Two weeks or thereabouts earlier…
Isla Brookes was a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The fact she was teetering on the brink of something terrifying was not common knowledge, and she intended to keep it that way. She’d told anybody who’d asked or needed to know that in a couple of days she’d be off-grid for a few weeks. She was taking a much-needed sabbatical from her job as an Interior Design Consultant for Upscale Development, a high-end London property development company. The reason? Stress – she needed to step off the corporate ladder and take some time to heal, because the collapse of her relationship with Tim was still so very raw.
Maura and Henry, whose flat she’d fled to when she’d found the strength to finish things with Tim, or Toad as she now thought of him, had made her very welcome. However, she had no wish to become a permanent fixture on their couch. It was a couch upon which she’d spent too many afternoons pondering what she was supposed to do next. What did you do when you were told you were on the verge of a breakdown? She wondered, fingering the packet of anti-depressants she’d been prescribed, it was all new to her. She needed to remove what was causing the stress from her life – that’s what the harried NHS doctor had told her. Well, she’d done that by finishing things with Toad and taking an extended leave of absence from work. There was more to it than that though, Isla knew. Toad and her job were symptoms, neither were the full-blown illness.
If she were honest, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to be here in England anymore and, putting the pills back in her handbag, she picked up the telly remote. Dr Phil loomed large on the screen. She knew she wasn’t ready to go home to New Zealand either. What was it she’d read once? Oh yes, that was it; in times of stress or upheaval, you shouldn’t make any life-changing decisions. So, that meant she shouldn’t throw the towel in on her life in London and head off to an Ashram in India just yet. Maybe therapy was the answer then? But she didn’t want to go to some stuffy Harley Street specialist. No, she wanted something more holistic than that. And that was where Google came in. It was a marvellous thing, Google, she thought while tapping in the words holistic therapy.
As soon as Break-Free Haven Lodge popped up, Isla knew she’d found her answer. She gazed longingly at the red barn-style buildings set in rural acreage. She’d go to the States to seek help. Isla explored the website feeling more and more certain she was on the right track as she read about the various hands-on treatment programmes and counselling sessions on offer. The rustic exterior of the complex belied the calming oasis housed inside. Oh yes, she thought, her fingers tip-tapping her name into the contact form provided. This was a place where she could regain her mojo.
The British were far too ‘closed mouths’ and ‘stiff upper lips’, the Americans were much more into ‘talking about things.’ Look at the way they all managed to work their problems out on Dr Phil, she thought, glancing over to the telly where there was a lot of smiling and clapping going on. Isla knew she’d gotten to the point where she needed to talk, or she’d go under. She was lucky in so much as she’d been given a warning that something had to give. Now it was up to her to heed that warning. That didn’t mean she had to tell anyone she was going to a mental health retreat, though.
So, the word she was putting about on the street was that, to try and get some perspective back on what she was doing with her life, she was going to float like a free spirit around California for a fortnight. Yes, she knew it sounded very Eat, Pray, Love but this was her story and if it stopped people asking too many questions, then she was sticking to it.
Unfortunately, as she sat cradling the phone between her ear and her shoulder, it was a story that was not going down well with her mum, Mary. Isla had taken a deep breath knowing she could no longer put off the inevitable and had called her to tell her mum she would be incommunicado as of Friday. The conversation was going pretty much as expected.
‘I don’t like this Isla,’ Mary muttered. ‘And this connection isn’t very good. You sound odd like you’re a long way away.’
‘I’m in London Mum; you’re in Bibury. It’s the other side of the world. I am a long way away.’ It was an understatement. Her hometown of Bibury on New Zealand’s West Coast, and London, her home for the past ten years, weren’t just hemispheres apart; they were an entire universe apart.
Bibury was named for a Cotswolds village in Britain. Not just any Cotswolds village, oh no – Bibury was purported to be the loveliest of them all. Isla had heard that it boasted centuries-old stone cottages, their steeply slanting roofs giving the much-visited village its chocolate box quality. All this waxing lyrical had captured her imagination, and she’d had to go and see it for herself. It was top of her ‘places to tick off’ list while in the UK, and she’d spent a very enjoyable three-day break in the Cotswolds not long after she first arrived in London. She’d reported back to her family that yes, the British village of Bibury lived up to its good press. It was, she told them, very pretty, unlike its New Zealand counterpart which, in Isla’s opinion, would never win any beautiful town awards. Rugged and run down, yes, but beautiful? No. Isla reckoned the only thing the two places had in common was a river.
Her gran, Bridget, had harrumphed down the phone upon hearing this, wittering on that she was willing to bet gold had never been found in the River Colne as it had in the mighty Ahaura River of her birthplace. Isla had rolled her eyes. Much like she was doing now as she realized that the slow hissing down the phone line was nothing to do with a dodgy connection. It was a sound she knew well. Her mother was sighing in that hard done by, heartfelt way she always did when her daughter’s actions perturbed her.
‘Don’t get smart Isla; you know what I mean. What’s going on with you? One minute you have a high-flying job and you’re living with a man whose arse you think the sun shines out of, and the next you’re chucking the lot in to go and look for yourself in California of all places.’
‘The saying is find yourself Mum, and I’ve just taken an extended leave of absence from work, that’s all. For your information, I’m feeling really sad about being single again too. I mean you had Ryan and me by the time you were thirty, and this isn’t where I saw myself at this point in my life. I need a rest, some time to think and take stock. I want to figure out what’s next for me, but apart from that Mum, I’m fine,’ Isla lied. She knew she sounded completely self–obsessed and she hated herself for it.
Her mother snorted. ‘So you say, and you think far too much if you ask me. I’m telling you though, Isla it’s not normal being uncontactable in this day and age. How will we know where you are while you’re busy swanning around doing your floaty, find yourself bit? And, I don’t know what your gran’s going to have to say about it all.’
Isla knew exactly what her gran would have to say about it. It would go something like this: ‘What are you on about Isla? Trying to find yourself?’ There would be the same snorting noise her mother had just made (it was hereditary), followed by: ‘In my day we didn’t have time to think about anything other than how we were going to put food on the table. You young people seem to think it’s your God–given right to be happy all the time.’ Gran hated self–indulgence and so did Isla, usually. West Coasters didn’t analyse life. It wasn’t in their DNA. They were programmed to tough it out and get on with it. They were of mining stock, and it made them hard.
‘Oh Mum, don’t make me call her please! And anyway, it’s not so strange what I’m doing. Nobody even knew what a cell phone was when you were my age. Facebook was far, far away in a distant galaxy and people somehow survived without knowing what everyone was up to every single minute of the day.’
‘Yes, but that was in the dark ages when our fingers did the dialling, and we didn’t know any better. As for your gran, well I’ll let you off that one this time. I don’t want her getting all worked up about what you’re up to because I’m worried about her to be honest, Isla. She hasn’t been herself lately, not since she had that fall, but you know what she’s like. She keeps telling me she’s a box of birds for a woman of her years with a dicky hip and to stop fussing. No, I think it might be wise just to say that you need a spot of sunshine and that the cell phone reception isn’t very good where you’ve gone. I’ll tell her I’m not expecting to hear from you while you’re in America.’
‘Well you won’t so it’s not a lie, but thanks Mum. I just want a bit of peace that’s all.’ It was the wrong thing to say.
‘Oh dear God! Now you’ve got me worried Isla. You sound like you’re about to take up religion. Don’t you go joining any of those strange sects they have over there in the United States. You won’t find yourself by sitting cross-legged and making ‘mmm’ noises my girl.’
In the background, she heard her father yell out. ‘Ask her how she lost herself in the first place, Mary.’ A huge guffaw followed; he was a right card, her dad, Isla thought.
‘Mum, you had to twist my arm just to get me to go to Sunday school, remember? So I’m not about to turn my back on my worldly possessions indefinitely, sit around meditating under the stars and then having group sex, or anything like that.’
‘Isla! Watch your mouth please, remember who it is you’re talking to. Oh, and I do recall your Sunday school career because the only peace your dad and I ever got when you and Ryan were kids was on a Sunday morning. The Andersons were angels letting you join their family for church.’
The Andersons, Isla recalled were a zealous family who had lived at the end of their street. They had four kids of their own but still felt it was their duty to take two extra little lambs, Isla and Ryan, to the Lord’s house each Sunday. They’d given up on trying to bring Mary and Joe into the fold. Despite this being a normal telephone call and not Skype, Isla just knew her mum was elbowing and winking at her dad as she recalled what it was they used to get up to on their child-free Sunday mornings. She was spared from having to dwell on the sordid scene further by her mother’s next question.
‘But what about serial killers?’ Mary was a huge NCIS: Los Angeles fan who held her hand up to fancying the trousers off Chris O’Donnell.
‘I won’t talk to any strangers, Mum.’
‘Promise not to help any disabled men to their cars too. Think Ted Bundy, Isla.’
‘I promise.’
Her dad got on the phone next to ask her to buy him a Stetson hat and some cowboy boots. He had, he told her, always hankered after both. It was Isla’s turn to seek reassurance. ‘Dad promise me you’re not taking up line dancing or’ – and she shuddered at the image that flashed to mind – ‘planning on posing for a Mills and Boons cover targeting the octogenarian cowboy romance market.’ He assured her he was just wanting to fulfil his boyhood dream of looking like Clint Eastwood as he cruised around the mean streets of Bibury.
‘Not on a horse surely?’ she gasped.
‘No, in my new Ute and when I get the Harley done up, I’ll need to look the part at the Brass Monkey.’ Joe’s latest garage project was a Harley Davidson he was restoring. He lived for the day he could ride it down to the Brass Monkey Motorcycle Rally in chilly Central Otago, Mary on the back. Although, from what Isla could gather her mother wasn’t so enamoured with the idea of riding pillion. Her exact words were, ‘Blow that, I couldn’t be doing with helmet hair, and who wants to stand about all day in sub-zero temperatures drinking beer in a muddy field with a bunch of petrol heads talking about bikes?’
Isla decided she could live with her dad parading around in his Stetson and boots so long as Billy Ray Cyrus never graced his radio waves.
Two days later she sat with her head resting on the back of her aisle seat pretending to watch the air hostess do her demonstration. She was about to wing her way far, far away from the scene of her almost nervous breakdown. It gave her a profound sense of relief to know that in approximately eleven hours she would be in Los Angeles.
A few days after that, she’d be stretched out on a couch in a lovely, peaceful white room with one of those expensively yummy diffuser thing-a-me-bobs scenting the room with vanilla. No, scratch that, it would make her hungry. The smell of vanilla always conjured up images of her gran’s homemade custard squares. Vanilla was the secret ingredient. Gran was fond of secret ingredients. Lilies then. Lilies signified peace. Yes, there she’d be, talking about herself and inhaling the scent of lilies while whale’s sung softly in the background. Her therapist would be an older woman called Anne, a wise woman with a serious steel hair-do who nodded a lot and said, ‘I see.’ Wisely of course. After a fortnight’s worth of these daily couch visits, Isla would feel well-rested and clear-headed. She would have both direction and focus and be able to get on with the rest of her life.
Now, smiling to herself she re-read the brochure she’d printed off on to what to expect during her fortnight’s stay at Break-Free. She’d already read the most important bits, like what she should pack. It was comforting to know that in her carry-on bag she’d managed to squeeze two leisure suits and a ten-pack of Marks and Sparks knickers. Gran always reckoned you couldn’t go wrong in life if you had a clean pair of knickers with you at all times.