Cleo understood this only too well and nodded in sympathy.
That evening, a heavy mist rolled in from the sea, a thick silvery veil that turned the camp into a dreamscape. Lanterns glowed like halos and voices sounded muffled and disembodied.
After finishing her rounds, Cleo found Maya at the edge of the campsite, staring into the fog.
‘You should be resting,’ Cleo said gently.
Maya didn’t turn.
‘Do you ever wonder,’ she said, ‘who you are when everything you thought defined you has disappeared?’
Cleo stepped closer. ‘Every day.’
Maya gave a brittle laugh.
‘Before all this, I was someone. Maya Hughes, senior partner, award-winning strategist. People listened when I spoke. I had plans, directions, purpose. Then suddenly, gone. One meeting, one reshuffle and – pouf! I was nothing.’
‘You weren’t nothing. It was just a shock, that’s all. An understandable one. It knocked your confidence but it’s coming back. I can see that even if you can’t.’
‘I was completely and utterly lost.’ Maya’s voice cracked. ‘I tried to pretend I wasn’t. I booked this retreat, thinking a bit of yoga and sea air would fix me. But underneath it all I was angry, at them and myself and at the sheer cruelty of it.’
‘And now?’ Cleo said softly.
Maya took a deep breath. ‘Now Idofeel better. I feel alive again. But I’m terrified the feeling will vanish when I go home and I’ll slide back into despair.’
Cleo hesitated, then said, ‘You won’t, because now you know what it feels like to be important and useful, to have purpose, without having a big title to match. You’ve seen yourself through a different set of lenses.’
For a moment, Maya said nothing, then very quietly, she murmured, ‘I think that’s what frightens me most – that I might actually be enough, just as I am. I don’t have to try to be anyone else any more. It’s scary because I’ve spent my life trying to create this image of myself, of the person I wanted to be, and now it’s crumbled in front of my very eyes. It makes me feel naked like a baby, as if I’m starting life all over again.’
Cleo smiled, though her throat had a painful lump in it. ‘Me too. Welcome to the club.’
They stood side by side, watching the fog swirl and thin. Behind them, voices called faintly and a smell of cooking drifted through the air. Meat and vegetables, mixed with woodsmoke.
After a while Tash joined them, carrying three bowls of stew on a tray.
‘You two look like you’re trying to solve the mysteries of the universe,’ she said lightly. ‘Mind if I interrupt?’
‘Please do,’ Cleo replied. ‘We’re in danger of getting far too serious.’
They sat on the grass and ate in silence for a while, with the fog curling round them like a soft grey blanket.
Eventually, Tash said, ‘I had a dream last night. Alfie was there. We were sitting in our garden and he was reading the paper. He looked up and said, “You’re all right now, Tash, you can go on without me.”’
She gave a shaky laugh. ‘I woke up crying but I didn’t feel sad, not really. I felt like he was giving me permission. Does that make sense?’
Cleo reached out and took her hand. ‘It does. He’d be proud of you.’
Tash nodded, with tears in her eyes. ‘You know, I think I might actually sort of believe it.’
In the distance, a helicopter’s thrumming started up again, steady and insistent. Cleo found the sound strangely comforting, reminding her as it did that help was here and the world hadn’t stopped turning after all.
The morning after, the mist lifted and the campsite seemed to breathe again.
The air was fresh, washed clean by a light dawn breeze that carried the scent of salt and crushed rosemary.
Cleo, Tash and Maya stood side by side on the terrace just beyond the swimming pool, which had been badly damaged by the quake.
A large crack had appeared on the bottom and most of the water had drained away. Many of the tiles had also broken and some of the garden furniture had blown in and lay smashed up on the floor.
