‘I’ll think about it.’
That evening, I got the hotel receptionist to ask him if he was the Ranj Pindar.
He came with us.
Was it amazing?
It was in Pushkar that things went badly wrong between Liz and me. We were sitting reading in the courtyard of the hotel one morning (I was on a Wilbur Smith, and Liz had recently ditched the Bhagavad Gita in favour of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), when she suddenly leaped out of her chair and shrieked.
‘Oh my Gooouuuurrrrd!’
‘What?’ I said, but she ignored me, sprinted to the courtyard entrance, and grabbed a girl who was just arriving with her rucksack.
‘Fee!’ cried Liz.
The girl turned round and looked at Liz, blankly.
‘Fee – is that you?’
‘I’m Fiona, yes.’
‘It’s me – Liz.’
There was a long pause while the girl scrutinized Liz, then, realization dawning, she screamed, even louder than Liz had done, ‘OH… MY… GOOUUUUAAAARRRD! LIZZY!’
‘Fee!’
‘Lizzles!’
‘Fifi!’
‘This is just… Gouard!… unbelievable! How have you… I mean how long have you…? Bloody hell! Where do we start?’
‘We… have… got… sooooo much to talk about.’
They spent about ten minutes exchanging vowels, saying each other’s names over and over again with increasingly bizarre abbreviations, and admiring each other’s jewellery, before Liz got round to introducing me.
‘This is David, my travelling companion,’ she said.
Fee extended a hand and allowed me to wobble her clammy, limp fingers.
‘Charming,’ she said, ‘and this is my girlfriend, Caroline.’
It turned out that Liz and Fiona were best friends from the Ealing Junior String Orchestra, and had only seen each other once since Liz moved house, aged eleven.
Fiona went upstairs with Caroline to ‘freshen up’, promising to come back down for a ‘good old chin-wag’ in a few ‘minny moes.’ She eventually re-emerged and glided down the stairs with the filth cleaned off her face, and her greasy hair freshly brushed and tied back. Oddly, this made her look even worse than before.
‘It’s soooo good to see you,’ she oozed, squeezing Liz’s hand.
‘And such a coincidence.’
‘Amazing.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘I think Krishna must have wanted us to get together again,’ said Fiona, ‘otherwise it couldn’t possibly have happened.’
‘And… and… where have you just come from? How long have you been here?’
‘Caz and I have just finished three months at a leper colony in Udaipur, actually.’
‘WHAT!’ I said, dropping my book on the floor.
‘Yah. It was amazing.’
I moved my chair back a few extra inches, just in case.
‘You’ve just spent three months in a leper colony!?’
‘Well – I mean, they don’t call them that any more – it’s now known as the Udaipur Leprosy Rehabilitation Centre and Hospice – but it’s the same thing.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ! What d’you do that for?’ I said.
‘Oh, it’s amazing.’
‘Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do that,’ said Liz.
‘What?’
Liz gave me an evil look. ‘I didn’t bother mentioning it because I knew you wouldn’t understand. It’s always been a dream of mine, actually.’ She turned back to Fiona and sweetened up her face again. ‘Fee, darling, what was it really like? Was it amazing?’
‘Oh, absolutely. I’m a changed person.’
‘Of course.’
‘How?’ I said.
‘Just – my karma is completely different.’
I didn’t even want to know what that meant.
‘God, it sounds amazing,’ said Liz.
‘I mean, I’ve learned so much about myself… about healing… and stuff.’
‘How did you get a place there? I mean I’ve heard it’s quite competitive.’
‘I was lucky. One of mother’s friends runs a leprosy organization in London, and I was put to the head of the queue. I could put in a good word for you if you like.’
‘Oh, would you? That would be brilliant. I mean, I’m definitely coming here again, and next time I’d like to give something back to India in return for what it’s given me.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I wanted to do it. I mean I hadn’t been here before, but I knew this is what it would be like, and with my contacts in leprosy, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.’
‘But… isn’t it dangerous?’ I asked.
‘Don’t be silly. Leprosy is an entirely curable disease if you catch it at the early stages. And it’s not nearly as infectious as people think.’
‘But… it’s disgusting.’
‘You have to get over that. My first few days were awful, but now I feel more at home amongst lepers than I do with the able-bodied.’
‘But… did you cure people?’
‘No – our place was for people once they’ve reached the incurable stage. That’s what makes Udaipur so popular.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s fascinating. You get worse cripples there than anywhere else, and you have to wash them and assist their walking, and generally try and help them to live with their disease.’
‘Wash them?’
‘Yes – I got rather addicted to that.’
‘WHAT?’
‘It’s horrible at first, but once you get used to it, it’s an amazing feeling.’
‘Why?’
‘Because once you’ve done it, you feel so… good.’
‘How?’
‘You just feel like a good person. You feel like you’ve earned positive karma. You feel as if you’ve cleansed away all the horrible privileges that you were born with, and you’re stripped down to just a simple girl, scrubbing the back of a filthy, scabby, dying leper. It’s absolutely exhilarating.’
‘Oh, I must do it,’ said Liz. ‘I really must.’
‘But isn’t it, like, depressing?’
‘Oh no! Quite the opposite. The place is awash with optimism.’
‘But I thought you said they were all incurable.’
‘They are, but they’re all so charming. I mean, they’ve got nothing left, and they’ve usually been rejected by their families, and they’re about to die, but they can all still laugh and be positive about life.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘It’s true.’
‘That’s not possible.’
‘It’s true. You see, there’s an interview policy. The hospice is massively oversubscribed, and to get a bed there you have to pass an interview to prove that you’ve got the right attitude.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Positive. You have to be positive. I mean, if they were just sulking all the time, the girls who went would be miserable and wouldn’t learn anything.’
‘Are you saying that the patients are selected to suit the nurses?’
‘All hospitals are like that. I mean, if you don’t have the right disease, you can’t get in. If you aren’t ill enough, you can’t get in. This is just taking it one step further. And I tell you, they get better treatment there than they would for miles around. That’s why the atmosphere is so good. It’s simply a marvellous place.’
‘That’s sick.’
‘What – you think it would be better if they didn’t get any treatment at all?’
‘No, but I mean, selecting patients like that…’
‘You have to be selective. I mean, there are lepers growing on trees in this country.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Actually, between you and me, the government education programme is beginning to have an effect, and the supply’s been drying up a bit lately.’
At that point, Caroline joined us.
‘Hi-eey,’ she sung.
‘Hi-eey,’ sung Fiona in return. ‘Feeling better?’
‘A bit.’
‘Did you just do another one?’
‘Another three.’
‘Oh God. It’s getting worse, isn’t it?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Don’t you think it might be time to try a doctor?’
‘I thought we agreed that we don’t believe in doctors.’
‘Maybe we can find a homeopathic one.’
‘If you think so…’
‘Are you ill?’ said Liz, radiating concern.
‘Yeah, I can’t stop going to the loo, and I’ve lost a stone and a half.’
‘You’ve lost a stone and a half ?’ said Liz.
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, you lucky thing.’
‘I know, but I’m beginning to get a bit worried now because I keep on fainting.’
‘How come you don’t believe in doctors when you’ve just been working in a hospital?’ I said.
‘It wasn’t a hospital, it was a hospice,’ said Fiona. ‘And it had healers instead of doctors.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Doctors cure the disease. Healers heal the person.’
‘Who do you go to for the shits?’
Liz gave me a despairing look.
The from-a-height thing
The arrival of Fee and Caz heralded the beginning of the end. Liz started getting up every morning before breakfast to go and meditate by the lake with them, and under their influence, she started turning into a cross between Princess Anne, Mother Teresa, Gandhi and Russell Grant.
Meanwhile, Ranj seemed to be going off the rails. It all began to go wrong when he bought a chillum, which is basically a cross between a pipe and a traffic cone, designed for smoking vast quantities of hash. One chillum could probably keep the entire population of Barnet stoned for a week. Ranj, however, acquired the unusual habit of smoking an entire chillum on his own. For breakfast. Then another one for lunch.
Normally, it was impossible to get more than two puffs into a joint before some unknown scrounger would come and sit next to you and start a feeble attempt at a conversation in anticipation of a few drags. Ranj’s chillum, however, was so fearsome that it actually frightened people away. A busy courtyard of travellers could be almost cleared by the sight of a strangely boggle-eyed Indian sucking on one end of what looked like an industrial cooling tower having a bad day. The smoke it produced often appeared to be heavier than air, and most of the time Ranj sat contentedly in a puddle of fumes, rolling his eyes, swearing at imaginary members of his family and occasionally passing out.
Now I’m all in favour of drug abuse, but by this stage Ranj just wasn’t good company any more. He wasn’t company at all. As a result, most of my time in Pushkar was spent alone with Wilbur Smith.
Jeremy, meanwhile, had been ousted from the royal entourage by Fee and Caz. He didn’t seem to mind too much, though, and I almost thought I detected a certain relief that he was now being left alone by Liz. Whenever I saw him he was alone in the courtyard, reading a book called The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda.
Feeling briefly sympathetic towards him as a fellow cast-off, I asked him what it was about.
‘It’s a must-read,’ he said, in that pompous voice I’d almost forgotten.
Bye-bye sympathy.
‘Here – read the back,’ he said.
‘ “Don Juan projects a quality of experience beside which scientific exactitude stands in peril of paling into insignificance. – Theodore Roszak,” ’ it said.
‘Blimey. Sounds good.’
‘I’ll swap it for your Wilbur Smith when you’ve finished,’ he said.
‘All right.’
One morning, I was tucking into a banana pancake when Liz, Fee and Caz, just back from their dawn seance or whatever it was they did, came and joined me for breakfast (one boiled egg each, in case you’re interested).
Despite the fact that I would far rather have been left alone with Wilbur, they seemed to think that the courteous thing to do was to come and sit at my table, disturb my peace and talk unadulterated shit to each other without addressing a word to me.
I tried to blot them out and concentrate on the bananariness of my pancake, but the invasion was just too brutal.
‘Did you get there today?’ said Fee.
‘What – to nirvana? Are you crazy?’ said Liz.
‘No – not nirvana. To the other one. The one below nirvana but above tranquillity that I was telling you about. What’s it called again?’
‘Thingummy,’ said Caz.
‘That’s the one.’
‘I definitely got to tranquillity,’ said Liz.
‘Brilliant,’ said Fee. ‘I mean, that’s the basis. You’re well on the way now.’
‘I think it’s the first time I properly got there, actually.’
‘Oh, I’m so happy for you. How did it feel?’
‘It felt… um… kind of…’
‘Tranquil?’ I offered.
No response.
‘… as if… as if my body belonged to someone else, and I was just a guest in my own head, observing the world and myself from a height.’
‘That’s amazing,’ said Caz. ‘That’s more than tranquillity. I think that’s the next one up. I hardly ever get the from-a-height thing.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. You’re doing really well.’
Liz sighed.
‘I am soooo glad I bumped into you two,’ she said, touching each of them on the leg. ‘You’ve opened my eyes to… to… to the WORLD!’
Oh Christ, I thought. She really has lost it now.
‘My karma,’ she went on, ‘really has changed. I’m into a whole new realm.’
I couldn’t take this any more.
‘Karma?’ I said, slowly. ‘Karma? My fucking arse. Why don’t the three of you get a life?’
Silence descended on the table. Fee and Caz stared at me, their facial expressions utterly in tune with one another. Neither of them looked even the slightest bit angry with me, or even offended. They both, quite transparently, just felt sorry for me. In their eyes, I was now on a par with the lepers.
Liz, however, didn’t feel sorry for me. This much was obvious. I was on the receiving end of one of her looks. Not, in fact, one of her looks, but the look. This was a serious look. Translated into English it said, basically, ‘That’s it.’ I had reached the end of the road. She’d had enough of me.
‘Come on, Fee. Come on, Caz,’ she said.
They took their boiled eggs and moved to another table.
That afternoon, in a complex operation of ostentatious secrecy, Liz moved her mattress and backpack into Fee and Caz’s room.
That’s that, then
Dear Mum & Dad, –
Sorry it’s been such a long time since I wrote to you, but I’ve been having an amazingly busy time. I have now left the Himalayas and am in Pushkar – a beautiful and peaceful lakeside village buried in the deserts of Rajasthan – probably the most colourful state in India, famous for the brightly coloured saris worn by the women, and for the equally lurid spices on sale in its crowded markets. I’ve been having a very relaxing time here, even though things with Liz haven’t been going very well lately. We seem to hate each other’s guts at the moment, but I’m sure things will pick up soon,
lots of love,
Dave
I was sipping my afternoon tea – one of many afternoon teas – in the hotel courtyard a few days after Liz’s defection, when I heard the sound of screeching tyres coming from immediately outside. There didn’t seem to be many cars in India, and hardly any in Pushkar – let alone ones that could get up enough speed to be able to screech to a halt – so I looked up from my book to see what was going on.
A fat man with a moustache, dressed in jacket and tie, appeared in the courtyard at a run, looking stressed. He examined us all one by one, then, when he saw the blob in the corner that use
d to be Ranj, he started howling.
The howl brought three more people into the courtyard, one of whom was a woman in a sari. She took one look at Ranj, then screamed and fainted. The other two people were youngish guys in jeans and designer T-shirts.
‘Fuckin’ell man,’ said one of them. ‘You fuckin’ twat.’ I recognized the language as deepest Putney. This was obviously a brother. He grabbed Ranj by the arms, but Ranj refused to support his own weight, so the second young guy approached and took him by the other arm. Together, they frogmarched him out of the courtyard.
Ranj didn’t particularly seem to wake up through the whole episode until I heard his voice wafting in from outside, saying ‘Wait… Wait… Wait… WAITIJUST WAIT.’
Ranj then reappeared, on doddery legs, and walked up to me.
‘I want you to have this,’ he said, putting his chillum into my hand, and closing my fingers around it.
‘Thanks, man,’ I said.
He gave me one last don’t-mind-me-Pm-just-off-to-the-gallows look and tottered away, into the arms of a waiting brother.
The pair of them disappeared, and the car’s engine started up. It then cut out, and I heard the sound of a car door slamming and an argument. All I could make out was someone saying, ‘He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it.’
There was a lull for a second, then the bigger of the two brothers appeared in the courtyard, marched up to me, grabbed me by the shirt, pulled me out of my chair, and slammed me against the wall.
‘Are you his dealer, then?’ he shouted. ‘ARE YOU? DID YOU DO THIS TO HIM?’
‘No, man. I’ve never dealt in my life,’ I stammered, suddenly convinced that I was about to be killed.
‘DID YOU SELL THAT SHIT TO HIM? DID YOU?’
‘I d-d-didn’t. I s-swear to God.’
‘I SHOULD FUCKIN’ KILL YOU!’
‘You’ve got the wrong person. I swear on my life. On my mother’s life.’
He let go of me, and snarled.
‘Scum. You fucking scum.’
Then he spat on my shoes, and left.
The hotel receptionist shouted something at him in Hindi, and in response he tossed a few banknotes on to the ground as he disappeared around the corner.
Are You Experienced? Page 9