Livia asked if the other servers could please report it if they saw a student sneaking out of the grounds. There had been two absent the whole afternoon. They were neither in the Metta Hall nor in their rooms.
Harper said: ‘Tomorrow we lift the vow of silence. I know one or two of you have a boyfriend or girlfriend among the meditators. Please do remember to keep the rules about physical contact. There must be no touching inside the grounds of the institute, and of course you are still not permitted to go outside until the retreat is over.’
After a short silence Rob spoke up and said it seemed excessive to him. It was natural to hold hands, he said. Or shake hands. Natural to hug.
‘It’s the rule,’ Harper said calmly. ‘We wish the Dhamma campus to remain absolutely pure.’
‘Do the invisible beings obey this rule?’ Rob asked.
‘I believe they do,’ Harper said. He was serious.
‘And the rabbits?’
This was Meredith’s voice. Meredith was taking the mick out of Harper! Was something going on between her and Rob? I’d thought she was after Ralph.
‘It is a rule of the Dasgupta Institute that there must be no physical contact inside the grounds,’ Harper repeated.
But what is the point of my sitting in a half-lotus, eyes closed, if in fact I’m eavesdropping on the servers?
There is a point. I am still hanging to the thread of breath on my lips, I am still observing the heat in the palms of my hands. I can’t give up sitting with nothing changed.
‘Let’s close with a few minutes’ meditation,’ Harper said.
They sat. We sat. Five final minutes after a day that began seventeen hours ago. An hour can be the blinking of an eye at the Dasgupta, and the blinking of an eye can be an age. When the servers get up to go, I thought, they will insist I leave the hall with them. They will tell me I need to sleep. I didn’t sleep last night.
‘May all beings be filled with sympathetic joy.’
‘Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.’
People were on their feet. They were heading for a last cup of chai, a last chocolate biscuit. It’s funny to think the male servers have a store of chocolate biscuits. I don’t care what’s going on with Rob and Meredith. It’s not my business.
The doors closed and I was alone. They had left me to sit through the night. Alone. I couldn’t believe it. Unless someone has stayed to keep me company. Somebody is in the room with me now, ready to sit beside me through the night. Mi Nu. Who else? Mi Nu is sitting so still my antennae haven’t picked her up. Suddenly, like a terrible itch, I felt I must open my eyes and check if Mi Nu was there.
Don’t.
It makes no difference if Mi Nu is here or not.
My body had reassembled, but all wrong. Returning to the stillness behind my nose, I found it was planted in my stomach, I was breathing through my navel. My lips were in my forehead. I wasn’t surprised. You’ll never be the same, I thought, when I woke in hospital. I was on a drip, I was full of tubes. My right leg was bandaged. You’ll never go on stage again, never sing again, never dance again. Why was that my first thought in hospital? Beth will never go on stage again. The baby is dead. Pocus are dead.
It makes no difference to me what is going on between the other servers. It doesn’t matter if Mi Nu is here or not. I am in the Metta Hall, after the final meditation, the closing metta. I am here to sit through the night to find enlightenment. Or something. I will sit still all night and all tomorrow. Sail on. Master each single moment as the night passes. Want nothing, react to nothing, whatever is thrown at you, whatever thoughts arrive. Reaction is ignorance. Reaction is limitation. Feel your breath, let go of your breath. Feel your belly, let go of your belly. Let it go. Feel your ankles, let go of your ankles. Layers of pain. Layers of pleasure. Don’t react. Hear the voice in your head, let go of the voice in your head. The chatter. Let go of these words, these memories. Let go, Beth. Of Beth.
Tap tap tap. When the bass began to throb and the drums exploded, then I was master of the moment. I was in the music. I was the music. My mouth began to sing. My body danced. I was super-conscious: the electrics, the mixing, the lights, every detail of every song — Spit it out, Kids Today — Zoë’s skin when we bumped thighs, we rubbed thighs, Carl’s eyes when we stood face to face, his mouth twitching at the corner, our guitars inches away, our knuckles grazing as we rocked. And I was absolutely unconscious, moving inside the music that was me. The more I was unconscious the more perfectly I was conscious, of everything.
‘You are beautiful when you sing, Beth, unbelievably beautiful. You are someone else.’
‘Carl is soooooooo jealous.’ I laughed. ‘When the boys flock up at the end of the gig he goes wild. Wild!’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘But you’re not jealous, Jonnie. I want you to be jealous.’
‘I don’t do jealousy, Beth.’
Old conversations. Observe. Don’t react. Observe your breathing. Observe the burning in your forehead.
Why was that my first thought after they told me I had lost my child? You will never play again, never sing again. After they told me the French boy was in intensive care. You must never go on stage again. Philippe’s brain was swelling. They had induced a coma. An attempt to save him. Your dreams are over.
Carl brought me my mobile. ‘You’re lucky, Beth,’ he said. ‘Seems you’ll be out in a week or so. Poor Philippe.’
A SWIMMING ACCIDENT, I texted. PLEASE COME, JONNIE, PLEASE COME BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, BEFORE I DIE.
Just observe.
Sometimes my head goes under water and I hear the shingle grating in the surf. It’s a harsh, high-pitched sound. Feedback. Sometimes I see Carl’s face above the bed. My mobile buzzes in my pocket. I left my mobile in a Dasgupta locker months ago, but I still feel the vibrations in my pocket. The messages are still arriving.
I CAN’T COME BACK RIGHT NOW, BETH.
PLEASE, JONNIE.
ISN’T CARL WITH YOU?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.
HAVEN’T YOUR PARENTS COME?
Words fade at last. Words, memories. Now only the pain in my ribs is present. I’ve had this pain before. On the left side. There’s a hand inside my ribs squeezing my heart, a cancer growing by the minute, piling on the pressure from inside. It’s a bad one. It’s dragging me to my left. It’s getting stronger. My whole left side is constricted, paralysed. This is the kind of pain that would normally finish me. After twenty minutes, an hour. You can’t free your mind from a pain like this. You can’t move on to explore other parts of the body. With a pain like this there is only pain. My whole left side has solidified. It’s a single block. It’s growing denser and denser, dragging me to my left. I’m going to keel over. My heart is crushed. I can’t breathe. Did the Buddha have pains like this? Nobody says whether he went through pain or not. And how can I be in so much pain when there’s nothing wrong with me? When I know that as soon as I move I’ll be fine again. As soon as I react I’ll be fine. I’ll be beaten, but fine.
Don’t move, Beth.
Would Mi Nu move? Does Mi Nu ever have to go through this stuff?
This pain doesn’t throb. It doesn’t sting or stab. It’s just enormously achingly present. It’s black. I know it’s black. It’s a black rock. Getting heavier, getting denser. I feel sick. If I don’t move I’ll die.
Then die, Beth. Don’t move and die. Feel calm about dying. Accept dying. Let it happen. Pain is just pain. Just a barrier. There is always something the other side of pain.
Wait, Beth.
Don’t panic.