Helen Brown - After Cleo

Other monks had tried to make a home here in the past, the nun explained, but they’d been frightened away by evil spirits. The current monk, Lydia’s teacher, was made of sterner stuff. Meditating in the cave near the summit for several years, he claimed the place.

Though the mountain air was cooler than it’d been at sea level, it was still and lifeless. I longed for a breeze, especially knowing 200 steps were hiding in the forest. My suitcase was ludicrously large. I wished I’d settled for a backpack.

As we slid out of the van, the driver gallantly hoisted my suitcase on his shoulder and disappeared up some mossy steps. We followed him, climbing and climbing. Jungle plants wrapped themselves so voraciously around the path that there was no view of the valley below. All I could see was the next set of steps ahead. Soon my eyes were stinging and my chest pumping. Stopping to catch my breath, I waved the others to go on ahead. To my relief, they vanished into the folds of the jungle. Only Lydia remained, waiting patiently behind me. I apologised for holding her up. She said not to worry, she felt like a breather herself.

When my lungs returned to normal, Lydia shadowed my footsteps with no sign of annoyance or frustration. Dad, who’d been an enthusiastic mountain climber, had a saying: ‘Always let the slowest go first.’ With gratitude, I realised it’s exactly what Lydia was doing. I made an effort not to count the steps, concentrating instead on scaling one set at a time without worrying how many more might be lurking on the slope above us. It was a good exercise in living in the present – perfect for the ascent to a Buddhist monastery, really.

Shadows grew longer as we reached the plain two-storeyed building that was the nuns’ quarters. I slipped my shoes off at the door and stumbled into a harshly lit room.

‘Sit,’ said the senior nun in a tone that wasn’t to be argued with.

Dusty and sweaty, I lowered myself on to a plastic chair covered with gold fabric. Not a word was said, but I later found out that seat was reserved for monks only.

A ginger kitten trotted toward me and rubbed against my ankle. As it gazed up at me through amber eyes, I thought of Jonah and wondered how he’d enjoy monastic life. Jonah’s personality was so pervasive I saw him everywhere these days, even in the eyes of racehorses and wild animals. His beauty and intensity seemed to be part of every animal.

‘What a lovely kitten!’ I said.

‘It’s not a kitten, it’s a cat,’ Lydia explained quietly. ‘The nuns found her mewing in the forest eight years ago. She’s had several litters, but none survived. She’s vegetarian.’

A vegetarian cat? I didn’t like to say anything. Maybe she was a high-minded feline. Or she was just conforming to monastery rules.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Puss. Just Puss.’

The van driver said goodbye and bowed deeply to both nuns. To my great embarrassment, he then turned and bowed just as deeply to me. Heat prickled up my neck. I must’ve been blushing.

‘It’s what we do for the oldest person present,’ the senior nun explained.

Looking at her, it was impossible to tell how old she was – thirty or forty? She had one of those unlined ecclesiastical faces. I later discovered she was just two years younger than me – we were closer in the walking-frame stakes than I’d thought.

Bow to people – just because they’re old ? It was a complete reversal of cultural priorities.

‘Old people bring many blessings,’ she explained with a radiant smile.

My first day in Sri Lanka had been filled with so many unfamiliar experiences I was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Strangest of all, coming from a culture that worships youth and detests grey hair, was to be actually revered for having a few wrinkles. Not that I liked to think of myself as ancient, just mature with a chance of wisdom.

Once the driver had handed over my suitcase, apologised again for the van breaking down, and left, Lydia escorted me up some outdoor steps to our rooms. Too weary to take much in, I registered apricot walls, a bare light bulb, a table with a white plastic chair and a bed with a blue mosquito net hovering over it.

The air was thick and warm. Lydia opened the windows, saying she hadn’t had any trouble from mosquitoes in her room next door. Just as she was about to explain where to find the bathroom, we were plunged into darkness. The senior nun glided into the room with a lit candle creating a halo around her.

‘It’s just an electricity cut, Sister Helen,’ she said, placing the candle on the table and floating out the door again. The candle promptly went out and fell on the floor.

‘Did you bring a head torch?’ Lydia asked.

There was a dull thud. Lydia assured me it was just her tripping over the candle.

Once our halogen lights were strapped around our heads we lit up like glow-worms. I followed Lydia’s silhouette outside on to the balcony, then around a corner over a potentially treacherous hump to what she tactfully described as a ‘French-style’ toilet – i.e. tiled floor with a hole in the ground, plus a bucket and scrubbing brush; flushing mechanisms non-existent. Compared to this, the lavatory in Kuala Lumpur had been the pinnacle of hygiene technology. What a prissy, screwed-up fool I’d been twenty-four hours ago!

I decided the hole in the ground was manageable providing it wasn’t a breeding ground for scorpions. Actually, even if it was I wasn’t about to go and pee in the jungle among snakes and whatever else was lurking out there. For the next few days it was going to be my hole in the ground – and Lydia’s and whoever else had claim to it. I was simply going to have to learn to use a bucket and scrubbing brush.

Back downstairs I showered under a dribble of tepid water with a large cockroach for a friend. As the grime of the day trickled away, I decided it was one of the best showers of my life.

It was intriguing to see how simply Lydia had lived for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. My bedroom was identical to hers, the bed just a mattress on plywood about the right length for a ten-year-old boy. Once smoothed down with sheets from home and the travel pillow it looked incredibly inviting. After a day playing human tumbleweed inside the van, I was grateful for its stillness.

Lydia brought mugs of tea, so hot and strong they almost passed as soup. With trepidation, I produced a small parcel from my suitcase and handed it to her.

‘Wow!’ she said, holding up the singlet top so the diamonds twinkled in the shadows. ‘Calvin Klein! How exciting!’

Her delight at the crass glitziness of the garment was wonderful.

After a while, Lydia kissed me goodnight and said to knock on her door if I needed her. Alone in my room with my head torch, I smiled at the electronic bleeping coming from her room. In these strange surroundings it was reassuring she had the same old quirks – like forgetting to turn her alarm clock off, and tripping over things.

Outside, the night had turned black as onyx. I’d naively assumed darkness in the jungle would mean silence, but a hypnotic chorus of male chanting echoed across the valley. The sound resonated through me, carrying me back through generations to anonymous forebears who lived before the Industrial Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment and the Renaissance.

After the chanting ended, other more insistent noises took over. Lowering myself on to the bed, I heard crickets (several types), birds, frogs, dogs and an unidentified range of creatures that trilled, squawked, honked, clicked, whistled, quacked and chirped. Competing loudly against each other, they took me back still further to a time when the prospect of evil spirits was feasible.