A Dash of Reality

by Murray, Lee

  Good: ‘If that is the case, why cheat?’

  In response, Waters picks up a tumbler full of the brown concoction she’s been preparing and throws it at Good, narrowly missing the presenter’s face. Suddenly, the screen fills with a jerky picture of the floorboards as the cameraman flees. Back in the studio, Pam Pays is shocked.

  Pays: ‘Oh, my goodness.’

  Good: ‘Yes, unfortunately we’re still not sure why Asteroïde cut short the interview. Is there anything in her comments, Pamela? Does a vegan lifestyle prevent diabetes or are we talking here about another food fad?’

  Pays: ‘Sabrina, conventional wisdom suggests people suffering from diabetes should decrease their intake of starchy foods like bread and potatoes. These foods are broken down into sugars, which diabetics have trouble processing. With a vegan diet, though, we’re talking about cutting saturated animal fats and proteins. It’s quite a departure from the normal way we treat diabetes. But studies in the United States show diets low in dietary fat, particularly the saturated fats found in meat and dairy products, can turn back the clock on lifestyle-induced diabetes. We’re not recommending anyone stop taking their medication without first consulting their doctor, but it does seem as if Asteroïde’s vegan lifestyle is an alternative for people wishing to prevent the onset of the disease.’

  Good: ‘Should we all be switching to a vegan diet?’

  Pays: ‘Well, Sabrina, New Zealand’s economy depends on its meat and dairy industries - I wouldn’t want to get into a debate with the powers-that-be from those industries (she laughs) - and a strict vegan diet isn’t recommended for pregnant women or young children, but for certain people at high risk of diabetes, it could be an option.

  Good: ‘What about runners? Is Asteroïde’s diet suitable for runners?’

  Pays: ‘That’s an excellent question. I think so. As we know, runners rely on glucose stored in the muscles to fuel their performance. Ideally, these stores come from good quality carbohydrate, like pasta, eaten before the race, and then topping up their stores with gels to avoid bonking – that’s a runner’s term which means hitting the wall.’

  Good: ‘If you want to avoid bonking, eat pasta, that’s the message I’m getting.’

  Pays (giggles and blushes): ‘That’s about it, yes. However, runners do require more protein for muscle repair and recovery, and this is where vegan runners can come unstuck.’

  Good: ‘Can we talk briefly about injuries, Pamela, because we all saw Melanie take a nasty tumble at Mount Maunganu?. What’s your advice to Melanie, and to our viewers, who might be facing an injury set-back?’

  Pays: ‘Injuries are extremely frustrating for athletes, especially if they have a particular goal in mind. The old acronym RICE, which stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation still holds as a first course of treatment for running injuries. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory can also help reduce swelling and pain. These measures will sort out most injuries. But if these simple steps don’t do the trick after a few days then, Melanie would be wise to see her GP or physio to ensure there’s no serious damage. If the injury stems from a muscular imbalance, for example, the physio might prescribe strengthening exercises, or refer her to a specialist for further treatment…’

  I switch off MySky. It’s the second time I’ve watched the show in the vain hope that Ms Pays will offer some new suggestion to hasten my return to running, but the idea of undergoing a course of strengthening exercises prescribed by someone of Olaf’s ilk doesn’t hold much appeal. None, in fact. Although I might consider a dose of Asteroïde’s brown-tinted distillate if there was the slightest chance it’d subdue the pain in my knee. The joint is still swollen and bruised and frankly it hurts to buggery. No wonder people get addicted to painkillers.

  Pays is right on one score. The whole injury thing has been very very frustrating. My knee aches so much I haven’t been able to sleep. Turning over is excruciating. I’m forced to hobble about in unflattering flat shoes. And another thing; when you’re injured, people feel it’s their duty to bail you up and ask you delving questions along the lines of ‘Hurt your knee, have you? Did you have a fall? Too many white wines, was it? Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? Will it hurt if I do this?’ No, of course it doesn’t hurt. I like walking this way! No wonder Gregory House is so bloody cranky. In response, I’ve been taking my misery out on everyone, which seems reasonable since I’m the one who’s in pain. I turned up at Road Runners to join Fran and the boys for coffee, then sulked unashamedly because they’d all been out on a gleeful windswept run along the Matua peninsular without me. To spite them, I didn’t put any of the chairs away. How could I with my crook knee?

  At the office, Kirsten’s been delighted, whizzing out media releases about the grave nature of my injury and the likely negative effect on my marathon training. As far as she’s concerned, the fall on the boardwalk means I have the marathon in the bag, the little matter of my running the 42.2km aside. In her view, this little setback effectively establishes me as the underdog, thereby increasing my appeal to the New Zealand voting public who’ll always support the person least likely to succeed (except perhaps if that person is an Australian.) The delay to my training is worrying though because the event is only seven weeks away (a ridiculous timetable according to Olaf) and I’ve a heap of mileage to put in before then. Kirsten’s pop psychology hasn’t exactly pumped me full of confidence. I don’t like the thought of my fitness reverting back to that first run where my lungs hurt, my skin itched and I ached all over. No way am I going back there. Nor do I like the thought of my fellow competitors getting the march on me. It’s driving me nuts.

  On the plus side, I’ve been granted a small reprieve from my workouts with Olaf until I’m up and running again, which Oaf believes is only the matter of a week, two at the outside, with proper rest. This means I’m footloose and Olafless this evening so I decide instead of blobbing about here feeling sorry for myself, I’ll pop in to Janeen’s and feel sorry for myself there. At least, I’ll get some sympathy.

  My timing is perfect because Janeen has the kettle on. Caro’s been out to the Riding Centre again and is rosy-cheeked and full of chat. Janeen sets Caro up at the kitchen table with a Milo and a blueberry muffin. Caro’s chatter trails off as she munches.

  ‘That looks yummy.’ Caro nods enthusiastically, and Janeen pushes the plate of muffins across the table in my direction.

  ‘I can’t,’ I whinge, ‘muffins are not on my eating plan.’

  Reaching for a muffin, Janeen takes a large bite. ‘Poor you,’ she mumbles through muffin crumbs, giving me licence to launch into the rant I’ve been dying to get off my chest.

  ‘Don’t I know it! I’m always ravenous these days. It’s the running. It makes you hungry. And I’m not even running. God, this knee is a pain. You can’t imagine how difficult it is getting up stairs with a gammy knee when you’ve got a gym bag and a handbag over one shoulder, a litre of milk in your hand and still juggling the keys. Simple daily activities like getting in and out of the car hurt, and don’t get me started on the flippin’ stairs! I had to get Jack to come over and take the rubbish bag down. It’s like being a baby and learning to walk all over again. Honestly, people have no idea how damn hard it is to get around until something like this happens…’ I look up, horrified. I’ve forgotten who I’m talking to. I feel myself turn the hot pink of Barbie’s knickers.

  Hit me over the head with a shame stick.

  Janeen raises her eyebrows and says nothing. She sips her tea and studies the top of her muffin.

  ‘Sorry,’ I whisper.

  S’okay,’ Aunty Mel,’ says Caro, wiping her blueberry-stained fingers on her sweatshirt. She slides her hand over the table toward me. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get better.’

  I give her my warmest smile. ‘You know what, Caro? I am going to get better. Janeen, can I borrow your phone book please? It’s time I did something about this knee.’

  46

  The room is windowless. Whit
e paintwork. Fluorescent lights. Soundproof. The kind of room you read about in thrillers where ruthless bad guys hide the kidnapped heiress. The kind of room where smiling gentlemen in pinstripe suits politely suggest that it’s in the best interest of the retired FBI operative to complete an impossible mission requiring the discovery and resolution of conspiracies instigated by those in the highest echelons of power, all to be conducted without alerting rival enforcement agencies, and all before lunch time on Tuesday if he plans to see his sweetheart, child, aging grandmother and faithful pooch again. The furniture is plain; two metal office chairs, a desk, an exam table and a gunmetal bookcase in the corner. The walls free of portraits of pudgy toddlers or squiggly abstract artworks. What are evident are certain steel accoutrements exhibited in exact sterile lines.

  I exert my powers of peripheral vision to spy the room’s other occupant. Clad in a stiff lab coat, he’s reading from a cardboard folder, presumably my file. He smiles in the disarming manner that bad guys have. Anticipating the pain he’s about to inflict. Why is it that nasty thugs have such great job satisfaction? Something to do with the use of sharpened implements perhaps.

  Supine on the examining table with white light focused in my face, I twist my head fractionally. The square of white paper towel under my head crackles. Instantly on alert, the practitioner interrupts his study, closing the folder and approaching the examining table. I turn my head back to the light. There are no niceties.

  ‘The pain’s on the lateral aspect of your right knee. Is that right?’ Too scared to speak, I nod. ‘And on a scale of one to ten how would you rate the pain, if one is a twinge and ten is excruciating?’ Straight to the heart of the matter. Squinting into the light, I answer. ‘When does it hurt more; going upstairs or going down?’ As he talks, he manipulates my knee, pressing mercilessly into points, kneading the tissue, administering pain without leaving evidence of his passage. ‘What about walking? And does this hurt?’ He probes cruel fingers into injured sinews.

  ‘Yes,’ I squeak.

  I sense a flicker of movement as he nods, satisfied. ‘Does this?’

  Jeepers! A flinch.

  ‘What about here?’ It’s a ten. Definitely, a ten. I want to leap off the table, but he’s already moved elsewhere, searching out weaknesses, mauling my bruised flesh. ‘And this? Does this hurt?’ he asks again. Instinctively, I realise it doesn’t do to antagonise him. There’s no point denying my anguish. It’s what he wants to hear.

  ‘Yes, it hurts. Especially there.’

  ‘Sit up, swing your feet over the side of the table and extend your right foot out.’

  Perhaps I’ll get a good look at my persecutor now, but I’m not permitted.

  ‘Look straight down, curve your back and invert your right foot,’ he commands. Invert? ‘Turn it inwards.’ He reads minds, too. I do as I’m told. A strange dependency has evolved. ‘Does that hurt? Show me where.’ I indicate. ‘Be more specific.’

  It’s hard. The pain is widespread and relentless, branching from my hip, through the back of my leg and whipping back to target the knee joint. In this position, my leg feels like an old bicycle bungy cord, complete with frayed ends and sheared fibres. A constant tremble rocks my body.

  ‘Lie down on your side and face the wall.’ I don’t dare disobey. I flip over and bury my face in the paper towel, aware it smells faintly of Lysol. The room becomes strangely quiet. Where’s he gone?

  Suddenly, a shooting white pain assaults me, raw exposed nerve endings. A needle inserted between muscle fibres, searing from buttock to knee. My hands are clammy with sweat. The switchblade twists, gauging deeper, severing synapses. Another electric shock causes my leg to spasm. On a scale of one to ten, it’s a 20.

  Cruciatus!

  I force myself to endure, bite back a wail. I want to beg him, please stop, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

  ‘You bent the needle,’ the acupuncturist says. ‘Sometimes that happens. A very tight muscle will close around the needle.’ He rocks my leg gently, shaking out the last of the spasms. It wobbles unflatteringly. ‘The fall has emphasised a restriction in your gluteus muscles causing a lateral rotation of your leg. This in turn creates pressure on your knee, making it track to the right. You should be fine now. I’ll give you some exercises to stretch your glutes out and keep them fluid. You can hop down.’

  Still shaking, I descend. Gingerly, I try out my gammy knee. I press down gently, take a tentative step. Hey! There’s a residual ache, but that’s all. I take a couple of assertive paces. Amazing! I take a look at the physio and consider rewriting my will in his favour.

  Look out. I’m back.

  47

  Tonight is the launch of Ben and Charlie’s new book, Fit, Phat Food which Ben describes as a coffee table book of simple healthy tasty recipes for a ‘fit, phat nation.’ Incredibly, Ben wangled a second government grant on the proviso that for each Fit-Phat book sold he and Charlie will donate $5 to the Diabetes Association. The association is in turn endorsing the contents. It’s all very philanthropic, ‘Bengenious’ and disturbingly incestuous.

  Nevertheless, the launch appears to be a roaring success. Like fluff to a black sweater, a good dusting of the local influential, rich and wannabe famous have turned up this evening at the posh Villa Rose Winery. In one corner of the converted chapel, Charlie’s been emulating the Karate Kid, signing the inside of book jackets with a ‘wipe on, wipe off’ sweep of fat black marker. The ready-open boxes of splashy coloured books suggest Myabi-Ben is likely to have him there for a while longer.

  Much to my irritation, Daddy’s Little Girl is here. She’s sidled up as close behind Charlie as she can, her hand on his shoulder in sisterly affectation...er...affection, no doubt hopeful some of Charlie’s celebrity will rub off. Charlie, though, looks drawn and pale.

  Poor Charlie.

  Burning the caramelising torch at both ends, no doubt.

  Popping the strap of my blood red cocktail dress back on my shoulder, I turn away from Charlie and Cherry to face my party.

  ‘So, they got lost?’

  ‘Yes, two of them.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

  ‘Nope,’ I say. I pop my empty flute on a silver tray. There are no full glasses.

  ‘Crikey!’ squawks Janeen, who’s about cram a tuna-soya-mushroom in her mouth. ‘First the Watergate scandal, and now this. What a fiasco!’ she says, her mouth now full. ‘Ooh, these are scrummy. Try one, Mel. Poor Jack. Missing these. What’s he got on tonight that he couldn’t come?’

  ‘Mid-year reports.’

  ‘Too conscientious. Where’d the girl with the platter go, then?’

  Said girl had been making doe-eyes at my date for the past ten minutes, letting him know that more than tuna-soya-mushrooms could be handed out on a platter if Rico were so inclined. Thankfully, she’s taken her platter off elsewhere now, although it’s flattering to be accompanied by a man who’s positively smoking in black tie. It reminds me how gorgeous Jack looked last November at the wedding of one of his uni mates, and a certain interlude we enjoyed in an empty storage room during the interminable family photographs. I push it out of my mind.

  ‘Then what happened?’ Nandor presses. For this evening his Jesus-hair has been raked back in a ponytail and he’s dressed in a dark suit jacket with stove-pipe pants, as far as Nandor will go to comply with a dress code. A fibrous scarf in red and orange, most likely Janeen’s influence, lends him a rakish bohemian look. ‘Yes, what happened to your AWOL competitors?’ Janeen coaxes.

  ‘Oh, they turned up safe and sound, didn’t they, Mel? says Rico, re-joining the party with a fresh glass of champagne and surprising me with his attentiveness. ‘No-one can say for certain what happened. There were marshals posted every other kilometre along the course, but for some reason Carline and Sione failed to turn up at the 12km checkpoint.’

  ‘How did they manage that?’

  ‘The thing is,’ says Rico, leaning in toward Janeen, ‘when you
’re deep in the forest surrounded by the wind rustling the leaves, water dripping from virgin fronds, the song of the tui and the rhythm of your own breathing, it’s easy to lose yourself to your thoughts. You forget your point of reference.’

  ‘Really?’ scoffs Janeen, determined not to succumb to Rico’s attempts to charm her. ‘Hey Mel, did that guy over there go to Hamilton Boys High? One of the Argyle House residents?’ I look over, but don’t see anyone I recognise from our schooldays.

  I shake my head. ‘Didn’t see, sorry.’

  ‘So what did they do?’ demands Nandor. ‘Let me guess, they followed a trail of breadcrumbs until they came to a house made of candy canes?’

  ‘Ha! Ha!’ Rico’s laughter is full of bonhomie. ‘No, not at all. Nothing so romantic. The two of them came out at the south end of Mokoroa Bush Reserve, none the worse for wear after circling the trails for an extra three hours. They ran smack into a search and rescue team making ready to come in and find them.’

  ‘Bet they were buggered.’

  ‘The search team? Not at all,’ Rico twinkles his eyes at Janeen. Full flirt mode.

  ‘He means Carline and Sione!’ says Janeen.

  ‘They were exhausted,’ I say. ‘Luckily, Carline has three kids so she doesn’t go out unprepared. She was carrying a CamelBack with water, extra thermals and a few muesli bars, all of which she shared with Sione.’

  ‘I’m having a vision of Sione squeezed into one of Carline’s thermals,’ jokes Rico.

  ‘The organisers are calling foul play,’ I explain for the benefit of Janeen and Nandor. ‘The search people discovered some of the marshalling arrows were pointing in the wrong direction. Plumley believes they may have been deliberately tampered with by local teenagers...’

  ‘Anarchy is a form of self-expression,’ Nandor states.