The atmosphere was different that night – almost febrile, the kinetic energy of our sessions translated into something more bacchanalian. The pine table was already littered with half-empty bottles, music pumping out of tinny portable speakers. ‘Rachel!’ cried Amber, as I tentatively pushed my way into the kitchen. She rushed over to me, enveloped me in a fug of smells – perfume, alcohol, tobacco. She felt off duty – for all my fantasies about us being best friends, it made me prickle with unease. I banished the sensation, doubled down on its opposite, leaning my body into hers. I was starving, ravenous for comfort. It’s funny how our addictions shape-shift, leave us just as craven but for a different kind of drug. I could sense Arthur even when I couldn’t see him – right now he was sitting at the table, de ep in conversation with Joanna. Sometimes I felt like he didn’t look at me on purpose, let the tension build up before allowing it to break at a time of his choosing. I gripped the top of one of the hard wooden chairs, trying to conceal how shaky my limbs felt. ‘Welcome, bella!’ said Marco. ‘Come and sit with me.’ I gratefully sunk down into the seat next to him. ‘You okay?’ I nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak. ‘You did...’ He kissed his fingers, grinned. ‘You are an amazing person; I have to tell you this.’ I couldn’t help but preen a bit. ‘Thanks, Marco.’ It was me who enveloped him this time: the chain of endless physical intimacy, meaningful and meaningless all at once, could not afford to be broken. Over his shoulder, coming into the room, I spotted Tim. The look on his face brought me up short, drained away the warm glow of congratulation that I’d been basking in. What was it I could see etched into his expression? Was it disapproval or something worse? He must have seen the flash of shame in my eyes, because he hastily rearranged his features and gave me a smile that didn’t catch light. My body was cold now: I felt as if I’d seen a ghost, and perhaps that ghost was me. Amber tapped on a wine glass, breaking the moment. Once we were silent, she left a dramatic pause. ‘Well...’ she said eventually. ‘Today was...’ Was she choking up? ‘You were there, guys, you don’t need me to tell you. You were like, like... a firework display!’ She was flushed, her hands whirling, eyes alight. ‘You shot up into the universe, transcended every fucking thing that you’ve been put through and claimed your new lives. And I...’ She put a hand on her heart, thin fingers splayed across the pale flesh that was left exposed by the low scoop of her black dress. I looked at Arthur unconsciously – he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes were instead trained on me. ‘I am so honoured to have played a small part in each of your liberations. Let’s drink to that!’ As the table erupted into a noisy toast, Marco leapt to his feet. ‘I looove this woman,’ he declared. He looked around at all of us. ‘Guys, we love her, right? Time for a standing ovation!’ Now everyone was on their feet, roaring and thumping the table. I stood too, legs shaky, the noise reverberating through my bruised body. When I felt a strong hand on the small of my back, I gratefully leant into its pressure. ‘It’s too much for you right now, isn’t it?’ said Arthur, his voice low and comfortingly authoritative. ‘You went de eper than anyone, I think. Come and sit in the living room and catch your breath before supper.’ ‘Heroin,’ said Arthur cheerfully. ‘I don’t recommend it. I easily lost a decade.’ We’d been sitting in the lounge for twenty minutes now, the conversation flowing with an ease I hadn’t necessarily expected. The massage table had been cleared away, a few scattered cushions the only remnants of the traumas of the day. Arthur had found a scratchy blanket and put it around my shoulders. Did I imagine
it, or had his hands lingered longer than necessary as he swaddled me in it? ‘Heroin?’ I r epeated. ‘Have you never tried it?’ It was quite nice, not being the biggest sinner for once. It was also nice to be distracted from my gnawing dread at the prospect of real life imminently smacking me in the face once the retreat ended. There was only one day left. ‘No!’ I said. ‘I don’t mean to be insulting, but it’s kind of a posh boy thing.’ Arthur roared with laughter, then fixed me with a twinkly gaze, the laugh still dancing across his handsome face. ‘You’re probably right. Jesus, I’m such a cliché. Brought up by nanny, sent to boarding school as a snot-nosed eight-year-old, and then I’m shooting up when I’m barely out of short trousers.’ ‘I don’t mean to take the piss,’ I told him. ‘You did really well. Surviving it, kicking the habit. I hope... well, I hope I manage it.’ I could feel it for a second, my cheekbone on the cold London pavement back in October, the paramedic kneeling on the ground, his face swimming into vision. Then my eyes locked on the thin beige carpet, where my body had slammed to the ground earlier. I couldn’t remember much beyond that moment – the moment when the darkness of what Mum had done to me fully eclipsed the light. My breath jammed in my throat, panic building. Was this really what liberation was meant to feel like? Arthur didn’t seem to notice; there was a faraway look in his eye as his chunky fingers played with the neck of his wine glass. I forced a gulp of air into my lungs. ‘You can only attend so many funerals before you start doing the maths,’ he said eventually. ‘Besides, by the time I got clean I’d left quite the trail of destruction.’ He counted down his crimes. ‘I’d been disinherited, divorced, I was unemployable... It’s a sorry old laundry list, Rachel. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stop there.’ He gave that smile again, the smile of a man who’d spent a lifetime revelling in the effect he had on women. ‘The fact is, you’re far too good at drawing out my most grisly secrets.’ ‘Just to be clear, I charge eighty pounds a session,’ I said, holding his gaze and flipping my palm outwards. This was another kind of muscle memory for me. It was probably the most dangerous addiction of all, but its ability to numb the pain, even briefly, was second to none. Arthur leaned forward, his fingertips momentarily spiralling across the circle of bare flesh I’d offered up to him. ‘You’re selling yourself short,’ he said softly. There was truth to that statement, and we both knew it. Neither of us spoke, both of us waiting for the silence to break. ‘There you are!’ said Amber, the sharpness of her tone puncturing the quiet. She’d cr ept into the room, was watching us. How long had she been there? I slid my body backwards across the sofa, instantly guilty. ‘Well, hello!’ said Arthur, with none of my unease. ‘We were just about to come and hunt down supper. This one needed a moment to clear her head after the emotional marathon she ran earlier.’ Amber didn’t speak immediately, too busy scanning the picture that we painted together. I cringed under the weight of her gaze, the disappointment she must surely be feeling in me. I was here to be healed by her, not to trash her generosity of spirit by indulging my very worst impulses. ‘It’s on the table,’ she said, clipped. Then she crossed to the sofa, unexpectedly wrapping my head against her belly. ‘If you were struggling, you only had to come and find me, you silly girl,’ she cooed, her fingers tangling themselves up in my hair. ‘I’m the one you should come to when it hurts too much. I thought you knew that by now.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, my words lost in the cocoon of fabric and
flesh that she’d pushed me into, my face suddenly wet with tears. My nostrils filled with the smell of her – not with that familiar, sophisticated spritz of rose that she always wore, but with something more primal, more dangerous. A musk that was entirely Amber’s own. Dinner was full of predictable compliments and toasts. I surfed the warmth of it, gratefully let the group energy carry me, but I didn’t have the spirit to jump in feet first. ‘Are you alright?’ mouthed Hannah, my faithful companion, and I nodded a solemn yes. She was sitting further up the table, snuggling close to Marco, failing at any kind of romantic subterfuge. I couldn’t help fearing for her – her appeal here, in this febrile intensity, would be very different when it was transplanted to a Eurotrash bar at the far end of the Fulham Road. Or maybe it wouldn’t; maybe I was simply a cynic. Meanwhile I’d gone back to avoiding Arthur’s gaze, determined to eat a respectable amount of my vegetarian chilli – the hard kidney beans like lumps of shrapnel – and take my thumping head to bed. Why couldn’t I inhale the fairy dust of the day that seemed to have left everyone else so gloriously high? They all felt brimming with festive cheer, what with their overflowing glasses and euphoric chatter, whereas I was truly the grinch that stole Christmas. I got up and walked to the far end of the kitchen, intending to brew myself another cup of ginger tea. As the kettle dinged, Tim appeared beside me. ‘Are you okay, Rachel?’ he said, face serious. ‘Yeah, no. I’m fine, just tired,’ I said, trying for breezy. ‘It was a big day for all of us.’ ‘Yeah, but...’ He watched me, some internal struggle taking place. It was starting to irritate me. ‘What is it, Tim? Did my head spin on my neck or something? It’s all a bit blurry at the end. What happened?’ He raised a smile. ‘It was just – I was worried about you, Rachel. Medically. I actually put you in the recovery position when you were on the ground.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, panic starting to rise back up. Tim cocked his head, his eyes kind. I could tell in that second how lucky his patients were to have him. ‘It didn’t feel right...’ he started, but before he could finish Amber had sailed up behind us. ‘Rachel’s the queen of secret squirrel huddles this evening!’ she said, putting an arm around each of us. ‘Come back and enjoy the party. The family’s missing you!’ I grabbed at the scarf around my neck, a little piece of my sister. Perhaps if I wandered every corner of the house, I could find a glimmer of signal and send her a text. ‘I’m going to go to bed, I think,’ I said, smiling an apology. I couldn’t let Tim’s words sink in too de eply – perhaps sle ep would erase their ability to permeate. A flash of annoyance crossed Amber’s face. ‘I’m exhausted,’ I said apologetically. ‘I want to really enjoy our last day. Our last chance to all be together.’ How seamlessly I rolled it out – not people-pleasing, but mummy- pleasing. She gracefully smiled her assent. ‘You do that, darling girl,’ she said. ‘Night, everyone,’ I said, avoiding Tim’s gaze and risking a tiny smile in Arthur’s direction. His look back at me lingered, but I turned away before it could start to spark. I brushed my teeth methodically in the tiny shared bathroom, taking comfort in the mundane familiarity of the task. There was a vaguely sewage-y smell which I could only endure so long, and I crossed the narrow corridor to mine and Hannah’s monastic cell, goosebumps covering my naked flesh as I pulled on my pyjamas. I put the light out, waiting for sle ep to blanket me, but instead I simply lay there, my heart beating too fast, my brain swirling with images. It was like a strange kind of vertigo – Mum’s face merging with the queenly tormentor of my fantasy, who according to Amber wasn’t even a fantasy. Loneliness delivered a gut punch. Who would ever sympathize with this terrifying hall of mirrors? If I
told Sophie that Mum and I had travelled through time, her torturing me through the ages, she’d think I’d completely lost it, but the absurdity of it didn’t make it feel any less visceral: if anything, it made it feel more real, harder to dispute with cold logic. The only person who could possibly understand me now was Amber. When the light tap on the door came, I was lost in a spiral of anxiety about the debt mountain I’d been ignoring. What if Mum’s newest strike was to take away the life support of Amber? Would I even survive it? ‘Hello?’ I called, and Arthur poked his head around the door. I sat up in bed, hugging my knees, a wave of self-protection swe eping over me. ‘Sorry, sorry, did I wake you up?’ he said, smiling down at me, his chiselled features illuminated by the yellowy light from the hall. I prayed he wouldn’t put on the main light and see my puffy, make-up-free face under the harsh glare of the bare bulb. Jesus – how was it that, even in the midst of a transformational retreat, I was still hanging onto my desire for a man to only see me at my most perfect? Would I be applying an extra layer of lipstick in a nuclear apocalypse? ‘Nope,’ I said, unwinding myself and smiling back at him. ‘I couldn’t sle ep.’ ‘Thought as much,’ said Arthur, crossing the threshold and landing heavily on the end of the saggy single bed. ‘I didn’t want to abandon you.’ ‘You didn’t abandon me,’ I said. The verbal volley was so seamless between us. ‘So, how’s Rachel?’ he said, putting a hand on the mound my calves created under the thin duvet. I paused for a second, resisting the desire to trot out another slick r eply. ‘Terrible? Wonderful? I’m not sure I can tell anymore,’ I said, my teeth starting to chatter. It wasn’t the cold, or at least it wasn’t only the cold. ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he said, his hand stroking my legs through the fabric. I couldn’t tell if it was the comfort you’d give to a frightened animal or the first move in a seduction. My bare face combined with the bare room made the second option seem almost outlandish. Neither of us spoke, each assessing the other’s state of mind in a sticky kind of silence. There was a second where I was ready to pull back, the moonlight illuminating the de ep lines on his face, telling part of the story about how predatory this was, how inappropriate. Eventually I let my eyes meet his, holding his gaze, and he acc epted the invitation. Or at least that was how I interpreted it in the moment – now I wonder how much choice I had in any of it. His mouth was on mine in a millisecond, his beard rubbing my raw skin. I clutched at him, craving another heartbeat now the choice had been made, my body cleaving against his. After a couple of minutes, he broke away. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he muttered, ‘but my patience for getting amorous in single beds wore rather thin after my first year at university. Would you be open to taking this upstairs?’ ‘Upstairs?’ I said, unwilling to let go of him now the space between us had been breached. It was always like that back then – ambivalence would turn to obsession in the blink of an eye. ‘Yes. Without meaning to throw shade on your digs, my room’s a smidge more palatial than this,’ he said, casting a look of wry amusement around the grim bedroom. ‘Okay,’ I said, swinging my bare feet down onto the carpet. Arthur grinned. ‘Hold your horses, partner,’ he said. ‘Let’s employ a bit of subtlety. I’ll go first. Give it five minutes and then take the stairs at the end of the landing. I’m the first door on the left.’ He must have sensed my unease. ‘Don’t worry, Amber’s sle eping in the stables in the grounds. They’re even nicer.’
How subtly he made off with all the power, and how easily I gifted it to him. It still gives me a shot of shame, even though intellectually I know I did nothing wrong. The truth is, most of that night remains a blur, despite the police r eports that lay out the facts. I remember that the sense of shock far outweighed the sense of pleasure when I first felt him inside my body, his bulk pressing down on me. I remember, too, how little of the shock I let him see – my priority was making him feel like a conquering hero. I conjured up the right noises, the right dialogue, that completely obliterated my authentic experience of being with him. It wasn’t even that he was unskilled as a lover, but I was in no fit state to receive his well-practised moves. It’s funny how I simultaneously knew everything and nothing about how to handle men. The truth is, I knew everything about how to squeeze the most out of men who had nothing to give. When I woke, the early morning sky was the colour of sour milk. Arthur was sitting on the side of the large, ornate wooden bed, his bare back and butt crack exposed to me. I felt a reverb of shock at his nakedness, at the memory of everything that had happened to me in the past twenty-four hours. He stood up, not looking over. ‘Arthur?’ He turned, his smile on a slight time delay. ‘Good morning, angel. I’m just going to hop in the shower.’ He directed an awkward thumb towards the en-suite, then crossed the room, everything exposed. I lay there, pulling the sheet around my own nakedness, unsure whether to scramble into the checked pyjamas that were strewn across the floor. I decided against it – surely I wanted him to come back and be overcome with lust, not blindsided by the knowledge that drunkenness meant he’d accidentally seduced Paddington? I needn’t have worried. He came back in with a towel around his waist and began pulling on his clothes. He cast a rueful glance in my direction. ‘I’m sorry to have to rush off like this,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s hardly the venue for it, but I’d love nothing more than to spend the day with you.’ I sat up against the bank of plump pillows, the white sheet forming an odd kind of bridal gown. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked, trying to prevent my voice morphing into a whine. ‘Didn’t I tell you yesterday? I’m taking my sons skiing. I’ve got to pick them up from their mum’s this afternoon.’ I wasn’t even aware he had sons, and I knew it was the kind of detail I’d have retained, even in my fragile state. After all, I’d been compiling an internal dossier on him ever since we’d met. It was one of my romantic tics – knowledge was power, and my power was always in short supply. ‘No, you didn’t,’ I said flatly. Arthur paused. He had his jeans on now, his broad chest still bare. He came towards me, leaning down to kiss me. I k ept my mouth firmly closed, scared of my morning breath destroying any scrap of attraction he might still feel. My warped thinking meant that, despite all the indicators that he was more than wrong for me, I had to ke ep him locked in at any cost. ‘You’re so lovely, Rachel. Thank you for last night. It was...’ His dark eyes stared down at me. ‘It was incredibly intimate, wasn’t it?’ Yes and no. ‘Yes,’ I agreed, holding his gaze. ‘And I’d very much like to see you again. I’ll call you when I’m back from Val D’Isere. Make a plan.’ ‘Okay,’ I said, smiling back at him. ‘Have a fantastic time.’ Within a few minutes he was gone. I lay there, marooned in the wide bed, weaving myself an elaborate fairy tale about him. About us. And I almost believed it, because I had to ke ep running now. Looking back was way too dangerous.