I start to push hard, banging my shoulder and throwing my whole weight against the door. I begin to feel a little sick and breathless. I knock loudly and call for Heidi, but I know she won’t be able to hear me. The pool is quite a distance from the sauna, and besides, her podcast is still playing; that alone will drown out my yells. Shallow grave … neighbours on record … stench became overwhelming. I block out the details. Glancing again at the thermometer, I am surprised to see it now reads 88 degrees. Panic slams through me. I have been in here for at least fourteen minutes, my normal practice is to stay for ten at a temp of 75 degrees. I try to remain calm by reminding myself that other people stay longer and in hotter conditions. I’m not in danger. Yet. But I am uncomfortable. Scared.
I don’t waste any more energy banging on the door or shouting for help, but I do try, three more times, to get the door to budge by ramming it with the full might of my body. When nothing gives, I look around to see what I can use to help me get out. There is nothing in here other than the towel I’ve been lying on, the scented diffuser tucked in a corner under a bench and the wooden bucket and ladle. I sip some of the water. I feel better seeing that the bucket is about a quarter full; I guess I have half a litre to drink if I need it. Am I overreacting? That’s something I always try to avoid. Should I sit still for a few more minutes? Surely Heidi will come to find me. I breathe shallowly, trying to ignore the mounting fear that is creeping through me. I catch what is being said on the podcast. Oh no, I think this is a new one. The presenter is now talking about a serial killer. Someone who liked to bury his victims alive. Heidi must have decided to stay in the pool; she might not come to find me for another thirty minutes. The temperature on the thermometer now reads 94 degrees. Something must have gone wrong with the electrics; why else would it still be climbing? How high might it go?
I wrap the towel around my arm and use the wooden ladle to bash at the small glass window in the door. I’m not hopeful that I’ll crack the glass, as I know it’s toughened to withstand heat and impact, but I’m hoping the entire pane might be dislodged. Never before have I wanted shoddy workmanship, but if it hasn’t been sealed especially well, I might have a chance of extricating it. The ladle is substantial, hand-carved from a single piece of wood, but it doesn’t make any impact. The room is now swaying and swelling around me, blurring. There is a buzzing in my ears. I’m dripping with sweat; my skin feels as though I’m being dried out like a cured ham. There isn’t enough oxygen. Am I going to faint? How long have I been in here now? Twenty minutes? More? Could it be as much as half an hour? I drop the ladle and use my elbow to hit the glass instead.
The first thud does nothing other than send a brief and particularly excruciating shaft of pain through my body as I catch my funny bone. I curse and think how inappropriately that bone is named. The pain is temporarily useful; everything feels sharp for a moment, and I’m galvanised. I bang my elbow into the small window again and again. The fourth time, I hear the wood around the pane creak. A fifth shove and I definitely hear it splinter. I hammer my elbow over and over, ignoring the aching there and in my shoulder, until the pane of glass finally falls to the floor. Cool air whooshes in. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough. My panic subsides and I slump to the floor. But the physical effort and heat take hold; my vision shimmies, and then there is blackness.
‘Jesus, Emma. What happened?’ I can hear the urgency in Heidi’s voice, but feel too weak and out of it to open my eyes. I feel her hands, cool and wet from the pool, hook under my arms and drag me out of the sauna onto the cold tiles outside, my cotton robe gaping open. ‘My God.’ She disappears for a short time and then dashes back with water. ‘Take some sips.’ She holds the glass to my lips. I gulp at it, ignoring her suggestion to slow down, just needing to rehydrate. She runs back to the kitchen and returns with more fluids and a towel soaked in cold water, which she lays on my body. My skin prickles as though I’ve been stung repeatedly. ‘Did you faint? What made you stay in there so long?’ she asks, concerned.
‘The door was locked. I couldn’t get out.’
She looks at me in confusion, but doesn’t say anything other than ‘How do you feel? Do you think you need medical help?’
‘No, just a cold shower.’
While I shower, Heidi insists I leave the bathroom door wide open in case I ‘come over funny’ again – her words. Despite this drama, we manage to settle down and have a lovely evening. She offers to make supper and I let her. She says I shouldn’t drink alcohol because I must be dehydrated. I laugh and tell her not to make a drama out of a crisis. I crack open a bottle of white wine that I’ve been looking forward to sharing with her.
‘I’ll have to get someone in to check the heat control panel on the sauna,’ I comment. ‘And to fix the window.’
‘So tell me what happened,’ says Heidi. She turns her face towards me, concern and curiosity radiating from her. We have eaten and cleared away and we are now sitting in the main living room, in front of the wood burner, which Heidi has lit. She has her feet up on the sofa and her toes are curled under a blanket. I’m as far away from the fire as I can reasonably be. I don’t feel comfortable near the heat. I’m not burnt exactly, but I feel scorched, not unlike someone who has had too much sun. ‘You said the door was stuck.’
‘Locked,’ I correct. ‘I tried it loads of times.’
‘No, it wasn’t locked. It must have been stuck somehow. I opened it easily when I came to look for you. Walked straight in.’
‘I don’t understand. I pushed it over and over again, it wouldn’t budge. And the temperature was over ninety degrees. I don’t usually have it set that high.’
Heidi shakes her head. ‘It’s reading seventy-five now.’
‘What?’
‘I checked just now, while you were refilling your glass. And the key is hung up on the antlers.’
‘That’s so odd,’ I mutter. I’m totally flummoxed as to how to explain what she is saying.
‘I guess if you were feeling unwell, you might have misread the thermometer.’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t think I made a mistake, and that doesn’t explain the door being locked.’
‘Stuck,’ she murmurs gently. We sit quietly for a moment or two. It feels oddly like a stand-off, but it can’t be. Why would Heidi not believe me? She coughs, as though clearing her throat. ‘Emma, I know this is going to sound odd, but as your friend, I’m going to ask. Did you have anything to drink before you went into the sauna?’
‘What?’
‘Like alcohol. I mean, it was after six,’ she says hurriedly.
‘No.’
‘I just thought maybe you poured yourself a quick glass of wine or something. No one would judge you if you had.’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘Right.’ Heidi doesn’t meet my gaze, but instead stares out of the window into the dark night. It’s raining, a relentless thick and heavy downpour driving against the windows, water gathering in pools on the patio and decking wherever there is a dip and running in rivulets towards the sheds. It’s been a wet March. Despite this, I suddenly feel like taking a walk, I want to be outside and have the cold and wet soothe me, calm me. I don’t bother to suggest it. I know Heidi won’t agree. She would think the idea of walking in the rain at night is barmy. Maybe it is, but I feel it might ease the knot of anxiety that is tied in my stomach.
I see the woods as either restful or playful, always wonderful and comforting, no matter what the element, season or time. Heidi enjoys them well enough during a bright sunny day – at least she did when her kids were a bit younger and spent hours charging through them, beating brambles with sticks, running off the energy that in her suburban terrace could never be fully expended. She’s liked the big windows and the view from them less as time has passed and the kids started to use the woods to hide from her, to experiment with vaping and drinking. I think on a subconscious level she resents the fact that her children have to grow up, but it’s easier to resent the woods. At night she thinks of them as spooky. She often talks about threats, intruders and being watched. I always laugh at her fears. Now she follows my gaze and comments, ‘I wish you would at least buy curtains or blinds. I hate looking out on the blackness and wondering who’s looking in.’ She says the same thing every time she visits.
‘Who would be looking in? I have no neighbours,’ I reply, as I always do.
‘Anyone could.’ She shivers, even though the wood burner is still glowing.
I laugh. ‘This fictional peeping Tom would have to be very determined. Unless I buzzed them in, they would have to leave their car at the electric gate, scale it, then walk the half-mile to the house. You need to stop listening to those scary podcasts. You’re terrifying yourself.’
‘Maybe,’ she mumbles, but her lips are pulled tight, strained white like knuckles, rather than forming the huge red beam she normally wears. We both fall silent. Unusually, we have nothing to say to one another. Instead we listen to the rain thrum on the roof and drip from the eaves. It sounds like someone is knocking to get in.
9
April
I have two principal commutes. AirBright’s main wind plants are in Scotland, and I sometimes need to travel there if a Zoom call can’t suffice with expediting whatever business I’m tackling; and I generally need to be in the London office at least three days a week. Late-night events sometimes necessitate a stopover there. I used to resent the London jaunts, preferring to secrete myself away in my beautiful country home. Since I’ve been dating Matthew, all that has changed as he lives in the capital.
I’ve started to enjoy the hotels more. Before Matthew, I stayed at a Travelodge or a Premier Inn. Practical, clean and functional. Nothing more luxe than two cartons of UHT and a packet of non-branded ginger biscuits. Those rooms aren’t the sort that lend themselves to passionate lovemaking sessions; they’re more suited to half an hour of TV-watching at low volume, then lights off to settle in for a decent night’s sleep. Recently I’ve started booking myself into more resplendent, indulgent places. One Aldwych near Covent Garden; the Ned in the financial district of the City; the Mondrian in Shoreditch. We get a kick out of meeting in the lobby or bar before we go to the room. The moment the lift doors glide closed behind us, we fling ourselves at one another, like filings to a magnet. We practically run along the corridor, frustrated with the moments needed to open the bedroom door. A little green light. All systems go. Sex in hotel rooms is, I find, especially uninhibited. Particularly candid and satisfying. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to think about laundering the sheets, maybe it’s because it feels like a holiday even after a long day in the office.
Or maybe it’s him.
It’s really rather special now. The sex. It’s the sort that makes me resent the moment it is over, even while I’m still shuddering and glowing. It’s the sort that makes me want to see him every day. I now actively look for opportunities to visit the office and stay in town. I know I’m making it convenient for us to meet regularly, taking away the potential obstacle of distance. Making myself readily available would be pathetic except for the fact that he is equally accommodating. Besides the meet-ups in London, he’s very willing to travel to Hampshire and stay at mine, which he does most weekends. It nets out that we see each other three or four nights out of seven. We are dating exclusively. There’s no room or time for anyone else. More poignantly, there’s no need or desire either.
‘I don’t want to be out there in that mad world of dating,’ he explained when I brought up the matter. ‘After Becky, I never thought I’d want to be with anyone again. Then you came along.’ He kissed me, and I could feel his smile in the kiss. I tried to think about that and not the words ‘after Becky’. The fact is, she came first. I am second to her. Nothing can be done about that, and wishing something in the past was different is a fool’s game. It could drive you mad.
At the weekend, I set the alarm for 6.08, allowing myself an extra hour’s sleep: I don’t have to be at my desk, but I still like to make the most of the day. When the alarm went off this morning, Matthew groaned and insisted that I’m out of my mind to want to get up so early, so instead of me going on my run, we had sex. It’s a good workout, but not as energetic as a five-mile run. I will have a level of pent-up energy lingering all day. A bird in a cage. I try to explain to Matthew why it’s so important to me to run every morning, and he says, ‘Babe, you don’t need to exercise. You have a brilliant body. You’re so slim and trim.’
