sit here, pet. I will visit my friend in the town and then drive you home. Grandpapa can sit in the back.’
Rose takes Grazia down to the beach. On the way there, they encounter India and Dan, both with a flushed look on their faces.
Rose smiles at them both but feels anxious at what these encounters will do to Dan.
India is free but Dan doesn’t feel he is.
Will he be able to cope?
Not something she can deal with tonight.
‘Were you a model in a previous life?’ she asks Grazia as they walk slowly along the beach, moving from the curve of the sand onto the pebbly part. The sun is still meltingly hot even though it’s now after six.
‘No,’ says Grazia, adjusting her hat so that the sun does not touch her face. She never sunbathes like her husband, Rose has noticed.
‘Everyone thinks this. Years ago, a man in Georgia wanted me to be a model when I was very young but I knew it was not safe. Myself and my friends were at the Tbilisi rock festival in 1980 and this man was very keen to take pictures of me. But he was connected to many party people and I was scared.’ Grazia shrugs. ‘It was not like the West.’
Rose has researched Georgia but has many questions about what it was like when Grazia was young, before the country was liberated from Soviet rule in 1991.
‘This was before Georgia became free of the Soviet Union?’
‘Yes. I love my country very much but I do not want to live there any more.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want your advice,’ says Grazia firmly.
‘Fire ahead,’ says Rose.
‘This behaviour with Bernard and these clubs, this is not normal, no?’ asks Grazia.
‘Normal is a very elastic concept,’ says Rose slowly. ‘As is sexual desire. I’m sorry to use this phrase again but it’s a spectrum. Where you are on the spectrum and where Bernard is are two different places. Perhaps the only way Bernard can get sexual release is from no longer being in charge.’
‘That is not the case,’ says Grazia. ‘He does not need a girl with a whip.’
‘Well then that makes things a little different. Was he doing this when you met and married?’
Grazia nods. ‘I didn’t find out for years. After the children, it was another straw that has broken the camel’s back. I want to ask you, Rose, should I stay with him or divorce him? I am not with Bernard for money but he knows that if I divorce him, I will become a rich woman in my own right.’
‘Only you can answer that question, Grazia. If Bernard is not willing to give up seeing other women outside your marriage then the question is whether that’s a dealbreaker for you or not.’
Rose risks a final question: ‘Forgive me for asking this, Grazia, but Bernard says he will make me sorry for helping you. Do you think he’s serious?’
Grazia is silent. ‘Very serious. I am sorry I have brought this trouble to you.’
‘Well,’ Rose sighs, ‘I’ve brought a certain amount of trouble on myself. My past is not what everyone thinks it is.’
Grazia laughs. ‘That’s all?’ she says. ‘You are a strong woman to come out of that fire and forge a new life. If life is a book, we all have chapters we keep to ourselves. It’s our business. Who has a right to know?’
Rose is listening in fascination.
‘In my previous career, people wanted to know where I came from and what shaped me,’ Rose remarks.
‘Who says you have to tell them?’ demands Grazia. ‘I have parts of my life nobody can know. That is my business. Who we become in spite of everything: that is who we are. The rest of our past is just gossip.’