‘He is!’ agrees India. ‘Really top notch.’
This time, it’s Rose and Keera whose eyes meet knowingly.
‘Well, if everyone’s heart rate has come down enough, let’s meditate,’ says Rose, and Keera smothers a laugh.
Truly, Rose loves running this retreat. She’s really getting places with the guests.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘It’s all fine!’ says Mercedes confidently on the phone. ‘We were worried over nothing!’
Mercedes is happy as she talks to Rose and Adriana early on Wednesday morning.
‘I have to apologise for worrying you,’ Mercedes is saying.
‘The weird messages are not about you at all,’ she says happily. ‘Haters. See: I’ve sent the screenshot to you, Adriana. The message is for an Alys Flint …’
Rose feels her legs grow weak but, somehow, she holds herself upright.
If she collapsed either physically or metaphorically, it would scare Adriana, and the thing Rose is proudest about in her whole life is how she has taken care of her baby sister.
That will not stop now.
‘I see,’ says Rose with infinite calm.
Adriana’s eyes are huge as she stares at Rose.
‘Don’t send any messages or block them,’ Rose tells Mercedes. ‘I’m in touch with someone about identifying them.’
‘But none of these crazy posts are for you,’ protests Mercedes. ‘We don’t need to do anything—’
‘This poor person clearly needs help and, given that our business revolves around emotional health, we can’t ignore this,’ interrupts Rose smoothly. ‘Send me all the log-in details. I’ve got someone looking into this.’
When a clearly confused Mercedes is off the phone, Rose sits at Adriana’s laptop and begins to write another email.
‘Rose, is it going to be all right?’ asks a scared Adriana.
Rose wants to be truthful. It’s never justonelie, she has found.
Once you start lying, you’re committed to a tangled web of mistruths.
‘Yes, of course it’s going to be all right, darling,’ she says to Adriana, even though she doesn’t know any such thing. ‘Nothing’s going to get in our way now. We’ve been through enough, darling. I’ll sort it.’
‘But they said Alys Flint—’ protests Adriana.
‘It’s going to be fine, I’ll sort it out,’ repeats Rose.
She thinks briefly about Dan and his co-dependent relationship, about how he tries to fix all aspects of Julia’s life.
Rose has protected Adriana since they were children. It’s not the same thing at all.
The disco beats of ‘Love Hangover’ have given them a yen for disco music, so Keera’s playing a speedily curated soundtrack of Earth, Wind and Fire, Chaka Khan and Nile Rodgers’s music while she and India sit in India’s bedroom.
India’s twirling in time to ‘Ain’t Nobody’ while holding out the skirt of the cream dress with its swirling designs in lemon and pale green.
‘This one’s vintage Ossie Clark,’ she says. ‘It was my mum’s but it was torn so I fixed it. Look …’
India holds up the bottom tier of flounces which have been beautifully sewn on and patched with another similar fabric.
