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Chapter Thirteen
SIMHASANA—lion pose

Simha means the powerful one. In this meditation asana the lion sits, waiting. This is the attitude the mind needs to enter deep meditative states. Sitting in padmasana, the practitioner leans forward with both palms on the floor between the knees, the arms straight, and the front of the neck stretched. With the eyes open, focus on the centre of the forehead above the eyebrows. Open the mouth and stretch out the tongue as far as it will go toward the chin. The pose helps to cure foul breath and cleans the tongue, and eventually even words will be clear, and flow with ease.

If lying on a yoga mat made students submissive, it also encouraged them to divulge secrets. Even Collette let confidences slip from time to time, and confessed to inner turmoil that could bring her down to earth, and sometimes way below it. It didn’t help that in Collette’s world the slightest deviance from perfection was magnified, triggering gargantuan insecurities, which she then minimized by honing her strengths. Balancing between these poles, Collette was propelled along the tightrope of life.

The supermodel’s ability to absorb new identities and champion new causes impressed Grace, who suspected it had less to do with the ability to detach than with a frenetic nature and the fortune at her disposal. Collette had shifted her allegiance from rabbinic law to Hindu mythology with apparently less soul-searching than she might give to switching from Valentino to Versace.

‘Hinduism suits me better,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘Those rabbinical texts can be dry, let me tell you, and the Hindus are so much more sensual than the Jews. Don’t tell Mike I said that, he’s half Jewish.’

‘So am I,’ said Grace, ‘through my father, if that counts.’

‘In my book, mother or father, half is half, but don’t take it personally. I just like the way Hindus include the body in worship.’

Collette may have been fickle but she was also kind and did not abandon the rabbi. She still let him use her house for his weekly seminar; she simply chose not to attend. This meant that Mike didn’t either, and the rabbi watched his numbers dwindle.

Collette loved yoga but craved the social scene that had come with spreading the cabbala word. The dilemma of wanting a public with whom to share her private practice was resolved by the puja party.

Puja is an intricate, sacred ceremony,’ Grace cautioned as they descended the stairs to the main hall.

‘Honey, I know, and we’ve found this Brahmin guy who’s going to perform it. We’re devoting it to Lakshmi, the goddess of fertility, in the hope she’ll kick-start my pregnancy. It’s gotta be a whole lot more fun than IVF. As my yoga teacher, you’re guest of honor, so bring whoever you like.’

‘Can I bring Jessica Bell?’

‘What, Jessica the actress?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know her?’

‘I’m her yoga teacher.’

‘Fabulous. We heard she was in town and meant to ask her over, so sure. How often do you teach her?

‘Twice a day.’

‘Holy moly she’s keen. You know, I was thinking yoga twice a week isn’t enough. Have you got your diary?’

Not for the first time it occurred to Grace that her livelihood would depend on her pupils’ inability to roll out the yoga mat and practice alone. Self-practice, it seemed, was the thing, the dedication and the discipline.

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When Collette greeted Grace for her tenth yoga class in twelve days she was full of enthusiasm for the changes she had made to the attic. The changes she had made to herself were evident. The minishorts, tight T, and red wrist thread had been discarded; Collette floated up the stairs in a pale orange cashmere vest and the softest pants of purple velvet, her wrist jangling with gold bangles.

‘Shakti worship was all the rage about four thousand years ago. I thought it was time for a revival,’ she said, opening the door at the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve christened the attic the Shakti room.’

A vast carpet of pink, yellow, and orange, decorated with flowers and shells, covered the wooden floor. ‘This carpet is the perfect texture for your yoga practice,’ Grace said. ‘It’s the kind the first yogis would have used.’

‘Pre–rubber mat, good. We’re closer to the source. Check this out,’ said Collette, tracing a cowrie shell with her big toe. ‘These symbolize the yoni, our lovely little cunts, the conch shells are the cock, the linga, and that’s Shiva and Shakti, lost in sahaja, which accounts for their pretzel position. Impossible, by the way. Mike and I tried.’

‘What’s sahaja?’

‘You don’t know tantra?’

‘I’m not familiar with the terms,’ Grace said carefully.

‘But you’re familiar with the feelings?’

Grace raised her right eyebrow and suppressed a smile.

‘So, you know Mike and I are having a ball. Sahaja’s that spontaneous dissolving-in-unity thing. In our last session we lost our egos through divine sex, to reach purusha, as our teacher puts it.’

Purusha?’

Purusha—the lowdown of who we are. The tantras say we get to the true self through sacred sex, which beats analysis. You see what I mean about the Jewish-Hindu thing. Mike and I were in bed until three in the afternoon on Saturday.’

‘Lost in sahaja?’

It was Collette’s turn to arch her brow. ‘Come, meet the girls.’ She swept her braceleted arm one hundred and eighty degrees toward the broad windowsill that had been transformed into an altar to the divine feminine by figurines of the goddess in her many forms. ‘André recommended the good girls, like, um, Uma and Parvati, but Mike wanted them all, good and bad, so we’ve got the lot. Kali, Durga, Chambla . . .’

‘Chambla? I’ve never heard of her.’

‘The thin one.’

‘Most of them are pretty thin,’ said Grace.

‘Okay, Chambla’s anorexic, bless her.’

Grace studied the figurines. ‘This collection wouldn’t look out of place in the British Museum.’

Collette ignored the comment. She did not like employees to refer to her purchasing power. Friends were another matter, and she was still undecided about where to position Grace on that sliding scale.

Aware that something she’d said or done had cooled Collette’s mood, Grace cautiously admired a palm-sized figure with pendulous breasts and meaty thighs, formed from fragile clay and set in the middle of the altar. ‘She’s something. Who is she?’

‘The Great Mother. We gave her pride of place, given the goal of our enterprise,’ Collette said, stroking the Great Mother’s pregnant belly.

‘She’s round and luscious. I like her,’ said Grace.

‘Really? I prefer this one.’ Collette touched a delicate grey stone deity. ‘Diana, goddess of the moon, the hunt, easy childbirth, and chastity—go figure.’ Collette was animated, Grace back in favour.

‘Where did you find them?’

‘André. He used to be one of the curators at the Louvre. He sourced the painting and everything in two weeks.’

The painting, pre-Raphaelite and above the fireplace, was a sensual scene of a maiden, her auburn hair bound with ivy, submitting to a unicorn. ‘Just look at that horn,’ sighed Collette.

Evidently Collette could focus when it suited her, and with André’s help had acquired knowledge and a priceless collection to celebrate, as she put it, ‘the Devi who resides within.’ All of which prompted Grace to Google Devi as soon as she got home and download a chunk of information in the hope of keeping up.

Jessica sent her limousine to collect Grace so that they could arrive together for Collette’s puja party. Unaccustomed to waiting for others, Jessica instructed Grace to call five minutes before she reached the hotel; it was another fifteen before the movie star appeared.

Jessica, always pretty, through sleight of hand and haute couture looked sublime. A mink stole, possibly fake, fell from her sculpted shoulders, and her long white Chanel dress was cut high in the centre to reveal legs—and particularly ankles—that would make Collette melt. Grace folded her arms, then unfolded them, struggling to be at ease beside the superstar. She tried not to mind that her dress was two years old, possibly three, and that she lacked the all-round glitter of Jessica Bell. To be affected by Jessica’s physical transformation would undermine their friendship, ‘the real wealth’ as Jessica had recently called it. Grace told herself, and tried to believe, that Jessica was the same person in spite of her adornment, although she held her head at a haughty angle and wasn’t inclined to talk. The short journey to Cheyne Walk was completed in silence.

As suggested on the invitation, they had brought fruit offerings, gifts for the goddess they were celebrating. Grace had three real pomegranates while Jessica held two solid-gold miniature apples from Tiffany. Carl, in blue jeans and a white Indian-style shirt, took their gifts with equal care; Grace thought he was the most regal person in the household.

Delicate lanterns cast magical light that flattered Collette, dressed as a mythical goddess in a long white dress with a plunging neckline, a gold asp bracelet snaking her arm. Her radiance was only slightly dimmed by Jessica’s presence, which may have accounted for her delayed greeting. Grace and Jessica stood in the hall, waiting, while Collette fussed over decorative minutiae. ‘Carl, put extra gardenias in here, would you? And keep an eye on the candles. We want the lanterns alight all night.’

Grace guessed that asserting authority over Carl was a tactic the older beauty used while composing herself to face the younger. Collette then approached with hands in namaste and bowed, waiting for her moment of insecurity to pass. By the time she raised her head it had, for she embraced Jessica with open arms and extravagant affection. Grace looked at her yoga students, first sisters in the Fame Family, and supposed the public display of extravagant affection was the way of their world. And if the Lakshmi evening was extreme, Grace understood that was also as it should be: Mike and Collette were rockocracy and in the new order it fell to them to create the life to which others aspired. From the gifts the gods bestowed, enhanced by ungodly ambition, they had ascended from the comprehensive ground of middle England and a trailer park in Memphis to sit at the right hand of those whose birthrights included Eton, invitations to High-grove House, and red carpet treatment just about anywhere.

Grace told herself that wealth was impermanent, that pride grants no equanimity, but standing in the shadow of Jessica and Collette her spiritual truths felt like clichés that didn’t quite cut it.

‘Trying for a baby. What a fantastic excuse for a party,’ purred Jessica.

‘We want everyone to have as much fun as we’ve had. We’ve gone along with the whole thing, even fasting. And I’m starving, let me tell you. The bath did it. We filled it with olive oil, or rather Carl did. How long did it take, Carl?’

‘Two hours, Collette. Next time we should buy the oil in vats.’

‘Great idea; look into it, would you? Waitrose can’t have any organic olive oil left. Mike and I have never had such fun worshipping the goddess.’

‘The atmosphere is like Christmas, New Year, and Thanksgiving rolled into one,’ said Jessica, her pleasure childlike as they walked up the candlelit stairs to the Shakti Room.

‘Not bad considering it’s spring,’ Collette laughed.

‘The house is a temple,’ said Grace.

Collette basked in approval. ‘Vaastu Shastra for the heavenly home, feng shui Indian style. The Vaastu architect, an amazing woman from Colorado, said the house faces the wrong direction. I thought we’d have to move but she put a Ganesha in the bedroom with a bowl of milk and said we should conceive. Which reminds me.’ She leaned over the balcony. ‘Hey, Carl, remember to put full cream milk out for Ganesh.’ She turned to Grace. ‘You’ve got to meet the tantra teacher, and you’ll love Siddhartha Shah, my Sanskrit teacher.’

‘You’re learning Sanskrit?’ Jessica was further impressed.

‘One class a week.’

‘Collette, you’re more of a yogi than I am,’ said Grace, wondering on what grounds she qualified these days. She hadn’t done self-practice for at least a week.

‘All or nothing; it’s the way I am,’ Collette announced, and nobody questioned it.

In the Shakti Room the members of the cabbala group (sans rabbi), Mike’s family, the members of his band, and their families all sat uncomfortably cross-legged around the puja altar, a low mahogany table decorated with the deity statues, the fruit offerings of friends, and delicate pastry tarts. Having got the hang of the dos and don’ts of step one cabbala, Mike’s dad and sister looked bemused to be in at the deep end of Hindu ritual. Beside them was Collette’s mum, flown in especially from Miami. Saved the indignity of the floor, she sat on a small padded chair, which made up for the thin gold tiara she had been asked to wear as the evening’s Honorary Mother. Mike wasn’t fazed by any of it and seemed to appreciate that it was all a little ridiculous. He’d go along with anything to keep Collette happy. She wanted a kid and why not? He already had six, and hardly needed another, but it was fun trying for the child he already called Lucky Seven. When Jessica walked in he winked, and then gazed steadily at Grace. Finally, Collette sat beside him and he kissed her softly on the lips, which was Dr. Kulkarni’s cue: he stepped into the circle.

Dressed, or rather undressed, as a traditional Brahmin priest with bare feet, bare chest, and wrapped below the waist in lustrous yellow silk, Dr. Kulkarni greeted them with such solemnity that Grace and Jessica looked at each other and almost burst out laughing. Grace bit the inside of both cheeks, closed her eyes, and inhaled hard. In an attempt to keep the giggles in, Jessica followed her example, and those close by copied them, assuming this was an advanced meditation technique.

‘On behalf of Mike and Collette, welcome.’ Dr. Kulkarni’s sincerity evaporated Grace’s giggles and she opened her eyes. ‘The puja is devoted to the propitiation of goddess Lakshmi. We will pray to the divine mother, Maha Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of fertility, light, and wealth, to ask her to lavish blessings upon us.’

Mike’s sister squinted ‘whatever next?’ at her dad, but he’d already nodded off.

‘Now we prepare for kum kum,’ Dr. Kulkarni said. The world-weary kids of Mike and Collette’s celebrity friends snickered, but the mature guests followed Collette’s example, brushing hair from their foreheads to be daubed with blood-red paste. After the doctor’s earnest anointing, a hushed silence fell. ‘All mothers are like the Mother Goddess,’ he said. ‘Protector, kisser of wounds, disciplinarian. The divine mother is the abode of dharma, or righteousness. She is not bound by Maya.’

‘What’s Maya?’ whispered Jessica.

‘Illusion,’ Grace said, watching Dr. Kulkarni liberally douse the altar with supposedly sacred water, soaking the sweet pastries she’d had her eye on.

‘In Indian philosophy, the birth of a child begins with music, so we shall chant invocations to Lakshmi. Listen, then repeat.’ Undaunted by the presence of the world’s biggest rock band, the doctor sat behind his harmonium and with eyes closed in bliss played the small keyboard with one hand, the other pumping its bellows, sucking air across its reeds. The hypnotic sound of the mystical accordion soon had the whole room singing devotional songs from Vedic scripture. By the time the bahajan had ended everybody was ready to party. Collette jumped up and clapped her hands—the only truly embarrassing moment. The doctor gently reminded her of other priorities. ‘We shall sit a little longer to reflect on the prosperity we are praying for: the blessings of inner peace and prosperity that bring light to our lives and faith in abundance. We pray for spiritual wealth.’

Mike blinked at the notion and his sister nudged their father awake. Finally, it was time to eat from the platter of now sacred food, none of them forgetting to use their right hand. After more chanting and prayers, truncated by a discreet word from Mike, the party took off. Crowds arrived, there were fireworks, vast displays of light filled the sky, and blessed food and wine were served until two in the morning.

Jessica, stopped at every turn by members of the Fame Family, escaped with Grace to a small room at the back of the house. Like absconding schoolgirls they shut the door. ‘Peace,’ said Jessica, collapsing on a long sofa. Grace stretched out on another, perpendicular to Jessica’s, and kicked off her shoes.

‘Lakshmi is impressive,’ said Jessica, ‘but when it comes to archetypes, I’m ready for Shiva and Shakti.’

‘Divine coupledom.’

‘That’s the one. I want my life to centre around something bigger than me and my next movie.’

‘Tonight’s the night to have a dream.’

‘Mine’s not so different from Collette’s, although in her place I’d adopt. It wouldn’t matter the baby isn’t physically hers. She’d love it the same. I would.’

‘Don’t you want your own child?’

‘Children in my life, but not necessarily out of me. I’d rather have an extraordinary man to share the day to day.’

‘How is he, by the way?’

Jessica had recently confessed to a man, but declined to name him. ‘He’s figuring out the best way for us to be together, and I wish he’d hurry up.’ She shrieked in frustration and gripped her hair by the roots. ‘I’m a wreck, and now I’ve wrecked my hair.’ She laughed. ‘What about you?’ She stared Grace down in a way nobody had.

‘What about me?’

‘Do you have a dream?’

Next to a master dream weaver, Grace was reluctant to express her tentative own. ‘I think I have a dream,’ she said.

‘Either you have a dream or you don’t. Are you brave enough to own it?’

Grace was about to say, ‘I think I’m brave enough,’ but instead said, emphatically, ‘Of course I’m brave enough.’

‘So what is it?’ Jessica slung out a pale arm, dangling her champagne glass. Uncomfortable with the focus on herself, Grace’s mind went blank. ‘Come on, Grace. What kind of life do you imagine for yourself?’

‘Being fulfilled in my work, and living with a man who appreciates me, whom I also appreciate.’

‘What about love?’

‘Love is the goal.’

‘Both ways, cos that’s the trick.’

‘A two-way love is what I want.’

‘Good. I presume you have the work dream down?’

‘I do.’

Jessica paused, expecting Grace to fill her in. She was not forthcoming. ‘Grace, come on. It helps to say out loud the kind of work you want.’

‘In a way I’m doing it, and don’t take this badly, I love teaching you and all my privileged ladies . . .’

‘But?’

‘I want to work with people, possibly with children, who can’t afford a yoga class or even imagine one.’

‘Free yoga classes for inner-city teenagers, abused kids, that kind of thing?’

‘Don’t sound so flip.’

‘Hon, I can be flip, it’s not my dream. But I can see it already: a centre in the East End, one say in Ladbroke Grove, and let’s have a retreat in the country.’

Grace grinned. Jessica didn’t think small, ever. ‘Okay. Now for the really complicated bit. The man. Any man in mind?’

‘I did have someone.’ Grace cleared her throat.

‘Did. That’s not great. What’s his name?’ Jessica had warmed to the novelty of being the one to ask the questions, and to the challenge of getting an answer.

‘Dr. James.’

Jessica sat up, digging her heels into Collette’s sofa. ‘In love with your doctor. Even I know that’s not good.’

‘He’s not my doctor.’

‘Then why didn’t you bring him tonight? Don’t tell me—he’s married.’

‘Why would you think that? Is your man married?’

‘This isn’t about me. Come on, Grace, where is your doctor tonight?’

‘Saigon.’

Jessica laughed. ‘Last thing I expected you to say. Let’s go find him. I wouldn’t mind a trip to Vietnam.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Stop thinking!’

‘Actually, I don’t know what to think. He hasn’t replied to my last letter.’

‘Which century are you in? You can’t wait on letters for your love affair—’

‘It isn’t a love affair.’

‘Why not?’

Grace stared at Jessica.

‘Why isn’t this a love affair if that’s what you want?’ the actress pressed on, obviously familiar with the interview technique.

With the focus on her, and Jessica demanding answers, it was as if Grace’s mind had turned to glue; she was stranded without access to thought or feeling.

‘Okay, you need to tell this guy that you love—’

‘But Jessica, I don’t love him. I don’t want—’ Grace heard the sentence complete itself inside her head.

Jessica pounced. ‘You say you want love, but when it comes down to it, you can’t imagine it, can you?’

‘Love doesn’t feel possible for me, that’s all. However much I have loved and have wanted it to work, it always ends badly. Really badly.’

‘We all dream of one love.’

‘Perhaps one love is all we get, and I’ve had mine.’

‘Grace, it’s great that you’re this caring person who looks after me, Collette, and God knows who else, but one day you’ll look around and all you’ll see is people who pay for an hour of your time, then say good-bye to get on with their lives. Meanwhile, what about yours?’

Unruffled nothingness was the kind of smooth future Grace had convinced herself she wanted but tonight, submerged in the realized dreams of her glamorous pupils, she saw how bleak her nothing looked. It was not the vision of an optimist, which is how she liked to paint herself.

Jessica swung her legs to the floor and drained her champagne like a cowboy downing a beer, but kept her focus. ‘Can’t you see that if yoga keeps you from being present to the whole of your life then it’s no different from any other addiction on that list we know so well? Grace, you know what they say about seeing is believing? Well, sometimes believing has to come first. Why don’t you call this guy and tell him?’

‘Tell him what exactly?’

Jessica sighed. ‘How about, you thought of him tonight when somebody asked about your dreams?’

‘I can’t say that,’ Grace said quietly.

‘What have you got to lose?’

‘I know I can’t say that. The words wouldn’t come. But I wish I had told him I’d split from Harry.’

‘Who’s Harry?’

‘A loser, let me tell you, and the man I was with when I last met Dr. James.’

‘Grace, this doctor has stopped writing because either he has another woman at the moment—and, let’s face it, Asian women are pretty irresistible—or he has the sense not to pursue a woman he thinks is unavailable.’

‘I thought he’d assume I was single again. I’ve assumed he is.’

‘Grace, clear this up, and not by letter. Can’t you see, whatever happened in the past, however much it hurt you, you’ve got to believe in the something good meant for you—and it’s time to find out if that includes Dr. James. What’s his other name?’

‘David.’

‘Can’t we call him that?’

‘I’ve called him Dr. James since we first met, and I haven’t got beyond it.’

‘Well, here’s hoping you do,’ said Jessica, who stood and held out her hand to Grace. ‘Come on, let’s go join the party.’

Collette was on Mike’s lap, surrounded by friends and her newly appointed faculty of Eastern specialists, plotting when they would hold their first weekly seminar. She pushed André, her French curator, at Grace and Jessica, as much for their entertainment as his, and they spent the rest of the evening listening to his explanation of the pictorial script in India’s epic tradition.

‘Indian theology is skeptical of words. They believe symbolic form—paintings, storytelling, and so on—better expresses the riddle of the universe.’

‘Which is?’ asked Jessica.

‘To understand the purpose of life.’

‘Isn’t that the great mystery?’

Exactement, but if we extract ourselves from maya, the creative world, the world we have created, perhaps it is possible to reach the ultimate truth. It is the purpose of yoga, n’est-ce pas, Grace? La transmutation of the mind to overcome ahamkara.’

Ahamkara?’ Jessica looked to Grace, but it was Collette who answered. ‘Literally your I-maker, the ego.’

‘Very good, Collette,’ André said, not intending to patronize.

Mike smiled proudly. He really didn’t give a fuck about the many thousands his wife had spent with André. He liked the guy, appreciated the education his wife had received, and enjoyed being on her spiritual tour.

‘The thing is to become no longer egocentric but self-centred,’ André continued.

‘I thought self-centred was bad?’ Jessica questioned.

‘There are different kinds of self,’ André clarified. ‘Atman is the form of self that cannot be seen by the eye, and the one we aspire to. Once we achieve it, we are no longer in thrall to the false powers of the world.’

‘Hello, Grace.’ Harry slipped his hand around Grace’s waist with such casual intimacy, for a second she couldn’t speak. Grace turned her back on the group, as much to hide vexation as to avoid introducing Harry, which is what she suspected he wanted. Dressed in white shirt and black suit, he looked impressive in clothes not so unlike the aesthete André’s.

‘You ignored me,’ he said, sotto voce, his hand still resting on the small of her back.

‘When?’ She stepped away from his touch.

‘On Westbourne Grove.’

‘I thought you ignored me,’ she said.

‘I waved,’ he said.

‘On the zebra crossing?’

‘No, outside Whole Foods.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

Misunderstandings. They would always have them.

‘How come you’re here?’ he asked.

Indignation, a familiar feeling around Harry, rose up. Grace said as lightly as she could, ‘I’m Collette’s yoga teacher. And you?’

‘We came with Nick and Joe.’

‘We?’

‘Vicky—’

‘You and Vicky? That’s something.’ Grace’s smile was ice.

‘Vicky calls it the new paradigm.’

‘Paradigm. My, my. And what is it?’

‘Once lovers, now friends, always parents. To be honest, she’s a whole lot better since you and I split up. So, what’s with this divine mother theme?’

‘Celebrating the feminine,’ Grace said.

‘A tricky business.’ Harry’s jaunty reply was meant to amuse Grace but his phrase was unfortunate. Grace, already cold toward him, was reminded of her brief conversation with Tricksy and turned colder still. He was oblivious. ‘You look beautiful. I haven’t seen this dress before.’

‘Why would you? We never went out.’

‘And I’m sorry about that. Grace, I’m sorry I fell apart when I was with you.’

‘Is that what you were doing?’

‘Come on. Be nice. When I saw you I was glad I came tonight, for a chance to talk. That, and picking up a client.’

‘What kind of client?’ Grace’s face crumpled.

‘A yoga client. I’m a yoga teacher these days,’ he said.