Tim Parks - The Server

He hadn’t drawn the curtains. You could see guys on the path a couple of yards away, heading towards the hall for Dasgupta’s last talk.

Then the gong clanged right outside the door. The course manager was in the corridor.

‘For the last meditation,’ my diarist was explaining. ‘It’s a gong.’

He started trying to get his trousers on while he talked.

‘No, I haven’t gone raving religious. It’s saner here than the way we live at home.’

He couldn’t get his feet into the trousers. One of the legs was twisted.

‘No, I’m not chickening out.’

I crouched down, sorted out his trousers and held them open for him to put his feet in. They were loose black linen with a tie-up top. Nice meditation pants. He grinned and stood and I pulled them up his thighs and over his bum. He had a lean, bony body, but the skin was smooth and the pack between his legs plump and solid. I gave it a little pat and tied the trousers off tight.

‘It’s quite the contrary, Linda.’

I looked around. There was a T-shirt on one of the hooks by the door. Rolling it up for him felt good, it smelt good. He ducked his head for me to pull it over him, taking the phone away from his ear to push it through a sleeve. As he did so I heard a woman’s voice saying, ‘You don’t seem to have thought of that at all.’

‘You’ll do exactly what you’d do if I was still there,’ he shouted. ‘In our heads we’ve been apart for years.’

I rolled up his socks one at a time, pushed them over his toes and unravelled them up his ankles and calves. They were long socks. Clean fortunately. You have to admire a guy who has clean socks on day ten. Without stepping back I stood up. My face was inches from his neck. I smiled.

‘Well, come and see if you don’t believe me. The last thing anyone thinks of here is sex.’

His eyes looked down at me.

‘For God’s sake!’ He took the phone from his ear and looked at the screen. ‘She’s rung off.’

Then he turned to the door where his jacket was hanging.

‘Don’t go to the discourse, Geoff,’ I said. ‘Come with me. Let’s leave now. Take me to London. Tonight.’

He stopped. ‘What?’

Now the second gong began. Five minutes.

‘Take me to London now. Tonight.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You’ve got a car here, haven’t you? Let’s go. This last discourse is a bore. He just drags it out.’

‘Didn’t you hear what I was saying? On the phone.’

Actually I hadn’t.

‘I’ve decided to stay. I asked Harper if they could use some volunteer work for the next few weeks, and he said yes.’

I shook my head. ‘After all you wrote in your diary …’

‘I told you, I started to get into it these last few days.’

‘But how can you help your daughter from here?’

‘Susie doesn’t need my help. The only urgent thing is to declare bankruptcy. And my accountant can do that. At most I’ll have to go back for a couple of signatures.’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘No.’

I let my head fall to one side. ‘Not for little old Lisa?’

‘It’s not the right moment.’

‘You won’t get another chance, Mr Diarist. I don’t ask twice.’

He looked confused, but shook his head.

‘Maybe just as well,’ I said, and walked out.

BY SEVEN THIRTY I was gone. No goodbyes. I went back to my room, stuffed my clothes into my backpack and left. Meredith had done her runner this morning. Stephanie was on clean-up, Kristin and Marcia must have gone to the discourse. All the better. I was in no mood for leaving notes. If I was going to get home to sleep I’d have to move fast. The Dasgupta Institute is hardly on the beaten track.

‘Goodbye, Mouse,’ I said. It was irritating that my diarist, who’d been so sharp about Dasgupta at the beginning, was now preferring the fat guru to Beth. After I’d pulled his trousers up for him and given him a pat on his pack!

You’re not Beth any more, a voice reminded me.

Outside, between the Metta Hall and the dining hall, I stopped. I should at least say something to Mrs Harper. No. I hurried through the dining hall, past the kitchen and the office and out.

It was a breezy evening in April. I thought it was April. I hadn’t checked the bus times. There was a mile of dirt track to the road. I had to get there before dark. But the backpack was heavy. It was slow going. The hedgerows were high with trees spreading above, closing you in. And as I walked I realized I was full of fear. What of? Every cell in my body was afraid. I could feel it on my skin. A tingling. But I felt confident too, even excited. I was breathing fear, breathing confidence, being alive being afraid. Breathe, Lisa, breathe. I was going to meet fear calmly, happily. There were birds singing too. Evening chirrups. And there were smells. Cut grass, woodsmoke, manure. Too bad about the mud and puddles. My trainers were filthy. Too bad about my period. I’d forgotten to change the tampon again. And too bad the buses only went once an hour. Was I going to start smoking again? I didn’t know. Was I going to start drinking? Find a boyfriend, join a band, get a job, go to college finally. Who is Lisa Marriot?

I walked, and at every step along the muddy lane between the high hedgerows I felt more fearful and more confident and more excited. Zinging and calm. Then I remembered: Dad has left Mum. Before Christmas. So four or five months ago. Quite a while. It was something that had really happened. The Thirty Years’ War was over. A couple of months without Beth and that was it, they split. Everything falls apart.

Well, good!

Again I had a little fit of fear and bliss. Life really can change. Anicca . It was terrifying. I can start again, I thought. Lisa thought. Really st-tart again. I could go home, this evening, and I could leave home, maybe tomorrow. Instead of having to live there to keep them on good terms and not being able to live there because they were never on good terms. Suddenly I wasn’t sure my time at the Dasgupta had had anything to do with Jonathan or Carl, the beach or the accident. Dad had left. Mum had let him go. I was free.

Darkness came. Then rain. The air greyed and thickened. Damn. I had no umbrella. At the bus stop I let the rain fall on me. My hair would get sticky and tangly. My shoulders were already damp. Don’t react. But there was no way I could react. The stop was in the middle of nowhere. A bend in a country lane. Hedges and fields. A gravelly lay-by. The rain fell through a chill breeze. I had left the Dasgupta. Keep the phone off, I thought. And Dad had left Mum. Wait for the bus. It will come. Even in the country the last bus can’t leave before eight.

It was almost nine when headlights turned out of the track from the Dasgupta and swept across me. The car shifted gear, accelerating, then shifted down again and stopped a few yards on. The passenger window buzzed down.

‘Lisa!’

‘Mr Diarist.’

‘You’re soaking. Get in. I’ll stick your bag in the back.’

I wasn’t actually sure I wanted this lift now. But I wasn’t sure whether a bus would come either. I’d been there an hour. He jumped out, took my bag, and suddenly I was sitting in a car with a man.

‘I decided to settle a few things at the office.’

‘Fine.’

‘And then get back here before the next retreat starts.’ ‘If you can take me to London, that will be great.’

‘London where?’

‘Chiswick.’

It was a bit out of his way, he said, but no problem. He’d go and sleep in his office.

‘Fine.’

After a few minutes he tried, ‘Aren’t you freezing?’

I didn’t answer.

He drove. I sat and stared. I hadn’t been in a car for so long. I stared at the black windscreen, the lights and the rain and the wipers. He turned the heating on.