Even in interviews when she was younger, she’d known enough to say: ‘Oh my mom is just the most amazing person in the world. I can’t imagine what I’d do without her.’
Keera knew without ever being told that this was part of the contract, this endlessly being grateful to her mother. She was never able to say that her own talent had had a part to play in her success. That would have been heresy.
The party line was that Dr Bobbi had created Keera like a miniature Frankenstein’s monster. Dr Bobbi was the person who turned on and off the electricity in the background.
Without her, Keera was nothing.
‘You still there?’ Bobbi says, as if she has to shout to make her voice heard in Europe.
Keera can see everyone settled on the beach now. The blankets are down and they’re all sitting in a circle in the sunset.
Dan appears to be trying to light a small fire and Keera hopes he’s receiving direction from Rose about this. The idea of lighting a fire in a tinder-dry country seems like a crazy one but then, they are beside the sea …?
The thought makes her smile. She has started to really like this gang, actually.
She wants to get to know India more, and Dan too.
Not Dianne because nobody can get inside Dianne’s head and she has a massive amount of tension surrounding her.
But possibly Grazia too.
They might all meet up some Christmas, have a dinner party and discuss the retreat and how fabulous Rose was.
Dinner parties are what normal people have.
Keera’s never been to one.
She’s seen them on films and in cooking shows, obviously.
But sitting with friends around a table full of food is not something there’s been room for in her and her mother’s lives.
India waves to her from the beach and Keera waves back.
She holds her hand up: ‘Five minutes,’ she mouths.
Keera suddenly imagines what will happen when the retreat is over and she flies back home.
Home to the small, rented house in San Francisco where she has to pretend she’s living in a massive celeb-style house; where all interviews take place in beautiful hotels as reporters can’t come to the house and see where they really live.
Nobody can see that the person in charge of the money,Dr Bobbi, has mishandled it so badly that Keera’s capital has dwindled.
Two albums made years ago.
The money from her TV shows is long gone. The residuals are tiny.
She’ll have to go back on the tour bus again: touring and selling merchandise because that’s the only way to keep their heads above water.
That life stretches out in front of her unless she changes something.
This week is it.
She’s not ready to go back and … she’s not ready to confront her mother, either. It’s too hard.
Instead, she does the only thing she can think of.
‘Mom, I can’t deal with what you want right now. I have to make decisions about the rest of my life.’
Then she hangs up, turns her phone to silent and makes her way down to the beach where everyone else has settled themselves on beach towels. There are extra blankets in case it gets cooler later and, already, the group is preparing for the deep breathing in front of the Ionian Sea.
