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you made to Mark.’

      ‘Whose side are you on?’ Alice asks with genuine alarm.

      ‘Mark’s,’ Thea proclaims. ‘No one will ever love you more, keep you safe, look after you, put up with you, the way he does. You’re an idiot, risking all that you have for some beefcake’s dick.’

      A fat oily tear oozes from Alice’s eye and slicks a slow path down to the tip of her nose. She whispers something.

      ‘Speak up!’ Thea demands.

      ‘I know,’ Alice croaks. She wipes her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Do you know the barrenness of being worshipped by someone you are not in love with?’ Alice looks up at her. Thea is stuck for words. She wanted this to be the great reprimand, she wanted to dish out just deserts, to give Alice the ticking-off of her life. ‘You’re right, Thea, I’m an ungrateful cow. I hope to God Mark never finds out. He doesn’t deserve this.’ Alice is teary and holds her arms out to Thea, like a child craving a mother’s embrace. ‘And you’re right, Thea, I’ve turned my back on it all for the transient physical ecstasy of being fucked by a hunk of brawny beefcake. But I can’t help it. I crave it. This kind of attention is what makes me tick. I don’t think I can survive without it.’

      ‘You said it was just a one-night stand.’ Thea squares her shoulders and folds her arms.

      ‘Will you just stop judging me,’ Alice shouts. ‘You have no idea. You don’t know what it’s like. Just piss off, will you.’

      ‘You’re insane,’ Thea laughs harshly. ‘Don’t bloody come to me when it all goes horribly wrong.’

      ‘Sod off, Thea,’ Alice hisses, ‘don’t flatter yourself.’

Thea’s Six O’Clock

      It has been a long day. Thea and Saul still have not heard from the estate agent whether their final offer has been accepted, and Haringey council still haven’t confirmed the last of the local searches which means Thea won’t be exchanging contracts on her old flat this week. Most of all, she’s depressed about Alice. For all the vehemence of her disapproval, Thea can still empathize with her best friend for what she’s suffering, no matter how twisted she considers her dilemma to be. But Alice stormed off earlier and Thea didn’t go after her and they’ve never fallen out like this before and Thea isn’t sure what the etiquette is now.

      She has one final appointment. Mr St Clare. Souki has written ‘n/p’ by the name and Thea wonders if she actually can muster the energy to go through the necessary rigmarole of note-taking, assessment and judging the bony landmarks of a new patient. She slumps her way down the three flights of stairs and fixes a smile on her face before entering the waiting room. Oh bloody bloody hell. Mark is there, looking decidedly pale. Or is that just in comparison with bloody Paul and his bronzed sex-god looks?

      ‘Mark!’ says Thea as if it is a lovely surprise and what on earth could he want.

      ‘Hullo, Thea,’ he says, rising.

      ‘Er, Mark, the thing is I have a six o’clock booked,’ Thea says kindly. ‘Is everything all right?’ She doesn’t know if Mark even knows that Alice has been in for a massage.

      ‘I am your six o’clock,’ Mark tells her. ‘I tried to call your mobile last night but there was no answer and I didn’t want any favours like last time so I decided to book myself in officially.’

      ‘St Clare,’ Thea says. ‘They misspelt Sinclair so I didn’t click.’

      ‘It’s my neck again,’ Mark explains, ‘see?’ He turns his head with good range to the right but can judder only half the distance to the left.

      ‘Come on up,’ Thea says. ‘Let’s see what’s going on. And we’ll figure out what we can do.’

      What Thea would actually like Mark to do is to see Dan or Brent, one of the osteopaths, but both are fully booked a week in advance and actually their therapy might not be quite appropriate today. But there is work she can do on Mark in the meantime. She considers the knot Mark has in his rhomboid muscle and a stiffness around the thoracic, both of which are contributing to the soreness and stiffness he feels in his neck. Under normal circumstances she’d do a deep and lengthy focused palpation with her thumb or finger precisely into the tender nub of the problem which, though intensely painful, usually results in immediate relaxation. However, part of her innate skill as a masseuse is to read her client’s situation. And Mark is an open book to Thea, not that he knows it. Thea feels that what he needs today, more than anything, is a simple laying-on of hands; some classic TLC. She needs him to leave her room feeling soothed and relaxed.

      ‘Just pop on the table, Mark,’ she says softly, ‘and lie face down.’ She heats a little geranium essential oil in the amphora and checks that the room is warm enough. She walks over to Mark and stands alongside him. She inhales and exhales and inhales again. She closes her eyes and exhales in a long, controlled, silent breath. OK, Mark, this is for you.

      Touch down. Thea places both hands on Mark’s back and presses lightly; she begins to rock his body from side to side, from one hand to the other. She keeps the rhythm gentle and consistent and soon feels him yield and allow his body to travel under her guidance. Then, with Mark relaxed and tuned, Thea sweeps her hands gently from the base of his back up and around his shoulders, down again, around again. The effleurage soothes Mark to the extent that Thea can actually see the space between his ears and his shoulders lengthen as he relaxes and lets go. She kneads him sparingly. All she wants to do is instil in him a sense of calm, a feeling of well-being, make him subliminally cosseted by the care and comfort one human can dispense to another. Sometimes, when Thea massages, she experiences negative energy or tensions travelling from her client and into her, leaving her quite enervated. From other clients, the massage can even be mutually invigorating. But from Mark today she detects so little energy of any persuasion that she simply takes to stroking him. As her hands travel their persistent warmth wisely over his body, she closes her eyes and envisages sending affection and hope down through her arms, through her fingers to be absorbed by him.

      ‘Mark, when you’re ready, turn onto your back,’ Thea tells him, leaving her hands on him constantly. She covers him with fresh towels and walks her way to the head of the table, keeping a hand on him all the while. His eyes are naturally half closed and she’s pleased. She rests his head slightly to one side into her hand. ‘I’m going to apply a little pressure just with my fingertip to a point near your sternocleidomastoid attachment,’ she tells him, doing just that. ‘It’ll feel nice when I release,’ she says, and it does. Then she straightens and cups his head in her hands, placing her fingertips at the base of his skull. ‘I’m going to do the same to points in the sub-occipital region,’ she tells him. She judges the length of his exhale to be directly proportionate to the tension she’s released. Good.

      Thea strokes along his neck, down over his shoulders and along the top of his arms. She runs her hands over his scalp, uses her fingertips to walk the skin lightly along the skull, tugging at tufts of his hair like a troupe of industrious fairies on a mass weaving mission. Then with the lightest touch, she changes pace and position and treats the acupressure points on his face in a calm and measured way. She stands and tugs each of his arms in turn, stroking downwards until she reaches his palms where she massages carefully before rubbing along the length of each of his fingers to give a sudden, light fling to each fingertip. To Mark, it feels as though Thea has guided his entire deposit of stress and tension down each arm, and coaxed it out of him. He’s sure that if he looked to either side of the bed, he’d see little piles of the negative stuff.

      Thea has worked on Mark for over an hour and a half and he’s so still he looks dead. She wants to cry. She bites her cheek hard. ‘OK?’ she asks, implying that, should he say ‘not quite’, she’d happily work on him some more. Mark is too relaxed to find his voice but he thinks he’s given the semblance of a nod. ‘OK,’ Thea confirms, ‘you take your time. As long as you like.’ She tiptoes from the room.

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