I dropped the scissors, put my hands on the counter behind, jumped up to sit on it and started to kick my heels on the cupboard door beneath. Thump thump thump. I could get one of the knives now, I thought. They were on the wall. I could grab one. We’d both be bleeding.
Then Mrs Harper said a beautiful thing. ‘Elisabeth, Mi Nu will help you just by being there and listening. Mi Nu helps all of us just with her presence.’
She paused. ‘I sometimes think that to look at Mi Nu is to look at vipassana itself. Watching her is all the instruction anyone needs. You are quite right to want to talk to Mi Nu. And don’t worry, there’s no question of her despising you.’ She laughed very naturally, as if we were at a nice tea party. ‘I doubt if she’ll say much, though.’
I was surprised, like I’d betrayed someone and they didn’t mind.
‘Isn’t Mi Nu fantastic?’ I jumped down from the counter, feeling really cheerful. ‘You know, though, sometimes I think all I need is a good hug.’
I shook myself in a shiver like a dog and looked straight at her, grinning. We were about a yard apart. The trickle moved again.
‘Would you hug me, Mrs Harper?’
She let her tongue slip over her lips and set down her mug.
‘The Dasgupta is not a place for hugs, Elisabeth.’
I felt evil.
‘I know it’s against the rules.’
‘I’m afraid, it is, yes.’
‘Does that mean you’d hug me, if the rules were different?’
She stood, unblinking, slow and pale and swollen in her baggy nightdress.
‘Even with your husband you don’t hug?’
She shook her head.
‘You don’t?’
‘We took a vow, Elisabeth. For as long as we’re at the Dasgupta.’
‘So why are you married?’
She wasn’t smiling now. After another sigh, she said slowly: ‘There’s more to marriage than physical contact.’
‘Like what?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Do you have children?’
Again she shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about herself.
‘What did you do before coming to the Dasgupta?’
She thought a moment, as if she could hardly remember. ‘I was an insurance executive. In Hartford, Connecticut.’
‘Hug me.’
I moved towards her. The trickle was down at my knee.
‘Please, Mrs Harper. It’s been ages. Hug me tight.’
When our bodies were almost touching, she opened her arms. I could already feel what a warm, soft, motherly embrace it would be. As her hands closed around me I wriggled free and ran.
Equanimity Is Purity
WHAT DID THE Buddha do about the bathroom? I mean when he decided to sit for as long as it took to be enlightened. Did his bodily functions stop, under the Bodhi tree? And what shall I do about my bleeding? Do I have to get up and change my tampon every few hours? Is enlightenment a kind of endurance test? You sit and sit and sit till it happens?
It’s raining now and the only sound in the Metta Hall is the dripping from the roof. Plosh — one two three four — plish — one two three — plosh. You concentrate on body and breathing for twenty-four hours at a stretch maybe, letting go, letting go. Or forty-eight hours. When there’s pain you don’t react. When there’s pleasure you don’t react. Or a week even. Leaving behind all attachment, all aversion. Layer after layer after layer, deeper and deeper. Without even a trip to the bathroom? Without food, without water?
I’m tempted now to turn and look at the drip hitting the carpet. Why? Why do I count the seconds between the drops: three, nine, five? What could there possibly be to look at? If I didn’t have eyes there would be no danger of distraction. I’d be resigned to sitting in the dark. If I didn’t have ears I wouldn’t listen for the drops and count the intervals between. Why do they vary so much? The rain sounds steady on the roof. But sometimes I only get to three between drops and sometimes I count to eight. If ever I reach enlightenment, these temptations will disappear, I know that, these questions will be gone. The drops will splash on my consciousness and slide off like rain on rock. I’ll ask no questions. Or they’ll just fall through my mind without splashing at all. There’ll be no friction, no distraction. I’ll hear them and not hear them. Is that what enlightenment means? Something will change and I’ll see clearly. I’ll know what things I’ve been between here at the Dasgupta Institute, what the past was before I came here and what the future holds after I leave. Enlightenment would set me free.
I wonder if nature is always irregular: heartbeats, raindrops, my periods, waves at sea. ‘It’s not natural to have a perfectly regular beat,’ Frank used to say. ‘It’s too mechanical.’ He and Carl argued for hours. The excitement was in the shifts of tempo. Frank always tapped on the rim of his snare while he spoke. He never put his sticks down. But not planned and rehearsed, he said, intuitive. ‘That’s the difference between live music and recordings, Carl. Things happen, right there on stage, right as you’re playing, things fuckin’ happen. You’re alive!’
I was on Frank’s side. But Carl wanted to rehearse with a metronome. He’d leave the band if we didn’t, he said. He wanted to play in a serious band, not with kids on a night out. He wanted to play the concerts as if we were using a metronome. He wanted total predictability. A guitarist could only improvise, Carl said, when he knew exactly what space he was working in. How could he play his solos if the beat was all over the place? Zoë said she needed an absolutely regular beat, otherwise she got lost. Zoë was always lost.
Playing ‘Mean Hot And Nasty’, Frank let things speed up. It’s that kind of song. Once, seeing Jonathan at the back of the hall, I really went for it. He didn’t often come to hear us. I pulled the mike in close and turned the temperature way up. Expect no mercy, baby, don’t ask me to behave, cos I’m mean hot and nasty, mean hot and nasty, like you can’t believe. Frank must have felt my excitement and raised the tempo. I could feel the pulse start to race. We were crashing along. Mean hot mean hot mean hot and NASTY, YEAH!
Afterwards Carl was furious. Said it had fucked up his best riff. We were a bunch of fucking amateurs. Zoë hadn’t noticed. ‘Great gig,’ she kept saying. She was streaming sweat. ‘Great when you bumped all round me, Beth. You were wild.’
PRETEND TO BUMP INTO US, I texted Jonathan, WHILE WE’RE LOADING THE VAN ROUND THE BACK. I’LL TELL YOU WHEN. PRETEND IT’S A BIG SURPRISE.
That was the time Carl and Jonathan sat at the same table. The only time. I was so excited to have them there. We were in Soho. Jonathan got in a couple of rounds. Gins. He was always generous. He kept praising Carl’s solos and Carl played music prof explaining the harmony singing in Now maybe, but never again. Love me now, Babe, then never again. He kept an arm round me. Build me a sandcastle, before the tide turns. Love me now, then never again.
We were on a bench against the bare brick wall. It was a semi-basement place off Wardour Street. From time to time Carl kissed my hair and whispered the words of the song. And while he held me I was smiling into Jonathan’s eyes diagonally across the table while Zoë, beside him and opposite me, kept rubbing my feet between hers under the table. She’d taken her shoes off. Zoë knew about me and Jonathan, but neither of the men knew about me and her. They couldn’t see our tangled feet while they pontificated about roots and influences. Carl thought I’d written the song for him, of course, when actually I’d written it for Jonathan, who didn’t know Carl had come up with the tune and the last line. Now is for ever when I’m with you. God. At one point Zoë leaned across to me, grinning, and whispered, ‘Whore!’ I was in paradise.