The Perfect Retreat. Kate Forster
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said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s just taking his time.’
‘You’re living in dreamland, Willow. I don’t want another fucking baby, you hear me? Get rid of it!’
Willow had been shocked at Kerr’s brutality.
Kerr seemed fond of Poppy, but only because she was always in his face daring him to notice her. He ignored Lucian completely. Willow refused to believe Lucian was anything but perfect. An artist’s temperament, she told people when they asked why he wasn’t speaking yet.
So Kerr had moved out when she started to show with Jinty. For the last year, rumours had circled about the state of their marriage, but Willow refused to acknowledge there was trouble, putting on a brave face and keeping her Jade Jagger wedding ring firmly on her left hand. People loved Willow and Kerr; they were rock star royalty in Britain and Europe.
For a year, she refused to see the separation as more than just a hiccup in the marriage. Kerr would come home, she was sure of it … until the pictures of him and the sisters emerged. Then the media put an end to its speculation about the health of Kerr and Willow’s marriage, declaring him a bastard and a shit. Willow didn’t disagree with their assessment privately, but she maintained a stoic silence in public. Even though she hadn’t made a movie in years, she was still a popular figure back home in the US, and in the UK.
Kitty was her birth partner when she had Jinty, and Kerr never came to see the baby even though she sent him several messages. Willow wondered how she could have been so wrong about the man. How could you be married for years before you found out that your husband was a complete and utter loser, with no real desire for anything but bags of coke and blowjobs?
Willow realised that she was a liability to Kerr. The rock star lifestyle didn’t have much room in it for a wife, three kids and an environmentally friendly home. It didn’t help that Willow was still celebrated as one of the world’s most beautiful women.
Although she hadn’t made a film in six years, Willow’s style had kept her in the public eye. She was considered a classic American beauty: blonde, tall, svelte, with an air of entitlement and intellectual superiority. The glossy magazines revered her for being a stay-at-home mother to her children and applauded her for her grace under fire after Kerr’s indiscretions were made public.
The green and organic movements loved her for her dedication to their causes, and tabloids loved her and Kerr’s constant dramas for helping them to sell millions of copies around the world.
Willow’s celebrity still had currency, but even the thought of hustling again to get the next job made her tired. It wasn’t as easy as people thought to stay famous. There was always someone else on the horizon: the next Julia Roberts; the next Cameron Diaz; the next Willow Carruthers.
Willow emerged from her reverie as the car pulled up outside her house. She strode up to the front door, ignoring the lurking paparazzi.
As she entered the house, she heard Poppy playing SingStar at the top of her lungs. Putting down her keys carefully so as not to alert the house to her homecoming, she made for the stairs so she could run away to her bedroom and get her head together. But Lucian, who made up for his lack of speech with super-hearing, ran towards her and blocked her path. She smiled. ‘Hey Luce. What’s new?’ she asked.
Her beautiful son stared back at her and then turned and ran away. ‘Bye!’ she called after him.
She changed her mind about hiding and walked into her living room, decorated with minimalist chic and muted colours but with a rock and roll vibe with the edgy art on the walls. Poppy was wearing the purple Calvin Klein gown Willow had collected her Oscar in, with a red and black striped turtleneck underneath. The dress was hitched up using a ribbon from her box of hair accessories, and underneath Willow could see she was wearing her favourite Nike kicks that Kerr had sent Poppy from Los Angeles.
‘Hey pop star!’ called Willow. Poppy waved at her and kept singing along to some hideous song that Willow was unfamiliar with.
Willow pressed the intercom to the kitchen. ‘You there, Kit?’
‘Yep,’ came a crackling voice in return.
Willow kicked off her Jimmy Choos and padded downstairs to the kitchen, which was a work of art. Two professional ovens, two fridges, black stone countertops, and French crystal chandeliers over an enormous central bench. The bench was huge and had wonderfully comfortable stools alongside it. The family – Willow, the children and Kitty – sat here to eat their meals.
Kitty was feeding a messy Jinty her lunch and Jinty clapped at the sight of her mother. Willow had felt awful about Kerr and tried to lavish attention on Jinty when she had the time, to try to make up for the lack of her father in her life. Lucian seemed calmer with Kerr gone, Willow had noticed; it was Poppy who suffered. She played her father’s music in her room and always ran to answer the phone as soon as it rang. Her therapist said she was mourning her loss and would get over him eventually, but Willow wondered sometimes if Poppy would ever get over Kerr.
Kerr had been Willow’s big love – or so she thought. They had met just before she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in an arthouse film, and he had just taken the world by storm with his music. They were untouchable as far as the media was concerned.
When Willow got pregnant, they married quietly in Scotland, in the village that Kerr had grown up in. They were happy for a while and when Lucian was born, Willow was content to let Kerr take over everything else in their life, including their finances.
However the marriage turned sour faster than Willow could ever have imagined. Kerr wasn’t interested in Lucian and spent eight months of his first year away on tour. Poppy was conceived during the four months he was home and not holed up in his basement music studio, and Jinty was Willow’s last desperate attempt to try and get their marriage back on course.
When she had seen the photos of Kerr and the sisters she had not been shocked or angry, just scared for her and her family’s future in the public eye. She had known the relationship was over the minute he suggested she abort Jinty. She had spent the nine months of her pregnancy mourning him and their marriage, and now she was alone. Kerr had not applied for access and his lawyer had made no mention of it. Not that Willow missed him, but ‘A child needs its father,’ her psychotherapist mother had insisted over the phone from New York. ‘It’s a pivotal relationship.’
‘Well that depends, Janis,’ said Willow, ‘on whether the father is a complete fuckwit or not.’
‘Yes, Kerr has some problems, but he is still their father after all. They need a significant male in their lives,’ her mother’s nasal voice had protested over the line. Willow knew not to get into an argument with her.
Willow, Janis, and Willow’s father, Alan, also a psychotherapist, were never going to be on the same page. Born and raised in New York, Willow had been homeschooled. Her mother’s belief that Willow was the reincarnated spirit of Sarah Bernhardt meant she was enrolled in every drama class New York had to offer, but it was the only formal schooling she had ever had.
Janis and Alan were passionate activists for anything and everything. They lay in front of bulldozers, climbed trees and held sit-ins.
Janis saved everything. She called herself ‘Betty Budget’ and reused her baking paper. Willow was dressed in vegan shoes long before Stella McCartney had the idea. She was raised on a diet of legumes and literature.
Willow privately thought that growing up with Alan and Janis was almost like being in a cult. Nudity, hand-me-downs and self-proclaimed gurus filled the small apartment. Willow used to escape when she was old enough by saying she had a drama class or a workshop and wander up and down Fifth Avenue window shopping. She loved the clothes and the colours. The leather shoes – how she longed for leather shoes! There were so many shoes she wanted.
Once, she found a Big Brown Bag from Macy’s on the street. She carried her things to drama class in it until it tore from overuse. There was nothing better than shopping, she decided. Once she had enough money, she would spend, and then she would