Authors: Calvin Wade
SIMON – August 2010
A body like mine isn’t designed for jogging. I had spent thirty years or more sculpting it into a couch potato shape, so trying, in my late thirties, to re-design it into a Mo Farrah shape was always going to be neigh on impossible, but I was giving it a go.
My first few jogs had all turned into walks at the point my T-shirts had become so saturated with sweat that you could have rinsed them out into a bucket and washed your car with them. I was aware there was a balancing act, I needed to get fit for the sake of my future health, but it would be self-defeating if I jeopardised my health or even brought on a heart attack, by trying to do too much too soon. Will had come on one run with me, but he was a cocky sod at times and liked nothing more than sprinting off to illustrate how slow I was. In those intial stages, I was well aware of how slow I was, I had already been overtaken by two old ladies walking their dogs, several mothers pushing prams and even once by a toddler in a toy police car.
After about ten runs, I deluded myself into believing that I was transforming my body into that of a finely tuned athlete. One day, having run the one hundred yards up to Papa Luigis Italian restaurant, I noticed a female runner a few yards ahead of me, who didn’t seem to be disappearing into the distance, like all previous runners had. In fact, she was travelling at a similar pace to me. This was a huge boost. I felt I must finally have become a ‘proper’ jogger. I decided to make a huge effort and bridge the gap between us.
“Hi!” I said panting as I ran alongside her, the exertion of the additional pace taking it out of me somewhat, “are you going far?”
“No,” replied my seemingly unfit new friend, “just up to Milestone Meadow on Buckshaw.”
‘Great’, I thought, ‘even I can manage there and back, perhaps without even walking’.
“Would you mind if I ran with you for a bit?” I asked, “I’m still fairly new to this jogging lark and we seem to be running at a similar pace.”
“That’s fine,” replied the lady, I looked her up and down and noticed she was a relatively mature lady , perhaps in her early fifties, this explained her lack of speed, “always nice to have a bit of company towards the end of a run.”
We ran in silence for a minute and it was during this minute I realised her standard pace was a little faster than mine, but my adrenalin was kicking in and I was doing my utmost to keep alongside her. In an attempt to slow us down a little, I struck up a new conversation.
“Have you been out long?” I asked, trying, but failing, to maintain a balanced tone to my voice.
“I started in Southport about...” she looked at her watch, “three and a half hours ago. I’m doing the Chicago Marathon in a few weeks, so I’m building up the miles.”
“How far have you run?”
“Door to door, this run is twenty miles, so nineteen and a half under my belt now.”
“Wow, that’s amazing!”
“What about you, how far have you run?”
“A couple of hundred metres!”
My jogging companion turned her head to provide a pitying look.
“Are you OK?” she asked sympathetically.
It was at this stage my jogging career ended.
“Nope,” I said breaking into a walk, “I’ve got
a stitch, you go on without me! Good luck in the Marathon!”
I stopped even walking and doubled over, I hated getting
a stitch.
“Thanks,” said the lady, shouting back as she increased her pace, “I hope you’re OK. Keep at it! I promise you it gets easier!”
I took no notice. Up to that point, it hadn’t become easier and I had no intention of continuing to jog. Being overtaken by a ‘GIRNF’ (‘Grandmother I’d Rather Not F...’) who was nineteen miles into her run was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I have never subsequently jogged another yard. I did, however, stick to my other health commitments. I also turned my attention to the list of things I had made a mental note of, whilst Arthur was in his hospital bed and I slowly started getting them done too, one by one.
SIMON –September 2010
“Bloody hell! No-one told me it was going to hurt this much!”
I think I have a low pain threshold. Nicky says I am very dramatic about minor pain like pins and needles or man flu, but she attempted to soften the blow by pointing out that those who dramatise minor events tend to be good in a crisis .I think she was alluding to the incident when I helped her Dad after his collapse. That wasn’t my pain though. This was. As the pain of the needle puncturing my skin intensified as I sat in the tattooists chair, I had a horrible feeling that I was going to pass out.
“Getting a tattoo is like childbirth,” the artist with the needle explained, “afterwards everyone forgets the ordeal. They just want to show off the results of their endeavour.”
The guy, Ted, who was my tattoo artist, was pretty much what I would have pictured if someone had asked me beforehand to close my eyes and picture the type of want who works in a tattoo parlour. He was in his forties, balding, with a long ginger beard and muscular arms, which, not surprisingly given his profession, had tattoos on. His right arm had Latin writing running along it with the words, ‘Tantum Confortamini Supresse’ on. I asked Ted, probably like thousands before me, what that meant and he told me it translated as, ‘Only the strong survive’. This didn’t fill me with confidence prior to receiving a tattoo off him. Still, it had a bit more power to it than what I imagined it translated as, which was, ‘Tantric sex is superb in a comfortable mini’.
The pain was at its most intense in the early stages of the needles attack on my flesh. Whether my deep breaths helped me through it or whether the pain just subsided as my body adjusted to it, I’m not sure. The whole process was much quicker than I expected, as it was a relatively small tattoo on my wrist. It must only have taken around ten minutes at the very most. I was delighted with it though. It was just what I wanted. I proudly returned home to show off my new lifelong companion to my old lifelong companion!
NICKY – September 2010
Simon and I have been together a long time and it has become easy for me to tell when he is angry with me or hiding something. Rather than acting naturally, he takes on a really strange persona which makes him look he is taking on an acting role. I think he does it deliberately so I ask him what the matter is.
It was late morning and I was washing dishes in the kitchen. We had a dishwasher but it had broken three years earlier and we could never afford to get it fixed. Simon came back in from a mysterious early morning trip out and I immediately noticed he was wearing his ‘I’m hiding something’ persona.
“What?” I asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Simon replied forging his puzzled expression.
“What have you done?”
“How do you always know, straight away, that something is going on?”
Simon smiled as he asked. This was a relief, as I was concerned that it was something to do with our long running financial problems, which apparently my Dad had done something to relieve.
Exactly what he had done had remained private between Simon and my Dad. Although this annoyed me, I had allowed these occasional secrets between my Dad and Simon to continue as I felt it may help bond them together a little.
“Women’s intuition,” I explained, “Now what is it?”
“Promise you won’t go mad?”
“Simon, I’m never mad with you, my love.”
I avoided promising, I didn’t know what he had done yet!
“OK. Let me reveal the background to this. When I was in hospital, after the incident at the allotment with your Dad, it made me think a bit more about what I was doing
with my life. As you know, I wanted to get fitter but it also made me think about other things I wanted to do in my life and in my head I made up a bit of a ‘bucket list’, if you like. Today I have done the first thing on that mental list.
I am not the most patient of people when it comes to surprises, I don’t like a long preamble. I just want to cut to
the chase and discover what the surprise is.
“Just tell me what it is you’ve done, Simon?”
“What if I were to tell you I’ve had a tattoo?”
I took a moment to think this through. I thought this was a wind up.
“I wouldn’t believe you!”
“Why not?”
“There are people who suit tattoos and there are others that don’t. You’re not a tattoo person.”
“How do you know if I haven’t got one?”
“I just do.”
“Because I’m fat?”
“You’re not fat! You’re just a bit overweight and becoming less so.”
“Why then?”
“You’re too old now, for starters.”
“Everyone who has a tattoo when they’re young will still have it at my age, unless they have it removed.”
“True. Have you really had a tattoo?”
“Yes.”
Simon started to undo the shirt button on his right sleeve.
“Get lost! This is far too adventurous for you!”
“Well, that dear, is where you are wrong!”
Simon pulled up the sleeve so it was above his right wrist and there, in an old fashioned font, with elaborate curls, was my name, ‘Nicky’. My initial reaction was that it looked good, but it looked odd on Simon.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I like it, you soppy sod, but...”
“But what?”
“Is it not a bit of a ‘cool’ thing for you to do?”
I made my fingers into rabbits ears as I said this, which probably made me look pretty uncool too.
“I didn’t have it done to be cool, Nicky. I’ve never been cool. I don’t intend to start trying now.”
“Why did you have it done?”
“At your Dad’s allotment, when he collapsed, I was walking away from him and something, I don’t know what, made me turn. I swear I turned around the split second he dropped like a stone. I thought that was it for him, game over. Luckily it wasn’t, but it made me think about my last few seconds of life and how much I would want you to be there for me. What I’ve learnt from Colin though, is that death does not make deals with people and doesn’t always hand out prior notice. Now I know it probably sounds stupid to you, but somehow, just by having your name inked into my skin, if anything happens to me and you aren’t there, at least I can do this...”
Simon kissed my name on his wrist.
“Kiss my name.”
“Yes. I know a bit of a black ink on my wrist is not a replacement for you, but at least it’s a permanent reminder of my love for you. What do you reckon?”
“I’m still in shock, Simon! It’s just so out of character. If I’m being totally honest, half of me can’t help feeling it’s a bit tacky, but then the other half thinks it’s sweet and romantic.”
Simon focused on the negative half.
“Tacky?”
“Just a bit! Not quite as bad as having a letter from my name at the top of each finger, but still a little tacky!”
“So you aren’t going to get one saying ‘Simon’ on your wrist then? So we have a matching pair!”
“No, I don’t need to, Simon. Your name is already tattooed in here and here,” I said tapping my heart and then my head.
That statement probably sounded tacky too and if the kids were around, there would no doubt have been some fake puking action, but it was how I felt. Fifteen years earlier, I had started dating Simon, not because I loved him, but because I trusted him. Over the years, our relationship evolved and I continued to trust him implicitly, but also grew to love him too. Passionately love him. He had been a fantastic father to my two children. Will had started calling Simon ‘Dad’ from when he was three years old and Chloe was the apple of her Daddy’s eye.
I think one of the reasons our relationship had been so good, was that Simon knew the secret to keeping my love burning. He knew that it wasn’t important to me how he looked, but it was important to me how he made me feel about myself. Simon always made me feel like I was the most wonderful woman ever created. The tattoo seemed a bit of a daft thing to do, but once again, he did it because his love for me knew no bounds, so a little bit of me rejoiced in that fact. I reconsidered my previous response.
“Actually, do you know what gorgeous man?” I said grabbing hold of Simon and giving him an almighty hug.
“Surprise me!”
“I think I might! What I want you to do, is go upstairs and check Will isn’t going out with his mates anywhere in the next couple of hours. If he isn’t, ask him if he can keep an eye on Chloe.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to take me back to this tattoo parlour you’ve been to this morning and ask the bloke if he’ll tattoo the word ‘Simon’ on my wrist, to pair up with the Nicky on yours?”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. I can then see on the outside, the name I jus
t said was tattooed on my heart and brain. You are my world, Simon Strong and having your name on my wrist would remind me every second of every day, how lucky I am.”