I have no idea why Al and Leanne are laughing. It’s our first night in Nepal, the bar’s rammed and, as Leanne beat me to the last seat at our table, I’m half squatting, half leaning against the low wall that separates the seating area from the rock band. I say rock band but the music the four Nepalese musicians are playing is like no rock I’ve ever heard. The drummer and the bassist are out of time, and the guitarist sounds like he’s playing a completely different song. Daisy nods at me from across the table, then sticks out her tongue and holds her hands in the air, folding her fingers into devil’s horns like a blonde, perfectly made-up Gene Simmons.
“Yeah!” she shouts, then whips her hair back and forth as she head-bangs to a guitar solo that would make Jimmy Page weep. I reach for my beer as the table wobbles precariously.
“Woah!” Daisy says, rubbing the back of her neck and looking towards the band for a reaction. The guitarist gives her the thumbs up and shouts something unintelligible.
Leanne squeals with laughter as though it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen, while Al, to my left, drains her bottle and reaches for her mobile. There’s no Wi-Fi in the bar, but that hasn’t stopped her checking for texts every couple of minutes.
“Shots!” Daisy shouts, jumping to her feet. “Then drinking games. Fuzzy Duck, or I Have Never?”
“Fuzzy Duck!” Leanne says, pushing back her chair to stand up.
Daisy dismisses her with a wave of the hand. “I’ll get these; you can get the next lot.”
Silence descends on our table as the band stops for a break, and Daisy weaves her way through the bar, her denim shorts riding low on her hips, the strap of her red bra escaping from beneath her black vest top and resting on her shoulder. Every man she passes glances up at her. She’s the only woman I know who sashays as she walks.
Leanne nudges Al. “Have you seen that couple snogging over by the window? She’s got her hands down his shorts. It’s gross.”
“Yeah,” Al says, without looking up from her mobile.
It’s like she can sense that everything we’ve done tonight – the head-banging, the jokes, the observations, the drinks – has been for show, to try and cheer her up and distract her from thinking about Simone. It hasn’t worked. Al’s normally right up there with Daisy, telling stories and bantering, but she’s crawled into her shell since we first discussed coming to Nepal a month ago, and no amount of cajoling or piss-taking will tempt her back out.
“I’m going to the loo.” She stands up, shoves her phone into the pocket of her cargo trousers and shuffles away.
Leanne and I watch her go.
“Looking forward to Pokhara tomorrow?” Leanne asks.
“I can’t wait. I need a massage like you wouldn’t believe. How long’s the bus journey again?”
“About six hours.”
“Wow.”
“I noticed a little corner shop just down from our guest house. We should grab some water and snacks and things after breakfast.”
“Good idea.”
We lapse into silence as I gaze around the bar. We’re on the first floor of a building on the main stretch of Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu, and the sound of car horns drifts through the open windows. The walls are painted a deep red and decorated with fairy lights and paintings of temples and mountain ranges.
“Guys!” Daisy bounces back into view with a tray bearing eight shot glasses in her hands, just as Al rejoins us at the table. “There’s a wall over by the bar that loads of people have signed. We need to write something. Come on!”
“I don’t know what to write.” Daisy bites down on the piece of chalk in her hand then cringes as a squeaking sound fills the air.
“I do.” The tip of Al’s tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth as she drags the chalk over the wall. The whole expanse has been painted with blackboard paint, and it’s filled with sketches, messages, dates and obscenities.
“Fuck you, Simone!” Leanne rolls her eyes as she reads aloud what Al has written. “Seriously, Al, you can’t leave that up there.”
“Why not?” Al folds her arms over her chest and stares admiringly at her handiwork.
“Because it’s really negative. This holiday is supposed to be about new starts.”
“Okay, then.” Al pulls her sleeve over her hand and rubs at the wall. “There you go.”
“Fuck?” Leanne says, and everyone laughs. “That’s it?”
“That’s the best you’re getting out of me. Your turn, Emma.” She hands me the chalk.
“Oh, God.” I look at Daisy, who’s still deliberating what to write, a pale chalky patch now smeared on her bottom lip. “I don’t know what to write, either.”
“Give it to me, then.” Leanne snatches the chalk from my hand and, before I can object, she steps towards the wall and starts scribbling. When she steps back, there’s a self-satisfied grin on her face.
“What the hell?” Al squints at what she’s written. It’s longer than the things other people have written and, to fit it all in, she’s had to twist the sentence over and around other scribbles like a snake.
“It’s a Maya Angelou quote,” Leanne says. “‘The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.’”
I have to fight not to roll my eyes. Trust Leanne to be pseudo-deep when everyone else has drawn dicks and bollocks and written things like “I love beer” on the wall.
“Okay, I’ve got it.” I twist the chalk from her fingers and read aloud as I write. “Emma, Daisy, Al, Leanne: the adventure of a lifetime.”
Daisy steps forward and nudges me out of the way. She rubs out “the adventure of a lifetime” and replaces it with “best friends forever”.
“There.” She stands back and pulls the three of us into an awkward hug. “Perfect.”
Al rummages around in her backpack, pulls out two cans of lager and chucks one at me. We left the bar half an hour ago and we’re back at the guest house, ostensibly to sleep, but Al seems to have other ideas.
I catch the can of beer. “What’s this for?”
She settles back on her bed and kicks off her trainers. “Not being a dick.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tonight. It was like the Daisy and Leanne Show. Well, the Daisy Show, with a one-woman audience.”
“They were trying to cheer you up.” I pull the tab on my beer and take a swig. We drew lots to decide who’d share with whom in the guest house. Leanne wanted to share with Al, and for me and Daisy to share, but Daisy thought it would be fun to “mix things up a bit”, especially as we’ll have to share rooms at the retreat and in the jungle, too.
“I know, and I would have laughed if it wasn’t so sad.”
“Al!”
She smirks at me over the lip of her can. “Come on, Emma, admit it. I could see you cringing.”
“Well.” I shrug. “Maybe a bit. I felt like I should have held up a neon sign pointing to our table that said, ‘We Are Having FUN!’”
“Best friends forever!” Al bursts out laughing and the tension I’ve felt all evening finally dissipates.
There’s a knock at the door and we both freeze.
“Come