She picks upafter one ring. ‘I’m lonely,’ she says by way of a greeting.
‘Oh God, me too,’ I say in a gulp. We both laugh, relieved to share the moment.
‘I mean,’ she explains, ‘I am having a very wonderful time travelling, but I am also a human and I think it’sOKto be lonely when you are on your own so much.’ She pauses. ‘The retreat taught me to say things like that out loud. It takes the poweraway. I feel less lonely now that I’ve said it out loud.’
I nod, even though she cannot see me. One of my room mates passes through the dorm, reaching for her bag, and glances over. She hesitates and I see myself through her eyes. Acrazy-looking,red-eyed, blotchy, spotty lump who hasn’t left her bed in a full day. She must be wondering if I am going to kill her.
She hurries out, notlooking back.
Clara clears her throat on the line. ‘Are youOK, Alice? You sound funny.’
Reluctantly I sit up.
‘Yes, I’mOK,’ I say, my voice husky. ‘I’ve just beenday-sleeping, I think I’m dehydrated. Hold on.’ I reach for a bottle of water by my bed and take a long drink. It helps. My brain feels less fuzzy.
‘It’s so nice to hear your voice, Clara,’ I say, really meaning it.‘I miss the retreat gang already. Have you heard from anyone much?’
‘I miss you, too,’ she sighs. ‘Yes, I spoke to Anna and Maria yesterday! They were upbeat. They have told their truth to Anna’s wife at long last. It was very difficult but Maria said she was feeling better than she has in years. Living with a lie is not ever a good idea.’
‘Good for them,’ I say, delighted. ‘I hope itall works out for them, I really do. And Craig?’
She giggles. ‘He sent me a selfie yesterday. I think it was meant to be of him with his wife, but it was just his entire hat. He said Shaman Quam is coming to visit him next summer; he wanted me to invite you. They’re going to have a Zac Efron movie marathon.’
‘I am definitely up for that,’ I say happily.
‘Hurray!’ she says. ‘And Markand Joe must come too, how are they doing?’
The sound of their names takes me by surprise. I take a deep breath. ‘They left me,’ I say a little melodramatically. But then, I feel melodramatic.
‘Oh Alice, I’m sorry, did something happen?’ she says, sounding worried.
‘Mark and I had a big fight,’ I say after a beat. ‘Family stuff. Things that have been hanging over us for a long timenow. It was inevitable, I guess. But I’m all alone now.’
She is silent for a few seconds. ‘You’re not alone, Alice. You have almost eight billion people around you.’ I laugh, but she sounds earnest as she continues. ‘They are all outside your room, waiting to meet you. There is nowhere like being on the road for making new friends. If that’s what you want.’
We are silent, but it is notan intrusive silence. After a moment I add, ‘To be honest, Clara, I’m thinking about calling this whole thing off and heading back home.’
She sighs. ‘Oh Alice. I’m sorry you have argued with your brother. But you should not give up on your journey, not until you get to where you want to get.’
‘I was only going to be here another week or so anyway,’ I say hurriedly. ‘It felt like I wasgetting somewhere with all this travelling, but now it feels like I’ve gone backwards again.’ She doesn’t say anything for a minute, we just sit together on the phone. She is a very calming presence, even on the phone.
‘That’s how it works, I think,’ she says at last. ‘Everyone assumes there is an end point with life. I don’t mean death, which is of course an end point. But I mean that “settled”point. Where everything is solved. Like, you age, you accumulate things, you stick to the path set out for you by everyone else, and then you will be happy. People think that is the end point. The idea is that you travel through life until you getthere, and then you stop, give yourself up, and are happy forever.’ She stops again, and I can hear her smiling down the phone. ‘But it’s not how itworks. Rarely ever. Mostly, I think, we are all travelling around in circles. And it is often in different directions to other people. Sometimes it is backwards, sometimes it is forward, sometimes it is up, sometimes it’s down. But that is not so bad.’
I think about this. It’s a little confusing. We started talking about travelling around the world, and now we’re talking about travelling throughlife.
Something in it makes sense though.
I’ve spent a lot of time resisting traditional life goals, but also questioning and resenting the fact that I haven’t got there yet. It’s a weird type of brainwashing. Like, I don’t necessarily want that life, but I’m annoyed I don’t have it.
‘Anyway,’ I clear my throat, speaking in a rush. ‘I’m supposed to be heading on somewhere else afterThailand. I was going to do something spontaneous. I wanted to do something different and unexpected, but I cannot work out what. So maybe I should take that as a sign that it’s time to head home and get my life back on track.’
‘Maybe,’ she says simply. ‘What are your options if you keep going?’
I shrug. ‘I had a thousand ideas, really,’ I say. ‘I wanted to go to France to learn a newlanguage, or go to Italy to naked paddleboard like Orlando Bloom. I wanted to go to Bali to meet a medicine man. I wanted to do everything but nothing. I don’t know.’ I pause and she doesn’t say anything so I continue. ‘I thought I would connect with myself more out here. I thought being alone here would be peaceful. I thought I wanted solitude to figure out who I am. Maybe discover religion or something.But everything here feels so intense. It is too hard.’ I break off suddenly, nothing left to say.
‘Maybe it is working if it feels hard,’ she says quietly. ‘Things have to hurt and itch and scab over before they can heal.’
‘That sounds like something Buddhist,’ I say a little flippantly. ‘My problem with Buddhism is that it preaches no self and I like being a self. I want to feel likeI matter. Is it so bad to matter in this world?’
She laughs and her bracelets jingle down the line. ‘I am not religious – unless you count Sheathology,’ she laughs. ‘So I don’t have any answers for you. But—’ she pauses again and I hear her stand up, ‘right now, I have to go, because I am getting on a bus with some new friends today. We’re going to hike up a mountain and swim in a lake. Whydon’t you go outside and do something like that?’
I sigh before answering. ‘To be honest with you, Clara, the only thing I really want right now is a cheesy Dolmio pasta bake and the eleventh series of RuPaul’sDrag Raceon Netflix.’
She laughs. ‘Go outside,’ she says sternly. ‘RuPaul and pasta bake will still be there where you left them.’
She hangs up.
