will be a big change in you, Nina,’ he said as I left, coconut in hand. ‘Come and see me later this evening.’
After I hurled the coconut off the bridge I felt immensely relieved. I wiped the stain off my forehead and went to work, ready to caress Boo Williams’ ego. I got to work only to be told that Boo was too upset to get out of bed and would be in the following day instead. Still, I was unperturbed.
Richard, one of my colleagues, commented on how well I was looking.
‘I’m getting engaged,’ I replied.
When the coconut had left my hands all my decisions seemed so clear. I wanted to phone Jean Michel right away to tell him that I was going to marry him. I started to dial his mobile number but decided to wait for him to come back from his trip the next day and tell him in person. Everything that day at work was effortless. I knew I wouldn’t have to be there for long: once Jean and I were married I could think about other options. And my mum and dad? What would I do with them? If I looked at things optimistically, Jean could charm my mother – he could charm anyone, he was incredibly charismatic – and my mum, in turn, could work on my dad. Together we could make him come around.
Jean called me later that afternoon and I had to stop myself from blurting it all out.
‘I can’t wait to see you, ma cherie.’
‘Me too. When you’re back it’s all going to change. I love you, Jean.’
All I had to do was wait one more day and all the pretence could stop.
The Guru had given me the energy to make all obstacles appear surmountable and later that evening I returned to thank him for what he had done. He prescribed one more session for the following day, just to make sure I would keep on track. How I wish I had stopped there.
The next morning the Guru’s door was slightly ajar so I knocked on it and walked in. He had his back to me and was lighting his candles, humming away and swaying to Sting’s ‘Englishman in New York', which was playing loudly. It got to the alien bit when the Guru turned around. He looked startled when he saw me and immediately stopped the tape recorder, saying that he was sampling the music that was corrupting the youth of today, and promptly changed the cassette to a whinging sitar.
‘Sting is not a corrupting force,’ I said. ‘In fact, he’s against deforestation.’
The Guru glared at me when I said deforestation like he didn’t know what the word meant, but now I think about that look – eyes narrowing, brows furrowed – it was probably more that he remembered he had a job to do.
He signalled for me to sit on the floor and held my hands. They tingled with warmth again as he whispered kind words and then he began humming and chanting. Then the Guru asked me to lie down and he proceeded to touch me, moving slowly from my hands to other parts of my body, my neck, my feet; incantations and gods’ names being chanted all the while as he healed the negativity that shrouded me, asking me to let it go. As he unbuttoned my clothes and took off my top, his breath became rhythmic, his chanting louder, his beads pressed against my chest. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe that I was lost between the gods’ names and that none of this was really happening. It couldn’t happen; a holy man wouldn’t do this, he couldn’t do this, this wasn’t supposed to happen. His beard brushed against my skin, his fingers circled my mouth, I pretended that my trousers had not come down.
I have often asked myself why I didn’t get out of there sooner and how I had got myself into such a position. I didn’t want to believe what was really going on, because if I did, nothing whatsoever would make any sense – and the only thing at that point in time that I had left to hang on to was my belief. I didn’t want to believe what his dry, filthy hands were doing because I would have had to concede that whoever was responsible for sending me signs had sent this Guru, who was into an altogether different kind of spiritual feeling. Nobody could be that cruel.
As he placed his salivating mouth on my lips and pulled up his robe, I smelled him, and it was this that made something inside of me snap. He smelled of coffee. I kicked him, pushed him off me and managed to get out from under him before he used his magic wand.
‘No,’ I shouted.
‘You’re cursed,’ he screamed as I ran out of the door. ‘Cursed, and I will make sure of it.’
How I had sunk to such depths still remains a mystery but, essentially, that is where my journey began. I was confused and desperate, feeling wholly inadequate, riddled with self-doubt and dirty. I wanted to call Jean Michel and tell him but he would kill the Guru. So I tried to block it from my mind and pretend that nothing had happened.
The train I was on stopped. Some old man with the same rotten teeth as the Guru got on. It’s funny how that happens; reminders of the things you are trying most to forget. He smiled at me and I felt physically sick. My hands began to shake. ‘It didn’t happen,’ I kept saying to myself. ‘It’s all in the mind, it didn’t happen,’ and I reached into my handbag to get a mint. While I was fishing for it I found an envelope that was marked urgent.
It was a contract that I had looked over for a client, and which had been sitting in my handbag for the last two days. I had promised to send it back the next day and had completely forgotten. But today it was all going to change. I had to hold it together.
‘All change here,’ announced the driver. Although running late I was determined to buy a stamp, find a postbox, and personally post this letter. Posting it myself would be symbolic of my commitment to getting my life back on track. But, wouldn’t you know, there wasn’t a postbox in sight.
‘You’re cursed,’ I kept hearing, and the more I heard it, the more adamant I became that I would find a postbox and put everything behind me.
My boss, Simon, was slightly concerned when I arrived late. I was never late.
‘Is everything all right, Nina?’
‘Fine, just fine,’ I said, making my way to my desk.
I turned on the computer and looked out of the window. The buildings were grey and dreary and set against a grey winter sky. So many times I had sat looking out of this window, imagining the sky to be orange, wishing that I could soak up the rays of an orange sky, fly out of the window and have the courage to do something else, something that gave me meaning.
I had been working at Whitter and Lawson for the last three and a half years, representing all kinds of artists but mostly those who had issues over copyright or needed contractual agreements with galleries drawn up. I read somewhere that people work on the periphery of what they really want to do so that they don’t have to cope with rejection. So, someone who harboured desires to be a racing-car driver would be a mechanic on a racetrack but not actually drive the car. It was like this for me in a sense: I’d always wanted to be a painter and so I worked with artists. But my job wasn’t really about art, it was about making money, dealing with boosting egos. Feeling increasingly cynical and secretly thinking that I could do much better. But I couldn’t – it wasn’t really rejection I feared, it was disappointing my father and sabotaging his investment in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
I’d known I wanted to be a painter since the age of six. My brain had always had difficulty engaging with my mouth and I was unable to fully articulate any emotion except on paper. So anything I felt, I produced in a swirl of finger-painted colours that nobody could quite manage to understand. When I found out that my sister wasn’t coming back I did more of the same. My parents didn’t hang the pictures
