‘This is amazing work,’ says Keera, impressed, studying the tiny, neat stitches.
‘It’s not nearly well done enough,’ India goes on, examining her own work. ‘Some of his dresses are in the V&A, so me fixing this one up is a bit risky. Still, there were so many holes in it that I had to try to not change the design with my repairs.’
‘Seriously, you’re really good at this,’ Keera repeats. ‘You could do this professionally.’
‘Sew things? No, I’m not good enough—’
‘No, I mean sell vintage. Fix things up and sell them on.’
‘Nah,’ says India, adding a tangle of orange beads to her neck. She examines the look in the mirror with the narrowed eyes of the expert. ‘It’s just a hobby and a way to save money.’
Keera finds her fingers automatically playing the bass line of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Sir Duke’ as she listens. She has her own skills, she thinks happily.
Despite the heat, everyone is drinking coffee on the terrace this morning.
‘We’re going to have a little break this afternoon, an hour and a half off,’ Rose announces. ‘We’ll recommence on the beach at half three but once we break here at twelve, the spa is ready for anyone who wants a massage or a facial. Alexei is around for yoga again too. I’ll be on the beach later if anyone wants to talk to me. Or if anyone wants alittle walk down to Xanthe between half one and half two, I’m available.
‘OK then, India.’ Rose turns in her chair and sees that India is both nervous and waiting for her turn to come.
‘I know, I’m next. I’m really bad at talking in front of people, Rose,’ India says nervously. ‘I warn you, I’m really hopeless at it.’
Rose smiles at her warmly.
You can do this, she seems to be trying to say without words.
India feels a wild sense of love for Rose’s kindness. But still, this is hard.
‘I’m scared my stuff sounds silly, compared with everybody else,’ she adds.
‘Have you heard the phrase: comparison is the thief of joy?’ Rose asks.
Rose can be intense when she prods people, India thinks, but she understands human pain.
It’s just that what India has to say seems so silly compared to everyone else …
Keera’s had to be so brave about addiction. Dan’s had so much pain to wade through with poor Julia, and as for Bernard’s horrible children …
India can’t compare. She fidgets with her floaty Ossie Clark dress sleeves.
‘My stuff is all first-world problems,’ she says lamely. ‘I didn’t fully think this out. I thought it might be more spa treatments and a bit of shamanic work. I was stupid, really—’
‘Please don’t call yourself stupid, India,’ says Rose. ‘You’re certainly not that. Breathe deeply and think about the first question: what trouble brought you here?’
India nods, and takes a deep inhale. She’s here and she’s going to be brave.
Jake was one of India’s first boyfriends: the son of one of Georgie’s clients, he was deliciously handsome.
He had olive skin, muscles from lots of time spent in the gym and perfectly tousled hair.
That he’d never worked a proper day in his life and dabbled as a part-time DJ didn’t worry India.
She’d been nineteen at the time, a very young nineteen, she knows now, but then, she thought she was the last word in cool.
She’d just spent the summer in the Caribbean with her mother, Sonja, and Magnús and a retinue of beautiful people, all of whom were forty years older than India and vaguely famous.
They were a lovely group to hang out with, all athletic and yoga toned, wise beyond their years and always smoking rolled-up cigarettes on the beach.
They ribbed each other, and were very kind to India and the only other young person there, a fourteen-year-old boy called Phoenix, whose dad was a drummer in a German stadium band.
