3. A truly enlightened person is:

  a) Someone who agrees with you, Sondra Halliday, about everything.

  b) Someone who understands that there is no such thing as ‘brain sex’, and that we are all individuals who happen to be biologically male or biologically female – therefore gender must be abolished.

  c) Someone who knows that both biological sex and gender are irrelevant.

  d) Someone who wears a T-shirt with ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ printed on it.

  Answer: c. Boundless Awareness, which is neither the mind nor the body, is the innate nature of every human being. Awareness has no biological sex, no gender, and remains unaffected by social conditioning. Therefore, focusing on these issues as a source of division will always take us further away from our true selves and create more inner pain and external conflict and suffering. Instead, for greater fulfilment and peace all round, we should focus on our oneness and on the insignificance of the apparent differences between us.

  4. ‘Not All Men are sexist pigs’ is a bad thing to say because:

  a) Male supremacists say it all the time, so it must be part of the apparatus of oppression.

  b) No man is a sexist pig. Not a single one.

  c) Everyone knows it’s true that not all men are sexist, but one shouldn’t say it because men as a class have created this violent world, and we need to talk about that, and so to pop up and say ‘Not all men …’ diverts attention away from that vital discussion.

  d) It’s unfair to pigs.

  Answer: b. People behave in a range of unhealthy ways as a result of the private pools of pain and rage their egos carry around. However, no man’s true self is sexist. The ego is not the self. At the level of self, all men and all women are the same, and all are boundless Consciousness. The mind is not the self, therefore all our opinions and behaviours, if we are unenlightened, have nothing to do with who we are.

  5. The vast majority of murders are committed by men. Therefore anyone who disputes that male violence is the biggest problem in our society:

  a) Is a misogynist or an idiot.

  b) Is a victim of patriarchal brainwashing, and therefore should not be blamed. Patriarchy is to blame, not individuals.

  c) Should be blocked and reported.

  d) Is correct.

  Answer: d. The biggest problem is not male violence but our collective misunderstanding of reality. Once we recognise reality for what it is, we understand that things like murder and death are not real. They are merely concepts – the dream-like projections of our minds. Our true self, the one we all are and which is neverending Awareness, cannot be killed. (With regard to the murders of physical bodies, which do occur, these will happen less and less often as we gradually come to learn that the hatred and anger that drives a killer to kill is not, in fact, a hatred of his chosen victim, but, instead, either the dangerous chasm that has opened between his ego and his true self – which we call ‘unconsciousness’ – or the mistaken belief that his self can be harmed by the actions of another.)

  6. If one day women are liberated by feminism from the male oppression that they have always endured:

  a) I will be proud of the part I played in making that happen.

  b) I will DM Deepak Chopra and demand that he endorses sneering and sniping online all day long as a healthy spiritual practice.

  c) I will say, ‘This has nothing at all to do with me.’

  d) I will need to find something else to start attacking people about, because I’m full of rage and I misunderstand its cause.

  This is a trick question, since the true self of every woman is already free, so there is no need for liberation. But if we interpret the question in the way most people would, there are two correct answers, c and d. C because once you are enlightened, you no longer think of the self as an agent of action. Enlightened people know that they are actionless Consciousness. D is also correct: your pain and rage will not dissipate until you stop mistaking yourself for your ego. Your desire for liberation is a thirst that can only be quenched by getting in touch with your true self.

  Regards,

  Your Secret Detractor

  PS. I’ve enclosed another story, ‘The Dress’. Read it and think.

  The Dress

  from Stories of Enlightenment

  One day, a fashion designer named Perdita went out to buy a birthday present for her personal assistant, Dolores. Perdita was passionate about clothes, so she decided to buy Dolores a beautiful new trouser suit, knowing they were Dolores’ favourite thing to wear. She went to the exclusive department store near her home and pressed the button to summon the lift, since all the clothes were on the third floor.

  When the lift doors opened, five or six women tumbled out, all clutching carrier bags to their bosoms and all enthusiastically talking about ‘the most wonderful dress’. As they walked away, Perdita heard them laughing about how they’d have to make sure they didn’t all wear the fabulous dress at the same time, or to the same parties, otherwise that would be embarrassing.

  As she took the lift up to the third floor, Perdita felt confused. Surely those women couldn’t all have bought the very same dress! That never happened, unless it was a group of bridesmaids whose outfits had to match – but from what she’d overheard, Perdita didn’t think that applied in this instance.

  When Perdita arrived at the women’s clothes department, a shop assistant pounced on her. ‘How lucky that you’re here!’ she exclaimed. Perdita was a regular customer and everybody knew her. ‘We have the most amazing dress in stock,’ the assistant gushed. ‘It’s made from a new fabric I’ve never seen before – honestly, it’s like magic! Just touch it and you’ll see! I’ve never seen a dress sell so fast – but luckily for you, we have one left!’ When Perdita told her that she was looking for a present for her PA, the shop assistant said, ‘Oh, well, then – it’s her lucky day! This dress will change her life!’

  A few seconds later, Perdita was examining the item of clothing in question. She was rather embarrassed to admit it, but she wasn’t impressed at all. She could sort of see why everyone else was so keen, because the dress was very different from any other that she’d seen or worn, but she thought it looked cheap and ugly. In fact, it struck her, in its design, as deliberately trying to make a mockery of fashion and of dresses – so much so that Perdita wondered if this was what the designer had intended.

  ‘Isn’t it spectacular?’ said the shop assistant. ‘Everyone adores it.’

  Perdita wondered if perhaps Dolores might agree with everyone else rather than with her. She ignored her misgivings, bought the dress, and left the shop with it a few minutes later.

  When Dolores unwrapped the present, her first thought was, ‘Oh, please, God, no – this thing is hideous. What is it? I mean, is it even a dress? Perdita says it is, but … ugh!’

  Not wanting to be rude, however, Dolores smiled, said thank you, and hung the dress up at the back of her wardrobe, planning never to wear it.

  The next morning, in their separate houses, Perdita and Dolores woke up and knew instantly that something was badly wrong. Their hands were raw and blistered, seeping and oozing. But the most terrifying thing was that on both women’s hands, the skin (where it was still intact) had turned the exact colour of the dress.

  Horrified, and dosed up to the eyeballs on painkillers, the two women together hurried back to the department store to complain. ‘It must be the dress! Look at the colour of our hands!’ they screamed, in terrible agony from their weeping flesh. The shop assistant said, ‘I’m so sorry to have to contradict you, ladies, but it simply cannot be the dress, or else all my other customers would have been back to complain too, and none of them has. So, no, I’m afraid you can’t have a refund.’

  On their way out of the department store, Perdita and Dolores tripped over the log-thick legs of a street-sleeper. It was hard to tell if this person was a man or a woman. ‘Your poor hands,’ he or she intoned in a deep voice. ‘Your poor hands. Ah, but you can’t pretend you didn’t have a hand in it! Four hands, I should say.’

  ‘Are you a man or a woman?’ asked Dolores.

  ‘I’m a sage,’ said the Sage.

  ‘What did you mean about us having a hand in it?’ Perdita demanded to know.

  The Sage startled her by pointing straight at her. ‘You gave something that you knew to be a vile thing to someone you care about. You would never have bought one for yourself, yet you bought one for Dolores here. And you …’ – she turned on Dolores – ‘… you accepted this gift, though you didn’t want it and would never have bought one for yourself. You spotted its ugliness straight away, yet you accepted it. Both of you recognised instantly the horror of the dress, yet you said and did nothing against it – quite the opposite. You colluded with it. You acted against your own judgement and your own hearts. When we do that, we allow evil to prosper. That is why you have sore hands today.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ snapped Perdita. ‘That’s superstitious twaddle and demonstrably untrue. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people have bought that same dress in shops all over the world. It’s a global fashion craze!’ Perdita had only just realised this, but she was quite right. She’d noticed that every woman walking past her, as she and Dolores stood on the pavement talking to the Sage, was wearing the horrible dress that barely resembled a dress.

  ‘Look at all these people in the dress!’ she cried. ‘Their hands look fine!’

  ‘Ah, yes – because they are fools who genuinely love the dress, so they are protected,’ explained the Sage. ‘You see, we are all human, frail and flawed. We all find it impossible, sometimes, to resist our own strong desires. When we do harm to ourselves or to others, it is often because our better judgement has been paralysed by what feels like an urgent need. But the important thing is this: when our hearts are fully engaged in our actions, even the harmful ones, we are not beyond redemption. All hope is lost, however, when we are not infatuated, not helpless with desire, and yet still, from a position of clear-eyed objectivity, choose to behave in ways that promote evil. Neither of you would ever have bought the dress for yourself – you both instantly recognised its loathsomeness – and yet one of you bought it, and one accepted it into her home without a word of protest. Hence: your hands. But know this: whatever happens to the body, the true Self – who we really are – cannot be destroyed. We are Awareness, not flesh.’

  Perdita and Dolores didn’t believe the Sage for a minute. Still, their hands were causing them such torment that they were willing to try anything. They hurried to Dolores’ flat and, together, they tore the dress apart and burned the shreds of it in the barbecue on Dolores’ patio. Within seconds, the skin on their hands was once again skin-coloured and all their wounds had healed.

  14

  from Origami by Kim Tribbeck

  How typical of me that the one and only friendship fantasy I’ve ever entertained turned out to involve someone who wasn’t real. Ten minutes ago, Charlie Zailer’s phone rang and guess what? It looks as if there is no such woman as Faith Kendell. No bone cancer sufferer with a daughter by that name was on Ward 10 of the RGI on Tuesday, 6 January. There’s apparently more evidence that Faith was a fabrication, but I’m not allowed to know what it is.

  You’ve got to hand it to her, whoever she is. Inventing a fake identity? Why not choose the name Faith, to make anyone who falls for it feel extra stupid when they find out they’ve been duped?

  Instead of viewing this incident as embarrassing, I’m going to interpret it in the most flattering way possible, as confirmation that I’ve been right all along about friends. In short: they’re hopeless. My ideal friend doesn’t exist in this world.

  Maybe I sensed that Faith wasn’t carrying masses of tedious actual-person baggage; maybe that was why I liked her. Thinking about it now, all she did was reflect me back to myself. The person I liked more than I’m accustomed to liking my fellow human beings was me. If only an attractive man could endeavour to do the same, that would be ideal: work out exactly what I’d like to hear and then say only that, in between bouts of amazing sex. That’s a relationship that might work, unlike all my others.

  I don’t get it, though. Faith’s come to the RGI to murder my grandmother – why strike up a conversation with me outside the hospital, try to ingratiate herself? Does it matter to her that the grandchildren of her victims should warm to her? Absurd.

  Or perhaps it was a test: if she says things I’m bound to like and I fail to smile and agree, that proves there’s an impediment to my liking her – that might mean I noticed her sneaking into Marion’s room with a syringe in her hand.

  It’s thinking about the timing of it that disturbs me most. How long before she stood outside the hospital, talking to me and smoking, did she inject poison into my grandmother? Ten minutes? Twenty? Did she wait until Drew and I had both left the ward, or did she sneak into Marion’s room while we were in the corridor arguing about catheters and bladder infections? Would we have noticed?

  The conversation I willingly had with her about friends and dead houseplants would have reassured her that I suspected her of nothing.

  Charlie says I shouldn’t assume she’s killed anyone. She asked the obvious question: if Faith Kendell is Billy Dead Mates, who was the man who gave me the little white book? ‘Maybe Billy is two people,’ Charlie said. I didn’t tell her I’d made the same suggestion to Simon Waterhouse and Chris Gibbs.

  One, two, three, seven … I don’t care how many people Billy turns out to be. More than one murderer doesn’t interest me unless there’s more than one motive, and I don’t believe there is. It has to be something to do with pairs. At first it seemed to be pairs of best friends, but then Marion and I ruined it.

  I have a theory I’ve not yet shared with Charlie. The labels we put on relationships often conceal the emotional truth. Marion and I were grandmother and granddaughter: a bond that ought to be close but wasn’t in our case. Could something similar have been true of Linzi Birrell and Rhian Douglas, and of Angela McCabe and Joshua Norbury? Did one of each pair grievously wrong the other, and did the other secretly never forgive them?

  Thursday, 15 January 2015

  I shout, ‘Not now!’ at whoever’s knocking on my hotel room door. It must be someone from housekeeping. They come earlier and earlier. At one time – when I first started touring – you could count on no one bothering you before 11 a.m. Now, unless you put up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign, you’re at risk of hearing the rat-a-tat-tat of the virtuous early riser any time from nine o’clock. The White Hart Hotel in St Albans, where Charlie and I spent last night, doesn’t even provide any kind of ‘Sod off and let me sleep’ sign for its guests; I should have known that didn’t bode well.

  There’s more knocking, slower and quieter, as if the person responsible has decided I can’t handle the strong stuff.

  ‘Fuck’s sake.’ I pull on my jeans in order to be dressed enough to open the door.

  It’s Charlie. ‘What the fuck? I thought we were meeting for breakfast at nine thirty.’

  ‘We are. I thought you’d want to see this straight away.’ She holds up today’s Times. I take a step back from the face of the man who gave me the white book.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve already seen it.’

  ‘Oh. You ordered a paper too?’

  ‘No. I saw it when the artist did it – at the police station.’

  ‘I thought you might like to see it in the actual newspaper.’

  ‘I’m famous, remember? Getting something into the paper no longer holds any element of thrill for me.’

  Charlie’s looking over my shoulder into my room. ‘Is the book in the drawer?’

  ‘What? Oh. Yes, I told you, I always do it.’

  ‘Same drawer as the Bible?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Can I have a look at it?’

  ‘The Bible?’

  I know that’s not what she means.

  ‘No. Delirium of the Brave by Terence Nithercott.’

  The normal, rational thing to do would be to get the book out of the drawer and hand it to her. Standing between a police officer and a hotel room drawer in order to protect an inanimate object that isn’t under attack: abnormal, irrational.

  ‘So you still think my dusty old copy of a long-forgotten novel is implicated in five murders, then.’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘I don’t understand why you want to look at it.’

  ‘Curiosity. Why don’t you want me to see it?’

  ‘I don’t not want you to …’ Already this argument’s too boring. I pull open the drawer, take out the book and hand it to Charlie. ‘It’s not hiding anything, I promise. There’s nothing remarkable about it apart from that it’s dedicated to the same person as that copy’s signed to.’

  ‘Really?’ Charlie checks. ‘So it is. That’s a coincidence. Is that why you bought it?’

  ‘I didn’t buy it.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right – it was a present, wasn’t it?’

  And that was an attempt to trap me, wasn’t it? See if my story about the book’s changed?

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Liam Sturridge.’

  ‘Your ex-bit on the side. So it has sentimental value. Is that why you take it with you everywhere?’

  ‘It had no sentimental value to him.’ Charlie isn’t Liam. It’s not her fault. I should have snapped at him while I had him there to snap at. ‘He said so when he gave it to me. He thought it was an unusual object, but he didn’t care about the relationship implied by the dedication or the handwritten message, or both together – didn’t give a shit about it.’