Two hundred forty-eight. Two hundred forty-nine… Two fifty.
Angel dropped her knees to the floor. She sank her head down toward her chest as she got her breathing back under control and allowed her muscles to recover.
‘Not bad,’ Andre said from the bed.
She hadn’t realized he was awake. She’d been trying not to make too much noise. Not as much noise as last night, that was for sure.
She rolled over, sitting up on the carpet. Andre was perched on the edge of the bed, head tilted toward his shoulder as he stared down at her looking pleased with himself.
‘Just a starter for the day.’
Andre whistled. ‘A starter? How many was that? A couple hundred?’
‘Two fifty.’
‘Shit.’
‘I can do a lot more. I’m saving my energy for something else.’ She winked at him as she got to her feet and enjoyed his eyes wandering over her body as she stood in nothing but her underwear.
‘It definitely explains that body,’ he said.
‘I don’t do it to impress men. Or anyone else.’
He shrugged. ‘Still… What’s your record?’
She didn’t answer straight away. Something about the tone of his voice sounded off. Like he was almost mocking her.
‘What’s yours?’ she asked.
‘Me?’ He shook his head. ‘Not my thing. Fifty, a hundred maybe.’
‘You look in good shape to me.’
He returned that compliment with a broad smile. He certainly liked his ego being stroked.
‘Maybe it’s just good genetics,’ he said. ‘And a lot of time in the gym when I was younger.’
Not a great explanation really for someone who was as lean and muscular as a professional fighter.
‘So?’ he said. ‘What’s your record?’
‘In one go? Five hundred and eighty-three. In a day? Two thousand seven hundred and one. The one nearly killed me, no kidding.’
Andre nodded in some sort of appreciation.
‘But I couldn’t get out of bed for two days after that. And it wasn’t because of the drink.’
‘See, that’s the thing though,’ Andre said as Angel mopped at her brow with a hand towel and then went and sat on the bed by Andre’s feet.
‘What is?’
‘This fitness regime. You always had it, or was it… You know?’
‘Did I pick it up in prison, you mean? When I was stuck in a cell for way too many hours every day?’
He looked so sheepish about mentioning prison. Embarrassed.
But she wasn’t at all.
‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘Kind of. I joined the army when I was eighteen. One of the reasons was that I loved the idea of boot camps and the drills I’d seen in movies. But… Yeah, the routine began in prison. In Lebanon. There was no yard there. No anything apart from twenty-four hours a day of hell. Exercise gave me one way to feel something, one thing I could control. I guess it became… an obsession.’
That wasn’t the word she’d been searching for, but it probably explained how she couldn’t not put herself through physical pain every day. Or was addiction a better description?
‘I don’t even… How did that…’
‘What?’ she questioned.
‘I’m not trying to offend you, but… If you were drinking… High on meds, whatever, how the hell did you—’
‘Exercise was my way of coping. Of convincing myself that even if my mind was messed up, I wasn’t entirely destroying my body. If I could get to oblivion on opium, or drink a bottle of vodka and still wake up the next day and push my body to the very limit… It… just made sense. To me. At the time.’
‘But…’
‘I’m not saying I didn’t suffer. But maybe that’s why I did it. So yeah, I hated it. I got stomach cramps like you wouldn’t believe. Migraines. I’d puke up my guts midway through push-ups and just carry on with the vomit right underneath me. A kind of spur for me to keep on going.’
‘OK, now that’s too much information,’ he said, overly jovially. There was nothing jovial about putting herself back there. He seemed to get that because a moment later his face turned somber and he shuffled closer to her and put his hand on her arm.
‘I’ve never met anyone as… intense as you.’
She said nothing.
‘You’ve been through hell and—’
‘I need a shower.’ She stood up from the bed. He looked like he wanted to say something else, to keep the conversation going but she was done with it. She took off her bra and pulled her panties down and straightened up, hands on hips. ‘You coming?’
Andre couldn’t have bounced up from the bed any quicker.
* * *
Angel pulled on some jeans and a thick roll-neck sweater while Andre stood by the window in his boxers, checking his phone.
‘What are your plans for the day?’ he said, turning to her and looking pensive about something.
She shrugged.
‘I’ve got… a few things I need to sort,’ he said. ‘But we could meet up later.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’
He moved toward her, took her hands as he looked down on her. He’d said earlier when they’d chatted that he was six foot three but like most men, he’d added at least an inch to that, but still he was several inches taller than her and she reached up on tiptoes to peck his lips.
‘It’s still early,’ she said. ‘And I have some questions for you before you go.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘I talked a lot about me last night. This morning. Now it’s your turn.’
‘I—’
She spun him around and shoved him and he fell back onto the bed, bouncing a little awkwardly as the expression on his face switched from smiley to perplexed and back.
‘I’ll make us a coffee.’
Which gave him a few minutes to stew at least while she made the drinks from the kettle in the corner and the cheap packets of freeze-dried coffee the retreat provided. They spent the time in silence, him back on his phone again. She took the two steaming mugs over and sat on the edge of the bed with him. He’d at least put on his clothes in the meantime, though once again he had his phone out, typing away.
‘Business?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m… a consultant. It’s… really boring.’ He put his phone and coffee down then turned and looked at her. ‘Right. Go on then, fire away.’
‘I mean… I didn’t actually mean for it to be an interrogation.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry. But what do you want to know?’
She could start with something mundane. How he met his wife. The names of his kids. But what was the point?
‘Why’d you start drinking?’ she asked.
‘Start drinking. I started drinking when I was fourteen. Like most teenagers. A few cans here and there whenever we could get hold of them.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘When did it get out of control?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When I lost my job. Then my parents died, close together. It was just… I didn’t mean for it to go so far. It kind of just got worse and worse.’
‘Until your wife left you.’
‘She didn’t leave me. She kicked me out.’
‘Why? Did you get violent with her?’
He didn’t like that question. She could tell by the throbbing vein at the side of his head and the tension spreading through his body. He was doing his best to hide it, but he was working damn hard.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Then why’d she kick you out? You were a functioning alcoholic?’
‘That’s such a bullshit term.’
‘Is it? You’re either an alcoholic who drinks from compulsion yet still keeps their job going, their marriage going, even as they’re destroying their body through their addiction. A functioning alcoholic. You do get them. Or you’re an alcoholic whose entire life is destroyed because of the drink. Because of how they lose control, wreck their careers, wreck relationships because the booze makes them crazy, angry, violent.’
He reached forward to take her hand. She whipped it away but only then did she realize she was shaking. Anger, bubbling up as she fought off thoughts of her own demons, her own destructive behavior.
‘There must have been a trigger for you to come here,’ she said. ‘A life-changing trigger. So what was it?’
‘This is a lot.’ He stood up from the bed. ‘Angel, last night… This morning, it was great. We can do it again. But… maybe it doesn’t need to get so heavy.’
He looked down at her, as though he expected a response, but she said nothing. He made his way to the door. Paused there. Sighed. What was he doing?
She could just let him go… or…
She bent forward, reached under the bed. Grabbed the knife. Not one of the shitty little ones they provided in the rooms, which were about good enough for buttering bread but not for actually cutting anything. Not one of those knives, but her own. The one she’d brought with her. A companion, of sorts. An ultra-sharp, ultra-sturdy hunting knife.
She jumped to her feet and, knife at the ready, rushed toward him.