has picked up back home.’ Stuart was my accountant and a good friend and I knew he was concerned about the drop in profits in the last year.
‘The killjoy,’ said Marcia.
‘Looking out for me as always,’ I replied. ‘And he’s probably right. I need to get things back on an even keel before I think about expanding into importing silk dressing gowns.’
Marcia sat down. ‘OK. My turn.’ Like Pete had done a few minutes earlier, she produced three envelopes, handing one to Pete and one to me and keeping the last for herself.
‘Oo, what’s this?’ I said as I ripped mine open. Inside, there was a voucher not unlike the one for Ayurvedic massage, but this said, ‘An hour with Saranya Ji.’ I looked to Marcia for explanation.
Her face was glowing with excitement. ‘She’s one of the top psychics in India.’
Oh no, was my immediate reaction. I don’t do clairvoyants, astrologers or palm readers: they’re not my thing at all. I think fortune-tellers prey on the vulnerable and tell people what they want to hear, but this was a present from Marcia and the last thing I wanted to do was to hurt her feelings. ‘Fabulous,’ I lied.
Marcia laughed. ‘You hate it. I know this isn’t your bag usually but she has a fantastic reputation; all the reviews say that she is amazing in what she reveals.’
‘No, no, I don’t hate it at all. It will be fun,’ I said. It was typical of Marcia to have done something like this. She had stacks of books on spirit guides and the meaning of dreams at home, was always a sucker for a card or palm reading, looking for someone who could draw back the veil to the unknown. Not me, and she knew that. I was the more rational of the two of us, my feet firmly planted on the ground, whereas Marcia had her head in the stars. Pete went along with her interests if only to keep the peace but, privately, the only spirits he was into were those of the alcoholic variety.
Marcia laughed again. ‘You don’t have to put on an act for me, Bea. But come on, keep an open mind. If nothing else, it will be a chance to get a look inside the Taj Lake Palace Hotel, because that’s where she’s staying and doing the sessions. She’s on a tour and I was lucky to get us all in.’ She pointed out over the water to the middle of the lake where there was a two-tiered white marble hotel with pillars and arches around the sides. It looked like an enormous wedding cake. ‘It was originally built around 1743 as the royal summer palace, and it covers the whole island, which is why it appears to be floating. It looks straight out of Disney, doesn’t it?’
‘It does,’ I agreed. ‘And it will be great to take a look inside.’
Pete kissed his wife’s cheek. ‘Well I love it. What an original gift. Let’s find out what our futures hold.’
‘Can’t wait,’ I lied again. Probably some charlatan who will tell me I am about to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger, I thought. As if that’s ever going to happen. I’d given up on men many moons ago, but I’d go along with it for Marcia’s sake. As she’d said, it was also a chance to look inside the world-famous hotel. ‘I’ve read that it was used as a location in the TV series, The Jewel and The Crown – and in the Bond film, Octopussy. I reckon martinis will be in order when we get there.’
‘Excellent idea,’ said Pete. ‘Make mine shaken, not stirred.’
The Ayurvedic treatments were to be at a health centre just outside the Udaipur City Palace, so we decided to make the most of our last day and explore the glorious-looking building on our way there.
‘There’s not a square inch that hasn’t been painted or covered in mosaic,’ said Marcia as we wandered through a maze of corridors and into vast, tall rooms interlinked with scalloped arches and carved pillars. We marvelled at the depictions of life-size elephants on one wall, a camel on another, Lord Krishna in shades of yellow glass, gods and goddesses in reds and blues. We passed through a gold door surrounded with a series of deep green arches that seemed to ripple out towards us, then we moved into and through a room covered in lines of silver, and scarlet tiles that had been set in dramatic zigzags across the walls.
‘Wow, opulent,’ I said as I looked at the lightning bolts of colour. Everywhere was a feast for the eyes: a gold and orange room; another that was pale turquoise with rust-coloured shutters; a ceiling covered with scarlet flowers on an emerald green background; a golden elephant against a royal blue wall; stained-glass windows with panes that shone like jewels with the light behind.
There were tourists in every room, all with their iPhones out. I was tempted to join them then decided not to. ‘I’ll take snapshots with my mind instead,’ I said as I put my mobile away. ‘And I can always revisit it on the Internet.’
‘We’ll probably want to do that when we get home,’ said Marcia. ‘I read that it’s snowing back in the UK.’
‘And of course it will be Christmas mania over there,’ I said. And not a time that I look forward to any more, I thought.
‘This part is famous,’ said Pete as we entered a pretty courtyard with a huge green and blue mosaic peacock, then moved into the adjacent room where the walls were made from small squares of blue, orange, green and yellow glass.
‘Colour combinations that are a million miles away from the pebble and taupe shades we live with back home,’ I said.
Marcia nodded, ‘Apple green and red, lime green and turquoise and everywhere gold, gold, gold. I love it. Pete, I think I feel some redecorating coming on.’
Pete rolled his eyes. ‘Again?’
‘The palace was built 450 years ago by Maharana Udai Singh II,’ we heard a tour guide tell his party. ‘It was added on to by subsequent generations, which is why it is now a series of palaces, eleven in all, measuring two hundred and forty-four metres long and thirty metres high. In days gone by, silk or muslin curtains, soaked in rose or jasmine water, would have been hung across the arched doorways and windows so that in the heat of the sun, the scent would waft through the palace.’
‘So romantic,’ I said to Marcia. Not for the first time on the trip, I felt a pang of regret that I wasn’t there with a special someone to share it with. Not that Pete or Marcia made me feel as if I was tagging along, not for a moment; but, all the same, sometimes I felt wistful that there wasn’t a hand to hold, or someone I could stop, look and treasure a moment with.
*
The health centre was a dark wood raised bungalow with a veranda at the front. It smelt strongly of herbs and sandalwood joss sticks, and in the background was the sound of chanting, Om, om, ommmmmmm.
We were greeted by a young Indian woman in a red sari, who took our names, then led us along a corridor and into treatment rooms. Moments later, I was undressed, on a couch, and had been anointed with what felt like a bucket of pungent-smelling oil. Soon, I was being pummelled and stroked by the two female therapists, one on either side of me.
They started to slap me lightly then poured on more oil and got to work. ‘Rosemary, good for muscles,’ said one of the masseuses.
As the massage continued, due to the copious oil that had been poured all over me, I found myself sliding forward and back along the
