‘It reminded me how exciting it is to be anxious and to have decisions to make. There’s none of that at the Dasgupta.’
‘That’s not sex.’
‘It felt like sex.’
‘Drink up,’ he said.
I poured half of my second pint into his and he smiled and drank.
Walking back to the car I took his hand, automatically, the same way I’d flicked the beer mat, the same way I’d poured the beer in his glass, and as we were about to separate to open our different doors, he pulled me round and kissed me. It was a short firm kiss on the lips, nothing adventurous, but as soon as we were in the car I turned to him, he leaned over to me and we kissed again. This time it was a careful kiss that turned warm and then hungry and then busy, really busy. It was a good kiss.
‘Oh, God.’ I laughed. ‘First the radio, the fags, then the booze, now the kiss. What next?’
‘All the better for ten days’ abstinence.’
‘Nearer ten months for me.’
We pulled out into the road and at the first junction there was a police car, lights flashing but no siren.
‘Shit,’ he said.
I said quietly, ‘If you don’t think you should drive, then stop. We’ll find a place for the night.’
The words hung there. He drove. After a mile or so the police car turned off. Then we were on the motorway and he clicked on the radio and offered the cigarettes again. The car accelerated. The cigarettes glowed. We didn’t speak for a while. Then, shaking my head a bit, I murmured: ‘Deep deep sankharas, Geoff.’
The words just came out. He nodded. He was staring at the road.
‘Sankharas of craving,’ I said softly.
‘That’s for sure.’
‘Sankharas of aversion.’
‘When I arrive home, definitely.’
‘Deep misery,’ I whispered. ‘Deep deep misery.’
‘Dukkha,’ he said. ‘All life is dukkha.’
‘Remain vvery alert, Geoff, vvery vigilant.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Start again, Lisa,’ he said, ‘st-tart again.’
‘With a calm and quiet mind.’
‘A balanced, equanimous mind.’
‘Equanimous mind. Equanimous mind.’
‘If you are experiencing, gross, solidified, intensified sensations, Lisa …’
‘Just observe, Geoff, just observe.’
‘If you are experiencing a free flow of subtle sensations all across the body …
‘Just observe, just observe.’
‘Pain, pain, not my pain.’
‘Pleasure, pleasure, not my pleasure.’
‘Bavatu sava mangelam.’
‘Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.’
I buzzed down the window and chucked out my fag. ‘Great kiss by the way.’
He sighed. ‘You look wonderful in that skirt.’
‘I know.’
We came off the M1 on to the North Circular. BBC 6 was playing awful prog rock.
He said: ‘We are not masochists. We are not here to torture ourselves. But some discomfort may be necessary in the process of purification. Remember that?’
‘Day five,’ I said, ‘explaining the hour of Strong Determination. You want to be coming off at Uxbridge Road. Then Askew Road.’
And I told him: ‘If you do leave your wife, your daughter may change too.’
‘Do you think so?’
He turned into Askew Road. It was a question of minutes.
‘You know, I envy you, Geoff.’
‘God, why?’
‘I envy you beginning a long stay at the Dasgupta. Like it was me nine months ago.’
Suddenly I felt tears coming. My chest rose and fell.
‘Tell me about it,’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d had enough.’
His voice was quiet.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’ll just miss things.’ I waited till my voice steadied. ‘Like the rabbits in the dew before dawn. Or sitting on my mat with my eyes closed while people come and go.’
‘And the gong.’
‘The gong. Sorry, take the first right after the lights and it’s halfway down on the left. Number thirty-eight.’
‘Here?’
‘Right. Watch out for the sleeping policeman.’
‘Got it.’
I thought and sighed and bit my lip. ‘Most of all, though, I’ll miss the feeling I always had there that maybe’ — but I wasn’t sure I knew how to say this — ‘well, that it might be possible not to live, if you see what I mean. Do you? Not to have to live. Like Mi Nu when she wraps her shawl round her and sits on her cushion and is just there. The thought that you could be nothing, but beautifully, for ever. You’d be spared.’
‘Lisa!’ He stopped the car and switched off. He was smiling and shaking his head.
‘Hey,’ I laughed, ‘I write songs, you know. I’m a deep one. A last cigarette?’
‘Why not?’
He handed me the pack and pushed in the lighter. Taking the first puff, I felt absolutely certain that this was the last. Lisa isn’t a smoker.
He lit up too.
‘Now I have to see my mum and explain where I’ve been all this time. Then there’ll be the email, I suppose, Facebook. I’ll be up all night.’
He was frowning through the windscreen. ‘No more kisses.’
‘Kisses, kisses, not my kisses.’
‘Want my mobile number?’
‘No.’
‘Wise.’
‘You love your pain too much, Mr Diarist.’
‘Right.’ He shook his head. ‘No sex, no story.’
‘No joy, no pain.’
He smiled. ‘The tenth day is over, my friends. You have the rest of your life to work.’
‘Thanks for the lift, Geoff.’
Anicca
THAT WAS TWO years ago. I exaggerate, eighteen months. A bit more. Now I’m studying psychology in Manchester, share a flat off Oxford Road, sing in a pub Friday evenings. Just me and another girl, all acoustic. I have a pretty nice boyfriend, actually very nice. I’m planning to leave him just before he leaves me. Anicca. The universal law of impermanence. I meditate for an hour in the mornings, if I didn’t drink too much the night before. I try to take it seriously, to be vvery aware, vvery vigilant. And whenever things get a bit wild, Dasgupta thoughts keep me on an even keel. More or less. One day I’ll go back there, I tell myself, and immediately I feel more cheerful. I’ll go back and the videos will be the same, the chanting will be the same. Buddham saranam gacchami. The stillness. Mi Nu. Mi Nu will be there for ever. I love that thought. Of Mr Geoffrey Hall I have heard and seen nothing, zilch. Philippe is dead. Meantime, the anthropology prof has his eyes on me. Parts of me. He has a nice voice and a sly smile. We’ll see. Sometimes I wonder if I couldn’t have seduced old Dasgupta himself if I’d ever got to meet him.
In another life maybe.