After Everything

by Suellen Dainty

  ‘Why not? Catholics know where the pope is,’ said Sandy. ‘And Anglicans know where the Archbishop of Canterbury is. Why aren’t you allowed to know where Rosheme is?’

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter where he is,’ Matthew said, skipping stones down the path. ‘What he says might be more important.’

  Emily rolled her eyes. ‘We sense his essence and study his texts. He’s with me through them. Shall we go? I can take you inside, but not all the way.’

  They climbed into the caves, bending over to squeeze through the entrance. Inside it was dark, not fully black, but an intense grey gloom. Sandy couldn’t see anything. Gradually his eyes adjusted. They were in a small space with dripping walls and a slippery stone floor. It was barely high enough to stand up. Along one side was a rough ledge crowded with candle stubs and small offering bowls of mouldy rice. At one end were two openings to smaller tunnels. It stank like a sewer, but Sandy didn’t want to think about that.

  The entire country stank as far as he could see. Everywhere he turned were piles of shit and rubbish. Children played in it, laughing as they threw cans to each other in air thick with smoke from smouldering bonfires. Adults fossicked through the rubble and dirt as though they were about to find a life-changing stash of rupees under a heap of cow dung.

  His foot squelched on something soft. He could feel it, thick and cold, oozing above his sandals, through his toes. Emily stood still, hands clasped, eyes closed and head lowered, nourished by some light only she could see. Matthew was beside her. He took her hand and they moved closer together.

  Watching them, Sandy was besieged by a savage loneliness. He wanted to join his children but was paralysed by indecision. He scraped some of the muck off his foot against a rock.

  In the gloom, Emily turned to him. ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Dad?’ she breathed. ‘So beautiful, can’t you feel the peace and holiness here?’

  ‘I might be able to if the place didn’t stink and wasn’t so filthy,’ he snapped. He knew he sounded like one of those demented keep-your-house-clean people on television, scurrying around in lurid rubber gloves, searching out life-threatening bacteria in the kitchen sink. But he couldn’t stop.

  ‘Why don’t you and your friends come up here and get rid of all this rubbish everywhere?’

  He kicked a sodden plastic bag. Emily was furious. ‘Can’t you try, just for once, can’t you try to see something apart from material things?’

  ‘I am trying,’ he snarled. ‘But I can’t see anything except what is in front of me and what I see is a great big pile of shit.’ He could hear his voice, harsh and bumping around the dim cave, furious at the waste of his life, that nothing he could do or had done was good enough or true enough, and that his children saw salvation and sacred peace in a place where he saw nothing.

  Chapter 43

  They squeezed through a hole in the hedge opposite the house and began climbing the narrow path. Robert went ahead, holding back branches for her, waiting on the bends, a perfect gentleman. Below them the town shimmered in the evening sun. She followed Robert in silence, winding up through the trees. The path was wider now and they walked abreast, Penny so aware of him beside her, the glint of the blond hairs on his arm, the smattering of freckles across his hands. So elegant, those hands with their long fingers, nails clipped clean and short with pale moons showing at their base.

  She was sure the cave was to the left of the path, at the end of a narrow trail. Nigel had taken her once, soon after she had moved here. But she couldn’t find the trail. ‘I know the cave is here somewhere,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I’ve taken the wrong turning. Maybe we should have crossed over to the next valley.’

  ‘I’m not too bothered,’ said Robert. He sat down on a broad boulder and motioned her to join him. She perched on a curved edge, feeling the sweat from the steep walk begin to dry against her skin. When they first met in the café, Robert’s face was pale. Now it was deeply tanned and his hair had lightened from the sun and grown, curling against his shirt collar.

  ‘One cave is really just like another. Dark, a bit smelly for my liking. And I’ve a confession to make.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t look so alarmed. It’s only that I don’t like caves. I don’t like being in the dark, feeling hemmed in.’

  ‘This wasn’t a big dark cave with a dragon inside.’ Penny laughed. ‘It was more like a shelter with these incredibly intricate wave-shaped rocks. It’s what you might imagine once was a cave. But, just as well I can’t find it. A lucky escape for you. So, let’s go. Roast chicken awaits us.’

  Half an hour later, they were sitting in the courtyard with a glass of wine, their walking boots leaning together like old friends on the step and the chicken resting in the kitchen. The day’s heat had disappeared. They would need a fire later on.

  Robert was a good man to cook for, hearty and appreciative. ‘So good,’ he said, chewing on a chicken leg. Potatoes, carrots, spinach and salad; he ate everything with equal enthusiasm and wiped his plate clean with bread.

  ‘How is your work going?’ she asked, relieved about the food, still anxious about the rest of the evening.

  ‘Nearly done. Normally when I’ve finished something, I’m exhausted by the entire subject. But with Montaigne, I’m not. I think it’s because he was so modest and yet so brilliant. He didn’t propose any theories, he wasn’t a great advocate of reason and he didn’t want to preach to anyone. So what’s not to like?’

  And then without pausing, he said, ‘I could say the same about you.’

  She was confused. ‘I’m no philosopher.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he replied, looking up from his wineglass. ‘I meant, what’s not to like.’ He was the one who blushed this time, just a little.

  They finished their cheese and walked through to the sitting room. The fire had gone into a sulk during supper. Penny fiddled at the grate until it was a cheering blaze again. They must have talked for a bit, but she never recalled about what. Did they discuss the comparative virtues of London and New York, his work, her life? Did they talk about visiting the big caves, the famous ones near Les Eyzies? Music? Novels? Cinema? They can’t have not spoken at all, crossing and uncrossing their legs on that sofa which was just that bit too deep, looking at the fire. They must have said something.

  All she remembered was both of them standing at the same time and moving closer together until she felt the warmth of his chest against her and his hands soothing her shoulders and back as they embraced. She remembered a small awkwardness before her body softened and bent towards him.

  On the landing, they stopped for a first tentative kiss. She had forgotten how soft a man’s mouth could be, how if you stood very still, you could feel the exact point where the delicate skin ended and the rougher bristly parts began. She had forgotten how pleasurable that was. They moved to the bedroom door and kissed again. His fingers traced the nape of her neck. Her mouth opened at the shock of it, all her nerves leaping at his touch as she tasted the warm secret skin of his inner lip.

  He began to undress her. She tried to stop him, to scuttle off to the bathroom and emerge in some kind of enveloping gown, but he held her, all the while kissing her neck and mouth. She worried about her crepe-like skin, the bulge at her waist. His body felt so lean and muscled by comparison. The bedroom was dark, but still lit by the hall light. As they kissed, she opened her eyes and saw him gazing at her. What did he see? A frowsy grey-haired woman, with the beginnings of a wattle neck and drooping breasts?

  Now she was back in more familiar self-deprecating territory. He probably wouldn’t have looked twice at her if they’d met in New York. Here in this French provincial backwater, pickings were slim. And yet she closed her eyes and felt his mouth move to her forehead, then his chin rest on her head. There was the smell of wine on his breath, fresh sweat and, above that, the musky rose of the potted geraniums on her dresser. Everything was still. She heard him breathing. She felt his heart beat.

  ‘You know something,’ he said quietly. ‘
I’m nervous too.’

  The relief of his words. She forgot about herself and reached out to him. They kissed again. There was the gentle probe of his tongue and then the slow pull of his arms drawing her down onto the bed. They finished undressing each other, giggling at the clunk of his belt as his trousers fell onto the floor, the soft plop of her shirt on top of his boxer shorts. His hand brushed her breast. She felt herself quicken and she teased the hairs at his navel. They moved towards each other like familiar lovers.

  Chapter 44

  Emily and Matthew pushed through the hotel door the next morning. Sandy jumped up and hugged them both so hard they wriggled out of his arms. He couldn’t help it.

  ‘Sorry for my outburst,’ he said. ‘Let’s just call it culture shock or something.’

  ‘Okay Sandy, let’s not get too excited,’ said Matthew. He looked like a child fresh from the bath, his cheeks high with colour and his hair slicked back.

  ‘What’s wrong with calling me Dad, the way you used to?’ Sandy asked.

  Matthew shrugged. ‘How about we get some breakfast, work out what to do with our day?’

  They walked to the Nirvana café. A rose-coloured mist still covered the mountains. A group of girls in school uniforms giggled as they walked past, their tightly woven plaits bouncing against their satchels. A wizened woman bearing a giant straw pannier unloaded neatly chopped bunches of vegetables by a stall. Free of her load, she slowly straightened and rubbed her back. Her forehead was marked with an angry welt from the strap of the pannier. She smiled at them, teeth glinting with gold.

  Emily foraged in her bag and gave the woman some coins.

  ‘I thought you didn’t give money,’ said Sandy.

  ‘She’s not a beggar, Dad. I buy my vegetables from her. Any extra goes towards her grandchildren’s school fees.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ asked Sandy, puzzled. ‘Does she speak English?’

  ‘No,’ replied Emily with one of her mysterious yet infuriating smiles. ‘But we manage to understand each other.’

  The café was more than half full. Sandy had been in the town less than a week, but already some faces were familiar: the loud spotty American girls who ordered pancakes every day and spent their time uploading pictures of themselves to their Facebook pages; the earnest German couple in walking boots and peculiar zip-apart trousers who consulted maps as they ate their porridge; and the beautiful pale woman with her shaved head and white robes, alone at her table drinking chai.

  Emily ordered toast and tea for all of them, the most palatable option as the omelettes were tasteless and rubber-like and the coffee bitter with a swamp of black grounds at the bottom of the cup. By the time they’d finished eating, Sandy had relaxed a little. He’d been all for making a major emotional statement of apology and explanation, but remembered Carolyn’s advice. Keep it light, she’d told him as she gathered her things before she left his flat. Don’t drown them with your sentiment.

  ‘I thought we’d go to the ashram and the temple this morning,’ offered Emily. ‘And you could meet Samten, my main teacher. He’s great, isn’t he, Matt?’

  Matt nodded.

  ‘Then,’ Emily continued, ‘we could have lunch and go for a walk. My friend Annie might join us. She said she was going up there today.’

  They left the café and headed towards the square in their little family crocodile led by Emily, then Matthew. Sandy brought up the rear, still bewildered by the noise and the people, the busyness of the place.

  The town centre was soon behind them. They walked through a series of lanes, Emily telling Sandy not to stare into the houses. But he couldn’t help peering through openings where windows might have been, or might be one day, to the women squatting on the bare earth, grinding spices and grains with oversized pestles as their children played around them. Dogs tied to posts snarled and leaped at them as they passed. There were no men anywhere.

  The lanes became paths and suddenly they were in the country. Behind the small houses with their rusted, corrugated-iron roofs were terraced vegetable gardens and rice paddies. Along the length of the terraces, bent-over figures moved slowly up and down. Everything was neat and well-tended.

  It was quiet now and the going much steeper. As they climbed the path, all Sandy could hear was the rasp of his own breath over the crush of pine needles under his feet, and the whisper of branches above. Daturas dotted the clearings, their elegant cream flowers swirling like Victorian tea dresses in the slight breeze.

  Emily and Matthew strode ahead. Occasionally, he lost sight of them and paused to catch his breath in peace. Higher up he could see the dome of a temple floating above the tops of the trees.

  ‘Wait for me,’ called Sandy into the silence. ‘I’m an infirm old man with a lifetime of bad habits behind me.’ He climbed on, his legs shaking with the strain, until he reached the top of the path, where Emily and Matthew lazed against a rock.

  ‘You made it, well done,’ said Emily. Matt clapped him on the back and the three of them burst out laughing. Sandy wiped the sweat from his forehead and broke into a shuffling dance.

  ‘Go, Dad, go.’ Emily laughed as Matthew gave a thumbs-up sign and punched the air. Sandy didn’t deserve this moment, but he was going to relish it anyway. He was going to grab it and hold on tight.

  The path had flattened out. It was wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast until the final curve, when Emily pulled ahead and they walked single file until they reached a vast terraced garden with a wide sweep of stone steps leading up to an intricately painted temple. On either side of the steps were terraced gardens planted with cascades of scarlet rhododendrons and azaleas. Here, in their own habitat, with the fluorescent colours he had always thought so garish in England, the shrubs appeared original and exotic, a reflection of the temple’s beauty. Somewhere, someone began to play the bansuri.

  ‘We have to stop and listen,’ he said. ‘One of the most beautiful noises in the world.’ The three of them stood listening to the languid and mellow music as it rose and dipped through the air. It might have been the altitude or a slight mist, but it seemed to Sandy that everything before him trembled. A perfect note moment, he thought, overwhelmed by his surroundings before remembering he was a non-believer.

  ‘Can I see your room?’ he asked.

  Emily bit her lip. ‘Sure, why not.’

  He was sorry he’d asked. It was clear she didn’t want to show him where she lived. But he was curious, so he didn’t retract the question. The three of them walked behind the temple, through another garden into a kind of square. It was lined with small breeze-block cottages. There was a vegetable garden in the centre with neat rows of spinach, and beans growing up bamboo wigwams. Someone had pegged orange robes on a drooping rope. In between hung pairs of boxer shorts and women’s pants and bras. Straps from some of the bras had entwined themselves in the robes, like white ribbons.

  Sandy immediately thought of Emily and sex and a lama, a thought so disturbing that he almost blushed. He pushed it away from his mind and followed Emily into one of the cottages. The light was dim and it took a while to see properly. The room was the same size as a single garage with a small high window looking out to the square. Off to the left side was a cupboard-sized room with no door, a lavatory and a cracked handbasin.

  The walls were raw render. Someone, perhaps Emily, had painted the main room a sunny yellow, but they must have run out of paint or lost interest, because half of one wall was dull brown, with a few chaotic daubs across it. Her clothes hung on hooks. Neat piles of books lay on the cement floor and in one corner was a single mattress, made up into a bed with a quilt and pillow. Sandy looked down at the small box that served as a bedside table. On it was a hardback book in some language he didn’t recognise and beside it a framed photograph of the four of them, taken long ago in Hyde Park. He reached for his handkerchief, pretended that dust had made him sneeze.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ he asked.

  ‘Absolutely,�
�� said Emily. ‘Hey Dad, if Samten is here, be nice to him. Please. For me. Don’t be all cynical.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Sandy, collecting himself. ‘Anything.’ He turned to Matt. ‘How about you? What do you think of Samten?’

  Matt waggled his head from side to side in that Indian way. ‘He’s good. Better than most.’

  They walked through the garden and back to the front of the temple. Outside a pair of scarlet-painted doors stood a handsome young man in saffron robes.

  ‘Lama Samten!’ Emily called, and then called louder when he seemed not to hear her. ‘Samten, hello.’ A joyous smile spread across her face. ‘How wonderful to see you.’

  She bowed her head and joined her hands together. He clasped them and they stood still, heads bowed. Emily was so much taller than the lama that she had to almost crouch so their foreheads could touch. Sandy suppressed a smile at the two pairs of feet positioned so close to each other; Emily’s dirty bare toes protruding from her Birkenstocks squared up to the monk’s stout brown brogues.

  She straightened and gazed adoringly down at him. ‘Samten,’ said Emily, ‘this is my father.’

  Sandy wiped his hand on his trousers and went to shake the lama’s hand, but Samten ignored his outstretched arm and cupped both his elbows instead. Sandy tried to find some flaw in the perfect symmetry of his face, but there was nothing except a small dark mole on one high cheekbone that only accentuated his beauty. He was so close that Sandy could hear the static rustle of his robes and smell something sweet and intense, like rose petals. There was the same feeling he’d had with the doctor, Rupert, from the hospital. Again Sandy felt that if he laid his head on Samten’s shoulder, somehow he would be made whole again. But again, that was a ridiculous idea and he pulled away. Samten smiled, showing small neat teeth.