Free A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson

girlfriend Phoebe, an aromatherapist. Or physiotherapist. Or masseuse, or something.
    ‘Dad! Irene Guy?’
    ‘OK. I don’t know. Maybe you had a teacher with that name? Or we had a neighbour?’
    ‘Really, or are you just guessing?’
    ‘I’m guessing.’
    She sighed. The same sigh that dated back to that unhappy day when it occurred to her that everything he believes in, she does not.
    ‘Are you just totally making it up?’ She could hear him whacking with his cane. ‘Do you think it’s a mistake?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ He sounded weary now. Frieda leaned down and picked up a chipped brick from the edge of the kerb.
    ‘Do you think it is something to do with Mum? They seem very sure, on their system, I’m down connected to her.’
    ‘A possibility.’
    ‘Do you think? Have you any idea where she is?’
    ‘Last heard of on a commune in deepest Sussex – and I am not even joking.’
    ‘Come on. It’s a bit surreal.’
    ‘I’m serious. She sent me a letter asking for money. Communes are expensive, it seems.’
    ‘Do you know how I can get hold of her?’
    A young woman with an overloaded buggy walked towards Frieda. Three children appeared to be stuffed uncomfortably into it and numerous supermarket bags weighted the handles; she scowled as she passed. Frieda tried to smile at the young mother but was demonstrably ignored.
    She surprised herself by asking, ‘Have you got the address, Dad?’
    ‘You want to contact her?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    She waited for him to find the address, listening to the sound of him rustling about, her toes resting on the kerb. She remembered an instance when, as a child, she had trapped a caterpillar under a glass, one of those black and orange hairy ones, and watched it concertina back and forth. She recalled that behind her the caravans had been full of divine brothers and sisters, there for satsang. Satsang was a meeting but what it really meant was don’t make a noise Frie’, we’re meditating . A divine brother had come up to her in the garden.
    ‘Hey, Frie’, what you doing?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    He had an enormous beard, enormous forehead and enormous glasses. He looked like God, according to the Seven Days of Creation illustration.
    ‘Nice caterpillar,’ he’d said.
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘So, tell me . . .’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘What kind of boy do you think you’ll marry, hey?’ Frieda had stared at the caterpillar and not answered.
    ‘Maybe you’re ideologically opposed?’ He was laughing at her. He lit up a rolled cigarette. If he was God, would he smoke? It seemed unlikely. She had looked up at him, his head was gigantic against the sharp blueness of the sky.
    ‘With those pretty little dark eyes you will have the pick of the world, sweets.’ To make him go away Frieda had started to hum, then sing: Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water. Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea. Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently. By putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee . She had heard her dad say that the brothers were allergic to Christianity. It had worked. He’d gone away, laughing to himself, smoking.
    Thwack thwack thwack.
    ‘I can’t find it, Frie’. I’ll have to keep looking and call you back.’
    ‘Oh, OK,’ Frieda said into the phone.
    ‘I’m holding it now’, he said, ‘over the kitchen floor and it is – literally – dragging me to the left, towards the sink. It knows the water is there.’
    Frieda listened as her father hit the floor with the stick and she tried to ignore a gawky man who was standing near her, despite the fact that the entire pavement was empty. Frieda realised that he was saying something to her, waving his hand at her, flapping it near her face as if to scare off flies.
    ‘I’m going to have to go.’ She hung up.
    ‘Here for the 12A flat?’ The man said, squeaky, petulant. His jacket was much too big, he seemed incongruously young. Frieda had an