Staunch

by Eleanor Wood

  This used to be true. I don’t mention that I haven’t actually been for nearly ten years. After a couple of rainy miserable ones in a row, I decided in my late twenties that I was too old for that sort of shit any more.

  He doesn’t actually seem to know very much about crystals, but he offers to look up anything I want to know in a large book he has on the subject, and that’s fine by me. Mostly he just wants to chat about music.

  As we do so, he tactfully looks the other way as I spot a whole shelf full of crystal dildos, much like the one I have at home. Most things to do with Bad Boyfriend I have got rid of. I threw the necklace he gave me into the sea. I never even tried to get my own belongings back. It wasn’t worth the hassle. It’s still annoying, though. However, I still had the rose quartz dildo in the back of a drawer in my bedroom. Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to use it – crystals soak up bad vibes and this one had some definite bad karma. It was the only other remaining witness to things I wish I could forget.

  However, I had absolutely no idea what I could possibly do with it. It seemed wrong just to throw it away. It’s not the sort of thing I can pass on or re-gift to a friend. I can’t even symbolically throw it in the sea – what if it washes up on the beach and a child finds it? Apparently you are supposed to bury unwanted crystals in the ground, but I’ve only got pots in my garden and next door’s cats are always digging things up. The whole situation could get highly embarrassing. I can’t exactly take it and bury it in the local park, can I?

  Suddenly it occurs to me in a flash of clarity. If I can’t get rid of it, surely the next best thing is to get another one to cancel it out. Logic is not my strong point but to me this makes perfect sense and I know it is finally the solution I’ve been looking for. It’s an instant and great relief.

  I find the perfect one. It’s bright yellow and interestingly patterned, which seems apt. We look it up in the book and it’s made of septarian, also known as ‘dragonstone’. Pleasingly, it’s known as a stone for psychic protection.

  It’s approximately twice the size of the old rose quartz one. This seems like a good fresh start in itself – the very fact that I am able to buy it without considering the fear of anybody putting it into an unexpected orifice with no prior warning. Despite its large size, it costs the equivalent of about a tenner. The old smaller one cost about forty quid, contributing slightly to my reluctance to throw it away.

  I decide, joyously, that I’ll take it.

  ‘Do you …? Um,’ the guy mutters awkwardly, his fluent Glastonbury chat seemingly dried up. ‘You know what this is for?’

  The shape is kind of a giveaway. I can’t help but burst out laughing. I cheerily assure him that I do, and tuck it away in my handbag.

  As I’m walking back the way I came, an old lady suddenly grabs my arm. I seem to have old lady attracting vibes, they find me everywhere I go. I turn to see that she makes my nan and aunts look like spring chickens. She grins at me toothlessly and brandishes a large basket. She looks like Mother Teresa, but older and a bit more wizened.

  She takes my hand and pulls me to face her. We lock eyes. I feel a wave of pure love and joy. I’m on a high and I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s muscle memory of being on hallucinogenics at Glastonbury, although that was often not much fun. I once lost all of my friends and my tent after ingesting too many mushrooms and became convinced my brain was never going to go back to normal. I woke up in a puddle about twelve hours later and somebody had stolen all my cigarettes.

  ‘You are special,’ she tells me. ‘I would like to give you a blessing. For good luck.’

  She puts her thumb into a pot of bright red powder and presses it to my forehead. I have pretty much never been so delighted in my whole life. Maybe she gives them out to everyone, regardless of their ‘special’ vibes. I choose to believe not. I feel like she is genuinely transmitting some sort of magical power into my third eye. The pressure of her thumb is warm and comforting, and she leaves it there for a while. Sealing the magic in, I like to think.

  She hugs me and gives me a yellow flower from her basket. It is tiny and starting to turn slightly brown. I accept it gratefully and tuck it into my plait. I then – of course – give her all of my remaining money. I’m not really sure what else one is supposed to do. When she hugs me goodbye, it feels like a fair exchange.

  The high from this encounter lasts quite some time. I try to preserve my bindi for as long as I can, keeping my face out of the shower and being careful when I swim in the sea, like some kind of old-fashioned lady, doggy-paddling with my head held up out of the water. After a few days, traces of blessing still remain in my frown line. I like to think a few particles are still in there somewhere. It even takes a couple of days for the flower to drop off, even though it’s entirely brown and crispy by the time it does. I think it eventually came off in the sea, which seems fitting.

  I am still grinning my face off when I reluctantly walk back to find the others. I could very happily spend at least a month here, quite possibly move in. These are the sorts of places I dreamed of from about the age of eleven, when I heard Nirvana for the first time, and became obsessed with the idea of ‘being cool’. I have never grown out of it. As an adult I still regularly have moments when I am filled with joy for what my tweenage self would think if she could see me now. It’s generally when I get a new tattoo, or go to a gig on a weeknight.

  I find the ladies where they have set up camp, outside a sort of café stall with chairs. It really is exactly like being at Glastonbury, if that helps you to picture it – picnic chairs under a tarpaulin in the sunshine, with Indian dance music playing. They look utterly out of place but it is a familiar scene to me.

  Except that there is a cow grazing right next to them, and a table where a group of women are shelling some sort of nuts. I sit down and order a beer. Ann takes one look at my new bindi and bursts out laughing.

  ‘Typical Ells! What an earth have you been up to? Knowing you, I bet you paid about twenty quid for that!’

  I keep quiet about the crystal dildo in my handbag.

  They all laugh even more when I sit and take a whole series of selfies, to demonstrate me simultaneously drinking a beer and sporting a bindi. The juxtaposition amuses me.

  What also amuses me is the lavatory at this market bar. Every time I go to the loo here, I weirdly kind of hope for a weird or gross Indian toilet, so that I can feel like I’m having an authentic experience. I mean, I was warned about them, but disappointingly at most of the places we have been, they have been pretty ordinary. This one is a smelly hole in the ground behind a rickety sort of bamboo cubicle – pleasingly, it is definitely the worst one yet and I am delighted.

  After two beers, we decide we should probably find our driver and get out of here. Walking back towards the car park, taking my time and lagging behind the others, I spot possibly the most beautiful man I have seen since we arrived in India. I don’t even really need to describe him by this point, do I? Long-haired, bearded, skinny, suntanned, tattooed and shirtless – check. Oh and of course – of course – he has a battered old acoustic guitar slung over one shoulder.

  Our eyes meet and we smile at each other. I keep walking. I can’t shake the feeling I am being watched. When I turn around, he is following me. I smile at him and look away, and keep walking. This happens several times and I must admit I am quite enjoying it. I’m quite good at flirting until I have to talk, when I invariably become clumsy and awkward.

  ‘Hello, beautiful.’ The boy comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.

  ‘Oh … Um. Hi.’

  I wasn’t expecting to actually have to talk. Close up, the boy is even more beautiful than I first thought and definitely a lot younger than me.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Eleanor.’

  ‘Nice. I’m Mohammed. I just arrived here, slept on the beach last night. This place is cool, right?’

  He grins at me. He speaks good English, with a slightly surfy Am
erican accent, like he learned his vocabulary from watching early Keanu Reeves films or similar. Actually, scratch that, he’d be far too young. It’s probably, like, High School Musical or something else I am too old to understand. I bet this kid doesn’t know who Bill and Ted are, let alone has seen My Own Private Idaho.

  ‘So, beautiful, shall we go for a walk together? We could go to the beach, have a drink, whatever …’

  ‘Ha! I’m sorry, I can’t.’

  ‘Would you like to come to the beach party with me tonight?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I have to go.’

  ‘Well, can I at least have your number?’

  ‘I would like to say yes … But you see, I’m here with my grandmother. So … I can’t.’

  He, understandably, looks very confused.

  ‘So can I have your number or what?’

  ‘Sorry, no. There just isn’t any point.’

  For a second, all I want is to run off with him. Maybe just for a few days, maybe forever. He is legitimately beautiful. He seems fun. He is young and carefree. In short, the ideal holiday romance. Before we got here, I was spending so much time worrying about the future, about all the things I don’t have. Maybe, if circumstances were different, a no-strings holiday fling would be the ideal thing. The idea of distraction and ego boost combined suddenly seems quite appealing.

  Did I mention he was fucking beautiful? The kind of guy who wouldn’t look twice at me at home. I’m not being self-deprecating, it’s true. All the gorgeous leggy art students in Brighton and the trendier parts of East London would have gone crazy over this boy, for sure. Just for a second, I actually want to cry that I can’t go with him.

  ‘I have to go.’

  I skip off to catch up with the others, who are getting into the car. Mohammed follows me at a casual distance and is still watching us as we drive off. He waves at me as I watch him recede in the mirror. I smile, and wave back until he goes out of sight.

  November 1948

  When Nan was still in Scotland, she happened to run into her friend Penny on Paisley High Street. She knew Penny from back in India, and their families were now in similar positions. The two of them stayed in touch, and when Penny got a place at Ashford Hospital in Middlesex to train as a nurse, she suggested that Nan apply and come along with her.

  Nan had never had any interest whatsoever in becoming a nurse. However, she didn’t have anything better to do or many other options. So, she applied and got a place on the course, mostly just so she could hang out with her fun pal Penny.

  Unlike her older sister, my Auntie Clara, Nan turned out not to have much aptitude for nursing, although she loved the camaraderie of it.

  ‘There was so much laughter, and fun. The fun we had. I loved it. I made great friends.’

  Clara had already qualified as a nurse, and was a brilliant one. She also applied to Ashford Hospital and got a job there as Ward Sister. She ended up spending much of her time covering for her own naughty little sister, who was not particularly interested in becoming a brilliant nurse.

  When asked of her memories of Ashford Hospital, the first thing that springs to Nan’s mind now is that there was a pub across the road called the Stag and Hounds. She spent a lot of time chatting to boys there, along with Penny and their other roommate Doris, who was from Jamaica. The three of them had a great time.

  Nan remembers once, over Ascot weekend, a group of boys in an open-top car pulling up in the street outside and asking Nan and Penny if they wanted to come along to Ascot races with them.

  ‘All right,’ they said, and climbed in.

  They had a lovely day at Ascot – Nan still remembers speeding through the countryside and feeling wonderfully glamorous. However, they were supposed to be on duty at the hospital that evening; they got back horribly late and were in big trouble with Auntie Clara.

  They went out to dances at Hammersmith Palais a lot. Nan is still a champion at the jitterbug. Her nursing course was supposed to be three years long, but she never finished it.

  One weekend her cousin Josephine asked if she wanted to go with her to Heathrow Airport, where she was meeting a friend who worked there as an aircraft engineer. His name was Jack and he was another ex-British Raj pal, who had worked in aviation back in Karachi but had now also resettled in West London.

  Nan suspected that Josephine had a bit of a crush on Jack, but all hopes of that were blown right out of the water the minute he and Nan laid eyes on each other. While she says she’s not sure she believes in love at first sight, ‘we absolutely fancied each other’.

  He looked like Clark Gable, with brown eyes and a twirly moustache. Nan also says he was very easy-going with a generous nature, and loads of fun to be around. Which, for a time, presumably made up for the fact that he was also a helpless gambler and a bit of a player.

  Nan didn’t have particularly high hopes of being able to keep him under control, but she fell head over heels in love with him. I can understand that.

  ‘Women loved him and he couldn’t help himself,’ she says now. ‘And I was never beautiful, but I always had a lot of spirit.’

  It slightly breaks my heart to hear my nan say that now, although it is without an ounce of self-pity. I’ve seen pictures of her when she was young, and she was very cute, with blonde curls, green eyes and a fantastic figure, the tiniest waist I have ever seen. She has always had the naughtiest smile and minxy nature.

  I think she is still incredibly beautiful now. Then again, maybe that’s because we have a thousand in-jokes, she’s looked after me all my life, prays for me every night, and seeing her laughing and enjoying herself – as we do constantly when we are together – is the loveliest sight I can think of. How can I not think that she, and all of these special women, are breathtakingly beautiful?

  For their first date, Jack took Nan on a tour around the sights of central London. He paid a cab to drive them around all afternoon. Nan presumed he was very rich; he was actually pretty much broke, but had happened to have a good win on the horses and thought he might as well use it to impress her.

  This is a terrible gene that all of his descendants, me included, seem to have inherited. Even when I can’t afford to switch on the heating and am secretly living off lentils, whenever I go out I find myself buying rounds for strangers, insisting on getting shots for everyone, taking unnecessary taxis and generally behaving like some sort of crazed oligarch. Everyone in my family does it and none of us can quite explain why. I have spent many mornings of my life fishing out receipts from the bottom of my handbag and wondering how I can have racked up a two hundred quid bar bill when I’m miles away from payday and I only meant to go out for a quiet Sunday lunch. I blame Jack.

  Anyway, of course Nan became even less interested in her nursing course, as she soon began escaping back to London every chance she got so that she could hang out with Jack.

  At almost exactly the same time as Nan met Jack, Rose went to a dance at Chiswick Town Hall, where she met a dashing former Air Force pilot called George. He was from East London and had flown Lancaster Bombers during the war.

  Around the same time that Rose got engaged to George, Nan had to drop out of her nursing course at the age of nineteen, because she was pregnant.

  Present Day

  Of all the Indian dudes we meet on our travels, the one we become friendliest with is Ravi. He is one of the few guys we have encountered who is kind to us without being a total creep.

  ‘Like Ravi Shankar, the famous sitar player!’ I couldn’t help exclaiming delightedly when he introduced himself, even though it occurred to me that loads of people must say this exact same thing to him when they meet him. Or at least, loads of annoying hippie white girls visiting Goa probably say this to him when they meet him.

  Ravi works in one of our favourite shacks on the beach. It’s the one we go to the most because they have sun loungers that you can hang out on all day, even if it’s only in exchange for a couple of lime sodas. Getting Nan and Rose down to
the beach is quite a performance, so once we’re there, we don’t want to move. At least not until snack time, which is by the hotel pool every afternoon at four o’clock. Every day there is a different ice cream flavour, and they alternate between bhajis and pakoras (both with a particularly good mint sauce). They are delicious and, most excitingly, free.

  On the days we are hanging at the hotel, we stuff ourselves at breakfast then go straight through to the free four o’clock snacks. I invariably go up to the little beach bar and request four ice cream cornets while filling a huge plate with bhajis or pakoras.

  ‘They’re not all for me!’ I add cheerfully, every single day, as if they even care.

  But, before snack time, many hours are spent at the shack with the sun loungers, where Ravi always takes a lot of care in setting up our umbrellas for us and making sure we have a stack of towels.

  Ravi and I get to chatting, particularly as I am often on the beach by myself while the others are deciding what to wear and Ann is reading her book by the pool. He tells me he is thirty-four and not married, which seems quite old to be a single guy hanging around here. All of his siblings are married, but he has resisted so far, apparently. His family are farmers in Shimla, which is up in the Himalayas and very cold in the winter. So, Ravi spends six months every winter working on the beach in Goa, and the other six months back home working on the family farm.

  My nan and Rose went to school for a time in Shimla and are delighted to hear all about the place. Their school has a different name now, but the building is still intact. Nan’s face lights up as Ravi describes what it looks like and they realize they are both definitely talking about the exact same place. He is delighted, like so many people are, by Nan’s grasp of Urdu and her knowledge of obscure Indian oddities that no westerner would usually know about. The two of them roar their heads off with laughter while discussing a childhood game called goolie dunder. Apparently it’s like rounders. Ravi assures my nan that he is a champion at goolie dunder.