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definitely the last topic that entered my head that night, though, because I always remember my last thoughts before I sleep.
    I think I passed out a few minutes later.
    SIX
    Indian flip-flops are the best in the world; there’s no question about that. Flip-flops, as the British call them, are what Australians call thongs. I don’t know what they’re called in America. A single piece of foam as the sole, held on to the foot by a V-shaped strap that goes between the big and second toes; wherever you go in the world the design is exactly the same, but quality varies. In India the sole is made of rubber, pure rubber, not foam and that’s why they’re the world’s best.
    As I walked away from the flip-flop stall in the airport I listened: flip, flop, flip, flop . Amazing, even the sound was right. ‘Yep,’ I muttered, ‘the Lunar Flip-flop Company of India certainly knows how to make ’em.’
    Still watching my feet, I stepped onto the bus that would take me back into town and thought about Sanita again.
    We had hardly spoken to each other over breakfast, and hadn’t talked at all on the bus journey to the airport. I’d spent the night on the rooftop with Rick, Zed and Dudley, and Sanita, having woken and found the bed empty, had wandered up at six in the morning and found us all sprawled out around the bar. She flared up, and demanded to know why I’d spent our last night together fucking about with them instead of her, and why I hadn’t come back to the room, and... The list of complaints went on. To calm her down, and make her feel a bit better about going home without me, I reminded her that it was only a three-week holiday, and that we’d probably spend the rest of our lives together.
    Making love when we’d returned to the room after breakfast hadn’t really helped matters either. Her annoyance at my disappearance the night before, at first softened by the closeness of our naked, sweat-slippery bodies, only seemed to return with a vengeance once we put our clothes back on, turning into genuine anger. It was as if she felt taken advantage of. The anger boiled over and she slapped my face.
    Sanita had demanded to know what I was going to get up to over the next few weeks without her. That was easy to answer: Zed, Dudley and I would leave the next morning to go to Bombay, the three of us would then go up to Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama supposedly lived, travelling through Delhi and a few other places en route. Simple. It all fitted together quite nicely really, and I’d even managed to change my flight so that it left from Delhi.
    When her flight was finally called we both stood up immediately, as though each of us wanted to make the first move. It was an awkward situation, especially as I’d persuaded her to take my surfboard home with her. ‘You are coming back aren’t you John?’ she’d asked. ‘You’re not going to Thailand with that man Rick?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve seen how well you two get on together.’
    I told her not to be silly. ‘He’s already left,’ I assured her, ‘how can I?’ The fact that he’d left me with instructions on how to get to the place he’d be staying at had conveniently slipped my mind. Anyway, I was only on a short holiday, and all of my time would be taken up getting to the north of India and back.
    I watched her struggle out onto the runway with her rucksack over one shoulder, which was now twice its usual weight as she had insisted on taking home anything that I thought I wouldn’t need for the rest of my holiday, and my surfboard over the other. She loaded the gear onto a bullock-drawn baggage cart, before turning and giving a last traumatic wave and boarding the plane.
    The bus back to town was packed to bursting point by the time it moved off, and the only available seat was next to another traveller. She moved her huge rucksack