When Lives Collide by Sarah Bourne

Author:Sarah Bourne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Loretta

Kathmandu was a disappointment. Loretta had been looking forward to the temples and walks along the river but the city was so busy and dirty, the air choked with exhaust fumes and incense. And there were too many beggars and people asking if they wanted drugs. She hadn’t felt safe there at all, but now they were in the mountains on their trek, and it was a totally different experience. Her vocabulary didn’t seem wide enough to describe the scenery. The foothills of the Himalayas and the mountains in the distance—not so very far away—their snow caps a sharp contrast to the deep blue sky. Words like amazing, awesome, fantastic, incredible were soon overused and anyway, were no match for what they saw all around them. Lush green, steeply terraced hillsides gave way to barren scree and then the snowy peaks. Meltwater rivers rushed and gurgled in the deep valleys and gorges, eagles punctuating the sound of the gushing water with their occasional cries.

There were two other couples in their group as well as a guide and two porters who carried all the luggage, the backpacks thrown into large wicker baskets they carried on their backs attached to bands round their foreheads. It made Loretta feel guilty for having packed so much. Not that they complained. She’d never met men who smiled so much, and they made light work of the steep tracks making Loretta feel like an unfit housefrau.

Ed and Gina were from Canada and had been saving for this trip for ten years. Wilhelm and Anya from Holland had tried the year before but hadn’t finished the circuit because of the weather. Gina had been quite ill for the first two days, but had soldiered on anyway, determined not to miss out on this trip of a lifetime. Loretta admired her for that, and it also left more time for her to catch her breath after the uphill stretches and gaze in awe at the stunning scenery.

On their last night, after a long day of walking, a tasty dinner and lively conversation, Ed produced a bottle of the local hooch—a millet-based fire water that caught in the throat and burnt its way to your stomach. One bottle had turned into several, and then Willem had brought out some hash. Loretta hadn’t smoked for years, but every time the joint came around she took deep lungfuls of the stuff, as if she’d been starved of it all this time, and then sang and laughed with the others way into the night.

When Ed, Gina, Wilhelm and Anya decided to call it a night and went off to bed, she and Martin stayed outside in their down jackets and woolly hats, staring up at the stars in the clear sky.

‘They’re so bright without city lights getting in the way, aren’t they?’

Martin nodded. ‘Happy?’ he asked.

And at that moment, she was. Their life in England was a million miles away, she was stoned, and even when she thought of Ethan, there was cotton wool wrapped round her grief.

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