‘They worry that if they don’t take care of their person, something bad will happen.’
Keera gets Dan some water and he drinks it.
‘Why did she break off the engagement?’ asks India. ‘I mean, sorry for interrupting, but if she wants to be with you, she’d be with you, right?’
Keera chimes in: ‘I had a friend who overdosed once. By mistake, I think, because she was in emotional pain and she was doing a lot of drugs at the time. It wasn’t intentional. She survived and she didn’t blame anyone else. Nobodypushed that combo of stuff down her throat. Nobody could have stopped her.’
Keera shrugs at Rose. ‘Sorry – does that sound cruel?’
Rose shakes her head.
‘She sounds unstable to me, this girl,’ adds Grazia, shrugging her elegant shoulders and opening the Dior handbag to extract a gold cigarette case. ‘She wants to blame other people for her problems. This you cannot do.’
Dan is drinking his water not speaking or looking at anyone.
Grazia proceeds to pull out the cigarette case and a lighter that is studded with diamonds.
‘No smoking,’ Rose says cheerfully.
Grazia narrows her eyes. ‘Pah,’ she says, shrugging her slim shoulders. ‘We are outside.’
‘I don’t care,’ says Rose, still cheerful. ‘The guidelines say no smoking in any of the sessions.’
Grazia can chew nicotine gum or wear patches if she wants to.Read the small print, folks.
‘But—’ says Sir Bernard, possibly trained to speak up if Grazia’s whims are queried.
‘If you wish to smoke, please leave and go to the smoking terrace, behind the pool.’ Rose keeps the ultra-calm in her voice before she delivers the punchline. ‘But if you leave, you can’t come back in till the next break.’
Most rehab places understand that addicts need something to do: chain smoking, chewing gum, eating endless sweets. But this is not rehab. Rose hates cigarette smoke and anything that takes away from the laser-like focus on why they are all here.
Grazia stuffs the cigarette case back into her bag with vigour. She gives Rose a fierce glare, but Rose has been glared at by experts.
She smiles back in a sunny way.
Don’t take me on, honey, her eyes say, blue eyes flashing fire.You will regret it …
‘Dan, can you see any of your behaviour in my description of the co-dependent relationship?’ she asks.
Dan’s lost for words.
His hands come up automatically to run through his dark, swept-back hair. Rose can imagine him in a lab when something goes wrong, hands in hair as he thinks his way out of the problem.
He really is good looking. Doubtless there are women who look longingly at him, but Dan is the faithful type: would only ever have one woman on his radar.
‘How could you have helped Julia?’ Rose prods.
‘I’m not sure,’ he says.
Rose has to keep going. She needs Dan to answer how he could have stopped Julia’s suicide attempt.
‘Perhaps you could have married her?’
Rose throws this out there as a red herring because Dan has already told her this is off the table.
‘No, you see, she doesn’t want to be tied down,’ he says.
India snorts.
