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Jude moved closer to the couch, and placed both her plump hands on the dent in the flesh at the bottom of Gaby’s spine. “That’s where the pain’s coming from, isn’t it?”

“Well, I’m feeling it all along my arms and legs.”

“Yes. But this is where it’s coming from.”

“Do you think I’ve slipped a disc, or trapped a nerve or…?”

“No.”

Jude’s fingertips ran lightly over the girl’s lower back, as if reading some Braille message from the hurt within. “No, it’s not an injury in that way. It’s just tension, and the tension is throwing you out of balance, so the way you sit and stand puts pressure on your spine.”

“Do you think it’s something to do with the chair I have at the office? Because I spend most of my day on the phone.”

“Yes, Carole said you were a theatrical agent.”

“That’s right.”

“I used to be an actress myself.”

“Did you, Jude?”

“You can tell how long ago it was, though, from the fact that I say ‘actress’. All of today’s young women in the theatre call themselves ‘actors’.”

“Which I have to say I think is pretty silly. I mean, if a director’s casting something, he knows whether he wants an actor or an actress for the part.”

“Of course he does.”

“And in Spotlight – that’s the professional directory for actors – ”

“I know.”

“Well, there they still have categories for ‘Actors’ and ‘Actresses’. If they didn’t, nobody would be able to find their way around.”

“No, that’s true.”

Gaby wasn’t aware of the magic that was being worked on her. Jude had the same effect on everyone she met, and nobody was ever aware of what was happening. People just found it easy to talk to her. Her presence soothed anxieties and encouraged confidences. Jude herself didn’t even think of it as a skill, or a mystery, just a quality with which she had grown up.

“Now, what I’m going to do, Gaby, is put some oil on my hands and work on the centre of the pain.”

“When you say ‘work on’, do you mean manipulate it?”

“No, I’m not an osteopath. And what’s wrong with you doesn’t need the attentions of an osteopath. You’re just out of balance. You need to get yourself back in alignment.”

As she spoke, Jude was opening a bottle of oil on the table. A herbal aroma, redolent of Mediterranean hillsides, joined the scent from the candles. Jude poured oil on her hands, rubbed them together, and wiped the excess off with a small white towel. Then once again she stood over the girl on the couch.

“So it won’t hurt?” asked Gaby.

“No. It certainly won’t give you any more pain. And, hopefully, it will diminish the pain you’re already suffering.” Jude put her hands again on the small of Gaby’s back, and started to move her fingers. There was only the slightest of pressure, but the placing of the fingertips was very exact.

Gaby sighed, as she felt the warmth melt into her locked-up vertebrae.

“Funny,” she said drowsily. “Out of balance.” That’swhat you say when someone’s off their rocker. Well, not that exactly. “Unbalanced’, I suppose is what you say.”

“Very sensible description. Amazing how many of our bodily metaphors actually work on the literal level. You speak of someone ‘being on the back foot’. That’s how they are physically when confronting danger. ‘Showing a bit of backbone’, ‘backing off’, ‘putting someone’s back up’, ‘putting someone’s back out’ – they all mean exactly what they say.”

“Mm…” Gaby murmured.

There was no effort in the movement of Jude’s hands, but there was an intensity about her body. Though her ministrations seemed minimal, almost casual, a lot of energy was being put into her actions.

“So,” she asked lightly, “can you think of anything specific that may have ‘put your back out’?”

“I don’t know…” But the words weren’t said as a deterrent. As Gaby relaxed, she seemed increasingly ready to talk.

Jude let the silence continue between them, knowing that, in her own time, Gaby would break it. “Well, you know I’m getting married?”

“I certainly do. Living next door to Carole, there is absolutely no way I couldn’t know that you were getting married. She’s very excited about it.”

“Yes, so’s everyone.”

Jude caught on to the wistfulness in the girl’s words. “Meaning you’re not?”

“No, not meaning that at all. I’m as excited about it as anyone else. God, they’re all sick to death of me at work. They can’t wait till I actually am married, and then they hope I’ll stop talking about it.”

Again Jude let the silence stand. She wasn’t probing. If Gaby wanted to volunteer more…

Inevitably, Gaby did. “I’m ecstatic about getting married. Steve’s the man I’ve been looking for all my life. And he seems to feel the same about me, which I sometimes can’t believe, but deep down I know it’s true.”

“Sounds pretty good to me,” said Jude.

“Yes.”

Again the slight wistfulness.

“What is it that you think attracts you and Stephen to each other?”

“I don’t know. Don’t like to question it too much. If you analyse things, you can spoil them.”

“Very true.”

“But I think with us – well, we have a lot of similarities in the way we were brought up – I mean, very different homes, but both homes where – well, there were always secrets – nobody quite said exactly what they meant – ” Suddenly Gaby was aware of who she was talking to. She shifted her head sideways to look apologetically at Jude – a movement, incidentally, that she couldn’t have performed twenty minutes earlier. “I’m terribly sorry. Carole’s your friend, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she’s my friend, but that doesn’t mean I have any illusions about how relaxed or otherwise she is in her approach to life.”

Jude’s grin took the edge off her words.

Gaby grinned too as she straightened back out onthe couch. “So Steve grew up where there was always tension between his parents.”

“Carole’s never talked to me much about her marriage.”

“No. I get the feeling she has put the lid firmly down on that particular pressure cooker. But according to Steve, the atmosphere at home wasn’t great, even before they started thinking about the divorce. He coped as kids do – putting his head down, getting on with his school work, trying to avoid situations in which he might be expected to take sides. And then, like me, getting the hell out of the family home at the first opportunity. So I think that inculcated a kind of…I was about to say deviousness, but let’s call it caution, in his approach to life.”

“And where does your deviousness – or caution – come from?” asked Jude casually. “From what Carole told me, your parents seem to be absolutely devoted to each other.”

“Yes, they are, but, you know, there were things in their past history, things that happened before they got married. My grandfather died around that time, and then Grand’mère had a major breakdown and…” The deviousness – or caution – which Gaby had been talking about asserted itself, and her words trickled away to silence.

Jude let the stillness continue, as her fingertips fluttered over the slowly unknotting muscles of the girl’s lower back. She knew that, when she was ready, Gaby would again pick up the conversation.

“And I think it’s that that’s making me tense.”

“The baggage of the past?” Jude hazarded.

“Mm. No worries about marrying Steve.”

“Worries about having a family?”

Jude had hit a spot there. “Slight anxiety, I suppose. The fact is, I was born quite premature and – I mean, I’ve been absolutely fine since, but maybe it was touch and go when I was born.”