Tim Parks - The Server

‘You should vare rubber gloves,’ Ralph says.

When the sink blocks he reaches in to fish out the filth for me. I spray the sleeve of his sweater and he yells. I’m laughing all my teeth at him. Our minds are not strong enough to have the right relation with certain things . It’s true what Harper said. But I’ve no problem at all with Ralph, I could tease this kid for ever and never feel anything. ‘I love your teeth, Beth,’ Jonathan said. ‘I love how mad they are, how big.’ Carl wanted me to wear a brace. I’d be in trouble when I was older. ‘Why didn’t your parents do something?’ ‘Because they only talked to me to moan about each other.’

Meredith asked Ralph what sign he was. I sprayed rice and beans off a bowl, the same rice I’d moved my fingers through a couple of hours ago, but changed again now, sticky and soiled. Anicca. If the river keeps flowing, one day the rock will budge . The nuttiest things come into my head when I’m working, like I’d swallowed the Dhammapada . ‘As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, so let a sage dwell in his village.’

But the spray-gun is fantastic. Squeeze the trigger and a jet of steaming water blasts away the filth. I love that. The big dishwasher is great too: fierce, hot and fast . Two minutes forty seconds and the plates come out scorching white and pure. I hate putting my hands in the yuck when the sink blocks. ‘Please don’t be spraying me again, Bess.’ Ralph reaches in his arm. He has strong wrists with fine blond hair. His sign is Aquarius, he says. Carl’s sign. ‘I’ve never had an Aquarian boyfriend,’ Meredith informs us. So much for an attitude of segregation.

Tony is scraping saucepans now. Perhaps he’s a professor of waste disposal. Kristin has said nothing. She is stacking the dishes fast so we can finish and get our lunch. No one wants to eat before the dishes are done. IF YOU KNEW HOW HANDSOME THIS GUY TRYING TO CHAT ME UP IS! That’s the kind of text I would have sent to Jonathan and Carl a year ago. Sometimes I sent the same text to both. BLOKE TRIED TO KISS ME AS I WAS COMING OUT OF THE TUBE. NOW HE’S FOLLOWING ME UP SHAFTESBURY AVE! Carl would drop whatever he was doing and come running. THERE’S A ROADIE BOTHERING ME. I’M AFRAID TO GO TO THE LOO IN CASE HE FOLLOWS. Actually, that was true. I was in the 12 Bar. Carl turned up spoiling for a fight. Carl was such a cavalier. TAKE CARE, BETH, Jonathan wrote. He was in a restaurant with his wife. Sorry, ex-wife.

When we take our food to the female servers’ room to eat there’s always someone wants to be silent, or observe the strictest rules of Right Speech, and someone who wants to talk, needs to talk, has to talk. Kristin is Latvian. She must have cut her own hair. It has that lank look. And her grey eyes are a bit out of true. When she was assigned to our room the first thing she did was drag the mattress off her bed and lie down on the bare wooden slats. ‘I know the Buddha said not to sleep on luxurious beds,’ Meredith giggled, ‘but isn’t that overdoing it?’ She does use a pillow, though. She plumps up the pillow, pulls a blanket over her and lies down straight on the slats. I like her. I like her big hands and clumsy, stooped walk. I like her energy. She does everything with too much energy. At lunch she sits on a chair in the corner with her couscous on her knee and eats fast in silence. She has big bones. Kiss-kiss, Zoë called it. We had to heat some from the freezer because the curry was all gone. Paul got the quantities wrong. Third day running.

At table, a new arrival was filling out the Dhamma Service Form, a hefty type in her forties. ‘What do I write,’ she asked, ‘if I haven’t exactly kept the five precepts since the last retreat?’ She had an Aussie accent and a double chin.

Kristin went on eating.

‘Everyone gets thrown by that question,’ Meredith said.

‘Tell the truth.’ Ines beamed. ‘You can never be wrong when you tell the truth.”

‘The exact question,’ the Aussie said, ‘is: “Have you scrupulously kept the five precepts since your last Dasgupta Retreat?” I suppose they’ll still accept me if I haven’t.’

‘Listen,’ I interrupted ‘they’re not asking for details, are they? You don’t need to tell ’em you got razzled every night.’

The Aussie didn’t smile, but Kristin burst out laughing. She roared. Out of nothing.

Mrs Harper came in with Livia, the female course manager, and a French girl called Stephanie. Livia was saying she kept meeting people she must have known in other lives. She’d be checking off the list of meditators in the hall when suddenly she’d see a face she just knew she knew. More than knew, somebody she must have been close to once. Mrs Harper said this happened a lot at meditation centres because these places drew together people who had been on the Dhamma path for a number of lifetimes, people who were close to becoming arahants . Meredith began to say how her mum knew her dad’s name and star sign and even ascendant the very moment she set eyes on him. ‘She always says it’s a marriage that’s lasted a thousand lives.’

I laughed. ‘My mum and dad always said the only difference between their marriage and the Thirty Years’ War was that the war was over.’

Mrs Harper turned from the table to smile, and I could see her smile meant, That is exactly the kind of thing Beth would say, bless her.

‘So when do I get started?’ the Australian asked.

‘First you must meditate for an hour, then someone will take you to hear the Dhamma Service Discourse.’

Nobody volunteered. We were scraping our plates.

‘Beth,’ Mrs Harper asked, ‘when was the last time you heard the Service Discourse?’

Dearest Susie ,

I wonder if there is any point in my writing to you .

IN MY ROOM I unfolded the letter. I knew I would. Aside from Vikram’s recipes and the Dhammapada , I hadn’t read anything since the last text messages with Jonathan and Carl. I’d been happy for my head to be empty. Now it is going to be filled again.

Dearest Susie ,

I wonder if there is any point in my writing to you. It’s axiomatic, I suppose, that a twenty-two-year-old in love is blind to reason .

Axiomatic?

Nothing I can say is going to change your mind. Anything negative I try to tell you about Sean will only increase your determination to be with him and your distrust of me .

So what can I say?

I want you to know that if your mother and I are anxious for you, it is because we love you. We really do. It’s not true that we are obsessed by money and security. We just fear that one day you will regret throwing away such a huge opportunity. Then you’ll find yourself hating Sean for having taken you away from your vocation. You’ve worked all your life for this. In fact, I can’t understand why he isn’t telling you to accept and wait until life together doesn’t have to come at the expense of your career .

It’s not true that we were against Sean from the start. Not many parents would jump for joy to see their daughter in love with a man with such a serious problem. But we did recognize that you were in love, and I must say it’s been very beautiful to see you that way, rather as if all the spotlights had been turned up full on your shining face. You’re a marvellous girl, Susie, a fantastic daughter. We made Sean welcome. He’s eaten with us, slept over many times. But from the moment you announced that you were giving up everything to be near a man who has only himself to blame for what’s happened, we could no longer see this relationship favourably .