‘Don’t use that language.’
‘I’m a grown woman and I can say what the fuck I like.’
Then she hung up.
57
Lexi
When Lexi and Eleanor rowed to shore, Robyn was sitting on the beach, arms hooked over her knees, shoulders rounded.
Lexi lifted her sunglasses. Is Robyn crying?
The moment they beached, Lexi went to her. ‘Robyn?’ she asked, crouching on the warm pebbles. ‘What’s happened?’
Eleanor looked between the two friends and said something about needing shade before making for the villa.
‘I’ve just told my mum that I’m a grown woman and I can say what the fuck I like.’
‘Robyn Davies – about time!’ Lexi laughed.
‘I’ve never sworn at my mum.’ Robyn looked mortified – and a little elated. ‘She tells me off for saying knackered.’
‘You know I adore your parents, but they toe a pretty straight line.’
She nodded. ‘Maybe it won’t hurt to show them not every path goes in the same direction as theirs.’
‘Exactly!’ Lexi hugged her.
‘God, I’ve missed you,’ Robyn said, face pressed against Lexi’s. ‘I want you in my life more.’
‘Me too.’
When they let go, Lexi sat beside her, the two of them looking out over the calm water.
‘You know what else I want?’ Robyn said. ‘I want to be able to do this – come away more, remember the old me. I want to have time to hike, get outdoors, be with my friends.’ She paused. ‘Do I want too much? Is that the problem? That our generation of women, we want everything? The job, the baby, the adventure, love …’
‘It’s not the wanting that’s the problem. It’s the permission-seeking.’ Lexi scooped up a handful of pebbles, rolling their smooth warmth in her palms. ‘We’re always doing things because we think we should, or because it’s the right thing.’
‘Not you. You never did. You’ve always been brave. Wild.’
Lexi let the pebbles fall through the sieve of her fingers. ‘I’ve not been wild in the way you mean: free. I just partied too hard. That wasn’t being wild, it was hiding.’
Robyn’s brow furrowed.
‘All that stuff in my twenties – the drinking, the drugs, the sex, the parties – they were just fillers, numbing all the things I didn’t want to look at.’
‘You were unhappy?’
‘For a long time.’
Robyn blinked. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. I …’
‘Don’t be sorry. I hid it well. I’m pretty good at that.’ Lexi smiled, showing Robyn it was okay. She had wanted everyone to think she was happy, living her best life, because she needed to believe it, too. ‘I enjoyed dancing, but the lifestyle that came with it wasn’t good for me. I didn’t see that for a long time. If I hadn’t fractured my tibia, I’d probably still be doing it now.’ Lexi had always let life buffet her in one direction and then another, never plotting her own course.
Robyn said, ‘Isn’t it strange how sometimes the worst things that happen to us end up being the best.’
‘You’re right.’ She’d sunk into a dark place after the injury, losing all sense of purpose. ‘You were the one who suggested giving yoga a try.’
‘Only to stay supple while you were rehabilitating. I didn’t know you were going to retrain and become an instructor!’
‘I remember going to that first class thinking I’d hate it. Too slow, too much om, as Bella would say.’
‘But you loved it.’
‘The teacher said something that really resonated. He said, Yoga isn’t a performance. It’s only for you. Dancing was always a performance. My whole career was about imagining how the audience would see me. But yoga is the opposite. It’s only for you. It took time to really understand that. You know what I’m like – I wanted to be the best, bend the furthest, hold the posture for the longest.’
Robyn laughed.
‘Then I started taking a daytime class, and the other people were mostly retirees. I think it helped me lose my inhibitions about how I looked, or whether I was doing it right. It was just me and the mat.’
‘I’ve never heard you say that before.’
‘You know the pose at the end, Savasana, when you lie still? That’s my most challenging posture. The first few months, I’d lie there thinking about how hungry I was, or how my skin itched, or I wanted to fart, or what I’d watch when I got home.’