‘And it’s true on one level, but blimey, you could say that everything is the darkness in you, if you don’t want to do something. Don’t want to eat your greens? Ooh, it’s the darkness in you. Don’t want to go to school? It’s the darkness. Don’t want to snog me? Ooh, it’s the darkness in you.’
I laughed. ‘Yeah. Maybe.’
‘You have to admit, he could be intense.’
‘He was very persuasive.’
‘And some,’ said Joe. ‘I guess we were just into different things. Opposites. But neither works.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I did the pleasure thing; he did the opposite – the renunciation, denial thing.’
‘Me too, for a while,’ I said.‘Aunt Sarah said I seemed earnest. Kate said I’d become boring.’
Joe laughed.‘She’s not the most diplomatic, your cousin. But a few times when I saw you in the last week, I thought you looked . . . well, a bit down, like you were trying to be happy but weren’t, which is why I tried to warn you off getting pulled in too deep. I’ve seen Liam lay it on people too heavily before. But it’s his trip, not necessarily theirs. That’s all I wanted to say to you that day: don’t let him talk you into anything you don’t want to do for yourself. But Sensei, he was cool. He never tried to get anyone to do anything. He let people be, to find their own way.’
‘I won’t do anything I don’t want.’ I wouldn’t either. I felt free of Liam and, in a way, a little sorry him. He seemed sad when we said goodbye before I set off for the airport. I think he knew that, despite our mutual promise to keep in touch, that I wouldn’t – that, since Dad had been over, he didn’t have the same hold over me – like I’d been awoken from the spell he’d cast on me. ‘But what about you? Do you think you’ve found your way?’
‘I’m getting there. Mum and Dad gave me an ultimatum. Shape up or ship out. I chose to shape up. I’ve one more year to go and then hopefully college.’
‘Shape up or ship out. You never spoke about it. I thought . . . least . . . I thought . . . you —’
‘To tell you the truth, India, at the beginning of the holidays, I didn’t know if I was going to make it in Greece. Didn’t know if I was going to stay or take off. Some days I was well ready to split. I needed to spend some time alone, to get my head together. I never really appreciated it before, but that place your aunt and my mum have got going really is a good place to go —’
‘When you’re at a turning point,’ I finished for him.‘I met so many amazing people there who were at crossroads in their lives.’
‘Yeah. Me too. That’s what’s good about it. People can go there to escape. To think things over and then go back to their lives. What I don’t think is so good is when people run away and use the spiritual life as an escape from something. Those are the ones who Liam worms his way in with. Like he senses they’re vulnerable or something.’
‘Maybe. But they’ll soon learn that they carry whatever unhappiness that is inside of them with them – you can’t run away from it. Like with me, when I started meditating, that was when I realised what I’d been hiding from, I felt angry and lonely, but it was all inside of me – no getting away from it. You have to deal with it in the end.’
‘Yeah. Happiness is a state of mind, right? I reckon you can be in heaven or hell on a beach in paradise, or heaven or hell in a busy street in rush hour, depending on the state of mind you are in. No point in running away to some remote ashram, like Liam is always trying to get everyone to do. I think it’s because he doesn’t want to go alone!’
I laughed. ‘Yeah. Maybe. If he’s going to go on the lonely path, he wants to be sure there’s a whole load of people with him.’
Joe laughed too. ‘All being lonely together.’
‘Yeah. I’m going to keep doing the meditation, though – I just prefer to do it from my home in Notting Hill. I agree with you. I don’t think you do have to be in some so called spiritual place for it to work – before I left, Sensei said that the challenge is to live in the real world and be happy. He said we have to be like a lotus. It has its roots in muddy water and yet flowers above the water.’
‘I guess,’ said Joe. ‘Not getting pulled down into the muck. Nice image, though not one I’m going to be repeating to my mates any time soon. Can you imagine if I get off the plane spouting about being a lotus? They’ll think I’ve lost the plot.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘My mate Erin thought I had, and I suppose I did get a little evangelical with her at one point. She really thought I’d lost it.’
‘And had you?’
‘No. I hadn’t. Yeah, I went through some stuff. Like so many of us on the island, I was at a turning point too, but I think I know which way I’m going. Erin knows I’ve not joined the loonies, least not just yet. We talked before I set off for the airport, and she’s going to come over and visit some time in the autumn, I hope.’
We spent the rest of the flight chatting and, the more we talked, the more I liked him. Like Liam, Joe sounded as if he had thought deeply about things but unlike Liam, I didn’t feel that Joe was trying to get me to think like him. And he had a healthy sense of humour about it all. I hoped that he liked me too. I think he did as from time to time he’d nod his head, as if he was inwardly agreeing with what I was saying, and I think I did manage to get my thoughts across and be more myself and not the inarticulate idiot I’d been the first few times we’d met. By the time we got off the plane and collected our luggage, I felt like we had made a connection. A real connection. Like even though we’d only spent a little time together over in Greece, we’d shared something, a parallel journey.
‘Be weird to be back in Notting Hill,’ he said.
‘Yeah. And it’s all still relatively new for me,’ I said as we wheeled our trolleys through the Nothing to declare exit into the arrival hall, where there were lines of people awaiting passengers. Kate, I noticed, was diplomatically drifting along in front of us. ‘I was just starting to find my way round London before I was sent away.’
‘In that case, I’ll have to show you some of the good spots,’ said Joe. ‘I know where you are and I still want to see some of your paintings.’
‘Yeah, cool. Whenever.’ And then I couldn’t resist. ‘Hey . . . what birth sign are you?’
‘Aquarius. You?’
‘Gemini,’ I said, and I couldn’t help but grin because I know that they are both air signs and are really compatible.
‘Gemini. That’s the sign of the twins, yeah?’ asked Joe.
‘Or the schizophrenic. Depends on how you look at it.‘Then I stepped to my side, looked at the spot I’d just been in and said in a deep voice, ‘No, depends on how you look at it.’ Then I stepped back where I’d just been and said in a high voice. ‘No, depends on how you look at it.’
Joe laughed. ‘You’re mad,’ he said. Suddenly he stopped wheeling, put his hand on my arm and took a step towards me. As he looked into my eyes, I caught his scent, citrus clean, and I felt the butterfly flutter that I’d experienced the first time I’d seen him. He really did have beautiful eyes. Now that I was so close, I could see what an amazing colour they were – green with a circle of blue around the outside of the iris. I felt myself begin to blush. He smiled down at me and I closed my eyes and tilted my head up towards him. He was going to kiss me. I just knew it. It was then that I heard a familiar voice.
‘Kate! India!’
I opened my eyes and turned in the direction of the voice. There was Ethan, about a hundred yards away, pushing his way through the crowds, waving like mad.
I looked back at Joe, who shrugged and smiled. His eyes held mine and he leaned towards me again. I closed my eyes for a second time and waited for his lips to touch mine and . . . there they were. On my forehead! I opened my eyes and tried to hide my look of disappointment. I needn’t have worried. Joe was looking at someone over my shoulder. I turned to look. A handsome man in his late forties at the end of the line was waving at him.
Joe jerked h
is chin in his direction and took a step back from me. ‘My dad,’ he said.
I jerked my chin towards Ethan, who was giving Kate a hug. ‘My step-brother.’
Joe took another step back and we both burst out laughing.
And then we looked into each other’s eyes for one last time and just for a moment, it felt like we were the only people in the airport and I knew that he was feeling the same as me. Without breaking his gaze, he stepped forward and touched my hand. ‘Later,’ he said.
I thought I had never heard anything more romantic in my life.
‘Later,’ I replied. I managed to keep my face cool, but inside a part of me was doing cartwheels.
Joe began to steer his trolley towards his dad. ‘I’ll be in touch then, OK?’
‘OK,’ I said. I couldn’t wait to tell Erin the latest. That I am Queen of Cool. Oh yes. That I had had a proper conversation with Joe without me talking rubbish. That head lice and spilled yogurt were a thing of the past. And that we had done the eye magnet thing three times!
And then Joe was gone and Ethan had taken his place and swept me up in the Ruspoli bear-hug welcome.
‘You’re very quiet, India,’ said Ethan as we came off the M4 and headed towards Notting Hill. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah. Fine,’ I replied. Kate had nodded off again in the back of the car while Ethan and I had caught up on the latest. We’d swapped all the gossip and it was great to see him, it really was, but I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that everyone hadn’t come out to the airport to meet me, or Mum and Dylan at least. I tried to shake the feeling off, but it was there at the back of my mind. I didn’t say anything to Ethan though; I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t appreciate the fact that he’d come out to collect us.
The traffic was bad and London looked so grey and overcast after the light and sunshine of Skiathos. Everyone seemed to be in a rush, a mass of people earnestly going about their business. Watching them reminded me of something Sensei said in his last talk, which was that we have to learn to be human beings, instead of human doings who are always busy doing something and never stopping to just be. I made a mental note to make time to stop and be, by practising the meditation I’d been taught. To carry a little of what I’d learned in Greece into my London life.
After an hour, we finally drew up in front of the house and, a moment later, it started to rain.
Ethan told Kate and me to make a dash for the front door while he got our bags from the boot of the car. We did as we were told and, as soon as I stepped on to the porch, Mum flung open the door.
‘Kate, India. At last! I missed you so much,’ she said as she drew me inside and gave me a huge hug.
All my disappointment that it had only been Ethan at the airport evaporated away when I looked over her shoulder. There they all were, in a line, standing and grinning like idiots. My posse of relatives: Lewis, Dylan, Jessica, Lara and Eleanor. The adults seemed to be holding joss sticks or sparklers in their hands and, for some reason, the curtains in the hall were drawn which was strange because it was only five o’clock and still light outside.
Mum closed the door and Dylan went over to the light switch and turned it off, plunging the room into semi-darkness. He then scrabbled back towards the others.
‘In place, Dylan?’ asked Lewis.
‘In place. And a one, a two, a three.’
Suddenly, four flames shot from four lighters and four hands lit the sparklers. Mum, Lewis, Jessica and Dylan frantically waved their sparklers in the air. At first I thought they’d all gone mad, then I realised that they were writing something – it looked like two or three letters each.
Seconds later, the words WELCOME HOME appeared in the dark.
The message hovered in the air in golden letters for a few moments, then faded away to nothing. I closed my eyes for a second and it was still written there, like a snapshot imprinted in my mind.
There was a knock at the door, Mum switched the light back on and Ethan came in with the bags. Then Kate and I were gathered up into a rugby scrum of family. Mum, Lewis, Jessica, Dylan and Ethan with Lara and Eleanor hugging our knees.
I was home.
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