Banks

Mornings in the Jordaan are deliveries, scaffolding and bicycles, and the whole quarter is bright and working by eleven. She sets out into that rather than into an empty street, and says the difference shows in the first ten minutes of an hour. Tantra is her steadiest technique, built around breathing rather than a fixed order of moves, so ninety minutes gives it more room than sixty does. French and English are both there, and the room decides which one an afternoon runs in. Twenty-four, and where her limits sit is said once at the beginning, in flat everyday terms, and is not gone over again.

Banks decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.