I rang Caro at ten the next morning and she agreed to come over. She took the news of Barbara’s arrival in silence, and it was hard to tell if it had affected her mood.

When I had come down for breakfast Barbara and Mrs Muller were already deep in conversation, with several books opened on the kitchen table. I listened to them for a few minutes but found I was out of my depth again. I took some toast upstairs and had another try at the Bhagavad Gita Harrison had given me.

"My births have been many, Arjuna, as have yours. But I remember them all – you do not."

Reincarnation, I supposed, as this greeted me near the top of a page opened at random. But did Barbara believe in this? Did George Harrison? If we were reincarnated, why didn’t we remember? I flipped through a few more pages, looking for something that would arrest my attention.

"And all worldly pleasures in the end generate only misery. A wise man, seeing that they are transient, does not look for joy in them."

This presumably meant I wasn’t supposed to be liking the taste of the marmalade in my mouth – or the idea of kissing Caro, either. It also reminded me of something I’d read earlier, at Barbara’s flat.

I shut the book and looked at the publisher’s words on the back. "The acknowledged core of Hinduism – a book that speaks clearly to the seekers of today in whatever country they are." I looked at the introduction. It was by someone called Gerald Heard – a name that meant nothing to me. I felt frustrated; this was important to Barbara, and to the incredibly famous man who’d taken time out to press it upon me, and I could get nothing from it. It seemed a monument to unverifiable beliefs and flesh-mortifying ideas.

It occurred to me that something in me was putting up a powerful resistance to the book; after all, I had hardly given it a chance. I tried to analyse my feelings about what I had read. Was it possible I was simply frightened of the implications? I had read about the things some religious fanatics put themselves through, in The Varieties of Religious Experience; that had snuffed out any spark of religious yearning in me. At the time that had seemed the only sensible reaction, a simple aversion to the idea of such blind stupidity. But now I wondered if I had been afraid that they might have been right. Not necessarily in their specific beliefs, or in their delight in self-inflicted suffering – but in their certainty that the visible, material world was so much less important than that other, unseen dimension. Barbara believed in God – or at least something that could be symbolised by that word. I smiled suddenly; no doubt there were people in the world who would see belief in a deity of any description as more absurd than the notion of alien life. And she believed in both.

Something else occurred to me; the opposite angle. Try to convince a believer – or even an agnostic – that there were aliens out there, and you’d likely be met with utter disbelief. But there was no more direct evidence for the existence of God than there was for alien life. And yet people were allowed, every Sunday morning, to behave as if God existed. So what made one so much more acceptable to billions of people? Was it simply the weight of tradition? The testimony of human voices throughout history? It was fed into us from an early age, and even if we rejected it later, somehow it never seemed as preposterous to most people as the fancies of science fiction.

I couldn’t complete the thought, couldn’t reach a conclusion. Something in Barbara’s unshakeable conviction defeated me. Something told me that I could come up with all sorts of clever angles on the subject, and she would just shake her head and tell me I’d misunderstood. Was I missing the point? What had she said about the mind being an obstacle? Colin Wilson’s belief in the ability of the rational mind to grasp reality was – what had she said – misplaced? Mistaken? I remembered asking her how else we were to grasp reality. I seemed to recall she had changed the subject. But why – because she had no answer or because she thought I wouldn’t listen to what she had to say?

I decided I was getting nowhere on my own. I picked up the book and went downstairs, only then realising that I had still not told Barbara the story of the party.

Mrs Muller had gone to church. Barbara was sitting in front of the fire reading Hesse’s Siddhartha, but she put it down without hesitation when I sat opposite her. ‘There you are. I wasn’t sure if I should come knocking on your bedroom door.’

‘Well…in future, yes,’ I said quickly. Then I thrust the book towards her. ‘I was given this.’

She took it and glanced at the cover before turning it over. She read the back, then opened it somewhere in the middle and looked at the page for a few moments. ‘Hmn.’ Her eyes came up to mine. ‘It’s quite a clear translation, a bit more modern than the Penguin one – though it might be a little freer with the text. And you say someone gave it to you?’

‘You’ll never believe who – or where, for that matter.’

‘Go on – astound me. It must be your turn.’

‘It was the property of George Harrison.’

‘Who?’

For a moment I was about to answer, until I saw the playful glint in her eye. I gave her a mildly threatening look. She raised a hand in apology. ‘All right, I’m sorry. So where did you meet The Beatles?’

I told her the whole story. As I reached the end she looked down at the book again. ‘Hmn. So he considers the message of the Gita the most important thing he’s learned since becoming a Beatle? Sounds like I should meet him.’

‘Well, next time I bump into him I’ll mention it.’ I reached out and took the book. ‘But I didn’t come down here to talk about George Harrison.’

She looked suitably interested but said nothing. I held up the book. ‘It’s this. I want to know what makes it so damn important.’

For a moment she gave me no reply. ‘As I seem to keep saying,’ she mused eventually, ‘it’s a very big subject.’

‘All right, all right, granted – but what I want to know is…why this book in particular? Surely that isn’t impossible to explain in a few minutes?’

She fixed her eyes on the volume in my hand. ‘It is the clearest of the Hindu scriptures, but I wonder if it’s actually the best introduction to the ideas of Advaita.’

‘You recommended it to me yourself, I seem to remember.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, yes I did. And I got out my copy with the intention of lending it to you. Then I looked at and remembered my own first encounter with the book, years ago. I couldn’t make anything of it then – perhaps because it is only a short work. The ideas aren’t fully developed – at least not for someone who’s coming to them for the first time.’

‘So why did George Harrison recommend it to me so enthusiastically?’

‘Well,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘he has spoken at some length with the Maharishi. I imagine his mind has been prepared for some of the concepts in the Gita.’

‘And without some kind of basic education in these ideas, you think I might not get it?’

‘Well – have you tried to read it?’

‘Yeah – and you’re right, it doesn’t really hit home. When Eckhart or William Law talk about unlimited charity, about holding nothing back, I can feel the power of that and respond to it – even if I can’t actually put it into practice – but this endless talk about harmony, peace, the eternal and the transient…it’s all just a bit up in the air for me. I can’t make it real – I can’t make it apply to me here and now.’ I shrugged apologetically. ‘Frankly I can’t really see what it has to do with real life at all.’

She nodded again, slowly. ‘Yes. Yes, that’s very much how I reacted in the beginning. I think the main problem is that our culture simply doesn’t deal in the same ideas as the great eastern civilisations – we have a very different model of reality. Some western minds, like Eckhart, have thought along the same lines as the Hindu and Buddhist sages, but in general…well, we attach too much importance to the individual, the personality.’

‘I’m not sure I follow...’

‘Um…’ She frowned. ‘Well, the western tradition tends to treat the individual as a completely separate, autonomous entity, whereas the eastern view is more that the personality is a set of shifting desires and fears, with no permanence and no power to act independently of its environment. The only real, permanent thing about a person is the spark of divinity they have within them – what Hindus call the Atman.’

‘Like a soul, you mean?’

‘Mmm…Yes and no. This is where the difficulties begin…totally different frames of reference, different terminology.’

‘You seem to have made the adjustment.’

She smiled, a little sheepishly. ‘Well, I had the tremendous advantage of first-hand exposure to the reality of what the Hindu scriptures talk about.’

‘During your travels with the Doctor?’

‘Yes. One of our less hair-raising visits to Earth – but in many ways the most shattering for me, although I didn’t fully appreciate it until some time afterward.’

‘I’d like to hear about that.’

She nodded. ‘I’d like to tell you. I suppose I’ve been saving it up, because it is so important – and there are so many other stories to come, both before and after…but I wonder now if any of those really matter, compared to…’ She stopped and shook her head slowly. ‘But now is really not the time. Caro’s coming, isn’t she? And I have to convince her I’m not insane.’

‘Actually,’ I smiled, ‘I have less trouble believing in… the Daleks, say, than I do in the idea that I have no independent existence as an individual.’ I spread my hands and looked down at them. ‘I mean…here I am, embodied, sealed in by skin – no obvious dependence on anything in my immediate environment, and surely…completely autonomous.’

She looked at me with a kind of sadness in her expressive eyes. ‘Ninety nine per cent of the time,’ she said softly, ‘I feel exactly as you do. In my mind,’ she touched her temple briefly, ‘I know that this is a kind of illusion, but everything conspires to make it seem real…the mind weaves a web of ideas around reality, and then falls for its own lies.’ She dropped her eyes for a second, then brought them back up to mine. ‘You saw me, the other night, in a completely vulnerable state. Some things Ian said to me, coupled with my own feelings of having let him down, and my uncertainty about the future – all these combined to…to…well, you witnessed the result. None of my beliefs helped me then – and I have moments when I want to mentally toss all this aside,’ she reached out and took the book from me, holding it up, ‘just shrug it off and go back to what feels like "real" life.’ She brought the book close to her chest. ‘But I keep coming back to it. Something in it touches something in me, and when I read it I just know, without any doubt, that it’s true.’

She sighed and a slight laugh escaped her. ‘Though of course it isn’t me that knows.’

‘Then who is it?’

‘No one. And everyone. The part of me that knows, that knows everything, which is the same in you, and in everyone – even, God help us, Mrs Cordell and her brother.’

I was about to accuse of her talking deliberately in riddles when there was knock on the door.

Mrs Muller was there. I hadn’t heard her come in. ‘Ah, my dear…Conrad has not yet told me whether you have accepted my invitation to Christmas Dinner.’

I heard Caro’s voice after a moment. ‘Oh, didn’t he? Of course I’ll come – thank you very much.’

Her presence of mind in unexpected situations continued to impress me. I excused myself to Barbara and went to meet her, wondering how she had got here so quickly.

‘Guy gave me a lift,’ she said as soon as she saw me. ‘My turn to interrupt something?’ she asked, looking past me into the sitting room.

‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ I said lightly – then wondered if that was true. ‘We were discussing the Gita, actually.’

Mrs Muller was hanging up Caro’s coat; she looked towards me with an interested arch of one eyebrow. Caro nodded, looking at me intently. ‘So you’ve read it?’

‘Well, a bit,’ I shrugged. ‘I couldn’t get much out of it – that’s why I was talking to Barbara about it.’

‘Expert on inner space as well as outer, is she?’

I gave her a look of mild reprimand. She seemed more than usually acerbic and I wondered if the business of the invitation was bothering her, particularly with Barbara now in residence. But I decided this wasn’t the time to follow up that thought. ‘Have you read the Gita?’

‘I went through it a few months ago – when all that stuff was going on in Bangor.’ She smiled with sudden warmth. ‘I couldn’t make much of it, either.’

I began to guide her towards the sitting room. ‘Barbara says it might require a bit of investigation into the concepts before it really makes sense.’

‘You would all like tea?’ said Mrs Muller suddenly, raising her voice. I looked back, then at Caro.

Caro nodded at Mrs Muller. ‘That would be great, thanks. And Conrad can help you, since he always manages to get out of it somehow.’ She gave me a gentle push. I stared at her, then glanced towards Barbara, who was sitting, politely leafing through the Gita. Caro gave me a stern look that was almost a command. I shrugged and went into the kitchen with Mrs Muller.

I wasn’t allowed to help with the tea, of course. So far only Barbara had been accorded the privileged status of assistant. I sat at the table and idly looked over the paper while my mind buzzed furiously. I wondered if Caro had something she wanted to say privately to Barbara. Warning her off, perhaps – or maybe that was a little egotistic of me.

Mrs Muller folded her arms and leaned against the other end of the table, waiting for the kettle to boil. I sensed her eyes were on me; I raised my head and was given a tiny, shrewd smile. ‘Such a choice.’

‘I’m sorry..?’

‘Barbara and the young lady…her name is—?’

‘Caro, uh…Caroline.’ I felt like contradicting her, saying there was no direct competition between Barbara and Caro, but I was far from sure that was true.

‘Ah, yes. You did say. It seems to me now I meet her again…that I have seen her face before.’

‘Caro?’ I was surprised, but then it occurred to me that it was quite possible; Mrs Muller had a good memory and I supposed Caro and her brother were occasionally photographed around their father or at parties. I wondered again about the circles Caro moved in – and about the reasons for the life she was living now.

The kettle was boiling. Mrs Muller – almost reluctantly, it seemed – turned from her scrutiny of me and switched off the stove. She poured the water into the pot and filled a tray with cups, saucers, sugar and milk. I noticed she had brought out only three cups. ‘You should join us,’ I suggested.

She shook her head. ‘Thank you – but I think now is not the time. On another occasion, perhaps.’ She placed the pot on the tray and slipped a cosy over it. Then she indicated I should take it.

I felt strangely nervous as I approached the sitting room. What had they been talking about? Would they have argued? I wondered if Caro would regard my appearance as an intrusion.

Barbara was speaking as I came towards the half-closed door. ‘I wish I could offer you proof. But then, what kind of proof would you really accept? I could show you a gold bracelet and tell you it came from Nero, or wear a cloak that was given to me by one of the knights of Richard the Lionheart…but how would I prove that what I said was true?’

I nudged open the door and they both looked up. Barbara was still in her chair by the fire; Caro was on the sofa. I couldn’t read either of their faces, but Barbara looked fractionally more pleased to see me than Caro.

The phone started to ring. I put down the tray on the small table between them and set the cups in their saucers. I heard Mrs Muller come into the hall and pick up the receiver.

‘Conrad? It is for you.’

‘Another handy excuse,’ said Caro as I shrugged and went into the hall. But on this occasion I was not pleased to be relieved of the duty of tea-making. I took the phone from Mrs Muller and turned so I could look into the sitting room, but the door had been pushed to.

‘Yes, hello?’

‘Con – Dennis.’

‘Oh, hi…’

‘Caro isn’t there, is she?’

‘Yes she is, if you want to—’

‘No. No…can she overhear?’

‘Uh…I doubt it.’ Now I was intrigued. ‘What is it?’

‘I couldn’t talk on Friday night…too many people. Too many friends of Caro.’

‘All right – but what’s the matter?’

‘Well…you know we had a rehearsal on Thursday.’

‘You always do.’

‘It was the last before Christmas. Caro couldn’t make it ’cos she went to some premiere with her brother.’

‘All of which I know,’ I said with measured impatience.

‘Yeah. Well…Rob gave us a kind of, what d’you call it? – ultimatum. He wants her out – gave us a straight choice. Him or her, before the next session. He wants me to talk to her.’

For a few moments I didn’t know what to say. She had been right about this, at any rate.

‘Con? You still there?’

‘Yeah. Um…well, have you made a decision?’

Now it was his turn to be silent. After a few seconds his voice came through faintly. ‘We…we can’t chuck Rob out. He was there when we started. And he’s a good guitarist.’

‘Well, he’s a better lead guitarist than the rest of you, which isn’t saying much.’ I glanced towards the sitting room door. ‘Look, you know Caro’s given you all a new lease of life. You were getting tired, starting to sleep through the songs. And with her connections, she might—’

‘Connections? What connections?’

I’d forgotten that she might not have told them. ‘Oh…well she knows a few people. Remember who was at that party. I just thought…’

‘But we won’t really have a group without Rob. How can we do without a guitarist?’

‘Have you asked Caro if she can play?’

‘Can she?’

‘I’ve no idea, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Listen…you know Rob’s a wanker. Who would miss him? You can’t get rid of Caro, just when things are starting to come together.’

‘Nothing to do with your songs being featured for the first time, of course…’

‘No!’ And it wasn’t; I hadn’t given it a thought. But I knew how biased I must be sounding, for quite other reasons. Still, the unfairness of it really galled me. ‘What reasons did Rob give for his ultimatum?’

‘He can’t get on with her, he says.’

‘In other words he can’t get what he really wants from her.’

There was silence on the other end of the connection.

‘You know this is ridiculous, Dennis. Rob’s exploiting his position because he’s pissed off at Caro – for exercising her right to say no.’

After another pause, Dennis muttered: ‘Yeah, I know – and it doesn’t help, what’s happening between you and her, either.’

‘I can live with that. Me and Rob’ve never been best buddies, anyway.’ I took a deep breath. ‘The point is, which way is this gonna go? Will you stand up to him – make him understand that he can’t get away with this sort of shit?’

Dennis was silent again.

‘Dennis?’

‘It’s not gonna be easy…’

‘If he wins this time he’ll take over everything. You know that.’

‘I s’pose…’

‘So?’

‘I dunno…I’ll try to talk to the others…’

‘Don’t try, Dennis – do it. It’s important for all of you.’

He made a kind of non-committal hum. I remembered something else. ‘Um…look, I heard about Sally. I’m sorry.’

‘What did you hear?’

‘Uh…well, that she went off on some trip with her boyfriend this weekend. You must’ve known that—’

He gave a slight chuckle. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Uh…Barbara.’

‘Ah. Right. Well, I guess that’s what Sally told her, then.’

‘So—’

Sally’s with me now. She’s been here since Friday night.’

‘Oh.’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Strangely enough all that went through my mind was a surge of pity for Sally’s boyfriend. What was she up to? ‘Well…congratulations.’

‘Jealous?’ He had obviously detected my lack of enthusiasm.

‘No, no…it was a surprise, that’s all. I…won’t tell Barbara the truth.’

‘Well, it doesn’t mat—no, p’raps you’re right. Sally can tell her, if she wants.’

‘Yeah. Look, I have to go. But you will talk to Jimmy and Dave – make a stand against Rob?’

‘I’ll try.’

I knew I wouldn’t get anything more definite from him. ‘I won’t talk to Caro about it until I hear from you again. So try to do it before Christmas. Okay?’

With that we said goodbye. Worried as I was about the squabble within the group, as I put down the phone I was already thinking about what might have passed between Barbara and Caro in my absence. I hurried into the sitting room.

‘And you’re telling me you never even asked them what planet they were from?’ Caro was sitting back clutching a teacup. Her tone was incredulous, but not hostile.

Barbara was smiling. ‘It…just seemed wrong, somehow. They didn’t often speak about it, and Ian and I reasoned that they would tell us themselves if they really wanted to know.’ She looked up at me and gestured towards a full cup. ‘You’d better drink that before it gets cold.’

Caro once again looked less than sanguine at the interruption. ‘Who was it on the phone?’

The moment I answered I realised that I was prohibited, by my own promises, from telling either of them the part of the conversation that was relevant to them. ‘Dennis. He…uh…he just wanted to talk about the party.’

‘How was he coping with Sally’s change of heart?’ asked Barbara with genuine concern in her voice.

‘He…seemed all right.’ I picked up the tea and sipped it. It was still quite warm. I moved in front of Caro and settled myself next to her on the sofa. As soon as I was comfortable I saw that Barbara and Caro were staring at each other with an odd intensity, but after a moment Caro broke off the look and turned to me. ‘You were right. Whatever’s wrong here, it’s not her. She’s not crazy.’ She turned her eyes back to Barbara. ‘So where does that leave me? I can’t…believe you, but…’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t figure it out.’

‘It’s the truth,’ said Barbara firmly; I don’t believe anyone could have doubted her at that moment. Caro nodded.

‘So,’ I said carefully, ‘what d’you think we should do about this?’

Caro frowned. ‘Do?’

‘Well…Barbara has all this knowledge about the rest of the universe, about the future, and the past, of this planet…it shouldn’t all be wasted.’

Caro shrugged. ‘No one would ever take it seriously. I mean…I’m not even really sure I do. I believe you,’ she thrust her hands, flat together prayer-fashion, towards Barbara, ‘but whether I believe it all really happened…’

‘But what’s the alternative?’ asked Barbara. ‘Surely the only other explanation is that I’m insane. Or lying – but why should I do that? I have nothing to gain.’

Caro shook her head. ‘Anyone could see you’re not lying. I…don’t know. I don’t know what the explanation is. But I do know you’d be wasting your time trying to get people to listen to what you’re saying.’

‘Then why was I shown all that?’

Caro spread her hands. ‘Does there have to be a reason for everything in life? Or for anything in life, come to that?’ Suddenly she froze, and then sat forward slightly. ‘Of course you’re into all this eastern crap, aren’t you? The workings of karma, and so on?’

Barbara said guardedly: ‘There is a lot in the Vedanta that seems to make sense to me.’

‘Do you believe in destiny?’ shot Caro flatly.

After a moment Barbara nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘So the future is absolutely fixed? History cannot be changed?’

Barbara opened her mouth, then hesitated. ‘I…don’t know about that,’ she said finally. She closed her eyes briefly, then went on: ‘I suppose you’re right. There doesn’t have to be a reason why anything happens – at least not a reason we could ever understand. I suppose what bothers me is the idea that all that experience, all those wonders…in the end they count for nothing. There’s no place for them in my life here.’

‘Why should there be?’ said Caro. ‘We all have things – phases – we have to move on from, leave behind. Yours is just a bit harder to let go of.’

Barbara had put down her cup; her hands were clutched together. ‘I can’t just forget…’

‘Who says you have to?’ Caro sat forward on the edge of the sofa. ‘That wasn’t what I was saying. All I meant was – you can’t let the past overshadow the present. Especially if there’s nothing you can do to make it relevant to what you’re going through now. Maybe all those things happened to you, maybe they didn’t – I can’t judge. That doesn’t matter now. What matters is what you can do right here, this moment.’

Barbara smiled. ‘I think you’re a believer in Vedanta, too.’ She looked down at her hands and relaxed them, laying them gently on her lap. ‘What you say is absolutely true – about the present moment being the only thing that really matters. Actually, you make me ashamed; with all my reading and thinking, you’re a better exponent of Advaita than I’m ever likely to be.’

‘Ad-white-a?’ Caro shook her head again. ‘Don’t even know what the word means.’

Barbara said nothing for a few seconds. She looked at me. ‘I’ve been trying, in a very disjointed way, to explain some of the ideas to Conrad. I had promised him a fuller explanation…but now I wonder if it matters. Nothing that’s real can be properly expressed in words. Advaita means nothing to you. Of course it doesn’t. It’s just a sound, a sequence of letters – even if you know it signifies "not two", it hardly helps. The mind still tries to pin that down, tries to say "one" or "three" or "how many?" – the mind always gets in the way.’

‘You said something like that before,’ I put in. ‘When you were talking to Mrs Muller, and then again when we were in—um, the flat. Why? Why is the mind such a barrier? And what is it a barrier to?’

For a moment she just looked at me helplessly. ‘Everything,’ she said. She put up a hand as if anticipating a protest. ‘I know, I know, where would we be without the mind? I don’t know quite how to define the problem. Of course the mind is incredibly useful, essential…but…but, well – imagine if every car on the road had no brakes. That’s the trouble with the mind – it can’t be stopped. It grabs hold of everything and tries to compare it with other things. It takes yesterday and holds it up against today, and then tries to plan tomorrow on that basis.’

‘But you have to do that,’ said Caro. ‘I mean, memory of how to get to places, what times things happen…you need all that.’

‘Of course.’ Barbara bobbed her head. ‘But that isn’t really what I meant. How can I define the difference..?’ She looked around her. ‘Even now, it’s my mind that’s the problem. If it wasn’t working so frantically to make you see, I could possibly think more clearly and express myself better.’

‘Is it maybe…’ I ventured, ‘…something to do with what Caro was saying – like that your travels with the Doctor don’t have anything to do with your life now? I suppose knowing which bus will take you to work does have a practical value, but remembering the Daleks, even knowing that they might invade Earth in the next century – doesn’t. It’s got nothing to do with us sitting here having a cup of tea.’ I paused, wondering if I was being stupid, but Barbara was looking at me with a light in her eyes, so I pressed on. ‘I suppose you can’t help remembering things, but the problem is…is, what? – that you try to make them relevant now, when they’re not. You try to…’ I looked around me, searching for a commonplace example. ‘You try to compare the memory of a hot cup of tea with a cold cup…’ I picked up my half-full cup. ‘But this cup is cold. It isn’t any other cup, anything from my memory. And there’s no point comparing it.’

‘Unless you want hot tea,’ put in Caro pointedly.

I felt a fool, but Barbara leaned forward. ‘No, I think he’s on the right track. Of course we want tea to be hot, but the point is that that cup isn’t. You can’t make anything into something else by wishing. You spend all day being miserable in a boring job – because you dream of being free of it, of being with your friends, or relaxing, or…anything. It isn’t the job that makes you miserable – it’s your own mind, telling you that you ought to be miserable. You can’t be anywhere but where you are – but the mind can’t accept that. It whirls around, trying to escape from reality, trying to change things over which it has absolutely no power.’ She breathed out, a kind of throaty laugh. ‘And here I am, trying desperately to make Zarbi, Sensorites and ancient history mean something to people here and now..!’ She looked from one to the other of us. ‘Thank you. I mean that. I think, with your help, now I’m beginning to see what I’ve been doing wrong. It was obvious, really…I wouldn’t let myself see it.’

‘Does this mean Ian…was right?’ I asked tentatively.

She gave me a strange half-smile. ‘In what he did, yes, probably – not necessarily in the reasons he did it.’ She laughed again. ‘Still, I suppose that puts him ahead of me. There’s something to be said for the pragmatic approach.’ She looked at me and smiled broadly. ‘What a self-satisfied idiot I’ve been, lecturing you on Advaita and all the time holding on to my own baggage from the past..!’

‘But this doesn’t mean you can just forget all you’ve seen, surely?’ I wanted to lean forward and touch her, but Caro’s presence restrained me. ‘I was thinking, you could write all the stories down and try to market them as fiction – at least then they’d be out there, in the world…’

‘As fiction?’ Barbara looked dubious. ‘What would be the point?’

‘Well, actually…I was thinking it might make you some money.’

‘Oh.’ Obviously that angle had not occurred to her. ‘But…it would feel like a kind of lie, presenting the truth as fantasy. It would be…I don’t know, some sort of injustice towards Susan and the Doctor. It wouldn’t be right.’ She shook her head. ‘No. Thank you for trying to look out for my interests, but I couldn’t do that.’

I decided not to put myself forward as an alternative author of the stories.

Caro was looking thoughtful. ‘So…what will you do now? Conrad says you’ve been holding all this stuff inside, because there was no one to talk to about it. Now you have let it out, and maybe that’s helping you to let go – so d’you think you can find a place for yourself in the real world?’

‘There was nothing unreal about what happened to me with the Doctor,’ said Barbara, but she was smiling. ‘I don’t know what will happen now.’ She fingered the copy of the Gita, lying on the table. ‘In a way, I don’t want to get sucked back into everyday life – not if it makes me forget this. It’s too important. It’s the only important thing. Actually, the only real thing.’ She picked up the book she had been reading earlier, Siddhartha. ‘Have either of you read this?’

Caro shook her head. I nodded. ‘About a year ago, when I first moved in. I liked the simplicity of the writing, but I don’t remember much about the story.’

‘Siddhartha spends his entire life looking for the answer to life, the meaning of it all. And that’s really the only way to go about it. Half-heartedness won’t get you anywhere.’

‘But where do you start to look for something like that?’ queried Caro. ‘And how would you know when you found it? Or even if there is anything to be found…’

‘Those are good questions,’ said Barbara. ‘I can’t give you an easy answer, because the paradox of the whole business is that there is nowhere to look, nothing to be found – and you can only know that, really know it, when you’ve searched so hard that you give up completely.’

Caro frowned. ‘So why bother with the search at all?’

Barbara spread her hands. ‘Because…because somehow we sense that life could be so wonderful if we could just uncover that one secret, that way of seeing things…everyone’s looking for that. Some try to find it in a bottle, or in other people, or in their work, or art…but it’s much closer than that. It’s inside of us. Or…’ she shook her head, ‘not that, even. It’s everywhere, in everything.’

‘In death and destruction?’ asked Caro. ‘In war?’

Barbara looked at Caro for a moment. ‘In Advaita, all events in the material world are seen as a kind of play – not real. Even all the horror of a war. I know that’s difficult to grasp; it was one of the things I had the most trouble accepting, and even now of course I react with all the usual emotions to the pictures from Vietnam. Intellectually I understand these ideas and believe them, but my mind has been conditioned all my life to see all this,’ she waved a hand at the room, ‘as real.’

‘But it isn’t?’ said Caro with more than a hint of disbelief. ‘If I pick up a knife and run you through with it, it’s not real – is that what you’re saying?’

Barbara shrugged and smiled. ‘That’s the idea. You can kill my body, but you can’t kill me – because I am you and you are me.’

‘And we are all together goo goob a joob. Now you’re being deliberately mystifying,’ I said.

‘Only a little. I did tell you words couldn’t express this sort of thing.’

‘So…’ said Caro slowly, ‘if words are no good – how did you become convinced of the truth of it?’

Barbara looked from one to the other of us. ‘I suppose it is about time I told you that story. But do you think you’re ready for it?’

Caro and I exchanged glances. I looked at Barbara and nodded. ‘I can’t wait.’