‘Hoo-ee, you’re not at a lapdance bar! Come on, up you get. There’s no escape.’
I’m glancing at the emergency exits, when the woman behind starts complaining. So I step on the scales with my eyes closed, waiting for Bernie to break it to me. Except she doesn’t say anything.
My eyes flutter open.
‘S’all right, love – a malfunction with the scales.’
‘Thank God for that. I thought you’d been stunned into silence with the amount of weight I’d put on!’ I laugh.
She remains silent.
‘Bernie?’
‘This can’t be right,’ she mutters, shaking her head. ‘Hold on a minute.’
Bernie scuttles to the front of the other queue, where her colleague Shirley is at the helm. The two women return to my scales and start hitting buttons with a look of bewilderment, as if they’re at the dashboard of the
Starship Enterprise
. After several minutes of conferring in hushed tones, they turn to me with grave looks.
‘I’m not sure how to break this, love,’ says Bernie. She has the demeanour of an undertaker. ‘You’ve put on nearly
three quarters of a stone.
In a
week
.’
‘What?’ I say, affecting more shock than I feel.
‘You did stick to the diet, didn’t you?’ says Shirley, narrowing her eyes.
‘Meticulously. It’s the time of the month though,’ I add.
‘Honestly?’ says Bernie, dumbstruck. ‘You
honestly
stuck to the diet and this has happened?’ She’s almost tearful.
‘Hmmm,’ I nod.
‘I’ve been doing Diet Busters for nearly three years and I’ve never encountered this. I don’t know what to say.’ Which is a first, I can tell you.
I don’t stay for the meeting, not least because tonight’s chosen topic is ‘low-fat spreads’. I can’t believe Billy Connolly, Barack Obama and Winston Churchill together could come up with half an hour’s worth of material for that.
Outside, I realise I have two choices: I can slump in front of
EastEnders
, crack open a bottle of wine and never face Oliver again. Or I can squeeze into my running gear and do as they did in wartime: keep calm and carry on.
When I arrive at the sports centre, late, Oliver has clearly finished his talk as the three groups are spilling out of the door to prepare to warm up. I scan the group for him – torn between wanting to see him and not – when Jess and Tom emerge, chatting.
‘Blimey, what’s up?’ asks Jess. ‘Being twenty-nine isn’t that bad, is it?’
‘On the basis of what I’ve experienced so far, I enjoyed being twenty-eight more.’
She smirks. ‘Well, I’m sure it’s nothing an invigorating run won’t sort out.’
‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ I raise an eyebrow then look at Tom. ‘So . . . thanks for, you know. Helping me out the other day.’
‘No problem. I’m not sure it’ll have helped though.’
‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Has someone else already won the contract?’
‘I’m not saying that. We’ve got a follow-up meeting tomorrow to discuss it and make our decision.’
Despite everything, I feel a surge of hope. It must show on my face.
‘I wouldn’t get too excited,’ he adds.
I frown. ‘Why?’
‘Well, you must admit that the presentation wasn’t as slick as it could have been.’
‘Slick?’ I repeat, with a pang of indignation. I know I was far from brilliant, but hearing this from Tom sends irritation – and shame – shooting through me. There’s only one way I know in which to handle it: on the defensive.
‘Well, if it’s style over substance you’re after, then fine. Besides, I think I covered the salient points.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘
Do
you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say, with a hundred times more conviction than I feel. ‘Besides, I know my firm is the best one for the job. If you and your colleagues couldn’t see that, then you’re the ones who’ll be losing out.’
He looks at me in disbelief. ‘It’s common practice for the company pitching for the contract to prove they’re right for the job. It’s not up to us to make excuses for your mistakes.’
‘I wasn’t that bad!’ The reaction is instinctive, not because I disagree, but because I’m so stung by the comment.
‘All I’m saying is that the pitches from Freeman Brown and Vermont Hamilton were—’
‘Freeman Brown and Vermont Hamilton?’ These are two competitors I’d
never
have thought worthy of the shortlist for a three-grand-a-month contract. ‘You can’t seriously tell me that’s who I’m up against.’
‘Why not?’
‘Where do I start? The former are vastly over-priced; the latter have no experience in anything but the leisure market. More importantly, they’re both rubbish.’
This rant may be delivered with a force that could blow-dry Cheryl Cole’s hair extensions, but what I’m saying is true.
And the thought that I’ve probably lost out on a contract to two companies I’d normally beat with my hands tied behind my back, makes my blood boil. So, despite Tom’s doom-mongering, I can’t help hoping that his colleagues might work that out.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but that didn’t come across,’ he says.
I decide to take the moral high ground. ‘Fine. Thanks a lot, Tom.’
As I head over to my running group, I look up and see Oliver by the railings, looking straight at me. My heart flik-flaks, my face burning with shame from the memory of my confession. When I glance up again, he’s still looking at me. Not only that, but he holds up his hand and waves.
I smile, waving back as I am overwhelmed with longing, and delirious with hope about what this could mean. This is far bolder than the Oliver I met back in July and it
must
mean something – even if he hasn’t done anything as decisive as ask me on a date yet. I join the rest of the group and try to focus on my run, convinced that the boost from Oliver’s attention will send me flying round.
While this is fine in theory, my body has other ideas. It decides that it simply can’t be fed nothing but pasties, chocolate and takeaways all weekend and run like the wind.
So instead I run like I’ve
got
wind. Painfully, excruciatingly and very . . . very . . . slowly.
There are four words my dad always says before anything else.
‘How is your mother?’ He catches my eye briefly, before looking away.
‘Same as ever.’ I kiss him on the cheek. ‘She’s fine. More importantly, how are you?’
The
more importantly
is a slip of the tongue as he despises any hint that I worry about him. Mum can look after herself, but Dad’s another kettle of fish altogether. People might think it strange for me to say that about a man who used to make a living on battlegrounds, even if it is more than fifteen years since he left the Army.
I don’t want to overstate it. He’s capable by most standards, making a comfortable living and renting a smart (albeit poky) flat in a respectable part of the city. But something’s missing. And unfortunately, he’s unlikely to ever get that something back.
‘Oh, I’m fantastic, love,’ he replies. ‘Tea?’
‘Go on. Nice and weak though, please. Last time you brewed up I could feel it staining my liver for a week afterwards.’
Dad enters the tiny kitchen at the back of his photographic studio as I wander round, gazing at the work he’s done since I was last here. He’s been busy.
When Dad left the armed forces, he got a job as a security guard while putting himself through a photography course at night school. He always knew he wanted it to be more than a hobby, but it took a long time before it was anything other than that, despite his talent.
The images Dad loves creating are of real people in real situations: expressive faces of fishermen, chorus girls, farm labourers – and hundreds of others. Sadly, while these photos are his most beautiful work, they don’t pay. Not a sausage.
That honour goes instead to his commercial jobs – the portraits of businessmen and women for use in company brochures and websites. Not that he turns his nose up at those, far from it. Dad has an ability to capture people at their most human – pinstriped or not – hence the unusually animated corporate photos I’m looking at now.
‘There. Nice and weak,’ he says, handing me what looks like a cup of Bisto.
His smiling face is as handsome as it was when I was a little girl, albeit significantly more lined, something I know can be attributed more to his emotional life than battle scars.
‘Yum,’ I say ironically, taking a sip.
He stifles a smile. ‘Nobody used to complain when I made it like that in the Army.’
‘Given the standard of catering you tell me you were subjected to, I don’t think that’s saying much.’
He laughs, puts down his cup and continues setting up a tripod, his big, broad hands struggling with the twiddlier bits. ‘How’s your fundraising coming along?’
‘Pretty good – now,’ I say. ‘We’re getting interest all the time. It’s hard work though. And I’m kind of running out of ideas other than emailing contacts with my begging bowl.’
‘Didn’t you say you were putting on an event?’
I nod. ‘Priya and Heidi have started organising a black-tie do. Are you coming?’
‘Well, it’s not really my scene, Abby,’ he says. This, I know, is an understatement. Dad always despised going to these things with Mum – he’s a lot more low-key than her. ‘Unless you really want me there. Is your mum going?’
‘No, she’s away on business,’ I say. ‘And don’t worry – I know you hate this sort of thing. It’s fine.’
‘Well, I’ll definitely come to cheer you on for your races,’ he promises. ‘Speaking of which, how’s the running?’
‘Ohhh,’ I groan, before I can think of an appropriate response.
He raises an eyebrow. ‘That good?’
‘I have good days and bad days. Sadly, there have been quite a lot of bad lately. At least I’m back on the diet. I had a blip.’
‘Happens to us all,’ he shrugs, though my dad has been completely teetotal for years and his stomach has never looked as if it’s made of anything squidgier than titanium.
Dad runs a minimum of six miles a day and feels – and I quote – ‘out of sorts’ if he doesn’t.
The irony, by the way, is not lost on me. I have no idea how a lard-arse like me could have been born to a father who used to run across deserts, and a mother whose idea of fun is dressing like
The Kids from Fame
and high-kicking her way round a dance studio. I’d be the black sheep of the family, if they had any other sheep.
‘Have you decided on your race? I must make sure it’s in the diary.’
‘Yes – the half-marathon at the end of January. So you’re coming to cheer me on, are you?’ I grin.
‘Of course. Karen and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
‘Oh. Great,’ I say, trying to sound enthusiastic.
I really want to be happy for Dad. Karen is his first girlfriend since he and Mum split up sixteen years ago.
But she’s so wrong for him. I don’t think this because of her trying-too-hard bohemian look, permanently put-on telephone voice, the fact that she’s ten years too young for him or even that she’s too clever for her own good. Putting aside Karen’s many and varied idiosyncrasies, she has one fatal, irredeemable flaw: she isn’t Mum.
Sixteen years after she left him, Dad’s heart has still not mended – I’m convinced of it – even though the days when there was a chance they’d get back together are long gone.
In the months and years after they split up, I did everything to get Mum to see sense; She was breaking up our family for no reason, I’d argue with tear-stained cheeks and blazing eyes. But she’d have none of it. Being married to a soldier was a nightmare, she’d reply, and explain how she’d never quite appreciated when they got together how difficult it’d be, never knowing whether your husband was going to come back in a coffin.
Not that him quitting the Army made any difference. Mum would forever stick to her guns: that she and Dad had simply ‘grown apart’.
Those corny words still ring bitterly in my ears and, frankly, I’ll never understand how she could destroy our family with such a hackneyed, inadequate explanation.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, Abby,’ she’d argue, and I suppose she’s right in one way. I didn’t live her life. But as much as I love my mum, there’s one thing of which I’m 100 per cent sure. I’ll never be able to truly forgive her for leaving Dad.
I persevere with the running club – determined, despite what feel like monstrous odds, to get back on track. It’s hard work, something I probably only stick with for the same reason I started: Oliver.
Not that things progress much since his glorious little wave, but just seeing him several times a week is enough to keep me going. Even if I do have the torture of getting fit again to contend with.
Still, I know it’s for the best. Having told all my colleagues, clients, friends, family and fellow members of the running club that I’m doing a half-marathon next January, I can’t let the fact that I fell off the wagon so spectacularly bring my training to a standstill.
I make the mistake of giving this speech to Jess one night. Instead of saying, ‘Well done Abby,’ and offering me a one-off glass of wine to celebrate, she signs me up for the ‘running holiday’ that the group is going on next month and, more imminently, a five-kilometre ‘Seaside Run’ the week after next. Both are her idea of an extra incentive, which goes to prove that she and I really are from different planets.
Despite the cheery title, with its overtones of ice creams, stripy deckchairs and donkeys, there is little to relish about the prospect of the Seaside Run. Admittedly it has a couple of things in its favour: as far as races go, this is small and informal, nobody else from our club will be there, and the route is along the delightfully flat surface of Leasowe Promenade.
But – and here’s the crucial part – it is a race. My first competitive race. Which means it’s the real deal and there’s no escape.
Jess goes on and on about how I should try to push myself, and as a strategy, I’ll reluctantly admit that it works. It does provide an extra focus.
If only the same could be said for work. Oh, that’s perhaps overstating it, but the invoicing issue – the fact it’s such a battle to get some firms to pay up – is starting to depress me.