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alive.’
    â€˜Ha!’ Dawa laughed, ‘There are many superstitious people out there. He is most certainly alive but I can tell you nothing else. I have been sworn to say no more.’
    We sipped the tea, my body craving the sugars after the long trek. I decided to go for the jugular.
    â€˜Can I see him?’
    Dawa thought for a while.
    â€˜That will depend,’ he replied cryptically. ‘If you are prepared to
wait
, then maybe.’
    These words plunged me into an instant depression. I would have to wait? For how
long
would I have to wait?
    And why?
    In any case I would have to be back in Kathmandu sometime before the week was out, so it wasn’t as if I had a load of slack in my diary.
    â€˜Can you give me an idea of how long?’ I pleaded.
    â€˜I cannot say,’ he told me, finally. ‘It is not for me to decide.’
    I was confused about this iffy welcome and more than a little bit fed up by it. This guy Dawa seemed to be hinting that it might be days before I was allowed to see Kami, or that I might not be able to see him at all.
    But what would it depend on? My behaviour? On the word of the gods? On Kami himself? Or on the carer that Dawa had mentioned?
    Come to that, where was the carer? Perhaps that fleeting figure I had seen near the foot of the cliff had been him? Or her?
    The whole thing was unsettling, in fact, downright weird.
    I put up my tent on the only flat ground available, a mean scrap of swampy grass next to the spring.
    Out in the musty forest a nightjar was celebrating all through the dark hours, liquid notes mingling with dreams which were surprisingly pleasant.
    The next morning passed quickly enough. I hung the sleeping bag up to air and borrowed a plastic tub and some soap from Dawa. A clean-up session was overdue. It was time to wash my sweat-encrusted clothes – and my body too.
    As I began to wash, everything seemed to go quiet.
    Once again, I got the strangest feeling.
    The sensation of being watched.
    I spun around quickly, fixing my gaze on the nearest patch of dense forest, feeling sure I would see someone, eyes staring out at me from that green refuge. But there was no-one.
    At least no-one I could see.
    â€˜Who’s there?’ I called softly, getting no reply apart from the drone of the cicadas.
    I walked slowly in amongst the trees, the birds trilling alarm calls at the invasion. I went on, deeper, pushing through clinging vegetation. The birds fell suddenly silent, all I could hear was the drip, drip of soapy water falling from the T-shirt I was carrying.
    Still I felt it.
    Someone is here.
    I stared into the forest depth where every shadow seemed to have human form.
    â€˜Hello?’
    Nothing. Now I felt foolish and I went back to the glade and finished the washing.
    Focus on practical stuff. You’re just tired and a bit messed up from the trek.
    Dawa called me in for lunch, a tasty curry of chickpeas and spinach served with gritty brown rice. We ate it from aluminium dishes, cross-legged on the dirt floor of his shack while he told me about the time he served with the Ghurka regiment.
    â€˜Twenty-five years serving Her Majesty the Queen,’ he said with pride. ‘Oman, Belize, Borneo. All over the world.’
    I worked in the garden all through the afternoon, partly to repay Dawa for the lunch but also because there was little else to do. I pulled and washed two baskets of plump carrots and cleaned a sackful of weeds from a derelict patch at the side of the house.
    The shutters were closed and I could see nothing of the interior. I placed my ear to one of them, but all I could hear was the whirr of machines from inside.
    The second day passed in much the same way: two back-breaking sessions in the garden followed by an evening spent in Dawa’s shack, listening to the BBC World Service on his vintage transistor radio.
    â€˜Wars everywhere!’ Dawa exclaimed in disgust. ‘One war stops. Another one