Pete peered over his laptop. He had a mischievous look in his eyes. ‘And so do I.’
No you don’t, I thought. Although I’d known both of them through the ups and downs of most of my relationships, I’d had a few secret liaisons they knew nothing about.
‘But maybe there have been others that we don’t know about,’ Marcia continued as if picking up on my thoughts. ‘Was there anyone you felt that feeling of familiarity with that Saranya Ji spoke of? Think, Bea. Someone you let go and always regretted that it didn’t work out?’
‘All of them. All of them were my soulmates. I regretted that it didn’t work out with all of them. Happy?’
‘No, don’t forget I lived through most of it with you, which is why I care so much.’
‘Er … there was that bloke Michael,’ Pete said. ‘The musician. You were pretty keen on him as far as I remember.’
I ignored him.
‘Yes, he was the first one who came to my mind,’ said Marcia.
‘Then you’ve both forgotten what happened with him. Anyway, what qualifies as a lover? I had a crush on my art teacher, Mr Doyle, at school – loads of us did, remember Marcia?’
Marcia wrote down the name. ‘Course, he was gorgeous; half the school was in love with him. OK. We can make a first-division list and a second. Crushes can go on the second because they might be people that you recognized but didn’t get to act out the feeling with.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘OK, then you can add Idris Elba, George Clooney and Colin Farrell to that list. I think I’ve always known I belonged with one of them. Be great if one of them turned out to be my soulmate.’
‘Start at the beginning, Bea. First love ever,’ said Marcia.
‘Jack.’
‘Jack? I don’t remember him. How old were you when you met him?’ She seemed peeved that there was some part of my life that she didn’t know about.
‘Five.’
‘And Jack?’
‘He was a puppy when we got him, so he was probably about six weeks old.’
Marcia sighed. ‘Oh that Jack, course I remember him. He was a dear old thing. I suppose it’s vaguely possible your soulmate might have returned as a dog.’
I laughed again. ‘You really are mad as a hatter, Marcia. But I did love Jack. I truly did. He was my best friend and constant companion. I was heartbroken when he died.’
‘I remember. We buried him in your parents’ back garden.’
‘And I was heartbroken again when old Boris died, and Caspar.’
‘Ah, we all loved those dogs,’ said Pete. ‘There’s nothing as sad as losing a beloved pet.’
‘I’ll look into whether animals reincarnate as animals or if ever they cross over to being a human,’ said Marcia.
‘What planet are you on, Marcia? I’m not even entertaining this, not for a second.’ I gave Pete an exasperated look. He grinned back at me and went back to his screen. ‘I’m not sure if I even believe in reincarnation, animals or human. There’s no real proof is there?’
‘Oh yes there is,’ said Marcia. ‘I’ve read loads of accounts of people who have recall of past lives; people who have recollection of places that they’ve never been to in their current life and they remember specific details of the people that they used to be, who they used to know and where they lived. You should look it up. There’s loads on the Net.’
‘Think rationally for a moment, Marcia, that is if you’re capable of doing that. These places that people remember – but have never been to – are probably from movies they’ve seen, or the Internet, or travel programmes. We’re exposed to so much these days, these reincarnation-believers probably trot out something that they saw online but don’t remember having taken in. Our brains are stuffed full of information.’
‘You can believe what you want, Bea, and I can be rational, but I want to remain open-minded too. There are many things we don’t understand with our limited brains.’
‘True. And it’s not that I’m not open-minded, I’m just saying many things have a rational explanation. OK, let’s say we do reincarnate, there has to be good reasons why people don’t remember who they were. Imagine you were some great artist or writer, someone famous now, in this century, but at the time you died in poverty. Imagine you were one of the Brontë sisters or Oscar Wilde or Vincent van Gogh? You come back in this life, then remember creating your past works, but no one will believe you. You see your books selling by the millions. You hear that your paintings go for billions. You watch as your books are made into TV adaptations or movies. How painful would that be? So, think about it, Marcia: if we do reincarnate, the fact that we don’t remember past lives is probably a self-protection mechanism to stop us all going mad or getting angry or bitter and dwelling on how it’s different this time round.’
Pete looked up from his laptop. ‘Good point, Bea.’ He sighed. ‘Not having much luck on here. I need more time.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘It can’t possibly go anywhere, so why waste your time? Like, what if Saranya Ji had told me that I used to be Jane Austen? And I believed her and went to her publishers saying, oi, you owe me years and years of royalties. I’d be locked up. No. I reckon focus on the present, this life, and make the best of it. Isn’t that what all the great teachers say anyway? Be here now and all that good stuff. If souls evolve, then surely this present life has to be the best one yet. Would you really want to go back and relive past struggles and lessons? Never mind a past life, think about this one. I wouldn’t want to go back to some parts of it, like I wouldn’t want to relive parts of my teenage years again or some of my relationships. Surely it’s best to move on.’
Marcia looked thoughtful. ‘OK, I understand that, but we can still learn from the past, can’t we? Especially if we’re repeating a mistake or a pattern like Saranya Ji said you were.’
‘No. I think it’s best to leave the past in the past and that if I am to learn anything then it’s that I have to move on, move forward, create a new pattern.’
I could see that I’d thrown Marcia with my argument and she was considering what I’d said. ‘Hmm. Maybe that’s true, but what if you can’t move forward because you’re stuck in a pattern of thinking so sabotaging your relationships? I think this is exciting and I still think we should look into finding Billy Jackson. Who’s next on your list of past lovers? And don’t give me any more pets.’
I knew I’d have to humour her. When Marcia got the bit between her teeth, there was no letting go. ‘OK. First love, er … that would have been Andrew Murphy.’
‘And where was this? In case I need to track him down.’
‘Manchester. I was ten. He was in my class in junior school, just before I met you.’
‘Hold on,’ said Pete, and he cocked his ear to listen to an announcement. ‘Come on, looks like our flight is on time after all. We’d better go to the departure gate.’
Saved by the bell, I thought as we gathered our hand luggage and made our way to our plane.
*
Soon we were winging our way above the clouds back to London and Mumbai was receding in a haze of dust beneath us. Luckily Marcia and Pete’s seats were across from me on the aisle so Marcia couldn’t question me further. I did a few puzzles for a while then my eyelids grew heavy and, as I began to doze, my thoughts turned back to my early years.
Andrew Murphy. I hadn’t thought about him in years, decades.
He’d lived round the corner from us in Manchester, in a Victorian house on the main road near the Golden Lion pub. I liked it because it