Again, Rose raises her hand but Grazia’s interruption is over.
‘Connie lives in LA and she’s married but no kids. Has two dogs: one’s a French Bulldog and the other’s a kind of mixed breed. Mom said they called them “butcher’s dogs” when she was a kid. She’s not a fan of dogs!’
Keera smiles.
Nobody else does.
Rose waits.
‘I love animals: dogs, cats, hamsters. I follow a lot of animal accounts on Insta and TikTok. We couldn’t get a dog when I was younger because we were travelling around so much. Dogs tie you down,’ Keera adds sadly. ‘You’ve got to give a lot of normal stuff up to be a performer.’ She looks at the group as if for confirmation that this is true. ‘It means that Mom and I are a strong unit: me and her against the world. We’re like sisters. Obviously we argue but, like, who doesn’t, right?’
And there it is.
A mother who presents herself as her daughter’s closest friend, her sister. Rose thinks this scenario can be possible if the daughter is an adult, if said mother has actually been the parent until their child has grown up. Then, the early parenting is done.
But a best-friend spiel when the kid is just a kid: not healthy.
‘So your mother is your best friend,’ says Rose idly. ‘Is that unusual?’
Keera’s face is confused.
‘She does so much for me,’ she says.
‘I’m sure she does,’ Rose remarks, ‘but you need friends too. Do you have any friends who are not connected to you via work? Say if you and your mother are not getting on, who do you talk to?’
This time, Keera’s face goes curiously blank.
‘I had my friend, Cat, but we lost touch …’ she offers.
‘Nobody else?’ Rose asks.
Keera says nothing.
Rose knows that she’s pushed Keera as far as she can go.
Keera has told her story but she needs time to think about telling it to everyone else: that’s the magic.
Time to move on, Rose thinks.
She gets up and hands Keera some juice from Christos’ little fridge on the edge of the terrace. ‘You need to hydrate and a little juice might help. Thank you for your story, Keera,’ she says.
Keera blinks up at her, almost dazed by what she’s just said.
‘See you all in the kitchen at half six,’ Rose says.
And she’s gone.
I don’t know when it changed. Probably when I was expecting the baby. Pregnancy is when some men show the world how fertile they are. A woman with a big belly is like a totem pole of virility.
Look at me, I’m a true man.
My mother had been so happy when my brother’s wife was pregnant but then, he was her golden child. I was … I’m not sure now what I was.
The internet is full of pop psychology pages telling you who plays which role in the family. In my family, there weren’t many of us, so it’s tricky to figure out where we fitted into the toxic family plan. But we were toxic. I know that now.
So my mother wasn’t pleased at the pregnancy, which is a long story. But my husband – we’d married by then – was happy.
Not happy when I was tired and had to lie down.
