Rose notes that Grazia is sitting bolt upright now, no more elegantly lazing in her chair.
‘I was thirty-seven. Bernard, he is fifteen years older and his wife was dead a long time. I am not stupid. I knew there was a risk; I thought it would be OK. I thought that Stephen and Viola would accept me because I was not trying to be their mother, and yet they did not accept me.’
Rose is astonished to learn that Grazia is sixty-two: she looks a decade younger.
‘The children did their best,’ Bernard says gamely.
For the first time Rose sees Grazia’s face really flare with anger as she looks at her husband.
‘You still think that?’ she asks frostily. ‘Because they did not try as far as I can see. They never tried. Did Stephen and his wife let us take the children to the cinema or to our house on Sundays? No. Only if I was not involved. I was not a grandparent and they made that very clear from the first. And Viola …’ Grazia snorts.
‘She was the worst. I tried to help her. That stupid man she married. He was a user. He hurt her and even then, when I tried to step in and save her, she did not want my help. I knew what she was going through, but my help wasn’t needed.’
Grazia looks tense, the memory obvious from her body language.
‘In what way was he a user?’ asks Rose mildly.
‘He was only interested in her for money and contacts,’Grazia says bitterly. ‘He loved that she had a rich father, knew lots of other rich people. Then he ran up debts, got her to apply for huge loans for investments – all failed, of course.
‘He was a whiner and a parasite, leeching off the family. Pretending the money was his to his useless friends. Unfortunately, I understand men like him. Bernard had to pay in the end to get rid of him.’
She looks at her husband with approval for a moment.
‘It took a long time for Bernard to understand that the man was a parasite. He helped Viola. I tried to help too. Yet still she was against me.’
Grazia’s sorrow is evident now. Even Botox cannot hide the utter misery in her eyes.
‘After all I did to help her, Viola still believed I was like her ex-husband. Leeching off them all, fattened up with cash like a proper blood-sucker. Can you imagine how that made me feel?’
She turns to her husband and his benign, unworried face seems to enrage her.
‘You knew how hurt I was and you did nothing, you let her speak to me as if I was a worthless gold-digger. That is the most painful thing.’
Rose sees that Grazia’s anger is unsheathed now: white hot with the memory of how her husband’s children made her feel.
‘Now hold on, darling, this is not the time nor the place—’ begins Bernard.
‘It is exactly the time and the place,’ she hisses. ‘I had my own money when we married. I did not need your money. For sure, I was not a very wealthy person by your children’s standards but I had my own money, my own pension, my career. They are still stupid, immaturechildren who do not care who they hurt,’ she says, turning to Rose now.
‘You spoiled them, Bernard, youknowyou did,’ Grazia switches her attention back. ‘Their main worry was that my marriage to their father would divert some of his money away from them. Or that I’d have a child with you and destroy their inheritance.’
‘It isn’t like that,’ says Bernard in a placating tone. ‘You’re misrepresenting the facts, my dear. They care for you, but you’re not their mother, that’s all.’
Dianne snorts loudly.
Grazia’s incandescent with rage and everyone in the group can see it.
‘It’s nothing to do with me being their mother – it’s to do with what you will allow, Bernard, and how you have let Stephen and Viola worship only privilege and money.’
Again Rose wonders how she ever thought that Grazia was expressionless because her face is alive with expression now.
She’s heroic in her anger.
‘Not true at all,’ mutters Bernard. ‘You’re being overemotional, Grazia.’
India glares at Bernard but he doesn’t notice anyone else. He’s looking to Rose as if to confirm that his wife is having some emotional breakdown which is nothing to do with him.
Rose sees it all now.
