‘Just breathing out all that negativity and focusing on this moment. There is nothing but this moment.’
Someone’s nose is making a whistling sound. Oh God, is it mine?
‘With every breath, you’re going deeper. Allow any thoughts to come and go.’
I wonder what Charlie is doing right now. I hope she has lunch money in her account, I can’t remember if I topped it up.
‘As you begin breathing normally, imagine a lavender-coloured light beaming down from the ceiling directly into your head.’
Hang on, what?
‘This beautiful light travels down through your head, your neck, your shoulders…’
Why is it lavender? That’s very specific.
‘All the way down through your body, so relaxed now.’
Lavender’s blue, dilly-dilly…
This is useless and now these water sounds are making me want to pee. I shift position and take another deep breath. Why can’t I bloody relax like a normal person?
‘Imagine yourself walking through a garden, filled with beautiful flowers and—’
Wasps. Thousands of wasps. No. Focus, Nora.
‘Feel the soft grass under your feet. Appreciate the beauty of nature. Thank the universe for providing you with such a magnificent canvas to—’
Still need to pee.
I open one eye a little and look around the room. Everyone is perfectly still and perfectly quiet and obviously far more experienced in meditation that I am. Until I see Will scratch his head and check his watch. He catches me looking, makes his fingers into a gun shape and pretends to blow his own brains out. I smirk, grateful someone else isn’t getting this. I feel slightly less of an uncultured prick now.
As Miranda goes on to ask us to imagine meeting our ideal partner in the now wasp-infested garden of my mind, I realise that this bootcamp is going to be every bit as weird as I anticipated.
Let’s hope the universe has provided gin.
CHAPTER12
I leave my first meditation session feeling completely demoralised, while everyone else seems to be gushing over how relaxed and centred they feel. Either they’re lying or their heads were empty to begin with. All I feel is slight backache and bladder pressure. I head towards the bathroom at the end of the corridor and avoid eye contact with the women inside, shutting myself in a cubicle. The bathrooms are as lovely as the ones in the cabins, with marble worktops, polished wood floors and pristine cubicles which smell like almonds.
‘What do you have next?’ I hear someone ask. The sound of hairspray can be heard clanking on the marble sink area.
‘Cosmic ordering,’ a voice replies. ‘Should be interesting. Ask and ye shall receive… I think everyone is participating in this.’ I hear voice number one check her itinerary and agree.
I pee and roll my eyes at the same time. Cosmic bloody ordering. I remember when cosmic ordering was all the rage a few years ago. People thought you could ask the universe for a new car and the universe would have bugger all else to do except ensure you got that shiny black Mercedes with heated seats.
I exit the cubicle and realise that the first voice was Allison from my group. She’s openly vaping while she types on her phone, despite the no smoking sign on the wall behind her, but she’s not the only one. I count four women puffing on their e-cigarettes, while applying makeup or sorting their hair. I feel like I’m back at high school, only no one is keeping edgy for the teachers.
Hands washed in peach blossom soap, I make my way towards the main hall, where everyone is taking their seats again. Determined not to be stuck between Patricia and Kenneth again, I sit near the back at the end of a row. I have a good view of the grounds from here, overlooking a huge boating pond at the back of the house. The trees are bare and perennial flowers are scattered intermittently but I imagine in spring, this garden becomes something quite spectacular. It’s like a location from a Jane Austen novel and it’s strange to think that this was once someone’s home. Someone woke up to this view every morning. I hope they appreciated it as much as I do.
The buzz in the room is quite different from when we first arrived, groups of people laughing or deep in conversation, and I seem to be in the small minority of people not engaging with the rest of the guests. One meditation and now they’re all BFFs? I take out my phone and check my messages, determined to appear busy rather than unsociable. I have two new messages. One from Charlie.
Hi mum! I’m good! Ttyl x
And one from Faith.
Café is fine. Charlie is fine. Stop pestering us, woman.
I smirk and place my phone back in my bag, just as Anna appears back at her little podium.
