“Nice deep breaths,” I say. “Slowly. Don’t panic. In … and out … in … and out … Relax your shoulders. You’re tensing them because you’re scared. Relax your shoulders and exhale for as long as you can, then a nice deep breath in again.”
I can hear Daisy’s voice in my head as I speak, saying the exact same words to me a couple of months ago when I was in the grip of a panic attack. We were in a crowded cinema, people filling every seat, and it was hot, really hot. We were watching a thriller Daisy wanted to see and each time the main character jumped, I jumped. Each time she saw shadows where there weren’t any I saw them too. As her world grew smaller and more claustrophobic, so did mine, and I became convinced that there wasn’t enough air in the cinema for everyone to breathe, and I had to get out.
“Everything okay, miss?”
Our guide nimbly picks his way back down the mountain towards us, his tiny rucksack strapped to his back. Shankar’s weather-beaten face is as lined as befits a man in his late forties, but he moves like a man twenty years younger.
“She breathe okay?” he asks as he reaches us.
“No. She’s not. I think the altitude might be affecting her asthma. Maybe we should go back down.”
“No!” Leanne says so loudly I jump. I hadn’t realised she and Daisy had joined us too.
“I’m sorry?”
“We … we should carry on,” she says, the base of her neck colouring. “It can’t be much further to the retreat, and they might have a doctor or a nurse there.”
“But if the altitude is making her asthma worse, the best thing for her to do is go down again,” Daisy says.
I nod in agreement. Thousands of people do this trek every year, but occasionally people die. None of us wants to be part of that statistic.
“I still think we should continue to the retreat,” Leanne says. She glances from Al to the steps, as though she’s desperately hoping Ekanta Yatra will magically appear before us. “We’ve come this far. It would be such a shame to give up now. You can make it a little bit further, can’t you, Al? We can take it slowly, take lots of breaks. And like I said, I’m sure there will be someone there who can help.”
Daisy and I exchange a look. Normally, Leanne would be the first to put her best friend’s health before everything and charge down the mountain to get help. And then there’s the fact that she’s disagreeing with Daisy. That never happens.
“Yeah, yeah, we heard you,” I say, “but conjecture isn’t going to magically conjure up a nebuliser, is it? Are there doctors and nurses up there or not?”
Leanne shrugs. “I don’t know. Probably. There are a lot of people there from different professions, and—”
“We’re going back down.” Daisy holds up her hands. “We’re not gambling with Al’s health. Come on.” She gives Leanne a small shove. “Let’s go.”
“No!” Leanne twists sharply to one side and, for one heart-stopping second, I think she’s going to hit Daisy. “You can go back down if you want, but I’m—”
“Could everyone please stop talking about me as if I’m dead, or something!” Al steps out from beside me and holds up her hands. “I am here, you know. Seriously, I appreciate the concern, guys, but no one is going to miss out on the holiday of a lifetime just because I’m a twenty-a-day lard arse with crap lungs and a heavy load.” She pats the roll of flesh that overhangs the waistband of her black combat shorts.
Daisy shakes her head firmly. “Nice speech, but no one loves a dead hero.”
“Fuck off, Dais!” Al laughs then looks at Shankar. “How much further have we got to go? Like, how many more hours?”
He shrugs. “Thirty minutes, maybe forty?”
“All right, then.” Al reaches down for her backpack but Shankar grabs it first. There’s a stand-off as they each hold a strap and lock eyes, urging the other to back down. Normally, there’s no way Al would ever let a man do something she’s capable of doing herself.
“Miss. I carry. You breathe.” There’s a quiet tenacity to the way Shankar speaks, and although Al shakes her head, I can see her resolve waver. Her high colour has paled but she’s still breathing shallowly.
“I’ll take yours,” she says, reaching for the smaller rucksack on the guide’s back. “We can swap, but only until I’ve got my breath back. Five minutes, ten minutes tops.”
Forty-five minutes later, Shankar shrugs off Al’s backpack, flipping it onto the ground as though it’s a pillow, and points to the building down a small track to our left. “We are here.”
Rising out of the white blanket of cloud that surrounds us are three separate houses, linked by fenced walkways, their three-tiered roofs silhouetted against the landscape like Chinese temples. The window frames are painted in shades of red, ochre and turquoise, and stone steps lead up to an enormous wooden door on the front of the main house. A high wall runs around the perimeter of the grounds, a large wooden gate closing the retreat off from the world. Prayer flags flutter in the wind and the sound of laughter drifts across the breeze.
“Wow.” I unbuckle my own backpack, twist my body sideways so the pack drops to the ground, lean back and groan with pleasure and relief as I press my shoulder blades together.
Daisy skips towards Leanne, grips her arm and presses her cheek against the top of her shoulder. “Oh, my God, it’s even more gorgeous than it looked on the website.”
Leanne grins at the compliment, drops her backpack and wraps an arm around Daisy. “Told you! And you all thought I was going to bring you to some kind of shack.”
“Actually,” says Al, climbing the last few steps, “I thought we’d be sitting in a paddy field, meditating for twelve hours a day before being force-fed mungbean sandwiches.”
“The paddy fields are back down the mountain,” Leanne says, pointing. “Off you go!”
“There’s the river!” Daisy lets go of Leanne and points excitedly into the distance. I strain to see through the trees then spot something blue and shimmery. “Is that the waterfall I can hear?”
“Probably.” Leanne reaches for her backpack and hauls it back onto her shoulders. “Come on, they’re expecting us.”
Daisy squeals and hurries after her as she makes her way down the track. I wait for Al to catch up. She slips Shankar’s rucksack off her shoulders and hands it to him. He slips it on effortlessly.
“Thank you.” She holds out her right hand. “I couldn’t have made it up here without your help.”
Shankar shakes her hand while simultaneously touching his left hand against his right forearm as a sign of respect. “No problem, miss.”
“For you.” Al reaches into her pocket and pulls out a hundred rupee note. “Please.” She presses it into his hand.
He accepts the money with a smile and tucks it into the little leather wallet attached to his belt, then turns to go back down the mountain.
“You’ll come in?” I say. “The least we can do is offer you a sandwich and a cup of chai. I’m sure the owners won’t mind.”
The smile slips from his face. “No, thank you.”
“Please, you can’t walk all the way back down again without a break. It wouldn’t be right.”
His gaze flicks to the left, to the retreat at the end of the track. “No.” An emotion I can’t read flickers across his face, and then it’s gone.
“But …” The words fall away as Shankar turns on his heel and, without