The Kashmir Shawl. Rosie Thomas

predicted an old man, sitting on a step with his hookah.

      But in the afternoon there was no old man, and no caretaker or keys. Mair stood in frustration on the wrong side of the fence as leaves like gold flakes rattled from the trees and drifted over the gravestones. In Ladakh, she was learning, life was lived at its own pace. She walked back into town, intending to go to a café to drink chai and make a plan.

      In the main street in front of the mosque, she caught sight of red-gold hair, blazing above the white caps and grey backs of men heading for prayers. The woman and child were fully occupied, the child in having a tantrum that screwed her face into a crimson knot and the mother in mildly remonstrating with her. There was no sign of the saturnine husband.

      ‘Non, non!’ the child cried, kicking her feet in the dirt.

      ‘That’s enough,’ the woman ordered, in American-accented English. ‘Stop it right now.’ There was amusement as well as resignation in her expression. Her arms were weighted with shopping bags, and she put down one load in order to have a hand free for the child. But the little girl had already noticed Mair watching her. She blinked her eyes, in which there were no signs of tears, only outrage. The yells changed from private fury to operatic display.

      Mair glanced round. There was open space behind and in front of her. She lifted one finger and locked eyes with the child. The tantrum abruptly faded as curiosity took over. As soon as she had the little girl’s full attention Mair drew a breath, gathered herself up and executed a standing back-flip.

      It was quite a long time since she had attempted one, and she rocked on landing, but otherwise it was fairly satisfactory. The child’s mouth fell open and her eyes made two circles of amazement. Mair clapped hands at her, and did two forwards linked hand-springs. Hattie and she had synchronised this routine as part of their act, and even now she could probably have done it in her sleep. The second somersault brought her up quite close to the mother and child. The little girl grabbed Mair’s leg and gazed up at her. A smile lit her face.

      ‘Again! Encore une fois!’

      The mother was laughing. ‘That’s pretty neat. And it’s way better than a candy bribe.’

      Mair was slightly embarrassed to realise that her intention had probably been to attract the mother’s attention as much as the child’s. They had also drawn a fair-sized crowd of onlookers because there weren’t many other distractions on offer in town on this end-of-season afternoon. She hoped the spectators would quickly move away.

      ‘It seems to have done the trick. Can I give you a hand with these?’ Mair brushed dirt off her hands and picked up the shopping, leaving the mother to scoop up her daughter and settle her across her hip with the same easy movement she had used in the bazaar.

      ‘Jumping lady,’ said the child in wonder, stretching a small hand to pat Mair’s face.

      ‘That’s right,’ her mother agreed. ‘Pretty amazing, huh?’ Her voice had a touch of the American south in it.

      ‘As a matter of fact it was rather shaky. I’m not quite sure what came over me. I wanted to stop your daughter crying.’

      The other woman sighed. ‘You and me both. She’d set her sights on being with her dad this afternoon and ended up stuck with me instead. He’s gone to sort out guides and ponies – we’re leaving on a trek tomorrow. That’s what all this shopping’s about – what do you take in the way of supplies? Where are you heading? I’m Karen Becker, by the way. And this is Lotus.’

      Lotus raised her hand and gave a queenly wave.

      ‘Mair Ellis. Hello, Lotus.’ Mair smiled.

      The child was extraordinarily beautiful, with a broad forehead and a mouth like a cherub’s in a Renaissance painting.

      ‘I was on my way to get a cup of tea,’ she added.

      Karen nodded across the road. ‘Great. We’re going to the salon, Lo, aren’t we? We have to get ourselves a pedicure before we trek a single step. Come with us, and we can chat. I’m sure they’ll give you tea.’

      Mair was glad to escape from the staring crowd. The two women stepped over the gutter and picked their way between bullocks and auto-rickshaws to a glass-fronted shop with windows heavily draped in lace. ‘Ladies Only Beauty’, said the sign in the window.

      Inside they found a cracked floor, not noticeably clean, dusty bare shelves, and a row of barber’s chairs. There was a smell of old-fashioned perming lotion mingled with incense and boiled laundry. A small flock of women in bright saris instantly surrounded Lotus, lifted her out of Karen’s arms and bore her off to the back of the shop. They started combing her white-blonde hair with trills of admiration. Lotus accepted the attention as no more than her due.

      A smiling girl with a red-cheeked, perfectly round Tibetan face relieved them of the shopping. A moment later they were installed in adjacent chairs, facing their reflections in a blotchy mirror.

      ‘Go on. You may as well.’ Karen grinned.

      Mair allowed her Tibetan attendant to unlace her Converse for her, then to steer her feet into a pink plastic foot spa. The motor thrummed under her soles and the water seethed. The whole scene was so incongruous that she couldn’t help laughing.

      In the mirror Karen’s blue eyes met hers. ‘Tell me. You must be something like a capoiera dancer, right? We saw some of those street performers in Rio. Have you been there? A-mazing. I’d so love to be able to move like that. Not in a million years, though.’

      Mair laughed again. ‘What? No, I’m not any kind of dancer. I worked in a circus years and years ago.’

      ‘In a circus? Do you come from a circus family? Go on, your dad was the lion tamer, wasn’t he, and your mom was the lady in spangles who did pirouettes on the elephant’s back? You were born in a showman’s caravan, and as soon as you could walk you were dressed up in a tiny costume for the parade. Don’t tell any of this to Lotus, please – it’ll only give her ideas.’

      Karen had plenty of imagination herself, evidently. Mair was fascinated by her spectacular looks and her vivacity, but she wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. ‘Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. My father was a farm-supplies salesman and my mother was a primary-school teacher in North Wales.’

      ‘So, how come?’

      Mair might have deflected these questions, but she was the one who had been guilty of exhibitionism and she thought the least she could do was give a straight answer. ‘I was a rebellious child, and I’d been threatening for so many years to run away and join a circus that when the time actually came it would have been a loss of face not to do it. Ours was quite a right-on show. No lions. In fact, no animals at all, because that would have been cruel. My friend and I had a trapeze act, and in the kids’ show we were the clowns as well. We did that for about four years, and then it was time to grow up.’

      ‘I see.’ Karen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do I believe all this? Or is it one of those versions of oneself that one does for passing encounters with strangers? If it is, I’ll find out, I’m warning you. We’re going to be friends. I’m always right about these things.’

      A young girl arrived balancing a tin tray of tea glasses. Mair took one and sipped. The tea was milky and thick with sugar, but it was welcome. Her attendant lifted one of her feet out of the bath and dried it in her lap. Then she set to work slathering on handfuls of some gritty potion.

      Karen chatted on: ‘How could I pass up the chance of making friends with someone who turns somersaults in the air before she’s even spoken?’

      Across the room, Lotus had a dozen ribbon bows in her hair. Her tiny fingernails were being dabbed with glitter polish.

      Mair decided it was time to seize the conversational initiative. ‘What are you doing in Leh?’ she asked.

      Karen’s eyes widened. Her face in the mirror became a pale, intent oval. ‘We arrived here from Tibet. I’m a Buddhist, you see. It’s been a pilgrimage