Nine Perfect Strangers

Every morning began with tai chi in the rose garden with Yao. Her schedule always included at least one, sometimes two, remedial massages with Jan. Some days she had to go to the spa on multiple occasions – if, for example, she was ‘assigned’ a facial. She did not find this onerous. The facials were divinely scented, dreamlike experiences that left Frances rosy and glowing, with her hair sticking up like the petals of a flower. There were yoga classes in the yoga and meditation studio and walking meditations through the surrounding bushland. The walking meditations got brisker and faster and steeper each day.

In the early evening, when it got cooler, some guests went running with Yao (the Marconi family seemed to do nothing but run, even during free time; Frances would sit on her balcony and watch the three of them pelting up Tranquillity Hill as if they were running for their lives), while others did a ‘gentle’ exercise class in the rose garden with Delilah. Delilah seemed to have made it her personal mission to get Frances to do push-ups on her toes like a man, and because Frances wasn’t allowed to speak, she couldn’t say, ‘No thank you, I’ve never seen the point of push-ups.’ She now understood that the point of push-ups was to ‘work every muscle in her body’, which was supposedly a good thing.

Frances meekly allowed Yao to take her blood and check her blood pressure each day, before hopping mutely on the scales so he could record her weight, which she still avoided looking at but which she assumed was plummeting, probably in freefall, what with all the exercise, and the lack of calories and wine.

The noble silence, which seemed so flimsy and silly in the beginning, so arbitrary and easily breakable, somehow gained in strength and substance as the days passed, like the settling in of a heatwave, and in fact the summer heat had intensified. It was a dry, still heat, bright and white, like the silence itself.

At first, without the distraction of noise and conversation, Frances’s thoughts went around and around on a crazy, endless, repetitive loop: Paul Drabble, the money she’d lost, the surprise, the hurt, the anger, the surprise, the hurt, the anger, Paul’s son, who was probably not even his son, the book she’d written with delusional love in her heart, which had subsequently been rejected, the career that was possibly over, the review that she should never have read. It wasn’t that she’d found any solutions or experienced any earth-shattering revelations, but the act of observing her looping thoughts seemed to slow them down, until at last they came to a complete stop, and she’d found that for moments of time she thought . . . nothing. Nothing at all. Her mind was quite empty. And those moments were lovely.

The other guests were silent, not unwelcome figures in her peripheral vision. It became perfectly normal to ignore people, to not say ‘hello’ when you found someone else sitting in the hot spring you were visiting but to instead step silently into the bubbling, eggy-scented water with your head averted.

Once, she and the tall, dark and handsome man sat in the Secret Grotto hot spring for what seemed like an eternity together, neither saying a word, both gazing out at the valley views, lost in their private thoughts. Even though they hadn’t spoken or even looked at each other, it felt like they’d shared something spiritual.

There had been other pleasant surprises too.

For example, yesterday afternoo

n, as she had passed Zoe on the stairs, the girl brushed against her and pressed something into the palm of her hand. Frances managed to keep her eyes ahead and not say anything (which was remarkable, as she was very bad at that sort of thing; both her ex-husbands had informed her that they could think of no-one who would make a worse spy than her, while they, in spite of their differing personalities, were both apparently eminently qualified to join the CIA at a moment’s notice), and when she got to her room she had found a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in her hand. She had never tasted anything more divine. Apart from Zoe, Frances didn’t have much interaction with anyone else. She no longer startled when Napoleon sneezed. She noted that Tony’s hacking cough gradually lessened and lessened until it disappeared, and indeed her own cough disappeared around the same time. Her breathing became beautifully clear. Her paper cut vanished and her back pain got better every day. It really was a ‘healing journey’. When she got home she was going to send Ellen an effusive thank-you card for suggesting this place.

According to today’s schedule she had a one-on-one counselling session with Masha straight after lunch. Frances had never had any form of counselling in her life. She had friends for that. They all counselled each other and it was generally a two-way process. Frances couldn’t imagine sitting and telling anyone her problems without then listening to their problems and offering her own sage advice in return. She generally felt that the advice she offered was superior to the advice she received. Other people’s problems were so simple; one’s own problems tended to be so much more nuanced.

But the silence and the heat and the daily massages had all combined to create a peaceful sense of resignation. Masha could ‘counsel’ Frances if it made her happy.

Frances’s lunch that day was a vegetarian curry. She had stopped noticing the sound of everyone chewing and had begun to take the most extraordinary pleasure in her food – extraordinary because she thought she already took quite substantial pleasure in her food! The curry, which she savoured tiny mouthful by tiny mouthful, had a hint of saffron that just about blew her mind. Was saffron always that good? She didn’t know, but it felt like a religious experience.

After lunch, while still reflecting on the wonder of saffron, Frances opened the door marked private then climbed up two flights of stairs to the princess tower at the top of the house and knocked on the door of Masha’s office.

‘Come in,’ said a voice, a little peremptorily.

Frances entered the room, reminded of visits to the principal’s office when she was at boarding school.

Masha was writing something down and she gestured towards the seat in front of her to indicate that Frances should sit while she finished what she was doing.

Her demeanour would normally have made Frances bristle, and she wasn’t yet quite so Zen that she didn’t note the fact that she had the right to bristle. She was the paying guest turning up at the appointed time, thank you very much, not the hired help. But she didn’t sigh or clear her throat or wriggle because she was very nearly transformed, definitely thinner, and yesterday she did two push-ups in a row on her toes. She’d probably look very similar to Masha quite soon.

A wave of laughter rose in her chest and she distracted herself by studying the room.

She’d love an office like this. If she had an office like this she would probably write a masterpiece without chocolate. There were huge glass windows on all four sides, giving Masha a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the soft, rippling green countryside. It looked like a Renaissance painting from up here.

In the same way that the silence didn’t apply to Masha, it seemed that neither did the ‘no electronic devices’ rule. Masha did not seem averse to the very latest in technology. She had not one but two very smart-looking oversized computer monitors on her desk, as well as a laptop.

Was she surfing the internet up here while all her guests digitally detoxed? Frances felt her right hand twitch. She imagined grabbing a mouse, spinning a monitor around to face her, and clicking on a news site. What had happened in the last four days? There could have been a zombie apocalypse or a significant celebrity couple break-up and Frances would have no idea.

She dragged her eyes away from the seductive computer screens and looked instead at the few items on Masha’s desk. No photo frames revealing anything personal. There were a few lovely antiques that Frances coveted. Her hand crept out to touch a letter opener. The gold handle had an intricate design with pictures of . . . elephants?

‘Careful,’ said Masha. ‘That letter opener is as sharp as a dagger. You could murder someone with that, Frances.’

Frances’s hand flew back as fast as a shoplifter’s.

Masha picked up the letter opener and removed it from its sheath. ‘It is at least two hundred years old,’ she said. She pressed her thumb to the sharp point. ‘It has been in my family for a long time.’

Frances made an interested murmur. She wasn’t sure if she was allowed to break the silence, and suddenly she was irritated by that.

‘I assume the noble silence doesn’t apply right now?’ she said, and her unused voice sounded strange and unfamiliar to her ears. She’d been so good! She hadn’t even talked to herself when she was alone in her room, and normally she was very chatty when alone, cheerfully narrating her own actions and engaging in friendly dialogue with inanimate objects. ‘Where are you hiding, o peeler of carrots?’

‘Ah, you are a person who likes to follow the rules, are you?’ Masha rested her chin in both hands and studied her. Her eyes really were a remarkable shade of green.

‘Generally,’ said Frances.