Not even Theo knows it isn’t her real name, which makes Rose shudder deep inside at how much she’s betrayed him by omission.
Adriana thinks it’s easy to go back and ask for forgiveness, but for someone like Theo, whose very bone marrow is invested in truth, learning about Rose’s lies would destroy his opinion of her.
Ironically, Rose had been determined to tell him about her real life, as opposed to her fantasy legend, before he’d left.
Her own therapist, Vida, had urged her to do it.
Vida could analyse with rapier-like intensity.
‘Your greatest fear is that he’ll never forgive the lies you’ve told him, not that he’ll find your background difficult to accept.’
‘It’s very boring that you’re always right,’ Rose had said gloomily.
She hasn’t talked to Vida for a long time.
Rose knows that she ought to contact Vida again now that Rose is accepting clients.
First topic would be the sense of fear that accompanied the message Mercedes found on Instagram.
Rose shivers. She’d been brave earlier with Adriana but she fears the Instagram messager.
She can only think of one person it can be and she really hopes it isn’t him. He could destroy everything.
Rose finishes her wine and pours some more.
She turns to her notes; work has always calmed her.
Tonight has been good for her six clients.
Keera had been a bit subdued at first over dinner but Dan and India had got talking quite animatedly, and soon Keera was joining in. Dan had spent an internship summer in Boston, it turned out, and India’s father had once rented a house on Martha’s Vineyard.
There was no discussing their therapy. Instead, as if by mutual consent, the guests talked and chatted about other parts of their lives.
Even Grazia had come out of her eerily calm shell. Bernard was ebullient as if making up for trying to skip the next day. He was very keen on a wildly expensive bottle of the hotel’s wine and instead of letting him pour a fourth glass, which Rose herself knew was a recipe for disaster, Grazia gently said: ‘Perhaps you have had enough, yes?’
Grazia is truly nothing like the iron-hearted second or third wife Rose had suspected she was.
Sir Bernard had tried to talk to Dianne, telling her about the businesses he owns in Australia.
‘Love Melbourne, of course,’ he’d said, closing his eyes as if imagining it in his brain. ‘I love the buzz of Sydney, though.’
‘It is a passionate place,’ said Grazia, ‘a vibrant place.’
But Dianne did not bite.
‘Interesting,’ she’d said blankly, looking at Bernard as if she could imagine putting his head in a blender.
Rose blinked as she looked at Dianne.
Blender … Surely not. But she’d felt the violent urge coming off Dianne as if it was written in big letters in the air.
Shut your mouth, or I’ll blend you to a pulp, Bernard.
Rose wonders if she imagined it.
Dianne didn’t drink all evening. She was curiously still, like a person very aware of her physical self.
‘How are you feeling, Dianne?’ Rose had ventured, and Dianne had smiled quickly and begun to speak:
