Chapter 7
‘Amanda, where are you? It’s thirty-eight minutes past six.
’ I end my voicemail on a sigh and continue bouncing on the spongy heels of my gym shoes to fend off the frosty air.
I don’t need to look to know my exposed shins will be blue and bobbled.
I push my phone into the pocket of my zip-up and wrap my arms around my chest.
‘I’m here! I’m here!’ Amanda pants, bounding around the corner onto Iron Mongers Row. ‘You should know my bed is royally pissed off with you. We were having a gorgeous snuggle this morning.’
Despite my irritation and chattering teeth, I laugh. ‘Come on.’
We make our way into the hot yoga temple, otherwise known as the basement of a house split into various commercial sublets. Amanda rubs the head of the giant, smiling Buddha statue as she always does and blows him a kiss.
‘Always happy to see me,’ she purrs.
The changing rooms are empty, the other hot yoga-ites already having made it to the practice room. I take my red pencil dress from my gym bag and hang it inside a locker, then dump my bag, trainers, socks and zip-up and drag Amanda to our hot flow yoga class.
The thirty-seven-degree heat of the room is a welcome blanket around my cold body. Kamal, our resident yoga instructor, peels himself from his mat where he was lying in savasana. ‘Ladies, you’re late; take up position.’
‘Sorry,’ I whisper both to Kamal and the rest of the room. We’re always late. Correction: Amanda is always late.
‘Over there.’ He gestures to two mats in the back corner of the room, tucked close together and right under two of the orange wall lamps maintaining the temperature of the room.
‘I’m not going there,’ Amanda huffs. ‘I’ll fry!’
‘Amanda, stop being dramatic; we’re disrupting the class.’ I give her a soft nudge in the ribs with my elbow and smile politely at Kamal.
‘Yes, you are,’ he confirms, adjusting his hairband and pursing his lips.
We make our way to the mats, Amanda grumbling. ‘I’ll disrupt the class even more when I pass out.’
‘You’re missing your relaxation time,’ Kamal says, walking back to his own mat at the front of the room, notably far away from the heat lamps.
‘Remember, ladies and gents, no drinking during the session. We hydrate before and after the class; we don’t disrupt the flow.
’ He addresses us all but only Amanda sighs in response.
‘He’s kind of hot when he’s vexed, don’t you think?’ Amanda says, thankfully quiet enough that only I can hear as we lay back into savasana.
Shaking my head, I close my eyes, listening to the gentle sounds of animals awakening in the rainforest.
‘Clear your mind. Concentrate only on your breath. Deep in, fill your lungs. Gently out.’ Kamal’s words are soft and controlled.
Clear my mind. How hard can that be? I try to picture darkness, emptiness but there are a thousand images flying through my mind: work, guns, Gregory, my dad, Sandy, Dubai. It’s day three in the countdown to the ballistics report and this is all really happening.
‘Let’s move to sun salutations,’ Kamal directs gently as Eva Cassidy’s ‘Fields of Gold’ fills the room. ‘Inhale on the rise. Swan dive, exhale.’
‘How are you feeling about everything today?’ Amanda asks as we push back into a downward-facing dog.
Exhaling, I push my hips back further to feel a burning stretch in the back of my legs.
‘Fine. Same.’ I really don’t want to discuss Saturday or Gregory’s father or police or anything else.
For an hour, I’d just like to pretend everything is normal.
I snort a laugh as I arch my back and press my hands, hips and toes to the mat: cobra position.
I’m not even sure what normal is any more.
I’ve spent so long focussing on other people that I just don’t know who Scarlett Heath really is.
Daughter, lawyer, loyal friend. Orphan, insatiable hussy, murderer.
‘How was your brunch at the Savoy yesterday?’
My outward breath is much harder than it probably ought to be.
‘What? Tell me.’
‘Neil wants me to go to Dubai on secondment.’
‘What? That’s amazing!’ she shrieks.
‘Shh.’ Kamal’s glaring at us again.
‘Why don’t I get asked to go places like that?’
‘Would you want to?’ I ask, dipping again into downward-facing dog.
‘Are you joking? Dubai is like the place to be right now. Party and fashion central.’
‘Hmm. Well, you might get a chance to go.’
‘You are kidding me,’ she says, slumping to her mat as I move into cobra again with the rest of the class. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t you go? You’re crazy.’
‘Amanda, come on. It’s hardly great timing.’
She rises to her feet on an inhale but I’m not convinced her flaring nostrils are due to her hatha breaths. ‘Don’t ruin your life because Mr Bazillionaire decided to put a bullet in his pop’s head.’
I rear, glaring at her.
‘Ladies and gents, moving to standing strength positions now.’ Kamal is speaking softly but his eyes are burning into Amanda and me.
We move silently into warrior two: back leg straight, front leg bent, both arms held out from our shoulders. All the while, I’m trying to breathe through my anger.
‘I’m just saying, now might be a good time to find out whether Gregory loves you back.’
We move into upward warrior two, a similar position but with one arm raised in the air and the other back and pointed to the ground. I follow my fingertips to look up at the ceiling. Salt water trickles down my cheek.
‘What if he doesn’t?’ I inhale the words to myself.
Though I’m sure Amanda doesn’t hear me, she does say, ‘Then at least you’ll know.’
Will I go? Should I tell him?
We comply with Kamal’s instruction and move into triangle pose. Ouch, this one always hurts my inner thigh but the distraction from other thoughts is welcome.
‘Anyway, what’s going on with you and Williams?’
‘Meh.’ She flippantly wafts a hand. ‘Just fun.’
I exhale and bend forward between my legs so I’m looking at the top of her head.
‘Really, it seems like more than fun to me.’ My words sound strangely garbled from upside down. ‘You’ve seen him a lot over the last five weeks.’
She lifts her head until she’s looking at what must be my very red face and rolls her eyes.
‘I’m just saying.’ See how you like it.
‘Actually, I’ve decided to cool it. I’m not going to see him for a while.’
‘For a while. Right. So you do intend to see him again?’
We both stand and follow Kamal’s direction to strike chair pose. We bend our legs to a seated position and thrust our arms in the air.
‘Shoulders down, don’t let them ride to your ears. Relax. Slip deeper on each exhale. In, full. Out, down.’
‘Would you stop twisting everything I say, please?’ Her words are scolding but there’s a faint upturn at the corners of her lips.
‘You like him.’
‘Stop. I don’t want all that stuff. I’m not ready to be grown-up and serious. I’m just in a playful place. It’s like Carrie Bradshaw says: play in your twenties, learn lessons in your thirties and pay the bill in your forties.’
I smile, remembering our obsession with watching reruns of Sex and the City in pyjamas, with a gluttonous stash of chocolate and popcorn, at university.
‘That she does.’
‘I’m clinging to the last year or so of fun in my twenties.’
‘Let’s take it to the floor, ladies and gents, and lengthen our spines.’ We move down to our mats in response to Kamal’s instructions. I’m grateful; my clothes are now sodden with the sweat teeming out of me and my legs are beginning to feel like jelly.
Amanda flops onto her back and sighs, throwing her arms out from her shoulders and letting her head fall to the side to look at me.
‘I thought you said Williams is just fun. In which case, doesn’t he count as playing in your twenties?’
‘Urgh!’ She groans, bringing her arms to flop across her face.
The smile that tugs on my lips is quickly wiped away by the sight of a vexed-looking Kamal standing over us. ‘Ladies, pipe down or leave. People are trying to get into this whether you are or not.’
‘Sorry, Kamal,’ we sing in unison.
We endure the remainder of the class in silence and I surprise myself by being able to concentrate on my mind and body instead of everything else going on in the world around me.
By the end of the class, I’m feeling completely rejuvenated.
Kamal taps his gong to rouse us from the foetal position then we follow his moves, crossing our legs and bringing our hands to prayer position.
‘Good class today,’ he says with three claps of his hands. ‘As always, to draw the full benefit from the class, drink lots of water and eat lots of good fruit and vegetables throughout the day.’
Another drawback to being positioned in the back corner of the room is that we’re last to the showers. Amanda tuts and taps her feet in the queue for the four cubicles as if she really wants to get to work. I know better than to fall for that.
The cool air is welcome as we leave the yoga studio.
The result of hot yoga, a warm shower and twenty minutes blow-drying my hair is that my cheeks are flushed even beneath my light covering of make-up.
‘Ohhhhh that’s soooooo goooood!’ Amanda groans, lifting her face to the sky. ‘Starbucks or Pret?’
‘Hmm, let’s go Pret today.’
‘Fabulous! Do you have much on later?’
I sigh. ‘I really need to get my head down and draft a paper for Gregory.’
‘He puts a lot of work your way, doesn’t he?’
‘We’ll see. It’s early days really but he is for now. How about you? Are you busy?’
‘Not really. I’ve been keeping a low profile for a while but my utilisation figure is shocking. There’s absolutely no chance of me getting a bonus if I don’t put in some hours soon. Do you have anything you could pass my way?’
I watch Amanda’s back as she makes her way to the counter of Pret. Working with her is a nightmare. As soon as she gets bored, she stops pulling her weight and keeping to deadlines seems to be her nemesis. But she needs my help.
‘Sure. I’ll take a look at the matters I’ve got on and hand a couple over.’