I suddenly had to get out of that office. I knew where I wanted to be, so I quickly went back to my desk, grabbed my bag and my coat and went. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I said, over my shoulder to Enid as I left.
I wrote a text message to Jasper in my Uber.
I never want to see or hear from you again.
There. Not a complicated message to understand. Then I sat back and started crying. Nina Simone was warbling away on the radio, which made me cry harder. My phone started buzzing in my hand. But I didn’t want to talk. There was literally nothing to say. I was going to have my dramatic moment of crying in the back of this Uber to Nina Simone. It was like that Sense and Sensibility scene where Marianne finds out Willoughby has become engaged to that rich woman because he’s been cut off from his own fortune. I just wanted to lie on my bed and cry. I caught the eye of the Uber driver in his mirror, who looked away quickly. A modern version of that scene anyway.
Twenty minutes later, I rang the doorbell and Sidney answered, looking immediately panicked at my face. ‘Oh, Polly, dear me, are you all right?’
‘No,’ I said, through a thick nose. ‘I’ve broken up with Jasper.’
‘Oh, poor you,’ said Sidney, ever the master of understatement. ‘Well, your mother’s upstairs.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, wiping my nose with the back of my hand and climbing the stairs.
Upstairs, Mum was peering into the fridge, her back to me. She wasn’t wearing a headscarf so it looked like a small bald burglar was seeing what he could scavenge.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, through a blocked nose.
Mum whirled around, hand still on the fridge door. ‘Polly, what are you doing here? What on earth’s the matter?’
‘Jasper’s cheated on me.’ As I said it, my voice broke again and a fresh wave of tears sprang up.
‘Oh, darling, come here.’ Mum opened her arms. Her head smelt of talcum powder.
I sobbed into her shoulder, mumbling words, trying to explain.
‘Lied… weekend… Celestia,’ I burbled into her shoulder. I heard the flick of a kettle in the background.
‘Big cup of sugary tea,’ Mum said. ‘And come and sit here.’ She sat down and patted the space on the sofa next to her.
‘I think I’m going to take Bertie for his constitutional,’ said Sidney.
‘Oh, would you?’ said Mum. ‘And take some plastic bags with you. He’s got into an awful habit of going on the pavement outside Costa.’
‘I should have known,’ I said, Mum turning back to me. ‘Everyone said so, didn’t they? “He’s so complicated”, “he’s got issues”, “he’s bad news”.’
‘I’m a bit lost, Polly, my love. I need you to tell me the whole story.’
Half an hour later, Mum was standing at the hob making lunch: her version of paella (to which she had added a tin of palm hearts) and I had finished updating her.
‘Well,’ she said, squinting at a packet of Knorr beef stock cubes. ‘I think he’s a cad and you’re better off without him.’
‘How do I not be in love with him though?’
‘Oh, darling. Have you spoken to him?’
‘No. I don’t really want to. No point, is there?’
Mum shrugged and I reached into my bag for my phone. Fourteen missed calls from Jasper, one message saying Ring me, another one, ten minutes later, which just said I’m so sorry. Bastard.
There was also an email from Peregrine, offering me a few days off from the office.
Polly, there’s a new spa in Spain which I want someone to review. Massages, yoga, coffee enemas, and that sort of thing. It’s called The Olive Retreat, let me know and we’ll arrange from here.
‘Mum,’ I said, looking up, ‘how do you feel about a few days in Spain?’
16
A FEW DAYS LATER, after Mum was granted permission to fly by Dr Ross, we arrived in the arrivals hall of Malaga, where I spotted a thin man with a droopy moustache holding up a sign that read ‘The Olive Retreat’ with a picture of an olive tree on it.
‘Mum, over there, that’s us,’ I said, nodding in his direction and pushing the trolley as Mum – floppy sun hat already on to protect her scalp – walked behind me.
‘Hi there,’ I said, approaching him.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ he said, with a thick Spanish accent. ‘Miss Polly?’
‘Si,’ I replied. My GCSE Spanish could just about manage that one.
‘And Miss Susan?’ he said.
‘“Miss Susan”, I like very much,’ said Mum. ‘And you are?’
‘I am Alejandro,’ he said, doing a little bow and taking the trolley. ‘We go now to The Olive Retreat. This way please. Follow me, follow me.’ He whirled the trolley around as if driving a rally car and set off for the exit at a brisk pace, parting people like Moses.
‘How long is it to the retreat?’ asked Mum, in a hopeful tone, half an hour later from the back of his taxi. We had climbed high into a range of hills covered with pine trees and Alejandro was taking bends with the confidence of an Olympic bobsleigh champion.
‘Not far, Miss Susan. It’s just down this hill and then through the town and up another hill.’
‘We’ll need a retreat after this,’ Mum muttered, before closing her eyes. I looked at my phone. Three messages from EE welcoming me to Spain. Nothing else. Great. There was no reception and no Wi-Fi at the retreat anyway. I’d read the introduction pack on the flight. No reception, no Wi-Fi, no caffeine, no alcohol, no sugar, no wheat, no dairy, no meat. ‘Just natural peace and tranquillity to help you shake off the pressures of everyday life,’ it said. Although on the ‘How to Reach Us’ page, the retreat had given its helicopter coordinates. So presumably sometimes the natural peace and tranquillity was disturbed by bankers flying in to give their livers a break.
It would do me good to be phone-free for a few days anyway. The photos of Jasper had appeared on MailOnline two days earlier, I knew, because I’d had 2,810 messages from Lala, several from Lex and a message from Bill saying he knew I might not want to chat but I could call him whenever I wanted. I’d avoided the story myself, not wanting to relive the humiliation, the torturous sadness of seeing them again. Of knowing that they were taken when I was in Norfolk on Lex’s hen, thinking about Jasper answering Mr and Mrs questions, listening to Lex bang on about my wedding at Castle Montgomery. Why did I fall for it? Why did I let myself fall for Jasper’s act, I thought, for the ninety billionth time since standing in Peregrine’s office, looking at his computer screen.
I was jolted from my black reverie by Alejandro, who pulled right suddenly on to a dirt track. ‘Up there, you see?’ he said, pointing ahead into the hills. ‘You can see the house.’ His finger bumped up and down as we lurched along the track. ‘We’ll be there in five minutes,’ he added.
He stopped, five minutes later, in front of a solid metal gate. Then he wound down his window, leant out and tapped in a few numbers, whereupon the gate gave a jolt and started slowly sliding open. Once he deemed it far enough, Alejandro drove us through it and, with expert precision, missed the gate with his wing mirror by a few millimetres.
‘Bienvenido and welcome to The Olive Retreat,’ he said, driving along a track and turning the engine off beside a cluster of stone houses.
Relieved to have made it, I opened my door and stood up in the afternoon sunshine. We were surrounded by dozens of olive trees that sloped down to an infinity pool halfway at the bottom of the garden. Cicadas croaked noisily around us while Alejandro, breathing heavily, hauled our bags out of the car.
A large woman appeared at the door of one of the cottages. She was dressed entirely in white. A white cotton tunic over white trousers and white espadrilles. Also, a white turban, with thick gold hoops hanging from each ear. Gold bangles clanked on each wrist as she hurried over.
‘Darlings, my darlings, welcome to paradise!’ she said, holding her arms out and crushing me to her chest. ‘Did you have an awful journey? You poor darlings, you must be frazzled.’
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She released me and reached her arms out for Mum, who firmly stuck her hand out for the woman to shake.
‘I’m Susan,’ said Mum.
‘Susan, you are so welcome, we are thrilled to have you here at The Olive Retreat,’ said the woman, shaking Mum’s hand. But it was a trick, because then she simply used her hand as leverage and pulled her into another vice-like hug.
‘I’m Mary,’ said the woman, letting go of Mum. ‘Now, follow me, let me show you to your rooms. You’re both in this cottage, the Rose Quartz cottage, rose quartz of course being the crystal for relationships, for divine love, for nourishment and healing. Very important, rose quartz.’
‘What are the other cottages called?’ I asked.
‘Well, next door is Amethyst, for spiritual development, and also for the menopause.’ Mary looked pointedly at Mum. ‘Then Hematite along from that, which is marvellous for deflecting negative energies. And for your kidneys. And then there’s Blue Moonstone on the end, which is all about inner growth and hormone balancing. We can have eight altogether on our little retreats, but we’re just five this week. You two and three other detoxers, who are just finishing their afternoon meditation session.’
We followed Mary into the Rose Quartz cottage, into a small sitting room area with salmon-coloured walls, a big, pale pink sofa and a leather armchair underneath a bookcase. There was a wood stove in the corner.
‘So, this is where you can sit and relax in the evenings if you like, after your massages. Read from our library, have a cup of ginger tea.’
‘Lovely,’ said Mum.
‘And there’s no Wi-Fi?’ I thought I might as well check.
Mary threw her hands in the air, gold bracelets clanking. ‘No, my love. No Wi-Fi here. No screens of any sort. If you’ve brought your laptops, then please leave them in your rooms. Ditto your phones. Emails interfere with the detox process. Now,’ she went on, walking into a bedroom, ‘Susan, I thought you might like this room because it has a bath.’
It was a white bedroom, with a pair of open pink shuttered doors leading out to the olive grove. A mosquito net hung over the bed, pinned back either side of the pale pink headboard.
‘There is air conditioning if you like but you may prefer the fan,’ she said, pointing upwards to the ceiling. ‘Air conditioning interferes with the detox process but some people struggle with the heat here.’
She walked to the doors and pushed them wider to let more sunlight in. ‘I tend to sleep with them open in the summer myself. Now, Polly…’ She walked out of Mum’s room and into another one on the other side of the sitting room. ‘This is your room.’
‘Great,’ I said, my eye falling on a book called Detox your Soul on the bedside table.
‘So,’ said Mary, ‘if you want to make yourselves comfortable, then come down to the main house in ten minutes. I’ll introduce you to everyone then we have a gong bath.’
‘A what?’ I asked.
‘All will be revealed,’ said Mary, waggling an index finger at me.
Exactly nine minutes later, in case she waggled her finger at me again, Mum and I walked down the path through the olive grove towards the main building.
‘It’s an old farmhouse apparently,’ I said to Mums.
‘How did it all start? What’s Mother Superior’s story?’
‘Mary’s? No idea. I meant to Google it on the way here. And obviously, I can’t now.’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘I haven’t got any bars on my phone and I told Sidney I’d text him when we arrived.’
Outside the house’s main door was a courtyard with a small pond in it and the faint tinkling of a wind chime.
‘Hello?’ I said, down a long white corridor. ‘Hellooooo?’
‘Shoes off, shoes off,’ said Mary, suddenly appearing behind us. ‘We operate a barefoot policy in this retreat.’
We slipped off our shoes and left them by the door, where there was a sign of a smiling Buddha above a picture of a flip-flop with a thick red line through it.
‘I’ll give you a quick tour, and then introduce you to everyone. That’s the kitchen up there. That is where you will eat all your meals. Follow me, I’ll just quickly show you the tea station outside it.’
She walked down the corridor and pointed through an archway. There, an electric urn sat on a huge dresser. The shelves were crammed with boxes of tea. I squinted at them. Mint tea, camomile tea, rhubarb and ginger tea, various detox teas, various ‘night-time teas’. Even a pink box of ‘women’s tea’. I picked it up and looked at the contents.
‘It’s ayurvedic, that one,’ said Mary. ‘Ginger, orange peel, dandelion and camomile. Bit of fennel. Delicious. Very good for balancing your hormones, Polly.
‘And then through here,’ she went on, going back down the corridor and turning right, ‘is our classroom, where you’ll have nutritional lectures tomorrow afternoon. And then beyond that are the massage rooms. You’ll have one every night, different sorts. Sometimes deep tissue, sometimes Thai, sometimes shiatsu.’ She looked at Mum’s stomach. ‘Have you ever thought about shiatsu, Susan?’
‘Err, no, I don’t believe I have,’ said Mum.
‘It’s terribly good for getting sluggish systems moving a bit. Moving our energies around, you know, making us…’ she dropped her voice to a loud whisper ‘… regular’.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Mum, putting a hand on her stomach.
‘Now, no time for chit-chat. We must get to the studio. Just across the courtyard. This way.’ She swept outside again, jewellery clanking over the wind chime, and into a converted barn, one wall of which was sheet glass and looked out to the swimming pool. Five mats lay on the floor and, at the front, a woman with dreadlocks and a pink leotard sat cross-legged on the floor beside what looked like an enormous dinner gong, at least a metre across.
‘This is our studio,’ said Mary, ‘where you will do all yoga, meditation and possibly one or two other surprises we have for you. Like the gong bath. And this is Delilah, our gong expert.’
Delilah beamed at us from the floor. ‘Welcome.’
‘Hi,’ I said, unsure of whether it was terribly London to offer out my hand. ‘I’m Polly.’
‘And I’m Susan,’ said Mum, hands also hovering by her side.
‘Namaste,’ said Delilah, putting her hands together in prayer position and bowing her head.
The door behind us opened. First in was a young, thin blonde woman with thick black eyebrows that looked like they’d been drawn on by a marker pen. Then, a middle-aged Asian man, followed by a large, middle-aged woman with an unfortunate pixie haircut.
‘Polly and Susan, this is Jane,’ said Mary, pointing at the blonde one with eyebrows. ‘Then that’s Aidar, from Kazakhstan. And Alison bringing up the rear. Everyone, this is Polly and her mother Susan.’ We smiled shyly at one another, apart from Aidar, who walked to a mat and sat down.
‘Shhhhh now, everyone, settle yourselves,’ said Delilah, tiptoeing around, handing out blankets and small bean bags. ‘Lie on your backs and breathe. Just deep breaths in, deep breaths out.’ She demonstrated in case we didn’t know how to breathe, inhaling loudly through her nostrils and out again through her mouth.
I lay back, propping my head up with a cushion, and kicked the blanket so it covered my feet. I lay my arms over the top of it and put the bean bag over my eyes. It smelt of lavender. I breathed deeply. I was going to concentrate really hard on this. I was not going to let thoughts of Jasper or anyone else infiltrate my mind. I was just going to breathe and relax. I inhaled again as deeply as I could and was about to exhale when…
GONGGGGGGGGGG. I opened one eye and squinted at the front, where Delilah was standing beside the gong, a stick in her hand. ‘Eyes closed please,’ she said, spotting me. ‘Just breathe in, and breathe out, and let the vibration therapy still your mind.’
GONGGGGGGGGGGGGGG, it went again. And again, and again. Sometimes softly, sometimes building into a crescendo. It was quite hard to still your mind while the Bat
tle of Britain was going off metres from your ears. But I lay still, breathing in and breathing out. In and out. In and out. Letting the mad hippy play her musical instrument over us.
Within minutes, I was even less soothed by the sound of snoring to my left. It was Aidar, who’d apparently managed to still his mind so much he’d gone to sleep. And as his snores increased in volume, so did Delilah’s gonging. It was, I thought on balance, probably the least relaxed I had ever been.
It finally came to a stop and I looked at the clock through one eye: forty-five minutes of din.
‘Take your time to come up, everyone,’ instructed Delilah, sitting cross-legged beside her instrument again. ‘The gong bath can be quite intense for some people.’
I sat up immediately. Mum removed the bean bag from her eyes. ‘Wasn’t that good?’ she said.
At supper, we were each given a quarter of an aubergine and a few leaves of kale drizzled with tahini sauce. Aidar poked suspiciously at his kale with a knife. Celestia would have liked this, I thought, before quickly trying to push her out of my head.
‘I’ll have yours, Aidar, if you don’t want it?’ said Alison. He passed over his plate.
‘So what brings you two here?’ she said, scraping the kale on to her own plate and handing Aidar’s back.
‘It’s for work, technically. I work for a magazine and we get to review places like this,’ I said. ‘But I sort of needed a break too.’
‘I’m not being funny,’ interjected Jane. ‘But this is one of the best places for that. And I’ve done ’em all.’
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