Helen Brown - After Cleo

People with disabilities had been important to her for almost a third of her life. She loved the work, and it had a social side. She and Ned had met as fellow volunteers at a summer camp for young people.

I couldn’t help smiling as the bus roared down the street. Our huge-hearted daughter claimed she wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I was surprised she couldn’t see she was doing that already.

Later that day, she escorted me upstairs and opened the door to her room. I drew a breath. The shabby collection of furniture had been transformed into a chic Asian temple. Tibetan prayer flags bedecked her windows. Red cushions glowed against the walls. A small Buddha sat cross-legged between a candle and a photo frame, on top of a brightly painted chest. The effect was vaguely altar-ish.

‘Fantastic!’ I said, admiring the Tibetan wall-hanging a friend had given her. ‘It’s so . . . peaceful.’

The room was perfumed with unworldly calm, as if it could detach itself and float away from the rest of the house.

Lifting the photo frame, I’d expected to see a family snap from our last holiday. Instead, I was greeted by the smiling face of a Buddhist monk. Actually, the Buddhist monk. The one we’d met years earlier when he’d been passing through Melbourne. At the time, word had gone out to our yoga group that a Sri Lankan monk wanted somewhere to give a meditation class. All he needed was a room that could hold twenty people who’d bring their own cushions to sit on the floor. A small ask. I volunteered.

Irene’s net curtains had seizures the day his car pulled up outside our place. It was as if Queen Elizabeth and Father Christmas had rolled into a single entity and bestowed us with his presence. With a swoop of maroon robes and a pair of shaven-headed nuns in his wake, the monk sailed through our front gate.

In his knitted cap, gold rimmed spectacles and flowing gown, he was reminiscent of Yoda from Star Wars , except his ears were smaller and his sentence construction better. Radiating charisma, he accepted clumsy bows from Western admirers, most of them wives and mothers who’d spent a large part of their lives caring for others. Some were seeking inner calm; others were looking for the nurture they’d given away as if it had cost them nothing. Or enrichment. The few men who showed up in beads and Indian tops were too self-absorbed to be approachable.

I’d smiled obsequiously and bowed along with the rest of them. I didn’t know a thing about monks or Buddhism, but I wanted people to feel comfortable.

We pushed the sofas back while they arranged their cushions and blankets on the floor. It was a squeeze. Those who were able to sat cross-legged and started drifting into meditative states to show the rest of us they were way past spiritual kindergarten. A comfortable chair was placed at the front of the room, along with a small table and a glass of water. Plus a vase of lilies. The monk liked flowers.

Once everyone was settled, I found a space near the back of the room, a couple of cushions along from Lydia. I was surprised she was even interested. Being eighteen, she had plenty of excuses to shut herself away in her room. But she sat effortlessly cross-legged, her eyes round with curiosity.

Expectant silence hung over the room as the monk eased himself into the chair and flicked his robe into elegant folds. He sniffed loudly and cast a benevolent gaze over us. I couldn’t help giggling inwardly. No Christian priest, politician or doctor could hope for this level of reverence. His audience was enthralled, not necessarily because they understood what he had to offer, but because of his otherness. The world had made us hard-minded and cynical about most things, but we still craved mystery.

The monk’s voice was high pitched and sweet, but there was toughness at its core. Honey pouring over stone. He turned out to be an excellent meditation teacher. For the next hour we observed our breath, tamed our monkey minds, counted backwards and breathed through different nostrils while trying to pretend our legs weren’t giving us hell. We ended the session wishing ourselves and all sentient beings health and happiness.

As people stood to bow and leave their donations, the monk announced that the nuns would be delighted to bless our house. Philip watched perplexed while the two tiny women chanted and sprinkled holy water in the corners of every room. He wasn’t over the moon about them sprinkling holy water on the television, but I assured him it wasn’t every day that people were offered a house blessing. I followed one of the nuns into our bedroom while she christened our bed cover. Her eyes were so deep they seemed to go beyond the back of her head. There was kindness in them, hardship too.

Once nearly everyone had gone, we stood with a few hardcore fans on the footpath outside the house to bid the monk and his entourage farewell. As he was about to climb into the back seat of the car, he flashed a movie-star smile at Lydia. ‘Come visit me in my monastery in Sri Lanka some day,’ he said before bestowing a royal wave upon us all.

I laughed the monk’s invite off, but Philip was wary, noticing the way Lydia’s face had lit up. Even though she acted grown up in many ways, she was still young and impressionable, he said. Gullible, even. He thought the monk arrogant and manipulative with his charm. I told him to stop being a fusty old dad before nudging him back inside.

After the monk disappeared down the street, I’d assumed he was out of our lives. A photo frame in Lydia’s bedroom was the last place I’d expected him to show up. Maybe she’d put him there because his beaming face and maroon robes toned perfectly with the new decor – a monk-ish style statement.

‘He’s my Teacher,’ Lydia said, taking the photo from my hand and replacing it beside the candle.

‘Your Teacher ?’ I echoed, unsure what the word meant in this context and trying to piece together how a half-forgotten Buddhist monk could suddenly reappear in our house as a ‘Teacher’. He certainly wasn’t teaching her the three R’s. We’d already forked out a fortune in school fees for that. Guru? Mind controller?

‘You stayed in touch all these years?’ I asked, straightening the Tibetan wall-hanging and trying to keep my tone neutral.

Lydia was reluctant to answer.

‘I’ve organised a few meditation retreats for him when he’s been back in Australia,’ she said casually, gazing enigmatically through her window out to the sky where a crow flapped against grey cloud.

Something jarred inside my chest. I thought I knew my daughter.

We’d had battles of will over the years, but they’d been over trivial stuff like hairstyles and piano lessons. I’d learnt the hard way that confronting her was pointless. Far simpler to let her dye her hair purple and grow out of it. But this felt more serious.

Flipping through my mental filing cabinet, I recalled her mentioning organising the occasional meditation retreat. I’d encouraged her, thinking meditation might give her skills to deal with exam studies and stress in general. It hadn’t occurred to me that the monk had been involved. Maybe I hadn’t taken enough notice or asked enough questions.

I’ve never been one of those women who want their daughters to be their best friends, sharing jeans and bedroom gossip. Lydia was raised to be independent and strong. On the other hand, I was taken aback she’d felt the need to hide how important the monk had become in her life.

If she thought I’d disapprove of her exploring a spiritual path, she didn’t know me very well. I’d always encouraged the kids to be open minded about that sort of thing.

Surely I wasn’t intrusive, the way Mum had been with me when I was young? The Gestapo had nothing on Mum when it came to interrogation. She’d delved so inquisitively into my life, I’d been forced to twist the truth quite regularly. But Mum was easy to shock. She had a long list of things she disapproved of – sex, left-wing politicians, Catholics, vegetarians, people from almost every foreign country . . .