The Lie

“Because someone” – Daisy fake-glares at Leanne – “thought it would be nice to help out with the community. At five o’clock in the bloody morning.”

Everyone laughs, including Leanne, and I swipe at my eyes with my forearm. They’re smarting so much I can barely see for tears. Al and I have been chopping onions for the curry, and the mountain of vegetables in the sack on the floor doesn’t seem to be shrinking.

Three days have passed since we first arrived at Ekanta Yatra and we’ve spent the majority of our time outside, reading or sleeping in the many brightly coloured woven hammocks that hang from the plum and walnut trees in the orchard, doing yoga on the patio to the rear of the main house, and daring each other to stand in the waterfall for as long as possible, laughing and screaming as the icy cold water thunders onto our heads and freezes our bodies. It’s come as a shock to actually do some “work” again.

“This can’t all be for breakfast?” Al looks imploringly at Rajesh the chef, who’s sitting on a squat wooden stool peeling potatoes. His knees are spread wide, potato peelings sprinkling the top of his enormous stomach like hundreds and thousands on a cupcake.

“Yep. Takes a lot of food to fill thirty people.”

I put down my knife and wipe my face with the hem of my T-shirt. With no air conditioning, a window that’s so rotten it only opens a fraction of an inch, and curry-scented steam filling the room, it’s sauna-hot in here. Raj was already in the kitchen when Shona, one of the community members, shepherded us in. After Raj told us what he wanted us to do, he squatted down on the stool and started on the potatoes. This is the first time he’s spoken since, and the sound of his voice makes me relax, just the tiniest bit. There’s something very disconcerting about chatting away with someone sitting silently beside you, observing everything but not saying a word. There’s a lot of that here – community members drifting around, carrying bundles of God knows what from room to room, cleaning, meditating in random places, pausing in doorways. They rarely speak to us but they’re always watching, always listening. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re waiting for us to do something, but what, I have no idea.

“And you do this every day?” I ask. “Work in the kitchen?”

“Of course. It’s my job.”

“You wouldn’t rather be out in the garden, tending to vegetables, getting fresh air?”

Raj drops a peeled potato into the bucket at his feet and looks up at me, the knife dangling loosely from his hand. “I just told you, Emma. It’s my job.”

A bead of sweat appears in his hairline. It rolls down his forehead and disappears into the thick, bushy arch of one eyebrow. His nostrils flare, pulsing as though to a silent beat, as he continues to stare at me.

“Can we get some water?” Daisy asks, just when I can’t bear the weight of Raj’s gaze a second longer. “I’m gasping.”

“There’s water in the tap.” He gestures towards the sink. As he glances away, I feel unshackled.

“Ewwww.” Daisy wrinkles her nose. “You haven’t got any bottled stuff, have you?”

“Nope.” Raj shakes his head. “We’re running low on supplies. Ruth and Gabe, two members of the community, have gone to Pokhara to stock up. They should be back soon.” The tiniest of smiles lifts a corner of his mouth then vanishes. “Apparently.”

Standing outside one of the huts, I stifle a yawn. We were just preparing to crawl into our sleeping bags and pass out after kitchen duty finally ended, when Cera drifted into the girls’ dorm and told us that the huts had been prepared for our complimentary massages. None of us were going to turn that down, no matter how tired we were, so Al, Daisy and I dragged ourselves outside and down to the huts. Leanne stayed behind to attend a talk Isaac was giving on detoxing your mind. I think Al’s exact words to describe that decision were “fucking mental”.

“Hi, Emma.” Kane greets me as I yank open the wooden door to the hut and step inside. Not that there’s far to step. The hut can’t be much more than seven feet long and four feet wide. Everything is white – the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the pile of blankets fashioned into a narrow bed in the centre of the room. Even the candle, the solitary source of light, burning on a table in one corner of the room is white. The only things that aren’t white are the two circular metal rings screwed into the far corners of the hut. It seems I’m about to have a massage in what used to be a goat out-house.

Kane stands opposite me, his legs spread wide, his arms crossed over his broad chest, shadow obscuring half of his face.

“Come in, close the door behind you. Take a seat.” He gestures at the pile of blankets.

I do as I’m asked but I don’t pull the door fully closed. The air is thick with the scent of jasmine incense. It fills my throat, the smoky fragrance so cloying I can taste it. I eye Kane warily as he takes a seat himself, sitting cross-legged opposite me.

“Hi! I’m Kane.” He holds out a meaty hand for me to shake. He’s only an inch or two taller than me, and probably a couple of years younger, but with his shaved head and weighty frame, his presence dominates the hut.

“Emma.”

He smiles broadly as I shake his hand. It transforms his face. His heavy brow lifts and deep dimples appear on either side of his wide mouth, and any worries I may have had about sharing such a small space with a complete stranger dissipate.

“Have you ever had reflexology before, Emma?” he asks.

When I shake my head, he explains to me how all the parts of the body are connected to the feet and how, if I have a blockage in any particular area, he’ll be able to sense it.

“I’ve helped a lot of people,” he continues. “They’ve come to me with back pain, skin conditions, depression, IBS, the lot, and, with a course of treatments, I’ve helped them. Really helped them. Look at this …” He slides a book across the floor to me. “These are testimonials from the people I’ve treated. Have a look.”

I flick through page after page, words like “improved”, “transformed”, “magical” and “healed” jumping out at me. I’m just about to tell him about my panic attacks when he holds up a hand.

“Don’t tell me what’s wrong with you. I’ll know as soon as I touch your feet. Lie down for me, Emma, and slip off your flip-flops. I’ll begin by cleansing your feet.”

I close my eyes and try to relax as Kane rubs my feet with what feels like cold, wet towels and then slathers them with oil. I feel terrified and excited at the same time. Terrified that Kane may be able to sense why I have my panic attacks, and excited that he may be able to do something to relieve them. Now this is what I imagined when Leanne first mooted the idea of a retreat in Nepal – holistic treatments, massages and relaxation – not early starts, peeling potatoes and strange, staring men.

“You’re a kind person.” I jump at the sound of Kane’s voice and open my eyes. He’s still down at the other end of the hut, on his knees, pushing his thumbs into the balls of my feet. “You care about others but you feel taken for granted, sometimes.”

I try to reply but he shakes his head.

“I don’t want you to talk. You carry a lot of pain around with you but you don’t talk to anyone about it,” he continues as he presses his fingers into the pads of my toes. “You feel like you deserve to hurt, but you’re wrong. You must forgive yourself for what you did, Emma.”

I want to tell him that he’s full of shit, that he’s got the wrong person, but I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. I’m floored by what he’s just told me. I don’t know how he’s picked up so much about me, but it’s all I can do to keep breathing.

“Okay.” He waggles first my left foot, then my right foot, from side to side. “Now let’s see what’s physically wrong with you. Tell me if anything I do hurts. If it does, don’t worry, that just means there’s congestion that needs to be cleared.

“How about this?” A single tear winds its way down the side of my face as he presses into the ball of my right foot, but the pressure has nothing to do with the reason I’m crying.

I shake my head to indicate “no”.

“This?”

He slides his fingers to the side of my foot, but there’s no pain so I shake my head again.

“How about here?”

I feel him jab at my ankle. “No.”

“Here?”

“No.”

Kane inhales noisily through his nose and my first thought is that I’m doing something wrong. I’m not responding as I should. Why doesn’t anything hurt?

“Here?”

I yelp as he prods a tender spot under my ankle. I spoke too soon.

“Family history of diabetes?”

I nod my head, astonished.

“And here?” I twitch as he rolls my calf under his hand. “Problems with your lungs?”

I nod again. He must have picked up on the fact I feel like I can’t breathe when I have a panic attack.

“And here?” His fingers dig into the soft, fleshy instep of my right foot. “Digestive problems,” he says, his tone jubilant, and I wince as he presses the same spot again. “Diarrhoea. Food passes right through you.”