on porcelain. Yes, India could be quite luxurious if one had money.

During dessert, Robert fell asleep with his spoonful of honey pastry midway to his mouth. It dropped from his hand and landed on his lap, waking him.

'Damn it,' he said as syrup spread over his thigh.

As we laughed, a smile crept across his face. He inserted the spoon in his dessert cup and scooped out a load of syrup. Whop! He shot it at Shawn's chin.

Whop! Shawn fired back.

Whop! Whop! Tish and I joined in.

By the time we left the table, yellow streaks covered the tablecloth, and my hair was sticky. A glob of honey ran down the wall, and Tish had honey hanging from an ear. We left the room giggling uncontrollably. With his head held high and one eye closed, Robert slipped fifty rupees into the waiter's palm. The waiter bowed.

In poverty-stricken countries the rich could five like sovereigns.

MAP OF ANJUNA BEACH

ARRIVING IN PANJIM, we split up because bags and packages filled every inch of my taxi, and I wasn't going directly to Anjuna Beach anyway. I first had to go to Mapusa, the village near Anjuna where Lino the Landlord lived. I'd sent him a telegram and found him waiting for me in his four-foot-square battery shop.

Anxiously I asked, 'Is the house ready?' I couldn't wait to move in and become an official resident.

He shook his head side to side Indian fashion. It looked like no or indecision but meant, 'Sure.' Then he said, 'One or two things remain needing to be done, but you can stay inside.'

'Wonderful!'

'You go now? I will follow on my motorcycle.'

I felt euphoric. As the taxi headed down the traffic less road to Anjuna Beach, tears filled my eyes. How beautiful it was there. My territory now, where my people lived. I knew there'd be a party that night.

I was surprised when we turned oh the paved road onto a dirt way that took us across the paddy fields. I hadn't known a car could go so close to the sea. The taxi left me thirty yards from the house, and I ran to see the new hone.

Yes, it had a roof. White and blue windows. It looked immense.

Wow. Mine. My home! Lino pulled up beside me. 'You see, it is finished.'

With a key, he opened the padlock connecting the brass rings of the front doors. I walked in with the reverence someone might show for a cathedral. Shiny red tiles felt cool beneath my feet—no dung floor here. I passed through the front room and up three steps to the main room—huge! The tree was gone, and the ceiling rose high above me. The staircase! It faced me from the far wall, turned, and went up to the square landing I'd designed. Upstairs, one enormous room led into another. The end room turned right to extend a further thirteen feet. Wow. I'd make this gigantic space the bedroom. I opened a window to a fishy-smelling breeze. The ocean lay fifty yards away, on the other side of the pig-as-waste-disposal toilets.

Toilets? 'How could they build toilets in front of the view?' I asked Lino, who'd followed me upstairs.

'We are afraid to swim. Our houses face away from it, and we put the toilets behind the house.'

'You never swim? Hey, is that a door?'

'Yes. You have five doors leading outside.'

I opened it to find concrete steps descending to the back porch. A few feet away was the well. I stepped down and ran a hand lovingly over the seats of the porch.

'How do you like?' asked Lino.

'It's the most wonderful house in the world.'

I re-entered through the kitchen door. As I moved from room to room, images, colours, and designs flew through my brain. 'This will be the dining room. Is that a sink?' By the window was a concrete depression with a drain hole. Bending to peek through the hole, I caught the eye of a chicken pecking in the yard. 'Oh! . . . How cute.' Water would have to be carried in from the well.

'Are there furniture stores in Mapusa, or must I go to Panjim?' I asked.

'No stores. I know a carpenter. He made your stairs. You want I send him to you?'

'No ready-made furniture?' I gazed around the room. 'Hmm. Actually, it might be fun that way. I can design what I want. I'd like to have a long table here. Enough to seat twenty people. Low, so we'll be sitting on the floor, get fluffy cushions. . . . Hey, this will be great!'

As soon as I unloaded the taxi, I unpacked the most important item—the bhong. I smoked a few bowls of tobacco and smack, put on a new Singapore dress, grabbed the silk parasol I'd bought at a Bangkok market, and headed for the south end beach.

'Hi, Laura!' I waved to familiar faces.

Zigzagging through bronze bodies, I helloed my way to Amsterdam Dean and laid out a lungi. 'I got a house,' I said, overflowing with the joy of a homeowner.

'Yeah, where?'

'Just down there, behind Apolon's  chai shop. It's two stories.'

'Two stories near Apolon's? Isn't that a ruin?'

'It was. I had it fixed. Took a ten-year lease.'

'A lease? How much are you paying?'

'Ten thousand rupees a year,' I said proudly.

'TEN THOUSAND RUPEES! What? He’s ripping you off. You can’t let him get away with that!'

'It's a terrific house,' I protested. 'He made it the way I wanted.'

'No place is worth ten thousand rupees. You'll give the Goans the idea they can change us anything they want. Watch, now everybody's rent will go up.' Dean had been cleaning ashes from a chillum and, turning the chilum over, he pounded it forcefully. I felt misunderstood. 'TEN THOUSAND RUPEES!' he exclaimed again, louder than before. 'You'll ruin the beach.'

'Wait till you see it,' was all I could answer. Why didn't he applaud my building a mansion in a prime spot? Humph!! Did he expect me to settle for a shack behind the paddy field?

Then again, although the Goa Freaks were money-oriented, life in Goa was rather simple: no electricity, no running water. Would domestic extravagance change the ambiance? Well, so what? They'd called me Hippie Deluxe in Europe; now I'd be Freak Deluxe. A few comforts wouldn't destroy the pristineness. Besides, the Goa Freaks hired locals to fill their water vats, clean their houses, and do laundry. They'd already progressed beyond living like natives.

Ruin the beach; I'd show him ruin the beach. I would make: myself a castle. Let everybody's rent go up. The Goa Freaks could afford it.

Before returning home I ran an errand—scoring coke. This season I wouldn't wait to be offered some. I had plenty of money to buy my own. I could buy as much as I wanted, and I wanted a lot.

Junky Robert and Tish lived in a house up the rocks from the beach. I entered their door to find Tish on a mattress reading a book and Robertin the process of falling asleep. While the bottom half of Robert kneeled on the floor, the top half curled over, about to plunge head first into an open suitcase.

'Cosy little place you have here,' I commented.

'. . . to Bombay Brian's,' said Junky Robert, waking suddenly and finishing the sentence he'd apparently started before he nodded off. 'Oh, hi, Cleo.'

'Did you find your letter?' asked Tish. 'Joe has it for you in his back room.'

Joe Banana now kept aside the mail of people he knew, putting the rest in the box on the porch. I felt honoured. An official Anjuna Beach resident. Tish supplied me with a gram of coke, and the three of us went to Gregory's restaurant for dinner.

Exhausted by the time I returned to the house, my vitality returned when I saw my roof peeping over the