to go along with this absurd “silence”—if they’d wanted a silent retreat they would have booked a silent retreat, thank you very much—but the religious sound of the bells froze her on the spot. Ignoring the silence now felt disrespectful, even in the privacy of their own room.
Her husband sat on an antique sofa in the corner of their room, his finger to his lips like a schoolteacher, because Napoleon was a schoolteacher, a beloved schoolteacher in a disadvantaged area, and you couldn’t spend twenty-five years teaching geography to recalcitrant boys without bringing home some teacherlike habits.
Heather thought, Don’t shhhh me, darling. I’m not one of your students. I’ll talk if I want to talk. She met his eyes to give him a wink and Napoleon’s gaze skittered away as if he had something to hide, but he was always the one with nothing to hide, he was the open bloody book, and the reason he was avoiding her eyes was because the paperwork had specified “no eye contact” for the next five days and Napoleon would never forget a rule or regulation, even one as pointless and arbitrary as this. What possible good could come of avoiding eye contact between husband and wife? But Napoleon was deeply respectful of road signs and tiny clauses on bureaucratic forms. For him, rules were about politeness and respect and ensuring the survival of a civilized society.
She studied him as he sat in his too-short dressing gown, his long hairy legs entwined. He had a feminine way of crossing his legs, like a supermodel being interviewed on a talk show. His two shorter, chunkier older brothers gave him hell about the girly way he crossed his legs, but he just grinned and gave them the finger.
His hair was still wet from their visit to the hot springs and swim in the pool.
The hot springs were an easy walk from the back of the house, down a generously signposted walking track. There had been nobody else around. They had found the Secret Grotto, a rocky shaded pool just big enough for the three of them to sit in a semicircle and enjoy the views of the valley. Heather and Zoe had listened as Napoleon talked on and on about how the minerals in the water would help their circulation and reduce their stress levels and so on and so forth; she couldn’t really remember what he’d said. Napoleon’s conversation was like background noise in her life, a radio permanently on talk-back, only random phrases making their way into her subconscious. He had obviously been panicked at the thought of five days of silence and had been speaking even faster than usual, without pause, his voice bubbling endlessly, like the frothy warm sulfuric-smelling water that bubbled about their bodies.
“Sweetheart, of course I can cope without speaking for five days!” he’d reassured Zoe, who had looked at her father with genuine concern on her beautiful young face. “If you can cope without your phone and your mother can cope without caffeine, I can cope without conversation!”
Afterward, the three of them had cooled off in the pool; the relief of the cold blue chlorinated water had been magical after the hot springs. Heather watched Zoe try to race her dad: he swam butterfly, she swam freestyle with a five-second head start. He still won, even though he didn’t want to win, but he couldn’t get away with pretending to lose like when she was a kid. Then they sat by the pool and Zoe told them a funny story about one of her university tutors that Heather didn’t quite get, but she could tell by Zoe’s face that it was meant to be funny, so it was easy to laugh. It had been a rare and special moment of happiness. Heather knew they would all three have noted it, and hoped it was a sign of something good.
And now they had to spend the next five days not talking.
Heather felt a burst of powerful irritation—or perhaps it was simply her body demanding a macchiato—because this so-called “holiday” was not meant to be about suffering. There were undoubtedly multiple other health resorts that offered the same peaceful environment without these draconian deprivations. None of the three of them needed to lose weight. Weight was just not an issue for Heather! She weighed herself every morning at six on the dot and if she ever saw the needle move in the wrong direction she adjusted her diet. Her BMI