They were both Aries, but Jason had Libra rising, that mask of facile charm hiding the thoughtless and immature energies of spring. If only she could persuade him that he needed a radical change to get his career going, an internal change, a — yes, she was going to use the word — spiritual change.
She knew it was humiliating for Jason to be living in the house that her father had bought her and off the income she made from her aromatherapy business, but it was annoying for her as well. It was certainly a confusing time to be a woman. Of course she was into challenging stereotypical gender roles, but it would be nice to be taken out to dinner for a change. In any case, challenging gender roles seemed to have become a stereotype of its own.
They argued about everything, without either of them knowing what could be gained by arguing; they just couldn’t stop. That’s why she was taking them to Esalen for the ‘Letting go and Moving on’ workshop. She was blowing most of the five thousand pounds her father had given her for her thirtieth birthday. The packaging business had been good to him, as he never tired of pointing out. What Jason didn’t know was that his birthday present was a further weekend in a Tantric sex workshop. Haley had secretly decided that this was a make or break week. Either they were going to have a really deep transformational experience, or she would flood the stage with arguments about their relationship being totally sick. It wasn’t as if arguments would be hard to find, and she knew she had the support of her friends in CoCo: the Co-dependent Co-operative.
Jason slouched home apprehensively. He didn’t want to argue all the way to California; on the other hand he resented being terrorized by Haley’s new habit of exhuming incidents from the graveyard of their past, and carrying them off with bitter triumph to the pathology lab of her meetings. She used to show the same amnesiac brio which characterized his own approach to life, but now he felt that there were thousands of labelled jars in which these diseased moments were murkily preserved.
‘We’re on the way out,’ he said to Barny, and Barny whined as if he understood the pity of their situation.
Panita arrived half an hour early. ‘In case you have plane fever,’ she explained.
‘If we had plane fever, we would have asked you to come half an hour early,’ said Jason sarcastically.
Orphaned, single, friendless and unemployed, Panita was an almost discarnate co-dependant, not weighed down by the actuality of a relationship, but perfectly englobed within her self-diagnosed anxiety. She was the concentrated essence of what Jason hated, floating free of the compromises made by ordinary co-dependants with other states of being, and existing in a pure state of passionate psychological handicap.
‘Weird route,’ he commented on the way to the airport.
‘I’m just going the way I know,’ said Panita.
‘Back-seat driver,’ said Haley, sensing trouble.
But Jason couldn’t be stopped, and after the briefest pause he leant forward and asked in a voice of mock concern, ‘Is there anybody you’re co-dependent on at the moment, Panita?’
‘I hope not,’ said Panita.
‘Haley, for instance?’ asked Jason.
‘I think I’d know the signs by now,’ said Panita with grim expertise.
‘What are the signs?’
‘My eating, for a start.’
‘Oh, have you got an eating problem?’ asked Jason with undisguised delight.
‘Not at the moment, my recovery’s very solid.’
‘You had a healthy breakfast, did you?’ said Jason.
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ said Haley.
‘I’m worried about our new friend,’ said Jason. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you girls turned out to have a totally sick relationship.’
‘Calling us “girls” is really patronizing,’ said Haley.
‘Yeah, really patronizing,’ said Panita.
‘What would you like me to call you? Old hags?’
Panita drew over to the side of the road.
‘Get out of the car,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Jason.
‘You heard me,’ said Panita, suddenly empowered. ‘I’m not having any inappropriate behaviour in my car.’
‘Oh, gimme a break.’
‘Get out!’ screamed Panita. ‘I’m sorry, Haley, but I don’t have to take inappropriate behaviour in my own space.’
‘Yeah,’ said Haley, disconcerted, ‘but we’ve got to get to the airport.’
‘He can take the Underground, I’ll take you and the luggage.’
‘Can’t you just apologize?’ said Haley.
‘It’s gone beyond apology,’ said Panita. ‘I’ve been abused.’
‘But isn’t that what you secretly want?’ said Jason. ‘So you have something to talk about at your meetings.’
‘Jason!’ screamed Haley.
‘Get out of my car, or I’ll call the police.’
‘Officer!’ screeched Jason hysterically. ‘This man said I was co-dependent, I’ve been inappropriately abused.’ He clambered out of the car, laughing at his own joke. ‘Right, son!’ he went on in his PC Plod voice, leaning back through the open door. ‘I’m apprehending you and taking you down to the station to listen to some inappropriate tapes.’
‘I’ll drive you to the airport if you like,’ said Panita to Haley.
‘Oh, God, I’d better go with him or he may not turn up,’ said Haley.
‘You do think I did the right thing, don’t you?’ said Panita. ‘I really need your support on this.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Haley, ‘but it’s a real pain in the arse.’
‘I don’t want to make judgements,’ said Panita, ‘but I think you two have a really sick relationship.’
‘Well, at least we’re in a relationship,’ said Haley slamming the door. ‘You stupid wanker,’ she said to Jason, ‘you can carry my fucking case.’
‘I’m being abused!’ cried Jason facetiously.
‘You think you’re really clever, don’t you?’ said Haley. ‘You get us stranded in the middle of Hammersmith Broadway and all you can do is make stupid jokes.’
They struggled to the Underground station together, Haley’s indignant voice battling like a furious swimmer against the roar of the traffic.
6
Stan and Karen Klotwitz had made the move to Santa Fe because they wanted the dry climate of the south-west without the geriatric belligerence of a retirement community in Arizona. Neither of them was interested in joining the Grey Panthers and they both loved having young people in their lives. Stan had been in the insurance business in New York and Karen had been ‘just an average American housewife’, as she said with true modesty, but also in the hope that folks would find it hard to believe when they saw what an Awakened Being she’d become. They’d settled in their new home seven years ago and they thanked God every day that they had chosen Santa Fe because they had such an incredibly rich life there, and had made so many incredibly special friends.
Stan said that life began at seventy and that you were only as old as you felt; Karen, who was more mystically inclined, said she was not attached to her ‘earth suit’. Stan wasn’t particularly attached to it either and that was why he and Karen were going on a Tantric sex workshop at a unique resource centre in California.
‘Get some of the old fire back,’ said Stan with a wink, as he barbecued a couple of steaks in the patio area. Somewhere along the line, Stan had got the idea that mental health consisted of talking about his sex life to complete strangers.
‘Spring will return to the mountain,’ said Walking Eagle, who had only met Stan and Karen the night before at the Omega Center. He had led an incredibly unique, ancient, secret ceremony which he claimed the elders of his tribe had said he could share with other nations because the Dark Times were approaching.