Chapter 8
8
It was a testament to her liver that Fiona managed to get to the gym without any hiccups, other than physical ones, although she did arrive nearly ten minutes later than she’d said she would.
‘It’s fine,’ Holly assured her as she apologised for the fourth time. ‘We’ve still got another ten minutes.’ Her forehead wrinkled as she looked at her friend. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, ‘you look funny.’
‘Like all I had for lunch was half a bottle of wine and a double whisky funny?’
‘Possibly.’
While the nutritional value was, without doubt, less than ideal, heading straight to the drinks cabinet had been the one thing that had stopped Fiona tearing the house apart, or going after Stephen and tearing him apart. The audacity! The outright arrogance! To think that he could stand there and claim responsibility for her success. It was outrageous. So what if he’d made a couple of introductions? That was years ago. Did he really think that people kept working with her because they played a couple of rounds of golf a year with him? Of course they didn’t. They did it because she was good. Better than good. She was the best at what she did. And if Stephen didn’t know that about her by now, then maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that he’d packed his bags after all. And that thing about Joseph. What was it he had called him? A great young man? Whoever he was sleeping with had to be slipping him something on the side.
Apparently oblivious to the ranting going on in her best friend’s head, Holly pushed open the door.
‘You’re going to love this place,’ she said, stepping inside. ‘I bet you. One class here and you’ll be dropping all your others.’ She paused. ‘Well, you would if you did any other classes.’
The floors were polished hardwood and large prints of seascapes and forests lined the walls. It looked more like a spa than a gym.
‘My nephew, Ed, told me about it. Apparently, it’s where all the cool kids hang out.’
‘Are we cool kids?’
‘No, we’re the rich tossers; that’s the other category that come here too.’
The neutral palette of colours continued down the corridor and into the studio, where a huge window took up the entire length of one wall. Even with the vertical blinds – which obscured the view of the car park below – the space was flooded with light, yellow and warming. Combined with the seven units of alcohol Fiona had recently ingested, it felt like an appealing spot to take a nap.
‘No, we need to go to the back,’ she said, as Holly began to unroll her mat just a few feet from the front of the room. ‘I haven’t done this in ages, remember.’
Holly chewed her lip, glancing at the half dozen men who were filing in, all toned and tanned and looking like they’d just stepped out of a Hugo Boss commercial.
‘All righty. The view from the back’s pretty good too,’ she conceded.
Fiona pouted. ‘Still married,’ she said, although the words caused a wave of nausea to flood through her, quickly replaced by anger. Talk about rich tossers; Stephen was the biggest tosser of them all. Well, screw him. He could see how much she needed him. She was done with it. Done with whatever midlife crisis he was going through. It was going to take more than a few fancy dinners and some jewellery to get him out of this when he came to his senses. Then, noticing how everyone was now sitting on their mats and looking to the front, she decided to focus on the class.
Yoga was something she always felt she should enjoy, but never really did. 90 per cent of the time she spent frustrated. For some reason, her limbs just wouldn’t move the way others did. Then there was the breathing. All those people who could manage to inhale for thirty seconds then exhale for a minute-and-a-half without getting dizzy and falling over clearly had some form of genetic pre-disposition. Today was bound to be a disaster, she knew, but at least it meant Holly would never invite her again. That would be a bonus.
At 3p.m. on the dot, the instructor came into the room.
‘We’ve got the good one today.’ Holly grinned.
Broad shouldered and slightly taller than average height, he was darker skinned than Stephen: a deep olive, as opposed to Stephen’s pale pinky-white that she was used to. His tousled hair looked like he’d just climbed out of bed, but then into freshly ironed sportswear, while his almond eyes were creased in a smile, one side ever so slightly more than the other. Fiona’s alcohol-filled stomach fluttered.
‘ Namaste ,’ he addressed them, moving over to a small table and lighting two incense sticks, which quickly filled the room with a heady aroma.
‘ Namaste ,’ Fiona replied with more enthusiasm than she’d felt all week.
The problem with all her previous yoga experiences, she reflected, as she moved from a relatively stable Mountain Pose, to a slightly more-shaky eagle, had been that she’d never done it drunk before.
‘Inhale and release.’
She puffed out for what must have been a full minute with minimal dizziness. Take that , she glowered at the man in front of her, who’d twisted around just to stare at her for some reason. Yoga breathing was meant to be loud. And she was going to be the loudest.
Alcohol, it turned out, wasn’t just the secret to the breathing. It was the secret to following all the moves too. She wasn’t drunk drunk – clearly, they would have asked to leave if she’d been that – yet it was surprising how limber those drinks had made her.
‘Inhale.’
She watched the muscles under the instructor’s T-shirt flex.
‘And exhale to Urdhva Hastasana : Upwards Salute.’
She continued staring. The fabric of his top clung to him in all the right places. Stephen had never had a body like that. Not that he’d had a bad figure. All the years of rugby and cricket had kept him moderately toned. But it had never, ever looked like that. Chiselled . That was the word, chiselled. Her hand moved forward, just imagining what it would be like to touch something that solid and well formed.
‘And exhale.’ Again?
The instructor’s eyes moved to hers, glinting with a hint of amusement. Only then did she realise she was still standing in the same upwards salute, while the rest of the class had moved into a Downward-Facing Dog. Hurriedly, she lowered herself to the ground. It could have been worse , she told herself, eyes now on the mat. At least she hadn’t farted. She’d been in classes where people had done that. That was definitely worse.
Still, for the rest of the lesson, she tried desperately to keep her eyes firmly away from the instructor’s abdominals, although it wasn’t easy. Every forward lunge would result in a different set of muscles rippling, more than once causing her to topple slightly towards her friend.
‘What are you doing?’ Holly hissed.
‘My mat is all slippery,’ Fiona whispered back. ‘I must have spilled something on it.’
When she moved her eyes back to the instructor, he was staring at her with a pinched expression, denoting either deep annoyance or great amusement. Either way, she didn’t care; if he’d wanted people to concentrate, he shouldn’t have worn such a tight-fitting top.
When the lesson ended, Holly rolled up her mat.
‘So, what did you think? Enjoy it?’
‘It was… good,’ Fiona replied, for want of a better word.
‘I know. And that view, right? Good call going to the back.’ She tucked her mat under her arm as she spoke. ‘Are you okay for a minute? I just want to go talk to Jim there. Get him to agree to a date next week.’
‘I thought you said you’d already arranged one.’
‘Well, I will do, if you give me a minute.’
With no option but to agree, Fiona bent down to roll up her own mat, only to be struck by a sudden bout of light-headedness that resulted in her best Downward Dog of the day.
‘So, how was your first time?’
In an action that was part attempt to stand up and part to pick up her mat, she sprang from the ground, inadvertently swinging it through the air and catching the strap in her hair.
‘Oh, umm. Sorry?’ With one hand on her hip and the other trying to yank the Velcro free, she glanced up past the overly tight T-shirt.
‘Here, let me.’ The instructor reached forward and gently pulled her hair free. Static prickled across her skin.
‘Your first time?’ he asked again.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve not been here before, have you? At least, not to one of my classes.’
‘Well…’
‘Believe me, I would have remembered you.’
‘Well.’ Swallowing repeatedly, she searched desperately for somewhere safe to look. His almond eyes were a vivid blue, with an almost ethereal luminance. And his smell! Good God, how was it even possible to smell like that? As if he’d just been for a two-hour spa scrub and then dressed in clothes that had been washed by woodland sprites.
‘I should probably get going. My friend and I… we need to head back.’
‘She looks like she’s pretty occupied.’
Turning her head, she located Holly leaning against a wall, chatting to a man who she assumed was Jim, who was standing with his head thrown back mid laugh. Of course there would be a date next week. Knowing Holly, she’d made the reservation before she’d even asked.
‘So, did you like it?’
‘Sorry?’ She had momentarily forgotten that she’d been in conversation.
‘The class? Did we impress you? Are you thinking about coming back?’
She rubbed her temples, the effects of the alcohol leaving her system now kicking in. ‘To be honest, I’m not much of a yoga person.’
‘You could have fooled me. I mean, maybe your focus needs a little work, but your flexibility… I feel we could work on that together.’
Starting to feel embarrassed, she racked her brain for a suitable excuse to leave. A loud chime cut through her thoughts.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised, pulling his phone out of his pocket. His jaw tightened as he frowned and deep lines furrowed what had previously been a perfectly pristine forehead. ‘Shit,’ he said, reading whatever was on the screen.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, feeling it was a rather personal question but that it would have been rude not to comment.
‘It’s Martha,’ he said. ‘You know? The sperm whale who?—’
‘I know,’ she interrupted, not needing the rest. ‘What is it? Is she okay?’
He shook his head. ‘Apparently, she just collided with a barge. That’s got to be a bad sign. Sperm whales shouldn’t do that.’
Her heart sank. She had quite forgotten about poor Martha because of Stephen and his stupid divorce papers.
‘Maybe it’s the river traffic, disturbing her signals. Perhaps echolocation isn’t possible there, the way it is in the sea.’
His eyes widened. ‘You’re following her too?’
‘Everything I can get my hands on.’
He smiled. ‘I don’t suppose you want to go down and see if there’s anything we can do to help, do you?’ he suggested.
For the first time since leaving the house, all thoughts of Stephen slipped entirely from her mind. A spontaneous grin stretched across her face.
‘That’s the best thing anyone’s said to me all week,’ she replied.
‘So, what is it you do?’
They’d been walking for a few minutes, talking entirely about Martha and sperm whales and the thousand facts about them that she had learnt over the previous few days, but a lull in the conversation had caused her unexpected whale-watching date to move the conversation to a more personal level.
She hesitated. ‘I’m an events planner,’ she said, deciding that there was no reason not to tell the truth.
‘Really? Wow, like business launch parties, that type of thing?’
‘That’s fairly spot on.’
‘Wow, that’s great.’ There was a youthful enthusiasm about him. A kind of effervescent energy that just seemed to bubble up. ‘I’ve got these friends with a start-up. Some big tech thing. Massive. Just landed the backing they needed. Going to blow a whole lotta companies out of the water when they go live. Maybe I could pass on your number? I know they’ll be looking to do something pretty damn hot when they launch.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, trying to sound intrigued by this. Nearly every other person she met had some friend or relative who was about to hit it big with their new start-up. But she followed the standard reply procedure. ‘I’m fairly full at the minute,’ she said, pulling out a business card and handing it to him. ‘But you can always get them to give me a ring.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, glancing down at it before slipping it into his pocket. ‘I will.’
Talk turned back to Martha and whale watching and how she’d been whale watching years ago in New Zealand.
Before long, they hit a barrier.
‘What are we supposed to do now?’ she asked.
‘Sorry, but you can’t go any further. They’ve got the Coastguard down there. And a bunch of specialists.’ The police officer guarding the railing was apologetic, yet weary. It was obvious, from all the crowds gathered at the riverfront, that she and her newly acquired yoga teacher were not the first people he’d had to explain the situation to that afternoon.
‘But what are they doing?’ she asked. ‘They said they might have to try towing her back to sea after the weekend. Is that what they’re up to now?’ The nervous excitement she’d had at the thought of finally getting a glimpse of Martha in the flesh was giving way to a burgeoning anxiety. If the would-be rescuers had moved their schedule forwards by two days, that didn’t bode well.
‘If there’s something that can be done, then I’m sure they’ll do it. They’ve got the best people down here.’ The police officer moved on to repeat the exact same information to another group who’d just arrived.
It was a strange crowd that had gathered in the unseasonably sticky heat. Clusters of men, women and children peered over the police barricade, trying to get a closer look at the animal in her distress. Many children perched on their parents’ shoulders for a better view although, even with the extra height, Fiona doubted they could see anything between the orange lifeguard boats and various blue and white patrol vessels that were swarming around. A heaviness settled on her as she watched. Hadn’t the poor thing gone through enough stress already? Surely there was a better way to do this.
‘Are you okay?’ While the yoga teacher’s eyes still sparkled, they also showed concern, as he placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You don’t look so good.’
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she nodded mutely. The effects of the alcohol had definitely waned. Now all that remained was a feeling of overwhelming bleakness.
‘It’s just… I just have…’ Her words dried up. ‘She’s a mother, you know. Why didn’t someone notice she was in trouble earlier? Why did she have to get this far in?’
He leant over and took her hand. ‘You never know. There’s still time. They still might get her back to sea.’
She wasn’t going to cry. She didn’t cry. Yet her whale-watching partner was clearly unaware of this as he reached up and brushed her cheek with his thumb. Her eyes closed at this tender gesture. One simple touch, yet it contained more warmth, more connection, than she could remember feeling in years. Her chest pounded and she felt her body moving towards the warmth of the man in front of her.
‘This is not a good idea,’ she muttered, his lips now just inches away from hers.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘It feels pretty good to me.’