Rose lets go of the turquoise as if it has burned her and it falls back into her pocket. She returns to her files, wiping her eyes.
There’s no point wallowing in what might have been. If she was advising herself, she’d allow a little wallowing but Rose Talisman does not allowherselfto sink into any form of self-pity. The past is the past.
Shit happens. Pain heals. Yadda yadda.
It’s over.
Work will heal her.
Rose stares with blurry eyes at her notes about the group.
When she’d had a private practice a long time ago, she was often amazed that patients thought she had her life totally sorted.
As if being the one sitting straight in the therapist’s chair meant that you had a perfect life.
But therapists have to have therapists too – someone to talk to when drama shakes their lives. Hers was Vida, a woman so wise that Rose was convinced that Vida could have no issues in her personal life.
‘Always with the jokes!’ Vida said in amusement the first time Rose said this to her.
People’s lives are always works in progress.
‘Focus,’ Rose tells herself now. ‘If work is going to heal you, you have to actually do it.’
Chapter Fourteen
India’s first back on the terrace after lunch, holding a small cup of Greek coffee which contains what tastes like a metric tonne of caffeine from Mount Double Espresso itself.
The day is almost too sweltering for a hot drink but India’s aware that such intense concentration from the morning and the walk to the beach in full sun has tired her out.
It was gorgeous to walk with Keera. India feels as if she’s found a friend, and their conversation made India feel as if she has a right to be here.
Rose can help her, and India will take any help with open arms.
She’s swapped her pretty swirling chiffon dress for a pink spaghetti-strapped cotton dress she packed as an emergency outfit. The cotton dress is much cooler and the only item of clothing in her two suitcases that’s suitable for the Greek heat.
She’ll have to shop, which is no bother. India loves to shop. She manages her love of clothes by selling on things she’s grown tired of and looking in vintage shops for bargains.
‘You’ve got an eye, India,’ Georgie says, but India’s sure her stepmother’s just being nice to her.
In the distance, India can see Rose talking to the couple who run the villa.
Rose’s dress is flowy and relaxed: a bit psychedelic for India’s taste, but Rose can pull it off.
Rose is tall too, tall and regal as hell with that long, curling silvery-grey hair, the tanned skin, and those eyes, like a wild sea creature’s blue irises with her pupils outlined in a darker blue, like lapis.
Please Rose, don’t pick on me. Not yet, India thinks as she finds her chair and sets up her pretty notebook in front of her.
Maybe she can put Rose off for today.
Give herself some leeway before it’s her turn to be autopsied.
Where is everyone else? India finishes her coffee and watches a white cat slowly descend the stone steps from the raised lavender garden, its feline body undulating.
Even though India reaches down and calls it, the cat does not come to her and she sighs and relaxes back in her chair again.
She’d love a cat. She’d love—
Oh, what does it matter? She can’t haveanyof the things she really craves.
