Vinita Joseph

Two extracts from a work-in-progress - A Memoir (as yet untitled)

Extract 1

Finally I’m standing on the doorstep.  Somehow, it seems wrong to use my key and I ring the doorbell.  My brother, Richard, opens the door.  ‘It’s you,’ he says, ‘Good.’  Behind him, my mother’s face crumples.
            The first thing that strikes me is the smell of cooking.  My mother pulls me into the hallway and kisses me hard on the cheek.  Her hair smells of fried onions.  She sniffs a couple of times over my shoulder, her body convulsing as if she has hiccups.  But when she pulls away, she’s already composed herself.  She goes back to the kitchen, her plastic slippers clopping on the tiled floor.  I pat my brother on the back and hug my little sister, Susan.  I kiss her on the head, squeeze her hand and say, ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
            Leaving my bag in the hallway, I go upstairs to use the bathroom.  It is a place I have always gone when I need to be on my own.  Although it’s true that I’m desperate for the loo after the long journey, I also need to gather myself, before facing whatever is coming next.  After splashing my face with water, I pat it dry on the thin towel hanging on the door.  Then I notice the red bucket in the corner.  It contains a bouquet of flowers, leaning at an angle, stiff and still in its wrapping.  An unfamiliar script on the little gift card says, ‘With all my love on Mothers’ Day’.  The flowers are from me.  It seems like weeks ago that I went to the florists in Kenilworth to send them.  I realise that it was only yesterday.
            Later, my mother will remember the flowers and tell me, ‘I was waiting for your father to come home to show him how spendthrift you had become lah.’  The ‘lah’ is a Singaporean affectation still used by my mother, despite her belief that she has no accent and should have had a career broadcasting for the B.B.C..   I imagine that when she speaks, she hears not her own voice, but the clipped tones of a British actress from an old film, Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter perhaps.
            ‘Gill!  It’s ready!’   I hear her shout from downstairs.
            A tired looking omelette lies limply in the frying pan placed in the centre of the dining table.  It looks vaguely obscene, like a blister.
            ‘The doctor says we’ve got to eat,’ says my mother as she puts some bread into the toaster.  She glances around the table as if to check how many of us there now are.  She divides the omelette into four. 

A couple of weeks later and I am back at university sitting at my desk.  In front of me is a collection of grey pieces of moulded plastic, a sheet of pictorial instructions and a small tube of glue all spread out on newspaper.  Most of the pieces are still attached to the main stem by thin sprues, and you need to twist each piece a couple of times to free it.  The plastic goes white where it is put under pressure, like a scar.  I am making an Airfix model of the H.M.S. Ajax, a second-world war gun cruiser. 
            It only takes the slightest pressure and a snail trail of glue emerges from the nozzle of the tube.  I spread it thinly, on one surface only, as instructed, and hold the deck firmly to the hull until it has set.  The glue comes out unevenly and in some places the excess has seeped up through the joins and now puddles the deck. The model is six hundred times smaller than the original and I wonder how many gallons of seawater the glue represents.   I imagine tiny sailors in white and blue suits and jaunty caps wielding brooms and methodically brushing the water off the deck and back into the sea.
            There’s a knock at the door.  ‘Yes,’ I say.  Grace, one of the girls who shares the largest bedroom, stands framed in the doorway.  Blonde permed ringlets tumble onto the shoulders of her shirt.  Half the girls in the house are wearing them.  Men’s shirts, always white, always several sizes too big and always untucked.  I don’t know whether they are in fashion or whether the craze is particular to our student house.
            ‘How are you doing?’ she asks.
            ‘Oh, you know…’ I say, not knowing the answer to the question and not really wanting to think about it. 
            ‘Am I disturbing you?’ she says looking at the plastic model in my hand.
            ‘I just want to finish this fiddly bit and I’ll be with you,’ I say, ‘Come in.’  The propellers are no larger than grains of rice and it’s hard to hold them straight as they bond with the needle-sized shaft.  The second one sets a little crooked. Tweezers would have helped.
            Grace sits on my bed.  We don’t have armchairs.  At the foot of the bed is a large soft toy, a panda, and she picks it up, hugs it then puts it back, patting it on the head.  ‘Cute,’ she says.  ‘Eoin not around?’
            ‘He’s gone to Manchester.’
            ‘Don’t you mind?’
            ‘United are at home,’ I say.      
            Grace takes a packet of Silk Cut out of her skirt pocket.  ‘Do you mind?’
            ‘Maybe best open the window,’ I say.  She kneels on my bed to undo the window catch.  It’s stiff and she struggles with it for a moment.
            ‘Pull it towards you,’ I say.  She tugs at the catch which suddenly yields and she pushes the window open. 
            ‘God, doesn’t it smell wonderful!’  There is a honeysuckle bush below.  She lights up and the scent of the flowers and the cigarette smoke combine to form a heady mix.  Or maybe it’s just the effect of the glue fumes I’ve been breathing in.  I feel a little faint.  Grace is kneeling on my bed, holding her cigarette out of the window between inhalations.  Her weight has dented my bedding and the white chenille cover now crashes in violent waves across my bed.  It is all I can do to stop myself launching the battleship but I’m worried that the tiny sailors will not survive the formidable journey from the desk. 
            ‘So how are you?’ she asks.    

It’s barely a month since he died, and yet, just as it would be impossible to unpaint a watercolour, I already find it hard to remember exactly how I came to the picture I now have of my father’s death.  At best the information is second-hand; at worst it is mere supposition.  However, what’s really puzzling is that my memory of later events, events when I was actually present, also feels constructed.  We cannot remember everything.  If our attention is in one place, it is not in another.  We can easily bypass large swathes of any experience.  People often say this to me about driving, ‘I can remember chucking my bag onto the passenger seat at Whitstable, but I don’t remember anything until I got to the Blackwall Tunnel, and I must have driven through all those roadworks along the M2.  It’s scary.’ 
            It’s only when I try to remember, that I realise I’ve forgotten so much.  And yet other things, unexpected things, have become unnaturally bright, like food photographed for a cookery book.
            My father’s pyjamas are one example.  The day after he died, (or perhaps it was the day after that, I’d already lost track), I hear a wail from my parents’ bedroom.  Although I am exhausted from sleep deprivation, I bound up the stairs. 
            ‘God!  What’s happened?’
            ‘It’s your father’s pyjamas.’
            My mother and I look at each other for a moment. 
            ‘Mum, I know it’s awful but there’ll be reminders of him everywhere…’
            ‘No, I put clean pyjamas out for him.’
            ‘It was a Saturday,’ I say, aware of my mother’s domestic routines. 
            ‘But he didn’t wear them!  He put them back in the cupboard and took the used ones out of the dhobi basket.’
            I suppose it’s one of the consequences of planning the time of your own death – the ability to decide that it’s not worth wearing clean pyjamas for just one night.  I vaguely remember the kind of pyjamas my father wore – blue with a stripe – probably from M & S.  It’s not the kind of thing you show much interest in as a teenager.  But now, I have a clear ‘memory’ of crisp folded pyjamas being placed back in the wardrobe.  Except it’s not the wardrobe my parents actually had, not the unpainted MDF unit made by my father to fit the alcove in their bedroom, but the kind of wardrobe Gatsby owned, as played by Robert Redford in the film – a walk-in wardrobe stacked to the ceiling with pyjamas in every conceivable colour.  
            As for the pyjamas my father took back out of the dhobi basket, I ‘remember’ them as being fleecy and soft, like the all-in-one garments you buy for newborn babies, but as empty as the costume of a pantomime lion left heaped in the corner of a dark dressing room.

Extract 2 – Welcome to Medina

The car has broken down and we’ve spent the last hour parked on a grass verge on the A14 headed out of Cambridge.   
            ‘I think I might have flooded the engine,’ says Simon, the driver.  ‘We’d better give it a few minutes before I try it again.’  He’s giving me a lift to Medina Rajneesh, the British commune of our guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.  Simon is one of the commune therapists.
            Rain drums on the roof of the car.  It is late and other vehicles are few and far between.  We sit in silence.  Simon has his eyes closed and I wonder if he’s meditating.  His face is chiselled and pale and I can’t decide if I find him handsome or not.  Moments later the car is buffeted by the spray from an articulated lorry, its red tail-lights disappearing into the distance.
            ‘Why doesn’t anyone stop?’ says Simon. 
            ‘They might not realise we’ve broken down,’ I say.
            ‘What?  You mean they might think we’ve parked like this for fun?’
I think of suggesting that he leaves the bonnet up but I don’t know if rain is bad for the engine, so I say nothing.  Simon tries the ignition again.  The car whines and judders, and I can smell hot petrol fumes, but the car still doesn’t start.  Simon hits the steering wheel in frustration.  Even in the half-light I can see the veins on his forehead quite clearly, like rubber bands under the skin, I think. 
            ‘Maybe breaking down has saved us from having an accident,’ I say.
            ‘What?’ 
            ‘You know, maybe if we had carried on, a juggernaut would have jack-knifed in front of us and we’d now be badly injured or something…’
            ‘Yeah, maybe - ’
            ‘You know, like you were saying in the group earlier about not judging things because we can’t see the big picture – ’
            ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’  Simon gets out of the car and slams the door.  He hitches the back of his jacket over his head to give him some protection from the rain and begins to fiddle under the bonnet again.
            Fat raindrops run down the windscreen.  Beyond, the flat Suffolk countryside dissolves into sodden darkness. 
            I am concerned that the reason the car has broken down is because of me, because of my ambivalence.  Maybe I don’t really want to go and live on the commune.  Maybe I’m not yet ready.  But it’s too late to change my mind.  I was the last to leave our shared house in Cambridge and all my things are now on the back seat of the car: a rucksack packed with essential clothes and toiletries (‘there is limited space for personal belongings’); a blue nylon sleeping bag, tightly rolled up and secured with a belt (‘bedding is not provided’) and a bin liner containing a radio cassette player, a dog-eared copy of Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet, and my panda bear (‘you may bring a couple of ‘luxuries’, but the commune takes no responsibility for damage or loss’).
            I don’t really know Simon.  He just happened to be facilitating the therapy group at the Cambridge centre this evening and so was asked to give me a lift.  I know his girlfriend Vicky much better, a willowy woman, with wild red hair and freckles; difficult colouring for the spectrum of reds, oranges, pinks and maroons we are permitted to wear.  Vicky’s assisted on the last two residential therapy groups I’ve done and I’ve also had individual sessions with her. 

Hadiqua’a, Medina’s Healing Centre, is where the commune practitioners offer massage, acupuncture and beauty treatments as well as therapy, not only to sannyasins, but also to locals who are prepared to pay for the privilege.  The single storey building houses the sauna, the flotation tank and a number of individual treatment rooms.  My last session had taken place less than a month ago.  We’d begun with talking, Vicky and I seated cross-legged on cushions opposite one another.  The room was empty apart from a pile of green cushions and a low table with a vase of white freesias under the window.  I’d been saying how upset I still felt over my Dad’s death even though four years had passed.  Bhagwan surveyed the room from a large block mounted photograph on the wall.  Even in black and white, his gaze had a hypnotic quality.
         ‘Sometimes I feel I’ll never get over it,’ I said.  Vicky yawned.  I heard footsteps walk past the window.  In the corridor, a woman laughed.  Vicky blinked hard as if she suddenly remembered where she was.  She looked at me intently.  ‘Vinita, you need to get that suicide is an act of violence.  Your father was a violent man,’ she said. 
         It wasn’t how I remembered him.  My father had been placid, possibly too gentle for his own good.  ‘Yes, but –‘
         ‘There are no buts.  You’ve got to stop idealising him.  Don’t you get it?  You’ve got a choice Vinita.  Do you want to get it or not?’
         I nodded.
         ‘Really?  You really want to get it?’
         ‘Yes,’ I said quietly.
         ‘You’re not convincing me,’ said Vicky and began to pile cushions on the carpet in front of me.  I knew what was coming.
         I knelt beside the cushions and began to hit them with my clenched fists.
         ‘I can’t hear you Vinita.’
         ‘Noooo,’ I said weakly.
         ‘I still can’t hear you.  Come on!  Let go!’
         I hit the cushions again, harder this time. ‘NOOOOO!’
         ‘That’s right Vinita.  You’re angry with your father.  Very angry with him, for leaving you, for leaving you with these feelings and no way of expressing them.  Let go.  You’ve got to let go.’  I hit the cushions until I was breathless and shouted until I was hoarse.  ‘NO!’  ‘ARGHHH!’  ‘NOOOOOOO!’  The sound was coming from my gut – more like a roar than a shout.  I even cried a little.  But despite all this I didn’t totally get into it.  A part of me remained judging, watching myself.
         ‘I felt like I was faking it,’ I told Vicky when she later asked me how it was.
         ‘That’s OK. Vinita.  Whatever you feel is OK,’ she said wearily.  Then she hugged me for a long time and told me I was doing great.

          Simon gets back into the car, his hair plastered down by the rain.  ‘I’m sorry I snapped,’ he says.  ‘Vicky and I were finally hoping to spend some time together tonight.  Things have been crazy with Patricia away.’
            Patricia is the Director of the Medina. The directors of all of the Rajneesh centres are women.  Bhagwan feels that it works better this way. He says that history has shown that men have tried to rule the world from the head and it hasn’t worked.  He says it’s now time for the heart to rule and that needs female energy.  That’s why he’s chosen women, whether in India, America, Germany, Japan or any of the other countries where he has a centre.  Given Margaret Thatcher’s record so far I am privately dubious.  Patricia has appointed Vicky as her deputy.  Vicky helps her run things, assists on therapy groups and steps into her shoes when she is away.  There is a strict hierarchy – in fact, a matriarchy. 
            Eventually, the car starts.  I wonder what would have happened if it hadn’t.  I suppose we would have walked several miles to the nearest ‘phone box and got someone from the commune to tow us back; or perhaps we would have hitched a lift; or slept in the car until the morning: somehow things would have worked out.
            As it is, it’s nearly one thirty in the morning when we finally reach the wooden sign on which the words ‘Welcome to Medina’ have been carefully painted.  We drive slowly up the narrow access road flanked on both sides by trees.  Although it has almost stopped raining, huge droplets of water pelt the car from overhanging branches.  Simon flicks the windscreen wipers back on and they again start up their hypnotic swishing.  Parallel ruts in the gravel snake ahead of us, awash with water and glinting in the headlights like two silver ropes pulling us steadily towards the house.
We follow the curve of the track to the end of the trees where it opens onto a vast dark space and the silhouette of the enormous Tudor manor house comes into view.  Although it is virtually in darkness, with just the odd security light on it looks impressive.  I expect to feel something.  After all I am finally coming home, aren’t I?  Isn’t this supposed to be my true home?  I remember one of the sayings we chant during Satsang.  ‘I go to the feet of the awakened one.  I go to the feet of the commune of the awakened one.  I go to the feet of the teachings of the awakened one.’  What do I feel?  Tired actually.  My resistance, I suppose.  Simon was right about me during the therapy group earlier - I am arrogant.  I don’t know the meaning of the word surrender.
            As the car approaches the house, I see a figure standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette.  She is dressed in pale pink.  The porch light illuminates her theatrically and she looks unusually thin and pale.  It is Vicky.  I wave at her but she does not wave back. 
            ‘Christ, not again,’ says Simon as Vicky lurches towards the driver’s door.  She yanks it open.
            ‘You bastard.’ she hisses at Simon.
            Simon gets out.  I remain seated.
            ‘The car broke down…’ he begins to explain.
            ‘I bet it did.  Very fucking convenient.  You must think I was born yesterday.’
            ‘Sweetheart, you’ve got yourself worked up.  Just stop for a moment.’
            ‘Me stop?  You’re the one who needs to stop.  You’re the bastard!.’
Simon just shakes his head.
            ‘And what about her?  What’s she doing here?’  I am shocked that Vicky doesn’t even acknowledge who I am. 
            ‘I was just giving her a lift…’
            ‘A lift? That’s a new word for it.’ 
            ‘Don’t be ridiculous.  What’s wrong with you?’
            ‘You’re the one being ridiculous.  Christ, she’s nearly half your age.’
            I do the arithmetic.  He can’t be any more than ten years older than me, but I suppose the accusation ‘she’s nearly two thirds your age’ doesn’t have quite the same ring.  I say nothing but keep my gaze focussed on the dashboard.
            Simon places his hand on Vicky’s arm, ‘Sssh.  Everyone’s asleep…’
‘I don’t give a fuck about everyone.’
            Simon tightens his grip and pulls Vicky away from the car.  He manoeuvres her down the path towards the road, the two of them trying to avoid the puddles as they struggle with one another.
            Although I may have been the catalyst for the argument, it is clear that my role is now over and that they have forgotten about me.  Fragments of their exchange …‘trust me’…’insecure’… ‘bastard’… ‘fucking bastard’…’your mother’…became less and less audible until finally all I can hear is the sound of my own breathing.
            I need somewhere to sleep.  I get out of the car, heave the rucksack onto my back, grab my sleeping bag and close the car door very quietly, mindful of all the people sleeping.  I know from previous visits that the visitors’ dormitory is in one of the pre-fabs next to the healing centre and I head down the path through the flowerbeds. The rain has eased off leaving a mist of damp in the air.  The smell of wet earth rises from the ground. 
            I do not remember waking the next morning, or rolling up my sleeping bag, or brushing my teeth in the communal bathroom.  I do not remember going back to the main house to the dining room for breakfast.  However, I do know that there would have been a queue at the long refectory table laid out with dried fruit that had been soaked overnight in apple juice; toast, made with bread baked on the premises; muesli, mixed to the commune’s own recipe and on Sundays there would be scrambled eggs.  I know these things because later during my stay I am given the job of preparing the breakfast with two Indian women from the commune in Poona.  I remember whipping up dozens of eggs in a large plastic bucket and running crazily between eight toasters, feeding them slices of bread and collecting the hot toast as it popped up.  I remember the women making me Chai Tea as a treat before our shift begins and the comforting and exotic smell of nutmeg, cinnamon and spices in hot milk at five thirty on a cold autumnal morning, and the particular pleasure I take in doing Tai Chi on the lawn after breakfast simply because of the symmetry of the words. Chai tea followed by Tai Chi.

But on the morning after my arrival at Medina, I am sitting alone at one of the long wooden tables in the dining hall when Vicky walks into the room hand in hand with Simon.  They join the back of the queue.  After a moment she scans the room and sees me and I look down, maybe into a bowl of muesli or perhaps at a slice of half eaten toast.  She rushes over and I brace myself for another confrontation.  She bends down, kisses me on the cheek enthusiastically and beams at me.  ‘Welcome to Medina, Vinita’, she says.  And she kisses me again.

* * * * *

Biography

The extracts are part of a work in progress. Vinita is writing a Memoir covering her late teens and early twenties. She was studying law at Warwick University when her father committed suicide. Within a year she became a member of a cult, ‘The Orange People’ - followers of the guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. She remained a member for four years during which time she participated in many bizarre ‘therapy’ groups and lived on the commune near Cambridge for several months. However, having ‘dropped out’ in such a spectacular fashion, she then completed her studies and qualified as a solicitor. She has now worked as a family lawyer for twenty years but has always harboured the desire to write about her earlier experiences.

Vinita lives in a house on the beach in Whitstable, Kent.

vinita_gill@yahoo.com