Heather ate less than half her steak before putting down her knife and fork with a little puff of irritation. Frances had to restrain herself from leaping on it like a wolf.
Throughout the meal, Yao and Delilah stood silent and unmoving. They were like footmen, except you couldn’t snap your fingers and tell them to let Cook know that my lady could do with a larger portion of quinoa, and perhaps a medium-rare sirloin.
The sound of strangers chewing and clinking and scraping their cutlery just about did Frances’s head in. Hadn’t she once read there was an actual disorder where people suffered real psychological distress at the sound of others eating? There was a name for it. Frances probably had that disorder and had never been diagnosed because you were meant to talk while you dined. Something else to remember to Google once she got her phone back.
Eventually they were done, and they all pulled back their chairs and returned to their rooms. You couldn’t even say, ‘Goodnight! Sleep well!’
Now, as Frances drank the last of her smoothie, she thought about the number of silent insufficient meals ahead of her and considered leaving in the morning.
‘No-one leaves early, Frances,’ Yao had said today. Well, Frances could be the first. Set a new precedent.
She thought of her massage therapist’s whispered warning just before the silence began: Don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with. What did she mean by that? Frances would certainly not do anything she didn’t feel comfortable with.
She recalled what Ellen had said when she suggested this place. ‘Their approach is really quite unconventional.’ Ellen was her friend. She wouldn’t send her somewhere dangerous . . . would she? Just to lose three kilos? You’d want to lose a lot more than three kilos if they were doing something dangerous. What could it be? Walking across burning coals for enlightenment? Frances would absolutely not do that. She didn’t even like walking across hot sand at the beach.
Ellen would have told her if there was walking across hot coals. Ellen was a dear friend.
‘I’ve never trusted that Ellen,’ Gillian once said, darkly and knowledgeably, but Gillian was always making dark, knowledgeable comments about people, as if everyone had secret mafia connections that only Gillian knew about.
Frances missed her greatly.
A wave of exhaustion hit her, not surprising after that long drive. She switched off her bedside lamp and fell instantly sound asleep, flat on her back like a sunbaker.
*
A light shone in her face.
Frances woke with a gasp.
chapter fifteen
Lars
‘What the actual fuck?’
Lars sat up, his heart hammering. A figure stood at the end of his bed shining a small torch in his face like a nurse doing hospital rounds.
He switched on his bedside lamp.
His ‘wellness consultant’, the delectable Delilah, stood next to his bed holding up the Tranquillum House dressing-gown with one hand. She didn’t speak. She lifted one finger and beckoned, as if he would just obediently and silently follow her instructions.
‘I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s the middle of the night and I like my sleep.’
Delilah said, ‘It’s the starlight meditation. It’s always on the first night. You don’t want to miss it.’
Lars lay back in bed and shielded his eyes. ‘I do want to miss it.’
‘You’ll like it. It’s really beautiful.’
Lars removed his hand from his eyes. ‘Did you even knock before you came into my room without permission?’
‘Naturally I knocked,’ said Delilah. She held up the dressing-gown. ‘Please? I’ll lose my job if you don’t come down for it.’
‘You will not.’
‘I might. Masha wants all the guests there for it. It only takes half an hour.’
Lars sighed. He could refuse on principle, but it was such a first-world, privileged principle he couldn’t be bothered. He was awake now anyway.
He sat up and held out his hand for his dressing-gown. He slept naked. He could have just leapt from the bed in all his glory to make the point that this was what happened when you woke your sleeping guests in the middle of the night, but he was too well-mannered. Delilah averted her eyes as he threw back the sheet, although he didn’t miss the quick downward flick. She was only human.
‘Don’t forget the silence,’ she said as she stepped into the corridor.
‘How could I forget the beautiful noble silence?’ said Lars.
She put her finger to her lips.
*
It was a clear night, the stars were out in force and a perfect half-moon illuminated the garden with silvery light. The balmy air was a soft caress against his skin after the hot day. It was, he had to admit, all very pleasant.
Nine yoga mats had been placed in a circle and guests wearing the Tranquillum House dressing-gowns lay with their heads facing the centre of the circle, where their striking leader Masha sat cross-legged on the grass.
Lars saw there was only one empty mat. He was the last guest to arrive. He wondered if he’d made the most fuss about being dragged from his bed. He never ceased to be amazed by the obedience of people at these places. They allowed themselves to be dipped in mud, wrapped in plastic, starved and deprived, pricked and prodded, all in the name of ‘transformation’.
Of course, Lars did too, but he was prepared to draw the line when necessary. For example, he drew the line at enemas. Also, he did not want to ever, ever discuss his bowel movements.
Delilah led Lars to a mat in between the lady who got the giggles when Lars said ‘Gesundheit!’ earlier and the giant lump of a man who had complained about his contraband being confiscated.
There was something familiar about the big guy with the contraband. It had been hard not to stare at him through dinner. Lars couldn’t shake the irritating feeling that he knew him from somewhere, but he couldn’t work out where.
Was he one of the husbands? If he was one of the husbands, would he recognise Lars and come after him, like that time he was boarding a plane and a guy in the economy line saw Lars and went nuts? He’d shouted, ‘YOU! You’re the reason I’m flying cattle class!’ Lars had taken extra pleasure in his Perrier-Jou?t on that flight (and walked briskly off the plane towards the priority queue at customs). The big guy didn’t look like one of the husbands, but Lars knew he knew him from somewhere.
He wasn’t good with faces. Ray was great with them. Every time they started a new series Lars would sit up on the couch, point at the screen and say, ‘Her! We know her! How do we know her?’ Ray normally had it within seconds: ‘Breaking Bad. The girlfriend. Walt let her die. Now shut up.’ It was a real skill. On the rare occasions that Lars worked it out before Ray he got very excited and demanded high fives.
Lars lay down on the mat between the big guy and the giggling lady. She reminded Lars of one of Renoir’s women – small-faced and round-eyed with curly hair piled on top of her head; creamy-skinned, plump and bosomy, possibly a little vacuous – but he thought they would probably get on. She looked like a fellow hedonist.
‘Namaste,’ said Masha. ‘Thank you for leaving your beds for tonight’s starlight meditation. I am grateful to you for your flexibility, for opening your hearts and minds to new experiences. I am proud of you.’
She was proud of them. How condescending. She didn’t even know them! They were her clients. They were paying for this. And yet Lars felt a sense of satisfaction in the garden, as if everyone wanted Masha to be proud of them.
‘The retreat you are about to undertake combines ancient Eastern healing wisdom and herbal treatments with the latest cutting-edge advances in Western medicine. I want you to know that although I am not a practising Buddhist, I have incorporated certain Buddhist philosophies into our practices here.’