Nine Perfect Strangers

‘I’m sorry – what?’ said Frances, as she was shepherded into a room that looked like a doctor’s office. She felt discombobulated. Weren’t they just talking about spa treatments?

‘Just sit right here,’ said Yao. ‘We’ll do your blood pressure first.’

Frances found herself seated as Yao wrapped a cuff around her arm and pumped it enthusiastically.

‘It might be higher than usual,’ he said. ‘People feel a little stressed and nervous when they arrive. They’re tired after their journey. It’s natural. But let me tell you, I’ve never had a guest finish their retreat without a significant drop in their blood pressure!’

‘Mmm,’ said Frances.

She watched Yao write down her blood pressure. She didn’t ask if it was high or low. It was often low. She had been checked out for hypotension before because of her tendency to faint. If she got dehydrated or tired, or saw blood, her vision tunnelled and the world tipped.

Yao snapped on a pair of plastic green gloves. Frances looked away and focused on a point on the wall. He buckled a tourniquet around her arm and tapped her forearm.

‘Great veins,’ he said. Nurses often said that about Frances’s veins. She always felt momentarily proud and then kind of depressed, because what a waste of a positive attribute.

‘I didn’t actually realise there would be a blood test,’ said Frances.

‘Daily blood tests,’ said Yao cheerfully. ‘Very important because it means we can tweak your treatment plans accordingly.’

‘Mmm, I might actually opt out of the –’

‘Tiny ouch,’ said Yao.

Frances looked back to her arm, and then quickly away again as she caught sight of a test tube filling with her blood. She hadn’t even registered the prick of the needle. She felt all at once as powerless as a child, and was reminded of the few times in her life she’d had to go into hospital for minor surgeries, and how much she disliked the lack of control over her body. Nurses and doctors had the right to prod at her as they pleased, with no love or desire or affection, just expertise. It always took a few days to fully reinhabit her body again.

Did this young man currently helping himself to her blood even have medical expertise? Had she really done her due diligence on this place?

‘Are you trained as a . . .?’ She was trying to say, ‘Do you know what the hell you’re doing?’

‘I used to be a paramedic in a previous life,’ replied Yao.

She

met his eyes. Was he possibly a little mad? Did he mean he was a reincarnated paramedic? You never knew with these alternative types. ‘You don’t mean, literally, a previous life?’

Yao laughed out loud. A very normal-sounding laugh. ‘It was about ten years ago now.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m passionate about the work we do here.’ His eyes blazed. Maybe just slightly mad.

‘Right, that’s that,’ said Yao, removing the needle and handing her a cottonwool ball. ‘Press firmly.’ He labelled her test tube and smiled at her. ‘Excellent. Now, we’ll just check your weight.’

‘Oh, is that really necessary? I’m not here for weight loss; I’m here for, you know . . . personal transformation.’

‘Just for our files,’ said Yao. He removed the cottonwool ball, pressed a circular bandaid onto the tiny red pinprick and indicated a set of scales. ‘On you hop.’

Frances averted her eyes from the number. She had no idea of her weight and no interest in learning it. She knew she could be thinner, and of course when she was younger she was indeed much thinner, but she was generally happy with her body as long as it wasn’t giving her pain, and bored by all the different ways women droned on about the subject of weight, as if it were one of the great mysteries of life. The recent weight-losers, evangelical about whatever method had worked for them, the thin women who called themselves fat, the average women who called themselves obese, the ones desperate for her to join in their lavish self-loathing. ‘Oh, Frances, isn’t it just so depressing when you see young, thin girls like that!’ ‘Not especially,’ Frances would say, adding extra butter to her bread roll.

Yao wrote something on a form in a cream-coloured file marked in black sharpie block letters with her name, frances welty.

This was starting to feel too much like a visit to the doctor. Frances felt exposed and vulnerable and regretful. She wanted to go home. She wanted a muffin.

‘I’d really like to get to my room now,’ she said. ‘It was a long drive.’

‘Absolutely. I’m going to book you into the spa for an urgent massage for that back pain,’ said Yao. ‘Shall I give you half an hour to settle into your room, enjoy your welcome smoothie and read your welcome pack?’

‘That sounds like heaven,’ said Frances.