‘A bit like your voice,’ Erin snapped back.
‘Morning.’
Hunter barked good-naturedly at Orla entering the kitchen.
‘Good morning,’ Jacques replied.
She was wearing jeans and a cream-coloured jumper, her hair down today, sitting just past her shoulders. It was a different look to the one he’d seen her in last night – dressed in pyjamas, staring out of the window. He’d thought, for a moment, that she’d been looking at him but it was more likely that she had been gazing at the moon.
‘If you want coffee,’ Tommy began. ‘Erin will make you one. If she doesn’t have to message Kim Jong Un and get him to stand down on whatever button he’s threatening to press.’
Erin’s phone erupted twice in quick succession.
‘See!’ Tommy said, as if his point was proven.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Erin replied. ‘He talks more crap than Barney Walsh onGladiators.’
‘I have no idea who that is.’
‘Do you have any headache tablets?’ Orla asked. She had gravitated towards Jacques at the table.
‘You have a headache?’
‘That’s why I asked for the pills.’
‘OK,’ Jacques said. ‘Come with me.’
‘I have to not take them in the kitchen?’ she asked, looking confused.
He smiled and beckoned her away from the noise of the coffee machine, Erin’s phone and Tommy and Erin’s bickering. He led the way down the hall until he was pushing open the door to his gym.
‘O-K,’ Orla said, following him inside. ‘I was not expecting something like this. It looks like a fitness suite just… without the weights. Are those gymnastic rings?’ He watched her checking out the punch bags, and the martial arts equipment on the walls.But it wasn’t all fight club in here. There were yoga mats and exercise balls he used to get mindful.
‘Welcome to my dojo,’ Jacques said, bowing towards her.
‘OK, so you do karate?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Taekwondo?’
‘No.’
‘Judo?’
‘No.’
‘OK, I am running out of martial arts names now.’
‘What I practice doesn’t really have a name,’ Jacques informed her. ‘But this is where I come when I need to get away from noise. Or if I have a headache.’ He pointed to the floor which was soft matting. ‘Take a seat.’
‘This isn’t my first rodeo at a dojo, you know,’ Orla said, dropping down onto the floor. He watched her cross her legs and appear to get comfortable.
‘No?’ He knew. She had interviewed sumo wrestlers.
‘I interviewed some sumo wrestlers last year. It is one of the craziest professions ever. Did you know they aren’t allowed to drive? One wrestler had a bad accident and after that they were all banned from driving.’
‘I did not know that.’ He did know that. From her article. He sat down behind her.
