But the unease accompanies me the whole way home. The train is packed, and a large guy takes the seat beside me, pushing me up against the window. When I can get a signal on my phone, I dig into Marcus Aurelius again but find little. All of theA Meeting of Mindssocial media pages have the same photo of him from the website.
I study every post. It’s all very engrossing, all set up to maximise engagement. I can see why other women, especially vulnerable ones, can be taken by the message he promotes about bettering yourself.
I check news archives. Strangely,A Meeting of Mindsdoesn’t have much coverage. A few articles in the early days but then nothing. But his Facebook page has hundreds of five-star reviews. Messages from people he has helped over the years, many saying he has saved their lives.
I googlehow to find someone’s real name, and an idea forms in my head. Earlier this year, I set up my own company, as advised by my accountant, because I started to earn over the tax threshold as a sole trader. I couldn’t have been prouder to add Ltd to the end ofMOVE WITH SCARLETT. I go onto the Companies House website and type in Marcus Aurelius, and there it is – hiding in plain sight all along.
Marcus Aurelius’s real name is Justin Lakeland.
19
SCARLETT
The air is heavy when I walk into my top-floor flat in an Edwardian townhouse conversion. I moved here last year when my business started to take off. It’s tiny, barely room for one, but that’s the rental price for living in one of the most expensive parts of London: West Hampstead doesn’t come cheap.
I dump my holdall in the hallway and take the bag of groceries Mum gave me and my laptop into the living area. With Mum still so fragile and Granny needing constant care, I haven’t had a minute to carry on investigating Justin Lakeland since the train.
A week standing empty has left the living room smelling closed in, as if the air has been trying to escape, and the sun has bleached the room. I open the large sash window. Groans and creaks give way to noise from the traffic below. There’s no breeze, but at least fresh air can now circulate. Emptying the grocery bag, I glug a pint of water, before pouring an iced tea to take to the sofa and open my laptop.
With a little digging around, I find the office address ofA Meeting of Minds, surprised to see it’s in Primrose Hill, where one of my favourite clients, Fi, lives. I’m due at her house at ten in the morning, and I have an hour spare between her session and my next client. After I’ve finished at Fi’s, I’m going to visit this Marcus or Justin, or whatever he calls himself, at his office.
Fi Baker lives in a magnificent stucco-fronted Georgian house that runs over five floors. Not that I’ve been in the main house. Our sessions take place in their garden leisure complex that houses a fully equipped gym, an indoor swimming pool, a cinema room and a steam room and sauna to boot. Her husband works in the City in some kind of investment job. She used to work in marketing until she met him and is now a self-confessed lady who shops between long and lavish lunches with friends.
When I first started my business, I was charging competitive rates to get it established, but the take-up was poor. It wasn’t until one day – when I was bemoaning my lack of client base, living in a room in a grotty shared house and struggling to stay out of overdraft – that one of my fellow trainers from the gym gave me a sound piece of advice: ‘Find the people who want to pay the money. The type who think: pay peanuts, get monkeys.’ That’s when my fortunes changed, and people like Fi found me.
On the way to the gym, Fi asks me how I am. She already knows that I lost my sister. I’ve built quite a rapport with her. Enough to tell her about the real reason for cancelling some sessions.
‘I feel for you. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this.’ She unlocks the gym door. ‘So what kind of pain are you going to put me through today, then, Missy?’
I find a smile. ‘We’ll have to see.’
She feigns a weary look. ‘Be gentle with me – I’ve had a heavy weekend.’
I start her on the treadmill. Five kilometres per hour at an incline of five. She’s pretty fit for her fifty-five years but openly admits she’s very lazy. If it wasn’t for her husband and all the pretty girls he works with, she’d live on wine, chips and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and wouldn’t bother with the likes of me.
She asks me about my weekend. I tell her about theA Meeting of Mindsconvention.
She sticks her nose up. ‘I went to one of those with a friend last year. Not my cup of tea but I owed her. It was excruciatingly painful.’
‘What do you mean?’
She rolls her eyes. ‘The one I went with is an old uni friend. We’re close but we’re different people. She loves that kind of thing. Me, I prefer it when those little booths sell sangria rather than smoothies.’ She laughs. ‘Between you and me, I found it all mind-blowingly boring. And distasteful. Applying corporate acumen to indoctrinate vulnerable people.’
‘That’s rather cynical.’
‘Very salesy. I bet they all have degrees in marketing. I can see how they’ve grown their following. I wouldn’t have put you there, Scarlett. Not in a million years.’
I raise the incline of the treadmill.
She swats my hand away. ‘I said be gentle with me.’ She winks and smiles.
‘I wouldn’t be doing my job unless you were burning those ill-gotten calories.’ I replace my finger on the button, raising the incline another two notches.
She continues talking about the convention she attended, her face reddening from the exertion.
I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t usually speak about my personal life during client sessions, but the words slip frommy mouth before I can help them. ‘My sister was at the Leeds convention in June. On the train home, her phone died, and so did she that night.’
I hold up a hand. ‘Please, no more condolences.’
