Lisa and the Rat - Part 2, The Rat

The next morning, I awoke in my treehouse to a faint and unpleasant odour.
I checked a pile of clothes at the base of my bed and discovered them to be damp and slightly musty, so I hung them by my open window to air and dry and headed off to find breakfast.
The remainder of my day was spent on the beach fantasising about my upcoming date with Lisa.
She was not just a yoga instructor, but she instructed instructors too. With muscle control like that, she'd probably be able to suck a monkey through a hose!
I had been planning to go to the temple complex, Hampi, in a day or so, but maybe that could be delayed.

I turned up to pick her up at 8:00pm on the dot.
A post-it on the door read: Having a massage. Back at 8:30, latest. Love Lisa x x.
I peeled it off and held it in my hands.
I was a little deflated, but at least she had not forgotten.
Turning the piece of paper round, I discovered a doodle on the back. It looked like a pencil-drawn picture of a turd. Unsure whether or not she had meant the picture for me, I wandered back to my treehouse, convinced that irrespectively, she was my perfect woman.
I got back and noticed the smell again, slightly stronger. Deciding this time that it must be my dirty trainers, wet and worn from my jungle trek almost a week ago, i hurled them outside and aimlessly moved other articles around in my rucksack for half-an-hour in an attempt to take my mind off Lisa's supple, oiled body.

I returned at 8:30 and she still hadn't returned, so i decided to wait instead.
Picking up her copy of Tatler, I reclined into one of the hammocky-type things on her deck. I spotted the ashtray and noticed that there were a couple of centimetres of joint left from the previous night, so I picked it up and lit it. I leant back and opened the magazine, glossing over an article about the importance of having a private outdoor pool in Knightsbridge, and another about the party-lifestyles of the young British aristocracy.
Glad to be away from this nonsense, I puffed.

She arrived, whiffling through the wood, wet, warm and glistening. I actually smelled her before I saw or heard her. She was barefoot, naked but for a towel and smelled like lavender, fruit and black pepper.
She apologised profusely for being so late, apparently these massages tended to run over a little.
I had no idea how late she was, as I had become totally absorbed by the urge to buy a two-up-two-down with outdoor space in Chelsea.
I told her that I was more than happy to wait if her entrances remained as enjoyable to watch, and she giggled, kissing me on the cheek.
We chatted through her open door as she showered and changed. She was excitable and it was contagious. Her book launch was in a month and she had to organise all the PR for it. Ontop of that, the tour that she had been planning for 12 months was to start in the new year and she was going to travel the world, teaching her form of yoga in Europe, America, Asia and Australasia. It was a very important week for her and her class, and normally she wouldn't go out, but she'd been very disciplined for a long time now and felt that she deserved a bit of a break.
I told her I felt privileged.

I was already quite stoned, but we had another joint and then stumbled off through the forest and across the beach towards the source of thumping beats we could hear, talking as we went.
She had spent much of her childhood travelling, due to her father's job as a diplomat, and had been teaching yoga for 10 years, based mostly in West London, but taking these retreats every year to India and Thailand.
She would say things like "I only really found myself and got into my stride in my 30s," which excited me, as it meant that I really had no idea how old she was. After I'd say something silly and benign, she'd respond with a "...well you would say that, you're an Aries and a fire-type. You're all children, young at heart but scared of growing up."
We had, at this stage, not discussed my date of birth or type, so I found these bizarre and fairly accurate insights from someone I had spent such a small amount of time with, fascinating.
I told her that I was enjoying travelling alone - although it hadn't been my original intention - because it allowed me to be a bit of a butterfly, and without obligation or guilt, feel free to jump around, talk to anyone, ignore anyone and to a certain degree be anyone.
She turned to me and said, "Basically, you just enjoy being a social slut."
I liked her. She was a little crazy and full of herself (her was one of her favorite topics), but she was still attractive and a yoga instructor.

We flitted and slutted our way round the party.
It was a little like a tropical section of the Glastonbury festival.
A large screen displayed random images to booming techno. Candles and UV lights lit the surrounding rocks and beach. People drank at the bar and smoked in the teepees, dancing on rocks and paddling in the sea.
Lisa was a fantastically glamourous companion, very exotic to look at and interesting to listen to, and wandering round with her, dancing, talking to random strangers, drinking gin and tonics and just getting to know each other, seemed like a very natural and easy process.
As a yoga instructor, with a my-body-is-a-temple mindset, Lisa was reluctant to drink much but happy to smoke as much dope as possible. I could feel my ability to communicate gradually deteriorating with every puff, and decided that alcohol was definitely my drug of choice.

She seemed to know a lot of the people there, from a DJ called Veejay, to the barmen and some of the partygoers. Even I ended up bumping into various people I had met in various states of inebriation throughout the week. Every time I introduced a male to Lisa, there would be a pause, a double-take and a what-are-you-doing-with-him? look directed towards her, and a how-the-fuck? directed at me.
I enjoyed it, as it is always a nice feeling to be envied, but I was starting to grow uneasy with paranoia, undoubtedly fuelled by the huge quantities of marijuana my brain was attempting to process.

I can pinpoint the moment that it all started to go wrong.
The Spartan emerged from the teepee, backlit with dense smoke billowing out from behind him.
He wasn't Spartan, obviously, in fact he was from San Fransisco. He just had a huge beard and was built like one of those guys from the film 300.
Lisa and he hit it off immediately. I had turned towards the bar to get another couple of drinks, and turning back, had discovered him with his soft, tactlie, Californian ways complimenting her as she did definitely-sexual yogic stretches infront of him. He had his hand on her belly, feeling her six-pack as she tensed it, and was telling her about an Enfield motorbike he had just bought and suggesting they go for a ride.
I realised very quickly that what I had initially translated as sexual flirtation, was in fact Lisa's default communication setting. She was like that with everyone. When it had been just her and I, she had made me feel special and interesting, but out here with all these other people, her attention was elsewhere and she flirted with everything almost indescriminately.
A good tune came on and I decided to go and dance. I'd had a good night so far, enjoyed the fantasy of being Lisa's date, but now that it was evidently just that, a fantasy, I was not going to waste time getting terretorial over her with a guy twice my size who had nipple piercings, his surname tattooed on his arm and a beard that would make ZZ-Top jealous.

I danced for some time.
They had a projection screen set up with a stage behind it that you could dance on unseen, but that would cast your silhouette onto the screen over the crowd. I drank more gin and tonics and danced crazily with random people, trying to make more and more elaborate shapes to silhouette.
I was actually having a great time when Lisa returned. The Spartan had left and Lisa had to get up at 6am to teach. It was already 2am, and she wondered whether I might walk her back. The party would be continuing until dawn, undoubtedly, but I was actually pretty tired and had no inclination to spend the following day sleeping off tonight.
We stumbled back accross the beach. It was pitch black and high tide.
Whereas before we had simply had to wander over across the sand, now there were sections where we had to wade through the surf up to our knees.
As we rounded a corner where a few boats were moored, Lisa slipped. Badly.
I was a few metres behind her at the time, gazing at the stars, when I heard the splash. By the time I'd reached her, she'd picked herself up and was examining her foot in the dim light, swearing.

I'm shit at comforting women who are in pain. Normally all they want to do is to complain and whine about it, whereas my immediate reaction is to suggest we get back and look at the wound to assess the situation in a more approprate and comfortable environment.
I attempted to alieviate her discomfort as she limped back by suggesting that using her mastery of yogic skills, she might be able to meditate herself past the pain barrier. She said that she might be able to try, but not right now when her concentration was very much on not falling over any more slippery rocks.
It took us a while to get back. She refused my offers of a piggy-back, and didn't think much of my suggestion that tomorrow, in her class, she should concentrate on the exercising all parts of the body above the ankle.
We smoked a joint on her deck. I rolled it as she applied ice to her, by now, quite swollen foot.
I apologised profusely, suggesting that perhaps I shouldn't have given her so much to drink and if I had been paying attention, I might have caught her. She said it was fine and that it certainly was not my fault, but I could still feel an air of resentment.

The injury could prove troublesome to her right now.
Her course was coming to an end, her book was about to be launched and she was about to start a year-long world tour.
I apologised again, feeling that somehow, her agreeing to go out for a few drinks with me had perhaps jeopardised her entire career trajectory. I've been known to have a negative effect on some women or be a bad influence, but never to this extent. This was next-level stuff.
We said our goodnights and I retreated back to my room.
It still smelt unpleasant, but I was too tired to start throwing articles of clothing outside, so I just lay under my mosquito net and quickly fell asleep.

The next day, as I ate lunch, I could see her taking her class on the beach infront of me. I was massively impressed by the physique and flexibility of some of these people.
Her foot injury appeared not to be impeding her too much, but as the class ended and she approached me, she started to limp a little. She sat down and, smiling despite the obvious pain she was in, ordered a drink.
We chatted for a bit. My day was going to consist of sitting on the beach, reading, writing, swimming and eating. She said that she still had an afternoon class to give but that after that, she was going to the hospital to get an x-ray and see if her foot was broken at all.
I was just about to suggest that perhaps I should accompany her, when I noticed a large shadow loom over my omelette and watermelon-juice.
It was the Spartan. He had seen us from the beach and come over to say hello.
Hearing about Lisa's foot situation, he immediately offered to give her a lift to the hospital on his motorbike. She readily accepted and he sat down.
We all sat around chatting for a while and he arranged to come and pick her up later in the afternoon. She got up to go back to her class, leaving me and the Spartan alone, and we sat and watched for a while.
I must say that, company aside, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had for a very long time. Watching girls do yoga is now one of my favorite spectator sports. I could have stayed there for hours, but after our conversations about yoga, motorbikes and India dried up, I decided to head back to my room to change, leaving the Spartan behind.

I arrived and sniffed. My room stank.
How was this possible?
I ransacked the place, smelling every item of clothing closely and hanging anything that was even vaguely damp up to air by the open windows. I sprayed stuff everywhere and satisfied that I had now done all that I could to irradicate the problem, got changed and went off to my yoga class.

I had dinner that evening at the hotel with a few of Lisa's students. They were all London-based and were mostly female in their late-twenties/early-thirties. Halfway through, Lisa limped in accompanied by the Spartan. She described how he had been good enough to give her a lift to the hospital where she had been given an x-ray, but that they wouldn't be able to view the results until the following morning. Unfortunately the Spartan's motorbike had broken down just as he was dropping Lisa off, so he was slightly stranded and would be having dinner with us.
Lisa sat down next to me and told me that she liked my shirt, particularly the design on the back. I looked down. The shirt that I was wearing was an entirely plain, off-white, short-sleeved shirt. As far as I knew, there was no design on the back.
I was confused, so decided to go to the bathroom and inspect the shirt in the mirror. In doing so, I saw that there was a colossal amount of birdshit sprayed down my back. So much so, and of such rich variety of colour and texture, that as Lisa had, it was easy to mistake for some sort of Pollock-esque design.
My shirt - the one I had deliberately hung by the open window in order to get rid of the smell - had been defiled by what looked like a flock of angry, diarrhea-suffering parrots. I got back to the table just as Lisa and the Spartan were excusing themselves. She was "very tired" and he was going to "have a look at his bike". I stayed and chatted to the other yogis for a while, but then decided to go for a walk on the beach instead.
Women, pah!
I lit a joint I had stolen from her the previous night.
I had spent the last week-and-a-half being relatively healthy, and almost blissfully unaware of the opposite sex. Suddenly with the appearance of Lisa, I had been once again plunged into the all-too-familiar territory of misread signals, mindgames, disappointment, jealousy and frustration, not to mention the paranoia that comes with pot-smoking.
How easy it was to slip back into headfuck mode. I should leave.
There was more of India to see and I had allowed myself to be distracted.
I took one long look at the beautiful evening beach. The bars were already preparing themselves for the evening's revellers and people were wandering up and down looking at menus and talking to restauranteurs.
How strange they must think we are, to turn up here in this beautiful place, embracing the wholesome virtues of Eastern mysticism by day and the excessive alcoholism of Western debauchery by night, I thought.
I suppose there's only a finite period of time you can spend somewhere like this before the environment becomes irrelevant and you simply return to the bad habits that you hoped you'd left behind.

I went back to my treehouse to pack. My room still smelled awful, but I only had to put up with it for one more night's sleep.
As I lay under my mosquito net, trying not to imagine Lisa and the Spartan having crazily acrobatic, non-foot-related, tantric sex a few huts away, I found it difficult to drift off.
The smell was all-pervasive and filled my nostrils with every breath. I tried breathing through my mouth, but that seemed almost worse, like i could taste it instead.
Tired and stoned, I switched on the light to have one final half-hearted look round for the source of the smell, and that's when I saw it.
Under my bedside table, invisible from all angles unless you happened to be lying in bed was what looked like, in the dim light, a pair of wet socks. I reached down to pick them up, but something made me stop. Instead, I put lamp on the floor and leaned down to get a closer look.
It was a dead rat.
Dead for some days now, the thing was litereally writhing with maggots.
As soon as I realised what it was, the smell got exponentially worse. It was so rotten and decomposed that when i reached down and picked it up by the tail to fling it out, the head stayed on the carpet. Gagging and wretching, I threw it into the bushes and sprayed the infested area of carpet with as much mosquito-repellent and aftershave as I had.
I went to the bathroom and splashed my face with water, trying to eject the vision of the rat and its evocative smell from my mind. The thing had died and rotted no more than a metre from where I had been resting my head for the past few days. I'd been breathing it in in my sleep!

Returning to my room, I looked around.
6 days I had spent in here - my little house in the trees. I had thought it wonderful when I first arrived, a beatiful little leafy retreat. Now it just looked like a room that birds could fly into and shit in and rats came to die.
Time to leave Palolem, I thought.
And with that I got into bed.
The chemical smells of insect-repellent and Hugo Boss mingled in the air to create a bitter taste. It wasn't nice, but it was infinitely preferable to the alternative. I would sleep better now, at least.
Tomorrow, I will get on the bus to Hampi.