Chapter 7 Camilla

7 CAMILLA

NOW

Camilla watches Jade walk back to her villa. Quite a nasty shiner , she thinks, recalling the times in the past when she used the same excuse. A cupboard. How unoriginal. But on her honeymoon ? The husband must be a nasty bastard. Poor thing. And so young, a mere wisp of a girl. She can’t be more than twenty-three, a little older than Camilla’s daughter, Natasha, though nowhere near as ballsy, as acidic. Camilla makes a mental note to keep an eye out for Jade, make sure she’s all right.

She crosses the threshold of her villa with a sigh of pleasure. This is one of those rare occasions when the website photographs don’t do the venue justice. She marvels that she has this whole place to herself, this huge villa right over the ocean, with the designer ceiling fans suspended from the beams like miniature aircraft, the marble sinks with pricey brass fittings, and the generous glass aperture in the living-room floor revealing colorful fish. It’s all right up her alley.

She hangs her hat on a hook by the front door, then climbs the stairs and looks over the bathroom. A deep slipper-bath in the center of the room, atop marble tiles. That’ll do nicely. She imagines the kind of Instagram content she can produce here. She’s been meaning to post more images of relaxation to break up the workout videos—too much of the same stuff costs her followers, so she’s started posting pictures of meals, her garden, even her sofa. Interesting how sometimes those pictures get more responses than her best workouts. A photo of her in the bath should go down well.

In the corner of the bathroom is a brass waterfall shower with a slim glass divide, a long counter with two sinks, and a welcome basket brimming with expensive lotions and gels. A vase of fresh white lilies, a built-in cabinet with plush white towels. She sighs again. It’s heavenly. Better yet, she has some peace and quiet.

She strides across the wooden floor of the mezzanine, glancing down at the living room below. She shudders—she can’t look down from a height without imagining someone’s head splitting open like a melon. It’s a consequence of too much cannabis, or perhaps unresolved trauma, though ironically the cannabis was intended to resolve the trauma. C’est la vie.

At the far end of the corridor, a balcony is perched on the corner of the villa. With her phone, she snaps an image and posts it to her Instagram Stories with a link to the location, then WhatsApps the same image to Natasha. An instant later, a message pings back:

Nice.

My full-day didn’t show.

Natasha means that a client who has booked a full-day tattoo session didn’t turn up. They’ll forfeit a deposit, but that’ll cover the rental space at the studio and her travel. A day’s wages lost. She messages Natasha back.

How much did you lose? x

Why?

Tell me and I’ll put the money in your account x

You don’t have to do that, Mum. I’m a grown-up now, remember?

I want to.

*sigh* 450

Camilla opens her bank app and deposits the money in Natasha’s account.

Done. Love you xx

Love you too, Mum. Next time you want a tattoo, it’s on me xo

Camilla is tenderhearted when it comes to Natasha. The result of Camilla’s first marriage, she lives in a tiny flat in London with her partner, S?an, and their bulldog, Clio. Natasha is a twenty-year-old tattoo artist and has zero interest in Pilates, though she has the perfect, willowy form that Camilla has spent years trying to achieve. Natasha was into dancing as a teenager but gave it up abruptly one day, to Camilla’s dismay. Camilla hasn’t a single tattoo; Natasha has over a dozen, one of her arms completely covered in daffodils, octopus tentacles, and a portrait of Nefertiti. She has a ram’s skull on her chest, thick black horns curling across her skin. She has long red hair, moss-green eyes, and pale skin with freckles, barely a trace of her Filipino ancestry visible in her coloring. Natasha can’t fathom why Camilla gets Botox; Camilla can’t fathom why Natasha insists on piercing every orifice.

They adore each other.

Camilla looks over the al fresco dining area with its round birchwood table and chairs, frayed-edged parasol, four fake trees in large gold pots. It’s a lot like the patio area she recently had built outside her house in Berkshire. She’s lived there three years now, and it almost feels like home. She’s a restless soul, preferring to move around. There’s nothing like the feeling of a new home to create a sense that you’re moving forward in life. At forty-nine, Camilla isn’t sure she’ll ever feel like she’s arrived at whatever it is she’s moving toward. Perhaps she’ll know it when she sees it. So far, three husbands have failed to assist in that journey, and even the success of her Pilates business hasn’t quite hit the spot.

Heading to the bedroom, she checks the responses to her post. Fifty likes and several comments, a handful of personal messages asking questions. Good.

She grew her Instagram account over a couple of years, building her coaching business off the back of it. She has a training academy now, all self-employed coaches who assist others with fitness and health goals. She doesn’t do much one-to-one work anymore, and she misses it. Having seven thousand people like and comment on a post is great, but it comes with downsides. Trolling, mostly, people posting the most hideously personal comments. Lately, she has found it exhausting. A comment about her face the other day made her cry. Why does she bother reading the comments? She knows by now that it’s stupid to do so. But she’s only human, still invested in her business.

Her body is stiff after the flight, particularly that last, cramped journey on the seaplane. She slips off her sandals and stands by the long mirror in the bedroom, tucking her pelvis under and releasing several times, drawing in her abs. Then she bends forward, pressing her palms into the floor, and breathes deeply, before sitting down, cross-legged, working out the tenderness in her tailbone.

She only lasts so long before she opens her inbox. A flicker of guilt—she was the one to stipulate that this trip be email-free—but she does run an online business; foolish, really, to think she could go a whole nine days without so much as scanning her inbox. She resolves to only check once a day. Maybe twice.

There are a handful of messages, one from her virtual personal assistant, a couple of reminders about the Pilates conference she’s going to in Mexico in November. But her eyes settle on one in particular, and she has to do a double take. The sender’s name is Jacob Levitt.

Darcy’s ex-husband.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Camilla,

I need to speak with you urgently. I think you know what it’s about.

Thanks, Jacob

She reads the message four times before setting the phone down and staring out of the window. She’s heard plenty about Jacob but has never met him. Why the fuck is he emailing her? And that second line— I think you know what it’s about.

She starts to compose a reply, then stops. She’s short-tempered, especially after a long-haul flight, but past experience—or rather, her daughter—has taught her that she should probably hold off.

She sits on the plush sofa and glares at the message, realizing that she’s in a bit of a pickle. Whether she likes it or not, she finds herself in the position of potentially ruining the holiday that Darcy has looked forward to, the one she so rightly deserves, because if she tells Darcy about this, Darcy will get upset all over again, fretting about what her ex is playing at by emailing her friends. But if Camilla doesn’t tell her, it might end up looking like she’s keeping secrets from Darcy.

Oh God .

Camilla finds herself tempted to dial the mobile number at the bottom of the email, just to see what Jacob will say. His divorce from Darcy is finalized, so what can he gain from bothering them? But that’s the thing with bastards like Jacob—they don’t act rationally. Camilla has had a lifetime’s experience of bastards. They just want to sabotage everything and everyone around them for the hell of it.

That’s exactly why Jacob has sent the email, she decides. He can do nothing now, so he wants to ruin their lovely holiday, just like he wrecked his marriage. She trots off a deflective reply and clicks out of her inbox, chiding herself for having checked her email in the first place.

That’ll teach her, she thinks. That’ll teach her for breaking her own rules.