am your twelve o’clock, silly.’
‘What? You? Why?’
‘Because I’m not due in at work until this afternoon and I’ve just said goodbye to Paul and I could do with a massage after all the vigorous indoor sport I’ve been doing.’
‘Well, you’re not having a freebie.’
‘I paid in advance, actually. Are you OK, Thea? Has something happened? Is it the flat?’
‘Alice, just undress and lie face down on the table. Are you in pain or discomfort anywhere?’
‘Not specifically. But I have been shagging Paul in a furiously athletic way. And I suppose I have been burning the candle at both ends.’
‘Is there any tenderness?’ Thea asks, loading the question with ulterior meaning.
‘Nope!’ Alice declares, rather triumphantly.
‘Is there any tenderness, Alice? Any tenderness at all?’
‘None whatsoever,’ Alice says, ‘unless you can locate something I can’t feel.’
Thea regards Alice’s body, supine and undeniably beautiful. And she is filled with an emotion just short of pure loathing.
‘Lie face down, please,’ Thea says as she slips off her clogs and pads over to the table. She gazes down at Alice until Alice can feel Thea’s calm, measured breathing trickle over her skin. Thea is centred and ready to begin. She knows just the type of massage that would do Alice good. She won’t bother with effleurage – the basic light and soothing stroking techniques she’d normally start and end a session with. Effleurage is best used for the reduction of pain and for its relaxing properties. Well, Alice doesn’t seem to be in any pain and appears totally at ease. Nor does Thea feel Alice would benefit today from petrissage, the compression or kneading method primarily used to stretch and release muscular tissue – hadn’t Alice bragged that shagging Paul had given her a full body workout? Alice certainly doesn’t require any lymphatic massage and Thea feels friction methods won’t be needed – there’s enough friction already. Perhaps some invigorating percussive movements might be useful – hacking, pounding, cupping and flicking could serve Alice well today. Mainly, though, Thea is going to treat Alice with skin rolling – whether Alice considers this a treat will be interesting.
Using a method akin to hand rolling a cigarette, Thea pinches up a sausage of Alice’s skin and uses her thumbs to roll it up and over her fingers. The sensation is like being pinched, pulled and scorched. And because the technique is a rolling motion, there is no break, no hands off. Initially Alice says nothing because she assumes it is good for her and assumes the discomfort will lessen. But the discomfort turns to pain and the pain has no let-up.
‘Ouch!’ Alice gasps. Thea continues to roll her skin, all the way along her back, her waist, her shoulders, her neck.
‘Jesus, Thea!’ Alice cries out. ‘It feels like an inside-out Chinese burn.’
‘Just relax,’ Thea says in a soothing tone belying the frown Alice can’t see.
‘Thea – ow!’ Alice protests but Thea continues, rolling Alice’s skin over and over.
Let me do a weaselly little roll-up. How about a nice thick Vienna sausage? Now I’ll roll a joint – carefully and slowly and tightly. Right, I think it’s time for some cocktail chipolatas. Another skinny roll-up now. A nice fat Churchill cigar. How about I try to turn your skin right over? As far as it’ll go.
‘Thea! You’re killing me!’
‘I’m not killing you,’ Thea declares with derision, ‘I’m merely working from basal layer to skin surface. I’m using a variant of connective-tissue massage – it is believed that the surface tissues, being a continual membrane, connect to the brain and that one’s emotional state can affect the tissues and vice versa. So I’m just seeking to unravel, smooth and repair the myo fascia, OK?’
‘But it hurts.’
‘Rubbish. Think of it as a powerful neurofascial effect.’
‘But I don’t know what that means.’
‘Alice, stop being so wet. Just lie there and think of England then.’
Thea starts using the technique on Alice’s upper arms. Alice twists away. The soreness makes her eyes smart. ‘Stop it, all right? I’ve had enough. Thanks, Thea – OK. You can stop now.’
‘Just let me find a couple of trigger points,’ Thea says with deceptive gentleness. Alice heaves out a sigh of relief as the skin rolling ceases. And then yelps. She can’t define where Thea has just pressed but pain scores at her temples.
‘Oh dear,’ Thea says, ‘I’d say you need further treatment there.’ She presses elsewhere and the pain is referred as a stab down Alice’s leg. She finds another point and Alice’s eyeball feels as though it’s been sliced. ‘Gosh, Alice,’ Thea says, ‘I’d suggest intensive therapy. You’re in a mess.’
‘Seriously, am I in a mess?’
‘Yes.’
Alice sits up. Her eyes are watering and her brow is furrowed. Her back feels as if it is covered in seeping blotches, bruises and weals. ‘Can I get you struck off some register?’ she asks reproachfully as she dresses. ‘You’re a total sadist!’
‘Can I have you sacked from your job?’ Thea retorts over her shoulder, tidying away towels and laying a fresh swathe of paper sheeting over the bed.
‘Well, I may give my staff the odd headache but I don’t inflict physical pain,’ Alice laughs, ‘so under what grounds?’
‘Playing truant to play truant from your marriage,’ Thea declares, hands on her hips. She’s batted her shot with conviction and she is primed for any volley back. Alice stares at her but Thea outstares.
‘Thea, is there something you want to say?’ Alice asks, bristling.
‘Yes, there is,’ says Thea, relieved to be invited to let rip. ‘I think you’re out of order and I’m mad at you for risking all that you have. You’re behaving like someone we’d hate. I’m not even going to go into you asking for the keys to my flat.’
Quite suddenly, Alice looks as though she might cry and Thea hopes she will. ‘Stop giving me a hard time – you have no right to.’ Alice jumps to the defensive, hugging herself and rubbing her upper arms as if Thea has just rolled the skin there again. ‘Just because you have it all with Saul – all the loving and all the passion and all the dreams. Don’t be so fucking patronizing. You have no idea what it’s like. I’m miserable – I can’t believe you can’t see that, you’re meant to be my best friend. I’ve been miserable for months – you of all people should have known.’
‘You have nothing to be miserable about,’ Thea announces, now as outraged by Alice’s poor defence as by her immoral deed itself. ‘Stop trying to come across as the victim. You just got bored.’
‘You know what,’ Alice spits back, ‘you’re completely right. Bored is an understatement. Money can buy all the luxury that surrounds me but my body and my soul ache for attention.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Thea has to clench her teeth to bite back yelling. ‘Mark is madly in love with you. He worships you. You know that. It’s why you bloody married him. How can you jeopardize that?’
‘Don’t you dare go all sanctimonious on me,’ Alice warns her.
‘I’m not,’ Thea says coldly, ‘but look at the facts. It’s shocking. You’ve been married less than three years and you’re behaving like a slag just because you get sulky that Mark works hard, travels a bit and you can’t work the home cinema or find your ridiculous corkscrew.’
‘Don’t insult me,’ Alice barks. ‘It wasn’t me