Page 16 of ReTreat Yourself

There’s movement outside my room. Someone is going to get it. I am boiling with rage. I yank open the door to see Gandalf standing outside Oliver’s door with a huge platter of fruit and a mouth-watering array of bite-sized baked goods. Oliver answers the door in much the same way I did just now. He looks down at the platter, back up to Gandalf and breaks into a huge grin.

‘For me?’

‘Yes. Apologies for leaving the wrong breakfast. This eez the Heppy Bunny Peckage. Eez for you.’

I watch them bow to each other before Gandalf turns to me, smiling. ‘Enjoy your stick.’

* * *

‘You have a lot of resentment in your lower abdomen,’ my bossy masseuse accuses, twenty minutes later, prodding my stomach forcefully. ‘It’s causing a gassy build-up. Let me see if I can release the pressure.’

How can this be true? How? All I’ve eaten is four nuts and a stick in the last twenty-four hours.

‘No! Do not release any—’ But it’s too late.

I am mortified. Thank God we are in a hut type of place that is mainly open to the elements and nestled on the edge of the forest, far from the main camp. There’s a roof, two beds and an awful lot of bowls containing foul-smelling oils.

Time seems to stand still while the masseuse bends me this way and that, releasing flumes of trapped gas from places you’d never guess held any. She cracks bones as she goes, tut-tutting about how tight and inflexible I am.

‘You are the shape of a chair. Your bones are literally welded into the shape of a seat. When will you people realise there’s more to life than working at a desk? You must bend each day or you will break. Motion is lotion.’

As if it isn’t quite humiliating enough, ten minutes later Oliver comes in and lies down on the table next to me. This can’t be right. I very definitely told him not to follow me around. He half-smiles at me and signals to a sign in his hand. It says: I am observing a spiritual silence.

Thank goodness for small mercies, I suppose.

I turn my head away from him and pray that my masseuse won’t be trying to locate any stubborn pockets of gassy build-up in front of him.

I listen to Oliver’s masseuse making soothing noises, practically cooing at him. It’s such an obvious attempt at seduction, I’m almost embarrassed for her. Oliver is having a very limiting effect on her vocabulary.

‘Amazing. What amazing energy you have. Do you work out? You’re in amazing shape. Simply amazing.’

By stark contrast, my masseuse sighs loudly. ‘See? The bloating has massively gone down, but I have to say you’re as hard as rock. And you have such terrible energies.’

I find myself apologising more than once as she digs around in my internal organs. Then, with unexpected force, she flips me over and gets to work, pummelling the life out of my back.

Pummel, pummel, grind, grind.

Pointy knuckles are stabbing into my knotty back. I’m writhing in agony against the backdrop of gentle yoga music and Oliver’s contented sighs, and repeated thumbs-up for his masseuse, who we learn is called Charmagne because her mother was such a great lover. ‘I’m a lover too,’ she whispers into Oliver’s ear. So inappropriate and unprofessional. ‘A lover of fine wines!’ She giggles. ‘Chardonnay and champagne! So I’m Charmagne!’

Really, this is too much. She may as well strip naked and mount him. Why don’t they get a room?

Oliver catches my eye and tries not to snigger. He looks pretty content to me. I mean, who wouldn’t? He’s having his head cradled by Charmagne, her breasts are all but in his face, and she’s flirting up a storm. While I’m over here, being battered like a fish.

* * *

When the whole ordeal is over, I am shepherded over to the same enthusiastic-looking group of people from yesterday and told by the group leader, Endless Cloud, that we are going to be spending the next five hours staring at a pebble. Maybe it is because I am weak with hunger, filled with despair, and every bone in my body now aches that, when faced with this news, my entire soul splinters. I drop to the ground, head in my hands like a professional footballer missing the winning penalty at the World Cup.

How long have I been here? What am I doing? What is the point of it all? When did my life choices take me down such a bewildering path?

Endless Cloud comes over to wave a crystal in my face. I watch, mesmerised, as he swishes it this way and that, an inch from my nose.

‘Shanti, shanti, shanti,’ he coos. His hand lands with a heavy thump on my shoulder, jolting me from the hypnotic trance. ‘Feeling better, hmmm?’

I look from the crystal up to his woolly eyebrows and burst into tears. He is quick to envelop me in a bony cuddle that is so uncomfortable my tears immediately stop.

I blink them away. ‘Yes, thank you. Much better,’ I say, stepping out of his skeletal embrace.

* * *