Destination India (20 page)

Flee (v.) To run away, as from danger or pursuers; take flight

Nihal had arranged for the tour group to visit an animal sanctuary, which looked after the many stray dogs around, followed by a spice plantation. I was still huddled under the thin sheet of my bed, not wanting to leave my own sanctuary. I’d ignored Chris as he got up and ready an hour earlier, sticking my fingers in my ears as he whistled to himself in the shower – although now I couldn’t get the bloody theme tune to
Star Wars
out of my head.

I’d hardly slept a wink all night; I still hadn’t worked out why Chris had done that. OK, fair enough if he’d found the clip, but he could have asked me rather than turn everyone against me. Oh God, just think of the reviews this tour was going to receive now.

‘Morning, Boss,’ Chris said, smirking. I half expected him to whip out a white fluffy cat to stroke as he gave me a dirty, venomous look, James Bond-baddie style. I could so see him in a satin housecoat. ‘You not up and ready to snoop on us some more this morning?’

‘You know, you didn’t have to do that, Chris,’ I said, my hands balled into fists at my sides. I wasn’t going to let this strange, arrogant man beat me. I had too much to lose.

‘Do what? Tell the truth?’ He laughed bitterly, flashing a row of fillings as he did. ‘These people trusted you, Georgia. They trusted you and opened up to you and all along you deceived them.’

I was almost shaking with both anger and guilt. ‘OK, so maybe it looked like that but I swear it wasn’t my plan.’

He tipped his beaky nose in the air and sighed loudly. ‘Whatever. Right, if you’ll excuse me, Boss, I’m off to meet the others. You can write that down in your sales notes too, if you want. I take it you’re not coming.’ With that he turned his back to me and got his day pack ready. I suddenly wondered whether his bony spine would hurt against my knuckles if I gave him a good thump … but decided against it, you know, being the boss and all.

‘I’ll catch you all up,’ I mumbled, and turned over until I heard the creak of the front door closing.

What was I going to do? I knew the mature thing would have been to jump out of bed, plaster on a fake smile that wouldn’t meet my tired eyes and act like nothing had happened last night. I knew I should try and pull myself together and stop being such a whiny mare. Yeah, I had messed up, yeah, I needed to inject some fun back into my life and find that elusive work-life balance, and yeah, I need to invest in some eye-bag cream. But still, I’d managed to co-create a business at a time when eight out of ten weren’t surviving past their first birthday.

OK, so things with Ben hadn’t taken off like I’d hoped, but that was because I’d become a business bore, worse than mums bragging about everything their newborn baby does on Facebook. Marie would come round if I actually treated her like a friend and not just someone who would always be there in the background. I knew I should get up and call a meeting to explain to everyone just what the truth was, with the help of Ameera and Nihal backing me up. Simple.

The thing was, I knew I couldn’t do that. I was crap at acting for one – Marie was the talented one in that area; and two, I still felt so guilty for not telling the truth. Visions of Ollie’s outraged face, Liz’s trembling bottom lip and Bex storming off in disgust played on repeat in my mind like some sick, screensaver slide show.

Trying to get back to sleep was fruitless so I made my decision.

I wasn’t going to go and meet the others; instead I was going to try and get the hell out of here. I couldn’t face them. I wouldn’t know where to start or what to say so it was for the best that I went home and prepared for the awful reviews to come pouring in.

Amazingly, I managed to connect to the dodgy Wi-Fi from my hut and quickly booked the next flight back to Manchester, leaving tomorrow lunchtime. After pressing confirm and hoping the connection wouldn’t cut out, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was going home. I then reserved a cheap hostel near the airport where I could stay tonight until my flight. I would leave them a letter explaining how sorry I was, but that it was for the best that they finish the tour without me.

After closing down my open apps I lay back on my bed and pressed my fingers to my pulsating temples. Leaving was the right thing. I’d finished what I’d come here to do, I’d sorted out the tour, and once this one was over, I had no doubt we would start to receive rave reviews, just as we had in the beginning. Plus, I’d managed to match-make Nihal and Ameera back together, as well as Liz and Ollie, which was just the icing on the cake. With a deep sigh I flung back my bed covers and clicked off the air conditioning. Chris had kept it on all night, and I felt like even my bogeys had frozen in my nose. With a relaxing whirr the small room became silent again. The sound of the waves
outside and birds singing filtered in, along with beams of hazy sunlight. I began packing my bag, looking sadly at the paint-splattered outfit I’d worn for Holi. So much for new beginnings. The past clearly wasn’t finished with me yet.

Once my clothes were rolled up and stuffed into any available space, I neatly made my bed and lugged my bag onto my shoulders. I decided not to leave a note for Chris after all – he’d probably only criticise my grammar skills. I trudged outside, blinking in the bright sunlight. My body sighed as my skin warmed under the late morning heat. Like some cat stretching out in a sun-dappled spot I turned my face to the sky and shut my eyes. God, I was going to miss this feeling. Maybe I would buy a sun lamp or repaint the office bright yellow to get the same effect.

‘Louise!’ Someone had called my name; I flicked my head back and clasped my hand over my eyes to see who it was. I thought the tour group had all left? Shit, I really didn’t want to be shouted at again right now.

‘Louise!’ the voice continued. Peering down the beach, which was empty apart from three skinny children dancing in the surf, I couldn’t see anyone, then I realised the voice was coming from my right. From Ameera and Nihal’s hut.

‘Oh, hi,’ I said waving lamely; Ameera was sat on the small terrace with her bare feet tucked under her petite body. She was wearing a hot-pink, floaty beach dress and had intricately braided her hair. She looked a lot perkier than I felt.

‘You OK? Come and have some tea with me.’ She beckoned me over.

OK, tea first and then I’d find a tuk-tuk to take me to the airport hotel. I quickly stepped over the sand; even in flip-flops the heat radiating through was scalding.

‘Hey, how come you’re not at the animal sanctuary?’ I asked, creaking on the wooden steps of her hut.

‘Well, I needed to be apart from Nihal for a bit.’

My stomach dropped. ‘Has something happened?’

She flicked her braids back and laughed lightly. ‘No! Don’t worry. Come on, sit down.’ She brought out a large flask of tea and two small cups and poured the spiced liquid in; swirls of steam tickled my nose. ‘It’s Nihal’s birthday, so I needed to send him off whilst I sorted out his present.’ She pointed to the material on the table in front of her that I hadn’t spotted before.

‘His birthday!?’

‘Yeah, I’m making him something as I didn’t have the chance to go shopping when we were in the big cities and all the places here are just full of beach stuff; he’s not really a sun worshipper.’ She laughed. ‘So did you enjoy last night then? How come you didn’t go off with the group this morning?’ she asked, fiddling with the small needle, sticking her tongue out to the side of her mouth.

‘You didn’t hear?’

‘Hear what?’ She stopped faffing with the needle and looked at me.

‘That everyone hates me.’ I sipped my tea, which burnt the back of my throat.

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘Last night, the tour group found out that my name isn’t Louise, and I’m not a hairdresser from Manchester. I’m Georgia Green, CEO of the Lonely Hearts Travel Club.’ I paused to blow on my cup, watching Ameera wince. ‘And now they all hate me for lying to them, believing that I led them on just for some strange business experiment or to increase sales.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yep.’

Ameera didn’t say a thing, just nodded and carried on with her bloody needlepoint. I stared out to the calming
froth of the sea. Usually the greeny-brown water churned around with constant waves coming from the Arabian Sea but today it just gently lapped the shore. I had a sudden urge to strip down to my bikini and race in for a swim.

‘I don’t understand why you weren’t honest with them at the start,’ she said quietly, not looking at me.

‘How could I have been? Oh hey, welcome to India. I’m the boss of the company. Come on; please tell me all your sordid secrets.’ I pressed a hand to my face. ‘I get why they’re mad at me. I would be too.’

‘Maybe you’re not giving them enough credit. These people have gone through some tough times back at home, probably because of people they loved lying to them. They’re desperate for honesty and would have adapted to that.’ She paused and stared me straight in the eye. ‘But you building this whole persona wasn’t just about them, was it?’ I nearly spilt my tea.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked slowly.

‘Well, Nihal told me about you. About the rushed emails he’d received, the late night phone calls with you stressing about how things were going, needing him to account for every minute of his time so you could input it into some big plan.’ I winced. Yep that was me. ‘To be honest, Georgia, I’d built you up in my head to be this power-hungry, workaholic bitch,’ she said shrugging her shoulders. This wasn’t helping my fragile state of emotions.

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled.

She laughed softly and patted me on my hand. ‘But then I met you, saw how desperate you were for this tour to go well, how hard you worked to get me and Nihal back together and that’s when I realised: you weren’t just desperate for control because you had sales targets to meet, but because you couldn’t let this business fail.’ I nodded, wanting her to continue.

‘When we arrived here and you could let go of the grip you had on your business baby, you started to soften around the edges. Everyone could see it. You laughed more, chilled out and went with the flow.’

‘Only because India forced me to be like that!’ I interrupted. Why was I fighting this still?

‘Yes. India does that to people. She is a wonderful, complex beast that even the strongest of men cannot tame. But she also gives you what you need at the times when you need it, even if you think you don’t.’ She folded the material gently on her knee. ‘You’re doing a good job. Your business will be fine but you need to let some of this manic control go and trust others to support you.’

I thought back to Ben, how he was always telling me to trust him, to work as a team and that he was there to support me if I let him. She was right; I’d been wanting to control every aspect of the business to make sure it didn’t fail. Because this was the only job I’d ever had where I’d given it one hundred per cent, because I wanted to make my parents proud, because I wanted to have something that I felt proud of.

‘I guess.’

‘You can be Louise
and
you can be Georgia. Just find a way to balance the two.’ She smiled sagely. ‘Now top up my cup will you? I’m dying of thirst over here.’

I poured the thick tea, thinking about what she’d said. I did need to get fun Georgia back.

‘So, do you think he’ll like it?’ she asked, proudly holding up the pale apricot coloured fabric onto which she’d intricately beaded and threaded different scenes. It was incredible.

A large heart made from bright red silk took centre stage with the words ‘You’re in my heart’ sewn on in swirly print, and around it was a detailed replica of the Taj Mahal
on white lace. Golden satin jumped out against a bluey-green piece of cloth as if she’d expertly found the exact colour of the sea it represented. A small, neat cross-stitched train was in the bottom corner, and glittering swathes of colour wrapped around the rough edges. She’d created the Lonely Hearts Travel Club.

‘That’s for the Holi festival, and this is for the filming on the beach in Mumbai.’ She pointed at it, beaming at her masterpiece.

‘Wow, Ameera. He’s going to love it!’ I grinned.

‘Looks OK, doesn’t it?’ she asked, as I ran my fingers over the material. It must have taken her hours.

‘Exactly like the tour I’d imagined.’

It was like she’d stumbled across my Pinterest boards where I’d pinned hundreds of images, trying to picture what India would be like so I could sell it to customers. But this was better.

‘Here. It’s for you.’ She pressed it into my hands.

‘What? No! It’s Nihal’s birthday present,’ I protested.

‘Erm, well I may have made that up.’ She smiled shyly from under her long, dark lashes. ‘His birthday was three months ago.’

‘What?’ I sat back confused.

‘I knew what happened last night. It was all anyone could talk about. I came to try to find you but you’d raced off back to your hut. I also knew you how you’d be feeling, not wanting to see anybody, probably about to silently disappear and fly home without saying goodbye.’

She nodded to the bag at my feet that she had previously acted like she hadn’t seen. I stared at her.

‘So, I decided to take the morning off and let Nihal take charge, knowing that I would be able to speak to you alone. I started making this as a thank-you gift to you, after we were in Mumbai, but I didn’t know when it would be finished to
give it to you. I also wanted to say how sorry I was about that blog post.’ She looked guiltily at the sandy deck of her hut. ‘I truly didn’t know how much damage it would do.’ She pushed her masterpiece back into my hands. ‘You created this, Georgia. Nihal and I are back together, Liz and Ollie are loved up, Bex has found the strength to be true to herself, and everyone else is healing from their past, all because you created this tour. But you’ve gone on this journey too.’

‘Erm …’ I was lost for words. Her wide loving eyes made me want to cry.

‘Please, don’t go without saying goodbye. You need to leave on a high, proud of what you’ve done, not making a speedy exit with your tail between your legs.’