Chapter Thirty-Four #2
‘It’s horrible to think about it now because I’m clean and sober – really sober,’ Keera says, wincing.
Most of the group grin.
‘Feeling your feelings is horrible. I can’t believe I can never drink again or never use anything.’
‘You can,’ says Sasha with a shrug. ‘But it’ll kill you. Addiction is a progressive disease.’
‘I know.’
Keera looks at the floor and then forces herself to lift her head and look at everyone in the room, apart from Sketch.
She has no idea how Sketch particularly will stay clean when he leaves.
He’s been in rehab four times already, Oliver had told her.
Keera does not want to come back here if she can help it.
‘I had sex in a back hallway with the son of my mother’s friend, someone I’d only met in passing a few times before. We were both wasted. I am not sure how we were able to remain vertical.’
She can almost feel as if she’s back there. It had been the day that Empress magazine had published her interview. Bobbi had been so angry with her for things that Keera felt were not her fault!
So Keera had done what she always did to avoid her mother’s anger. She’d started drinking. By evening, when she and Bobbi arrived at Bobbi’s friend’s house in a convoy of taxis after leaving the restaurant, everyone was buzzing after a successful lunch.
The party was whisked through to the garden room which was jammed with orchids and jungle foliage.
There was music, more drinks, laughter and gossip.
Keera hadn’t been buzzing, though.
She’d been nursing her bruised heart and was so drunk that she almost couldn’t remember why she’d been so sad.
All she knew was that she needed more.
The skinny shy guy with the bad shag haircut would never have been on Keera’s ‘must-date’ list but, same as the last time they’d met, he had drugs. Cocaine and a lot of some downer he called ‘La La Land’ which they were saving for afters.
‘I wasn’t thinking at all,’ Keera says now. ‘The thinking part of me went out the window when I was drinking and with coke, I became this horrible person. I thought I was funny and clever, yeah, sexy too.’
Beside her, Jordy nods.
‘Nothing else mattered but getting more stuff, more not-thinking juice. I kept taking it and taking it and I was jammed up against this guy when his mother found us. She screamed and he ran. She called my mother, who turned up and I was giggling because I’d taken my boots off and couldn’t get them back on—’
She feels the familiar wave of self-disgust at this story, at the thought of herself standing with her jeans lying on the floor along with skinny Bad-Haircut’s tee and his yellow Gucci slides.
Today, for the first time, the wave isn’t as intense.
Nobody’s pushing chairs back and saying they can’t be in the same room as her.
An older woman with grey curls and a broken arm in a sling is nodding in sympathy with Keera, tears flowing down her face.
‘Been there,’ she mutters, to Keera’s astonishment.
Jordy speaks up: ‘Me too,’ she says sadly.
‘Bet you were hot, though,’ mumbles Sketch, instantly ruining the feeling of shared experience.
This time, revulsion sweeps over Keera.
‘Not helpful, Sketch,’ says Sasha icily. ‘We need to talk about how you left your twelve-year-old daughter having chemo because you needed a hit.’
Everyone gapes and, for the first time, Sketch’s gaunt face looks human.
Human and bleak with shame.
Keera stares at him.
‘That was a shitty thing to say,’ she says calmly. ‘I’m owning my mistakes.’
‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, not meeting her gaze.
Keera lets the wave of triumph flood her. She’s told them her worst stuff, nobody shrank from it. She’s still here and she’s able to speak out for the first time ever.
She realises that Sasha’s smiling at her.
‘I haven’t cried yet today,’ Keera says.
‘There’s an urban myth that I make everyone cry,’ Sasha says, ‘but that only happens when people refuse to do the work. You do the work, Keera. It’s entirely true what they say, breaking ourselves open is truly the way the light gets in.’
Marceline’s taxi rolls up to Villa Artemis in a haze of smoky oud perfume and Billie Holiday singing about a man she loves.
Keera pays her and waits until Bernard has marched off to his room, anger seeping out of every pore.
‘Thank you,’ Keera says to Marceline. ‘It’s been lovely to go to town with you. You do look like Stevie Nicks and thank you for the great soundtrack to the drive. It’s been so helpful, thank you.’
‘I liked your “Firebird” song,’ says Marceline to Keera’s complete astonishment. She’s been so sure that nobody on Corfu has recognised her. ‘You’ve a beautiful voice, don’t stop singing because life got hard. The rest of us need your music.’
‘Thank you,’ stammers Keera.
Marceline waves and drives off.
Keera knows it’s time for bed because they’ve another early start, but she feels too wound up to go to her room.
Why had that memory of rehab come into her head?
She absolutely knows that a drink would be the wrong thing, but she ends up going out to the terrace so she can go to the bar.
The feel-good memories of drinking are in her head.
She can remember what happens to her when she drinks, feel that mellow buzz deep in her belly—
She stops as she realises that Dan’s standing on the terrace.
She’s about to say ‘Hi’ offhandedly but then she realises that he’s on the phone leaving a message.
‘Julia, I am so sorry. I felt I had to tell you. I am so sorry, so sorry. I know we’re on a break and that you wanted to be able to …’
Dan pauses and Keera hides in the shadows, really wishing she wasn’t hearing this, hoping Dan doesn’t see her.
She’s afraid to move in case he does.
‘I know you’re free to see other people, date other men. But I never wanted that, Julia. I didn’t want us to split up.’
He sounds both wound up and totally confused.
‘I’m terrified I’ve hurt you. It’s – this is all so strange. Talking about yourself, it’s not me, darling. Call me when you get this message. You’re beautiful, Julia, you’re the only one I love …’
Keera cringes at the desperation in his voice. Who precisely is he trying to convince?
‘You do understand that it wasn’t about beauty, nobody’s as beautiful as you,’ he pauses, helplessly. ‘Everything is different here, that’s all I can say.’
Shit. Keera feels the desire for alcohol soar right over her. That was a near miss.
But poor Dan.
And poor India.