by Mates, Dates
I felt slightly intimidated as I went into the reception of the hotel as it looked so grand. Then I remembered what Nesta always told me when I felt like this - that people can only ever make you feel inferior if you give them permission. I belong here as much as anyone, I thought, as I pulled myself up to my full four-foot-nine. I approached the desk and pressed the bell. I looked around at the enormous marble fireplace, deep sofas, polished furniture and huge vases of fresh lilies everywhere. A few guests were sitting in a bay window in reception and helping themselves to a cream tea. Excellent, I thought, in anticipation of the one I’d be having in about fifteen minutes.
‘Can I help you?’ asked a lady with glasses appearing behind the desk.
‘Yes, I’m here for Mrs Foster and her daughter,’ I said.
‘You just missed them,’ said the lady. ‘They went out about fifteen minutes ago. Would you like to leave a message?’
‘Um, no thanks,’ I said and made my way out and down the long drive again.
Why hadn’t she phoned me? I wondered, as I reached the gates and rooted round in my bag for my mobile. I couldn’t find it and realised that I must have left it back in the dorm when I’d called Izzie earlier. I looked to see if Dad’s car was still there and saw that he had just got in it and was about to drive away. I darted out of the gate and smack, I crashed right into someone who was walking past talking to someone on a mobile. His phone went flying out of his hand and landed on the pavement.
‘Oi! Watch where you’re going,’ he cried as he bent down to pick up the phone.
‘Oh, sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. Are you OK?’
‘I am, but I’m not sure that my phone is,’ said the boy, pressing a few keys and putting the mobile to his ear.
‘I, er, didn’t mean to…’ I said as I saw Dad driving away in the distance. ‘I was…’
‘Yeah, you were daydreaming.’
‘I was trying to catch my dad, actually,’ I said. Then he turned to face me properly and I had to catch my breath. He was cute. Actually more than cute, tres handsome. Blond, with very blue eyes and cheekbones to die for. ‘Is your phone OK?’
He dialled a number and began to walk away. ‘Yeah. No thanks to you.’
Probably the local village heart-throb, I thought. Probably got a million girls after him. Not this one, though. I made a face at his back. I don’t like boys who can’t at least make an effort to be nice, no matter how good-looking they are.
C h a p t e r 9
Big Brother
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There were three messages on my mobile from Izzie when I got back to the dorm.
‘Mum’s bumped into a friend from the City,’ said the first one. ‘She was having a facial in the hotel salon. Anyway, she’s got a second home down here and has insisted that we go for dinner. So don’t come down today. Ring me to let me know you got the message.’
‘Where are you?’ said the second. ‘Mum says you can come as well, so call me. We’re leaving in about half an hour.’
‘We’re on our way,’ said the third. ‘I hope you got the messages. Call me as soon as you get this.’
I phoned her straight away and explained that I’d been down to the hotel and missed her.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Lucy. I feel awful, especially as I talked you into doing this course in the first place. Look, Mum’s going out with her friend Kay tomorrow and I don’t want to hang out with them so I’ll be up first thing to spend the day up there. You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. Til survive. It’s group visualisation tonight then wind down or something.‘
‘Sounds fab. I love doing visualisations. I wish I was there.’
‘And I wish I was there’ I said and told her all about the day’s events and classes. ‘It would have been a hoot if you’d been here.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I feel rotten about leaving you there. But I’ll make it up to you in the morning. OK?’
‘OK.’
After the phone call, I went along to the meditation room where the others were already lying on the floor on mats. Chris had put a few candles about and lit some joss sticks and in the background there was some soft new age music playing. The room was cosy and warm and the mats looked very inviting. This I can do, I thought, as I crept in, lay down by the door and closed my eyes.
Chris’s soft voice began to lead us through the visualisation. ‘Feel yourself getting drowsy, safe and relaxed. Your body is feeling heavy, your limbs feel limp and warm. The only sensation you are aware of is your breath, rising and falling like gentle waves on a shore.You feel at peace, relaxed, warm, heavy…‘
I was asleep in seconds. Next thing I knew, the lights were being turned up and the session was over.
‘That was brilliant,’ said Sylvia. ‘I went somewhere really lovely. A garden and the sea… How was it for you, Lucy?’
‘Urn, yes, very relaxing,’ I said, rubbing my eyes. I didn’t feel too bad, though, as it looked like I wasn’t the only one who had nodded off. Half of the guests were still comatose on the floor, Moira was dribbling onto her mat and Prudence and Priscilla were doing their synchronised snoring again. As everyone began to get up and shuffle off to the dorms, I became aware of a figure on a mat at the front of the room. He hadn’t been there in the day and he was sitting with his back to me. Oh, must be Chris’s son, I thought, as I got up to leave. Then he turned and looked up. My jaw dropped when I saw who it was. The boy from the village whose phone I’d knocked flying.
‘You,’ he said, getting up and coming over to me.
‘You,’ I said.
‘Daniel, this is Lucy, Lucy, this is Daniel,’ said Chris, joining us.
‘Yeah,’ said Daniel, looking really disinterested, ‘we met already. Or rather we bumped into each other in the village.’
I went bright red and made a beeline for the door. Dad followed me out and caught up with me in the hall.
‘That wasn’t very friendly,’ he said. ‘Where are your manners?’
‘Where are his, more like,’ I said. ‘I accidentally bumped into him in the village and when I apologised, he was really offhand.’
‘Come on, Lucy,’ said Dad. ‘This isn’t like you. You have to make some effort.’
‘Right,’ I said, thinking, no way I’m making an effort with him, not until he learns to accept an apology with grace.
I went back to the dorm where it appeared that romance was in the air. Grace, Priscilla and Moira were all sitting on Moira’s bunk giggling like schoolgirls. Apparently, Grace had taken a shine to Jonathan or Tabula, as he liked to call himself. Moira had swopped numbers with Cycling Shorts and Priscilla had a date with Hubert the osteopath.
‘Where’s Sylvia?’ I asked, thinking that maybe I could have a chat with her or a game of backgammon or something.
‘Gone back to London to look after a friend who was having a healing crisis,’ said Prudence from her bunk, where she was eavesdropping on the others’ conversation while pretending to read. She looked put out that Priscilla had got a date and she hadn’t.
So it’s me and you, pal, I thought. The singletons. I felt lonely there without Izzie to talk to and wondered whether to go over and try to be friendly to Prudence. But she was definitely in a sulk. She put earplugs in and began to read a book. This is like being on Big Brother, I thought, and you, dear Prudence, would be the first to be voted off.
In the end, I decided to get an early night. It had been a long day and we had another six a.m. start the next morning.
Izzie was true to her word and turned up straight after breakfast on Sunday. She was flushed with excitement as she slid in beside me at the breakfast table.
‘Lucy, I’ve just met Daniel. Have you seen him? He’s drop dead gorgeous. And so sweet. We must find out if he’s single for you.’
‘Oh Izzie, give me a break. I thought we’d left all that “Let’s pair Lucy off” nonsense back in London. I have met him and I don’t like him.’
At that moment, the dining room door opened and Daniel came in. He moved among the guests, chatting, smiling and fetching them whatever they wanted from the breakfast hatch.
‘What’s not to like?’ asked Izzie, as she watched him move round the room. ‘He seems really friendly and he dresses nicely.’
I glanced over at him. He did look cool in his black jeans and black T-shirt. He helped himself to a bowl of muesli, then came over to the end of the table where we were sitting.
‘Hi,’ he said, smiling at both of us. ‘Anything I can get you?’
I shook my head.
‘I’ve already eaten, thanks,’ said Izzie. ‘But please, sit with us.’
I made a mental note to kill her later.
He looked over at me. ‘I guess we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, didn’t we?’ Then he grinned. ‘Or at least you did.’
Oh, here he goes again, I thought. ‘I said I was sorry.’
‘I know. And the phone’s fine. So let’s pretend it never happened and start again. So, hi, I’m Daniel. And my mum runs this course for escaped lunatics.’
Izzie burst out laughing and I glanced up and looked at him properly. He was very good-looking and he had made an effort to be friendly. Maybe I should give him another chance.
‘And I’m Lucy Levering,’ I said. ‘I’m here with my dad.’
‘How are you finding the weekend?’
‘Urn…’
Daniel grinned, then whispered. ‘Slow torture?’
‘It’s more Izzie’s thing,’ I said diplomatically. ‘Though I did enjoy the visualisation last night.’
‘So did I,’ he said. ‘Great excuse to have a kip. And did you hear all that snoring?’
I was beginning to warm to him.
‘So what are you into?’ he asked.
‘Oh…’
‘Fashion,’ said Izzie. ‘Lucy’s a fantastic designer. She makes loads of her own stuff.’
‘You’re kidding,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s what I want to do when I leave school. I want to go to the London School of Fashion, then go and work in Milan or Paris.’
‘Really?’ I asked.
After that, we were off. We discovered that we had loads in common and like me, he knows all the famous designers and places to get offcuts of fabric, and often goes down to Portobello to trawl round the vintage clothes shops.
I decided to test his sense of humour and told him my latest favourite joke. ‘A man is driving down a country road,’ I said, ‘when he spots a farmer standing in the middle of a huge field of grass. He pulls the car over to the side of the road and notices that the farmer is just standing there, doing nothing, looking at nothing. The man gets out of the car, walks all the way out to the farmer and asks him, “Excuse me, mister, but what are you doing?” The farmer replies, “I’m trying to win a Nobel Prize.”
“How?” asks the man, puzzled. “Well, I heard they give the Nobel Prize… to people who are out standing in their field.” ‘
He cracked up laughing. ‘OK, I’ve got one for you,’ he said.
‘What do you call a French man wearing sandals?’
‘Dunno,’ I said.
‘Philippe Philope.’
I went down my wish list mentally. Sense of humour? Tick. Into fashion? Tick.
Izzie sat watching us with a sly smile, like she was a satisfied mother whose children were playing happily together.
C h a p t e r 1 0
Shiatsu Shmiatsu
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Izzi’e was the first to point it out.
‘He’s exactly the boy on your wish list,’ she whispered as we sat at the back of an aromatherapy demonstration in the morning. ‘He’s gorgeous, medium build, fit-looking, sense of humour.’
‘But he may have a girlfriend, for all we know,’ I said, taking one of the bottles of oils that was being passed round and inhaling deeply.
Izzie grinned. ‘He hasn’t. I asked him when you went to get your fleece after breakfast.’
‘Izzie’ I said. ‘What will he think?’
‘He likes you,’ she said. ‘He asked loads of questions about you. And he doesn’t live far from us. His mum runs a clinic in Chalk Farm, so they’re just down the road.’
‘Really?’ I glanced over at Daniel, who was sitting two rows in front. Could Izzie’s wish list really have worked?
After the aromatherapy session, Chris taught us a Chinese form of self-massage called Do-In. It was hilarious, as the technique seemed to consist of us having to beat ourselves up. Sort of.
‘Clench your hand into a fist,’ said Chris, ‘and with a loose wrist, tap along the top of your shoulder, the side of your neck and as far down your back as you can reach.’
We all did as we were told, tapping along our shoulders, then legs and arms and it did seem to wake us all up. Everyone appeared to be in a better mood afterwards and the atmosphere had lightened considerably since yesterday. Daniel kept catching my eye and making daft faces as though he was in agony every time he hit himself.
Next we did shiatsu massage on our faces. We learned various points to press on, along the temple, jaw line and the sinuses, and I started to feel really good.
‘This is brilliant, isn’t it?’ said Izzie, prodding along her eyebrow line. She seemed to be enjoying it all immensely.
I nodded and looked over at Daniel. Maybe the workshop had something to offer after all.
Next on the schedule was reflexology and, as in the massage class the day before, Chris told us to pair off. Great, I thought, this time I’ll be with Izzie instead of Heavy Hands. But Izzie saw Daniel glance over at me and she turned to Moira.
‘How about I go with you?’ she asked her, then called to Daniel. ‘Hey Daniel, Lucy needs a partner.’
I went scarlet. Sometimes my friends have no shame. Daniel came straight over. Til do you first,‘ he said. ’Lie back and take your trainers off.‘
I lay on the mat and went even redder as he slid my socks off and dusted my feet with talc.
He smiled as he held my feet in his hands. ‘Little feet.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I hate being so small sometimes. All my friends are really tall. I’m the midget.’
‘Good things come in small packages,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Personally, I like small girls.’
Ohmigod! I thought, as I mentally ticked off another thing on the wish list - likes petite.
As he followed his mum’s instructions, I closed my eyes and drifted off into seventh heaven. His touch was so different to Prudence’s. He was gentle and firm at the same time. I must add this to my list, I thought. Boy who can do a good foot massage.
‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Mum taught me. It’s nice, isn’t it?’
I nodded. ‘Heaven.’
After twenty minutes, we swopped places and I was relieved to find that his feet were clean with neat toe-nails. It would have been such a disappointment if he’d ha,d smelly feet like my brother Lai’s. I began the massage and glanced at his face to make sure I wasn’t pressing too hard. He was lying back with his eyes wide open, looking up at me. I blushed furiously as a bolt of electricity went straight through me.
‘Close your eyes,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘You’re making me nervous.’
‘Good.’ He smiled, but he did as I asked and closed his eyes for the rest of the session. This is a new one, I thought. It’s strange, but massaging someone’s feet can be as much fun as snogging. Hope Dad’s not watching, I thought, as I quickly glanced over to where he was. Luckily he was busy massaging Prudence’s feet and hadn’t noticed his daughter flirting with feet only two metres away.
Izzie looked over at me from where she was being massaged by Moira. She made her eyes go cross-eyed and pulled a face. So it wasn’t so much the massage, but the person doing it with you. I thought back to the session yesterday and thanked God he hadn’t been there then. I think I would have died i
f I’d had to strip off and have him massage my back. Although, when I thought about it, it made my stomach go funny, but in a nice way.
By lunchtime, I was floating on air and I wasn’t sure whether it was all the treatments or whether it was Daniel.
‘I think I may be in love,’ I said to Izzie as we tucked into a lentil cheese loaf.
‘Thought so,’ she said. ‘I saw the way you two were looking at each other in that last session.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m going to add, “can do foot massage” to my perfect boy list. A definite requisite from now on.’
I was looking forward to the afternoon session and hoped that it would be more nice treatments. Then I’d have another chance to pair off with Daniel.
I soon realised that wasn’t to be.
‘This afternoon, we’re going to start with an exercise to vent your pent-up emotions,’ said Chris.
But I feel great, I thought. I haven’t got any, so this is going to be a waste of time for me.
‘It’s a way to release anger or frustration that you can’t express,’ continued Chris. ‘The sorts of feelings that if held in, can gnaw away at your peace of mind. I believe that negativity is better out that in, so now is your chance to let it all out.’
‘Cool,’ said Izzie, giving me a meaningful look. ‘Unfinished business.’
‘You can’t yell at your boss,’ Chris said, then looked at Iz and me and grinned, ‘or your teacher or headmistress, maybe. So I’d like you to pick a cushion from the pile in the corner, then project onto it whatever or whoever has made you angry in the past - a lover, a parent, a colleague, a neighbour, a friend or even God. As it is sometimes not appropriate to let your anger out at the person directly, this is a way to free yourself of it without any repercussions.’
‘Excellent,’ said Izzie, heading for the pile.
I reluctantly went to pick a cushion with the others. The idea seemed a bit mad to me.
‘OK,’ said Chris, ‘now let rip. You can throw your cushion, kick it, stomp on it, whatever you feel. Let your inhibitions go.’
