“Roughing it is fine. Sharing a room with you guys is fine. But this?” She gestures at rough, cherry-red wooden walls and the row of mattresses on each side of the room. “It’s like a sheep shed, piling all the women into one room together. God knows who we’re sharing with.”
“Daisy …” I move to put an arm around her then change my mind. The best way to deal with her when she’s in this kind of mood is to ignore it. She’s barely said a word since Isaac left us in the meditation room – not when Cera showed us the rustic dining room, the basic kitchen, the yoga patio, the orchard, the vegetable patch, the goat enclosure, the chicken pen or the massage huts – and she was the only one of us not to squeal with excitement when we were led down to the river and the waterfall. The only time the vaguest flicker of interest registered on her face was when we returned to the house and Cera gestured to the walkway to the right and said it led to the boys’ dormitories. It vanished when we were led to the left. It’s astonishing, really. We travel halfway around the world to one of the most breathtakingly beautiful mountain ranges in Asia, and she’s in a huff because Isaac didn’t flirt back with her. I’d laugh if she wasn’t my best friend.
“I bet the other women snore,” Daisy says. “And smell.”
“Well, you’ll be in good company, then,” Al says. “I couldn’t sleep for all your farting and snoring last night.”
“Sod off, Al,” Daisy says, but the edges of her lips twitch into a smile. She yanks her sleeping bag from its sheath, lies down on top of the mattress and starts rummaging around in her backpack. “Who fancies a shot of lemon voddy? I think we’ve earned it.”
Everyone holds up a hand.
“Have you seen this?” Leanne waves the welcome pack in the air. “There are three yoga sessions a day, right after meditation. I’m thinking I’ll do two a day – one in the morning, one in the evening.”
“Why the hell would you want to do that?” Al licks the Rizla, rolls the cigarette over itself and sticks it behind her ear. “Unless you want to add supremely bendy to your advert.”
“What advert?”
“The one you put in phone boxes in London.”
“Oh, ha ha. Seriously, are any of you up for meditation or yoga?” Leanne persists.
“Nope.” Al shakes her head. “I intend to sit on my arse and do precisely nothing for two weeks.”
“Daisy?”
Daisy pours vodka into the bottle lid and knocks it back. She winces then looks at Leanne. “Did you say something?”
“I asked if you want to try a bit of meditation or yoga.”
“Maybe.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Do many men do yoga? Does Isaac?” She glances at me. It’s only a split-second look but it’s enough to confirm my suspicions about her bad mood.
She squeals as a balled pair of socks hits her square between the eyes.
“You are SO boring!” Al chucks another pair of socks at her, this time clipping Daisy’s left ear. “Men, men, men, men, men. Give me a shot of that vodka then let’s go down to the river. Anyone up for skinny-dipping?”
“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” Al says as she stirs a pot of dahl so vigorously that hot, gloopy lentils threaten to overflow the rim of the saucepan.
“Because someone” – Daisy fake-glares at Leanne – “thought it would be nice to help out with the community. At five o’clock in the bloody morning.”
Everyone laughs, including Leanne, and I swipe at my eyes with my forearm. They’re smarting so much I can barely see for tears. Al and I have been chopping onions for the curry, and the mountain of vegetables in the sack on the floor doesn’t seem to be shrinking.
Three days have passed since we first arrived at Ekanta Yatra and we’ve spent the majority of our time outside, reading or sleeping in the many brightly coloured woven hammocks that hang from the plum and walnut trees in the orchard, doing yoga on the patio to the rear of the main house, and daring each other to stand in the waterfall for as long as possible, laughing and screaming as the icy cold water thunders onto our heads and freezes our bodies. It’s come as a shock to actually do some “work” again.
“This can’t all be for breakfast?” Al looks imploringly at Rajesh the chef, who’s sitting on a squat wooden stool peeling potatoes. His knees are spread wide, potato peelings sprinkling the top of his enormous stomach like hundreds and thousands on a cupcake.
“Yep. Takes a lot of food to fill thirty people.”
I put down my knife and wipe my face with the hem of my T-shirt. With no air conditioning, a window that’s so rotten it only opens a fraction of an inch, and curry-scented steam filling the room, it’s sauna-hot in here. Raj was already in the kitchen when Shona, one of the community members, shepherded us in. After Raj told us what he wanted us to do, he squatted down on the stool and started on the potatoes. This is the first time he’s spoken since, and the sound of his voice makes me relax, just the tiniest bit. There’s something very disconcerting about chatting away with someone sitting silently beside you, observing everything but not saying a word. There’s a lot of that here – community members drifting around, carrying bundles of God knows what from room to room, cleaning, meditating in random places, pausing in doorways. They rarely speak to us but they’re always watching, always listening. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re waiting for us to do something, but what, I have no idea.
“And you do this every day?” I ask. “Work in the kitchen?”
“Of course. It’s my job.”
“You wouldn’t rather be out in the garden, tending to vegetables, getting fresh air?”
Raj drops a peeled potato into the bucket at his feet and looks up at me, the knife dangling loosely from his hand. “I just told you, Emma. It’s my job.”
A bead of sweat appears in his hairline. It rolls down his forehead and disappears into the thick, bushy arch of one eyebrow. His nostrils flare, pulsing as though to a silent beat, as he continues to stare at me.
“Can we get some water?” Daisy asks, just when I can’t bear the weight of Raj’s gaze a second longer. “I’m gasping.”
“There’s water in the tap.” He gestures towards the sink. As he glances away, I feel unshackled.
“Ewwww.” Daisy wrinkles her nose. “You haven’t got any bottled stuff, have you?”
“Nope.” Raj shakes his head. “We’re running low on supplies. Ruth and Gabe, two members of the community, have gone to Pokhara to stock up. They should be back soon.” The tiniest of smiles lifts a corner of his mouth then vanishes. “Apparently.”
Standing outside one of the huts, I stifle a yawn. We were just preparing to crawl into our sleeping bags and pass out after kitchen duty finally ended, when Cera drifted into the girls’ dorm and told us that the huts had been prepared for our complimentary massages. None of us were going to turn that down, no matter how tired we were, so Al, Daisy and I dragged ourselves outside and down to the huts. Leanne stayed behind to attend a talk Isaac was giving on detoxing your mind. I think Al’s exact words to describe that decision were “fucking mental”.
“Hi, Emma.” Kane greets me as I yank open the wooden door to the hut and step inside. Not that there’s far to step. The hut can’t be much more than seven feet long and four feet wide. Everything is white – the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the pile of blankets fashioned into a narrow bed in the centre