Page 35

Chapter 34

Liv

The caterpillars that for weeks have been circling inside my stomach have been waiting until tonight to hatch from their chrysalises and metamorphose. Only they’re not butterflies, they’re giant bloody pterodactyls. When they aren’t swooping and diving and trying to peck their way out of me, they’re roosting on my bladder, because I’ve just had my third nervous wee in the last half an hour.

Leaving the bathroom, I pace the corridor adjacent to the frameless glass wall of the main studio where my classes will rotate. Ingrid and Rupert are tumbling in and out of the rooms, yelping and screaming as they slide across polished floors in their socks. Next to the bathroom is the studio where I’ll teach my hot yoga classes. I bend over to place my hand on the floor. It’s satisfyingly warm. Which it should be, given how much I’ve spent on it. And finally there are the healing rooms. One for sound therapy and meditation and the other for massages.

A little further along the corridor is the crèche, then a gym where Brandon will restart his personal training, part-time. I spot him when I reach the café. He finishes pouring orange juice and wine into stemmed glasses. I clock this entrance area and truly believe even the harshest of critics would struggle to deny we’ve done a damn good job of building something out of nothing. Plants are growing from gaps in the walls, and between them is a floor-to-ceiling mural of a copper-and-yellow meditating Buddha. I still worry the Buddha screams ‘You’re trying too hard’, but the interior designer was adamant it would turn a dull wall into a focal point. Our tables and chairs in the seating area are made from reclaimed wood, and the counter surface is repurposed plastic. I couldn’t be any greener if I was Robin Hood.

‘You okay?’ Brandon asks as he approaches me, putting an arm around my waist and kissing my cheek.

‘I think so,’ I reply. ‘Are you sure we have enough wine? Do we need to pick up another case from Waitrose? I don’t want us to run dry. And the canapés? Where are they? Have they been delivered?’

‘We have plenty of wine and I was about to take the canapés out of the packaging.’

‘But do they look okay? They don’t look like we’ve just bought them from a cash and carry?’

‘No, of course not. Trust me, everything is going to be just fine. We’ve got this.’

Brandon is right, we have got this. There were times when I wondered if we’d ever get here, and what failure would mean. I know I’ll never be able to return to my job in the city. Banking is a big business but a small world. And once you’re blacklisted, you’ll only ever be a persona non grata. That’s why I need so desperately for this to work. Because I can still smell smoke from the bridges I’ve left burning behind me.

Soon after, the room begins to fill. I think everyone who received an invitation is here, chatting to one another and drinking.

It’s just as I’m feeling my confidence slowly beginning to return that it happens. I see him at the back of the room. His presence is strong and his glare is piercing. I look to Brandon and then back in his direction, but he’s gone. I close my eyes, take a deep breath through my nose, exhale through my mouth and open them again. It’s my conscience that’s the unwelcome guest, not him.