Chapter One
Goa, India – Present Day
This is the first day of the rest of your life.
The thought struck Helen as she watched the sun setting over Arambol Beach, the Goan resort area where she’d lived and worked for the past two years. It hung like a fiery orb from a breathtaking rosy sky, the sea below an expanse of weathered gold, broken only by lazy white-tipped waves.
Sunsets sometimes did that. They made you take stock of your life, think about all the times you’d been at a crossroads and chosen one way over another, even if that way turned out to be a mistake.
She’d lost count of how many times she’d had that exact thought. She never welcomed the realisation that the rest of her life lay in front of her. It meant making plans, and she’d grown used to thinking only of one day at a time. The only responsibilities she had were her shift at The Sundowner bar and paying her rent. Sometimes she went to the market in Anjuna but not much else.
And every second of every day she pretended she wasn’t unhappy.
Sighing, she rose from the palm leaf she’d been sitting on and put out her cigarette in the wet sand. For a moment the sweet cloying scent of cannabis lingered, then it dissipated in the crisp evening air. Goa was a liberal place compared to the rest of India but not like it had been at the height of the hippie era, and she didn’t want to provoke anyone.
On her way back along the beach to the bar she met some local boys playing cricket. When the ball rolled along the sand, she picked it up and bowled with them a few times, to their delight. The boys, about eight or nine, timed their batting well, and when one of them hit a particularly fast ball she ruffled his black hair in encouragement.
Then she left them to their game and waved to Mamaji Madhu and her daughter-in-law, who were standing in the sea in their saris. Together they ran a convenience store on the high street, which sold food, toys, shoes and more, all in one big jumble, and everyone knew they loathed each other. There was no sign of that now, as they splashed and giggled and cooled themselves down after yet another humid day.
‘Namastē,’ called Mamaji as Helen passed them.
Smiling, Helen returned the greeting. ‘Hello.’
Outside the beach bar she glanced over her shoulder at the fading light. A haze was quickly settling over the sea with threatening clouds blowing in from the south, and it wouldn’t be long before it started raining again. Late May and the start of the monsoon was characterised by sudden downpours and thunderstorms, but between the rainfalls you got the true flavour of Goa as a lush and fertile land. Helen loved the monsoon. With fewer tourists to cater for she had time to read and meditate, to steer her thoughts in the direction she wanted them to go.
Although not to where they’d taken her earlier.
A sudden gust of wind lifted and tossed her hair across her face and made the loose cotton shirt she wore billow around her like a tent. Shivering, she hugged herself and ducked inside the shack.
The Sundowner was a typical palm thatch and bamboo shack with solid wood floor and a raised verandah facing the sea. Three of the walls were fashioned from bamboo wattle whereas the fourth wall was made from an old advertising hoarding, proclaiming the delights of Kingfisher beer. In stark contrast to the clapped-together exterior, the interior was cooled by ceiling fans and lit by colourful electric lanterns. A row of downlighters reflected against the gleaming hardwood bar.
Behind it Joe, the owner, was drying glasses. ‘Been out for a tea break?’ His lilting Australian accent made her wonder if he was being sarcastic, although she knew it often just sounded like that.
She searched his face for signs she’d annoyed him. ‘I haven’t been too long, have I?’
Joe simply tossed her an apron. ‘Here, give us a hand.’ He knew it wasn’t a tea break, but by tacit agreement neither of them ever talked about Helen’s epilepsy and her use of cannabis to prevent seizures. She wound the strings of the oversized cook’s apron twice around her slim waist and tied them at the front.
They worked in silence broken only by the gentle tinkling of the wind chime. Through the front of the shack where the doors had been pushed open to the verandah, Helen saw a flash of lightning followed by a low roll of thunder, but the storm was still far away over the sea.
The bar was deserted apart from a small group of local fishermen discussing the day’s meagre catch over chai, a sweet tea stewed with milk and sugar. A young Indian couple entered, hand in hand, and chose a table in the corner. Helen put the tea towel down, picked up a pad and went to take their order.
Approaching the holidaymakers, she mentally pigeon-holed them as she did with all the customers at the shack. Newly-weds, with eyes only for each other. When the weather cleared, they’d probably write their names in the wet sand and enclose them in a heart, and maybe later they would take that obligatory post-nuptial trip to the sacred Darbar Sahib in Amritsar.