Page 43 of Eva Reddy’s Trip of a Lifetime

Testing the Waters

I make it back to my hotel. The receptionist looks up as I limp past. She doesn’t seem at all surprised that I walked out the doors and into a holy free-for-all more than twenty-four hours ago and have only just returned. Or that I have reappeared with grazes up and down my left arm.

I haul my aching body up to my room, drape a hand towel over the print of the creepy, multiheaded god and collapse onto the bed. I need to rest. And I need to think.

My feelings for Utkarsh are a bridge I’ll cross sometime later down the track.

But I do need to decide what to do about Jonathan.

He is somewhere in India and probably in far greater need of rescue than either me or my parents.

He talks a good game but his middle-class, white-collar, intractable self will be in complete meltdown by now.

Should I reply to his latest email? He wants to meet but perhaps I should order him back home instead.

I also need to figure out what I’ll do for work when my adventure is over.

Producing and researching for television is a very narrow skill set and one that doesn’t necessarily transition well into the real world.

And my age just makes my employment prospects that much worse.

My dream of starting a blog is pie-in-the-sky, struck-by-lightning stuff.

It’s worth a shot. But it’s not going to pay the bills in the short term.

And what about my parents? I’ve finally realised that they don’t need me to swoop in and save them any more than I need Jonathan to rescue me.

But I’ve come this far. Spending a bit of time in India with my crazy mother might actually be fun.

And much as I hate to admit it, I could probably do with her advice.

Despite everything that’s whizzing around my head, I doze off, until I’m startled awake by the sound of my latest TikTok notification.

I have switched the tune from ‘Devil Woman’ to Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’.

It’s a song that really suits my mother, especially after her turn during Holi celebrations.

Nothing says breaking free quite so emphatically as being lifted triumphantly skywards by a hundred or so pairs of happy hands.

I want to be Debbie Reddy when I grow up.

I push away the ghastly pink chenille bedspread and grab my phone. This time I don’t need to scour the video for scraps of information to figure out where it has been filmed—I recognise the location straight away.

Mun and Dad are standing at the top of the steps leading down to the Ganges River in Varanasi.

Dozens of boats are moored at the water’s edge, their owners haranguing tourists, trying to interest them in a sunset trip through the polluted water.

Smoke rises from the funeral pyres a little further down the river.

My parents make their way down the steps past a sadhu sitting cross-legged, meditating. Past a group of brightly dressed women beating their washing against the ancient stone. Past a young boy selling flowers for offerings. They’re walking hand in hand, getting closer and closer to—

‘No!’ I shout. I watch in horror as they approach the water’s edge.

A whole population’s worth of plastic bottles, cheap throwaway containers and single-use bags float on the surface.

But that’s not the worst of it. My guidebook warns of raw sewage and dead bodies and God only knows what else lurking in that holy cesspool.

The Ganges is not somewhere any sane person goes to bathe.

At least not someone without a lifetime of proximate immunity.

But it appears that is exactly what Doug and Debbie Reddy are planning to do.

‘No!’ I scream again into my pillow, leaving teeth marks.

Then the scene switches to a modest concrete building with a painted red cross on the front and a sign promising allopathic and ayurvedic medicines. My mother begins to speak in her best Shopping Channel voice.

‘Been bathing in the Ganges River in Varanasi? I’m here to tell you, that’s not a great idea.

But you don’t have to suffer through the resulting dysentery or any of the other ghastly diseases that can strike you down after an ill-advised paddle.

If you’re feeling out of sorts, see the helpful staff at—’ My mother stops mid-sentence.

She’s clearly trying to stifle an onslaught of giggles.

The photograph of the pharmacy disappears and I am once again at the Ganges.

But now my parents are standing a safe two steps up from the river’s edge.

My mother looks directly into the camera lens, the hint of a smirk making her lips quiver.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, do you really think Doug and I are silly enough to bathe in the Ganges?

At our age? It would be the death of us. ’

I take another frustrated chunk out of my pillow. The video once again changes location. My parents are now standing beside a smoking funeral pyre. My mother brings her hands together in prayer.

‘This episode of “Reddy, Set, Go” is brought to you by Varanasi Quality Funerals. Don’t dump your loved one straight into the Ganges.

It’s bad for the environment and for everyone’s health.

But more importantly, who wants to spend eternity bobbing around in human waste?

Far better all around to burn your loved one and pray for an end to their earthly suffering.

And Varanasi is the place to do it! You have the power to end the cycle of rebirth.

Enjoy freedom from death thanks to Varanasi Quality Funerals.

What have you got to lose? Unless you want to do it all again.

In which case—knock yourself out. But I really do think you’re better off doing life once very, very well, then enlisting the services of a reputable funeral company. Doug and I have signed up.’

I flop back onto the bed, relieved that my parents aren’t battling amoebic dysentery but also slightly annoyed that I fell for their joke.

But more fool me, right? Out of nowhere, a hiccup of a giggle escapes, exploding into full, belly-crunching guffaws.

My bruised ribs ache but I can’t stop laughing.

Debbie Reddy is exasperating, but she’s not boring.

And Utkarsh is right. She is really very amusing.

It’s starting to get dark. When I check the time, it’s after six o’clock.

The train to Varanasi will take six hours, probably closer to seven.

And even if I do race out the door and endure another restless night in an Indian ‘sleeper’ carriage, my parents will likely already be on their way to their next destination.

All I want to do to is crash for the night. I pull the bedspread over my head.

My parents can wait. And so can all my various problems. I’ll sleep on them. It’s never worked before, but nothing in my life is like it was before.

From: Katie Taylor

To: Me

Hi Eva,

Please don’t be mad. I really hope you won’t be mad because I was just trying to help you do what you said you wanted to do.

Okay, so you told me you wanted to be a writer more than twenty years ago and never mentioned it again until just recently.

I’m so pumped about that, by the way. You should write.

You’re really good at it. I’m saying that as a friend.

Hang on, that’s not the expression, is it?

I’m not saying that because I’m your friend.

I’m saying it because it’s true. You are a really good writer.

Anyway, I turned your email updates and random thoughts on middle age into a real-life blog and published them online.

Don’t worry, I haven’t used your name and all the main characters are only identified by their initials.

You don’t need to unmask yourself if you don’t want to.

But I think you might want to go public when you hear what’s happened.

I thought you’d get maybe a dozen positive replies that I’d use to convince you to start writing for real.

But Rachael stepped in and created a whole marketing campaign.

She is really very good at what she does.

And—wait for it—you’ve gone viral. Your last post got more than 80,000 hits.

I guess there are a lot of pissed-off middle-aged women out there.

Or at least, a lot of middle-aged women with Eat, Pray, Love fantasies.

I can take it all down if you want. But you should read the comments. You are the voice of an entire demographic that’s worthwhile and smart and being treated as though they are invisible.

You are so awesome.

I hope you run with whatever this is.

Katie xxox

PS This time really don’t be mad, but I floated the idea of Wizened & Wild T-shirts with Rachael and she ran with it. I already have more than 300 preorders.

PPS Do you need an agent? I know a guy who is really good. Also, I reckon I can get you a regular guest spot on my show.

PPPS The wunderkind has been transferred to digital services.

This time the move is more sideways than up.

So you know he must have done something really bad.

The details are sketchy, but I think he approved some dodgy expenses and some newspaper journo followed the money trail to a drug-dealing bikie gang and a brothel.

He is such a moron. No one cared when he approved a story that got that Chinese fixer disappeared. Sometimes I hate this industry.