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 thatstrange. 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 – nowshedoes 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.
