Page 35 of Not in a Million Years

The path had widened slightly, and Daniel increased his pace to walk alongside me. ‘You don’t like heights, you don’t like enclosed spaces. There are lots of things that scare you, aren’t there, Kate?’

Whoever ended up being the mother of Daniel’s child would have to put up with a whole lot of annoying observations, too, I thought.

‘There’s nothing irrational about being afraid of things that are frightening,’ I said.

‘But why would you be frightened of lying in a tank of warm water for an hour?’

‘Because what if they forgot you were there, and no one came to let you out? And it must be soundproofed because otherwise there wouldn’t be sensory deprivation, so no one would hear you calling for help. And you couldn’t drink the water because it’s too salty and eventually you’d starve to death or suffocate or something. Obviously.’

‘Wow. That’s quite the leap.’

‘Or,’ I went on, ‘there could be a zombie apocalypse while you were in there, and you’d come out and find that all essential services had shut down and only a few bands of survivors remained, scavenging for food amid the smouldering ruins of civilisation.’

‘So you’re scared of a zombie apocalypse too?’

‘No, don’t be ridiculous. That’s not a real thing. When I do a risk analysis for a client, I literally never mention undead corporeal revenants.’

Daniel shook his head, making his hair flop down over his grey eyes. I heard the intake of his breath, as if he was about to say something – or laugh. But he didn’t, because the path in front of us had abruptly widened and emerged from the shade of the forest.

‘Looks like we’re here.’ I came to a relieved halt, waiting to get my breath back.

After the gloom beneath the trees, the light was suddenly brilliant, and we stood for a second, blinking in the brightness before lowering our sunglasses. Ahead of us was a garden similar to the one at our own hotel, yet entirely different. There was no lawn – instead beds of succulents and alpine plants and fine gravel filled the space between the flagstone paths. The pool looked as if it had been hewn out of the natural rock, its base and sides a deep ochre, striated with layers of grey and sandy gold. Low stone buildings were scattered up the hillside, brilliant magenta bougainvillea cladding their sides. The silver thread of a stream ran down from the mountaintop, ending in a small waterfall that I guessed fed the swimming pool below.

By the side of the pool, a woman was doing yoga on a wheat-coloured jute mat. At least, I assumed it was yoga – it was far removed from the effortful downward dog poses I’d suffered through when I’d given it a try in the gym a few years before, longing for the end bit where you get to lie on your back and examine your life choices.

She was wearing washed-out sea-green Lycra hot pants and a matching strappy sports bra. Her feet were bare, and I could make out white polish on her toenails. Her skin was an even golden brown, and a braid of almost-black hair hung down her slender back.

She glanced over when she saw us but didn’t interrupt her routine – and I was glad she hadn’t, because it was quite the spectacle. She did a thing where she balanced on her hands with her knees in her armpits. She bent over backwards until her palms were on the mat and then extended first one leg and then the other into a perfect, steady handstand. She stood on one leg with the other raised high above her head, her fingers gripping her toes. She dropped down into the splits, her legs extended to the front and back of her body as if it was the easiest thing in the world, her toes pointed like a ballerina’s.

Randomly, I found myself remembering the last time I’d had sex, with a man I’d met on Bumble whose name I couldn’t recall. At one point, he’d gripped my ankles and pushed my legs back to achieve deeper penetration (which, to be fair, was quite the challenge given that he hadn’t exactly been well endowed) and I’d had to tell him to stop before I snapped a hamstring.

This woman would be able to get both feet behind her head, no problem.

Her body was incredible. She was small and slight, yet I could imagine how much strength those movements required. Her skin was as smooth as honey, but I could see powerful muscles flexing beneath it. She made it all look effortless, but there was sweat snaking down the hollow of her spine and darkening the pale fabric of her… sportswear, underwear, swimwear, whatever it was.

I sensed Daniel watching her too and heard him inhale in admiration at exactly the same points as my own throat took in a gulp of the hot air. It was as if we were watching some mystic ritual performed by a high priestess – even a goddess.

I wondered if Daniel was imagining what it would be like to fuck a woman so impossibly limber and strong, the entire Kama Sutra at his fingertips as they explored her silken skin and the steely muscles beneath it. I wondered if he, too, was thinking she could get her feet behind her head.

The idea made me flare with irrational hatred of her.

At last, she finished her workout, picked up a towel and swished it over her back and shoulders, then draped it around her neck, pulling her hair out over it. She grabbed an aluminium water bottle from the edge of the pool and took a few deep swallows, and I felt my own parched mouth attempt to water in sympathy.

Then she jogged towards us, her feet silent on the flagstones. Her face broke into a smile, and I noticed that her front teeth were slightly crooked. She didn’t look like a goddess any more – just a regular, although exceptionally pretty, woman a couple of years younger than me.

‘Hello, can I help you?’ she asked. Her voice surprised me – it was a totally normal Liverpudlian accent. ‘I’m the wellness manager here. My name’s Ash.’

Thirteen

I looked at Daniel and Daniel looked at me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I was sure they were wide with surprise, as I knew my own were.

Actually, surprise was an understatement. I felt shocked, as if all the air had been driven out of my body and my stomach was whooshing upwards to fill the space it had left. I felt like I’d felt when the turbulence had hit us on the plane, or like I’d been standing on the jute yoga mat and some prankster had whipped it out from beneath my feet.

‘Are you—’ I managed to say, before running out of words.

‘Do you know Andy Sinclair?’ Daniel completed the question, although not the one I’d been about to ask.

The smile dropped off Ash’s face, and frown lines appeared in the smooth skin between her eyebrows.

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