Black Sheep International by Anna Mendham

Author:Anna Mendham [Mendham, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781532016912
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2017-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

16

We hovered behind a rumbling, roaring truck its exhaust pipe belching black smoke into our faces. The vehicle was painted bright pink and amidst its decorations of demons, eagles and flaming hearts were the words “Horn Please” rendered in an array of cheery colours. Beeping as instructed, the driver responded by blinking his right indicator, letting me know that it was safe to overtake. I beckoned Dina and Carolyn with a raised hand and together we throttled past only to find ourselves, minutes later, behind another laden truck, this one coloured turquoise and decorated with hand-painted images of peacocks and conch shells.

The three of us would spend half of the winding climb up Gater Loops overtaking a whole convoy of these colourful, lumbering vehicles only to let them all pass us an hour later when we pulled up outside of Heavenly Camp.

‘We’re not eating here are we,’ Carolyn grimaced, taking in the cafe’s grimy canvas, littered tables and the teenage girl asleep on its stained rag rug.

Her concern about potential food poisoning reminded me to be grateful about my own good health. Five days had passed since drinking of His waters and I seemed to have escaped the feared ill effects.

‘We’ll just have a rest,’ I assured her, ‘our bikes could do with cooling down and if you’re still interested in donating those things you bought in Manali…’

‘Oh…’ Dina exclaimed, before going on to mouth, ‘is this the brothel?’

At my nod, she returned to her bike and began unlashing the package that she’d strapped to the top of her saddle bags.

Carolyn entered the cafe’s confines and the resting girl opened her bleary eyes.

‘Kya hua?’ she asked, confused by the disturbance at this, usually, dead time of day.

‘We have presents for you,’ Carolyn said slowly and loudly as if speaking to an imbecile.

The girl frowned with concentration, her ear searching for a familiar sound.

‘Paratha?’ she hazarded a guess.

‘We’ve bought you some down jackets,’ Carolyn continued, putting emphasis on the word “down”.

‘Dal?’ the girl speculated.

Taking pity on them both, I followed Carolyn inside and requested in Hindi that the waitress, bring us some sealed bottles of mineral water, and for her to fetch her co-workers from their tents as we had a small treat for them all.

‘Have you seen yourselves?’ Carolyn laughed as we sat down at a plywood table and took off our shades, the clean white rings around our eyes revealing how filthy the rest of our faces had become from the trucks’ smeech.

‘You’re no oil painting yourself,’ Dina chuckled, taking a photo of her friend before handing her the digital evidence, ‘now there’s a profile shot if I ever saw one.’

After a few minutes we received our drinks and the girls began obediently gathering around our table.

‘Where’s Lakshmi?’ I questioned, eager for my former waitress to receive some warm clothes.

‘She’s coming,’ the girls assured me.

The Canadians presented each of the trio with a brightly coloured coat, hat and scarf. Awkward from shyness their reactions were at first disappointing, accepting the gifts without thanks or smiles.

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