Edward Aubyn - On the Edge

After hanging up, Haley went on sitting in the wooden phone booth, glazed over and strangely peaceful. The solvent of her tears seemed to have disengaged her from the confusion of her recent life. In an hour she would be leaving Esalen and leaving Jason too. What was she wailing about? She should be celebrating. What was she doing in California anyhow? She was longing to get back to Clapham. She wanted to build up her business, and get proper offices, and advertise, and marry someone who had a really positive attitude to life. She was finished with her old life, completely finished. She didn’t even like Panita, and she wasn’t going to go to CoCo meetings either.

It was so Aries, she loved it. Just make a new start. No problem. Except that it would be no problem for Jason either. Little bastard.

There was a tap on the window. Christ, it was him.

‘Listen, doll,’ said Jason chirpily. ‘I was wondering if you could lend us a few hundred dollars. I’ll pay you back — I’ve been writing some great new material.’

Haley gave him her contemptuous look.

‘I’m not going to lend it to you,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m going to give it to you.’

‘Great!’ said Jason.

‘On one condition. You never call me, never write to me, and if you see me in the street, you keep on walking.’

She threw down two hundred dollars on the ledge under the phone.

‘I don’t keep walking for less than four hundred,’ said Jason in his John Wayne voice.

‘Oh,’ said Haley, picking up the money, ‘in that case, I’ll keep walking.’

‘No, you’ve convinced me,’ said Jason, lurching forward as Haley started to leave. ‘I’ll walk away.’

‘Too late.’

‘Don’t be such a mean bitch,’ said Jason indignantly.

‘You wanker,’ said Haley, striding towards her car with all the dignity that the word ‘wanker’ left in its wake.

‘You won’t be able to get away from me,’ said Jason. ‘Every time you turn on the radio, I’ll be there.’

‘I think someone’s done that song already,’ said Haley sarcastically.

‘Listen,’ said Jason, switching tactics as they got closer to the car, ‘Angela has been on these conflict-mediation workshops. Maybe we should try to end on a more, sort of … generous note.’

‘You mean four generous notes, don’t you?’ said Haley. ‘I don’t know how you can … I mean … you’re unbelievable.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jason with a grin. ‘That’s what Angela thinks too.’

Haley got in the car and slammed the door.

Jason watched her cerise Fiesta ascend the hill to Route One, unable to forgive himself for not taking the two hundred dollars. He really could have done with that money. He had used Haley’s unrefundable deposits and some of Angela’s cash to get them into the Tantric workshop. Now he was totally broke. He had not mentioned to the office that Haley would not be attending, nor had he warned Angela that she might have to pretend to be Haley if a list of participants was read out. Not a perfect start to a workshop for committed couples.

‘Jason?’

He turned aound and saw Flavia.

‘Was that Haley?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Jason. ‘She left with all my money. I was standing here talking about conflict resolution, and returning to love, and honourable closure, and she just pissed off with all my dosh.’

‘You need a ritual,’ said Flavia.

‘I need a credit card,’ said Jason.

‘Listen,’ said Flavia, ‘I feel we need an honourable closure as well. I want to apologize. I arrived at Esalen with a lot of anger, and I feel I projected it on to you.’

‘People are always doing that,’ said Jason.

‘I had a lot of realizations about my patterns during Martha’s workshop, and I want to say that my behaviour was immature.’

‘Don’t worry,’ grinned Jason, ‘I’m at home with immaturity.’

Flavia smiled back. She opened her arms to indicate that the moment had come for a hug. Jason, who had nothing better to do, hugged her. He could feel that she was standing on tiptoe so that her chin could clear his shoulder; it was quite sweet really.

They disengaged, and Flavia let loose a loud sigh, still holding on to Jason’s forearms with her long fingers.

‘Oh, that felt good,’ she said. ‘My personal rock bottom was living with this English guy in LA and I was projecting all that stuff on you. I can’t believe I did that, it’s so primitive.’

She seemed as elated at the end of the week as she had been angry at the beginning.

‘Listen, I don’t know how appropriate this is,’ she blurted out, ‘but if Haley left with all your money, I could lend you some until you get it back.’

‘It’s totally appropriate,’ said Jason.

‘I could give you my address in LA and you could send me the money next week.’

‘Definitely.’

‘This feels good,’ said Flavia.

‘It’s beautiful, beautiful,’ said Jason, giving her another hug.

* * *

Kenneth prodded and squeezed his crushed feet. Over the last two days, Brooke had cajoled him along several hiking trails, his wheezing progress only inspiring her to more ambitious combinations of hill and stream and wood. These country walks, or Vision Quests as Brooke preferred to call more or less anything that took place outside a department store or a restaurant, were a medical hazard from which he scarcely expected to recover. Radiated by the carcinogenic sun, they had scrambled over blond hillsides, exhuming muscles from the graveyard of Kenneth’s thighs and shocking them brutally into life. He could remember seeing, through his sweat-blurred vision, the purple splashes of wine-coloured rocks in the soft and intricate gloom of a redwood grove. He had swayed giddily as wild mineral water frothed under a fallen tree. Brooke ballerinaed across with outstretched arms and girlish cries; he lumbered behind like Frankenstein’s monster, while she extolled the beauties of the scene.

If only he had finished his book, he could have turned down these bucolic humiliations. As it was, he could refuse nothing to Brooke. He had always exhausted his imagination wondering what to wear for the television interviews accompanying the publication of his finished book. Now he tiptoed apprehensively to the other end of the process and wondered what to put in the book itself. At first a hideous sense of blankness and panic washed over him, but as another ravine edged into view, he started to compose spontaneous fragments of Streamist philosophy.

‘You see, you’re being inspired by Nature,’ said Brooke, when he took out his notebook.

‘You better believe it,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, God,’ said Brooke, ‘it’s so beautiful here, I think I’m going to buy a ranch.’

* * *

‘You should be teaching the Tantric workshop,’ said Yves, leafing through the Esalen catalogue.

‘We should be teaching it together,’ said Adam.

‘Everyone could sit in silence and just watch us,’ said Yves.

‘Don’t get me excited, I’m trying to pack.’

‘But Ad-um,’ said Yves, imitating the annoying Frenchwoman Adam had been telling him about. ‘Did Rumi and Shams have Tantric sex?’

He caught hold of Adam and pulled him backwards onto the bed.

‘Scholars are divided on this point,’ said Adam, in his silly don’s voice, ‘but I think that the best approach is the experiential one adopted by Fraser and Lamartine in their seminal work, “Having It Off”.’

He rolled over to Yves’s side and they stared adoringly into each other’s eyes.

* * *

Karen spotted Martha tossing her crutches into the back of her liberated Range Rover, and felt compelled to tell her that unique was not a unique enough word to express her appreciation and gratitude for the inner journey Martha and Carlos had taken them on during the course of the week. Clad in a pink tracksuit of the softest fabric and with one hand pressed to her heart, she walked over to Martha and congratulated her.