Nobody was up, of course. Dad’s light was out and his door closed. Ditto Adam. I checked just to make sure he was in, but save for myriad little blue lights from all his gadgets and a rank teenage-boy fermentation odour, the only sign of life was his rhythmic, slightly nasal breathing.
I was so tired I almost went to bed without following my nightly routine of tooth-brushing and slathering my face with pots of anti-ageing creams. Almost. But I’m ever hopeful that they will actually make a difference. Surely if all those cosmetic companies have spent a bucketload of money inventing all sorts of goop to smooth away the wrinkles, it would be a tragic waste of scientific research not to use them. These days, I thought as I stared in the mirror and rubbed in the latest miracle wrinkle-reducing rejuvenating cream, I’m not just edging towards the hilltop — I’m well and truly over the other side and hurtling towards the bottom.
• • •
I was antsy all day Saturday. Simon phoned early, suggesting a coffee, but I was up to my elbows in laundry powder, so I declined. Instead, I accepted his offer of a takeaway movie of his choice at my place.
Adam dropped me off to collect Rosie from the office car park then left Dad at St Joan’s. After a long walk with Tigger to try to exhaust him (with little success) I drove to the home to pick Dad up at four. I left Tigger drooling in the back seat and went in to find Dad in Mum’s room, hovering over her chair, looking distracted, unsettled. Mum was asleep.
Dad held up his finger to his lips. I paused in the doorway, uncertain what to do. He put her reading glasses in their case and tidied her few possessions then tiptoed over to me, indicating we should leave.
‘What was all that about?’ I asked when we reached the lobby.
‘Ach, she’s not herself today,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Has she been up to mischief again?’
He looked wary. ‘No more than usual,’ he said cagily.
‘Come on, Dad, I can tell when you’re upset. What’s happened?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.’ He ushered me through the automatic doors and I opened the car door for him.
‘Okay, Dad, what is it?’ I asked when we were sitting in Rosie’s low bucket seats.
‘She wanted to sit with Mr Jamieson,’ he replied after a moment. ‘The nurses say she thinks he’s her husband.’
‘Oh.’ I stifled a laugh. ‘Oh, I see. And how did Mr Jamieson take it?’
‘He’s not all there himself, of course. It seems like he took it pretty well.’
‘What? Do you mean … ?’
‘I don’t know what I mean, lassie. It’s all a bit distressing, I’m afraid. I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.’
‘Sure, Dad. I won’t mention it again.’ I started up Rosie and looked in the rear-vision mirror to back out of my space. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a drop of moisture spill from Dad’s eye and down his cheek. That gave me a jolt. My father wasn’t the sort to shed a tear — I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him cry. Probably never. I reached out and put my hand on his. ‘She always loved you, Dad. You and only you.’
‘I know, lassie, I know.’ He looked away. My heart went out to him, my dad, usually so tough, so practical, with an answer for everything, ever since I could remember. When my bike chain broke, he mended it; when my tape recorder started chewing tapes, he fixed it; when Arnie Simcock bullied me at school, he stopped it; when my brother Mikey and I wanted to race go-karts, he built them. He taught me to drive, to change a tyre, to change the oil in a car, and he was patience incarnate. You could never be as close to him as when you were at his side peering under a bonnet, though he’d given up long ago trying to explain the mysteries of motors to me.
He’d become so engrossed in his engines that he’d forget the time, forget to stop for lunch, forget what he was wearing. Once, Mum told us, he turned up at a funeral in his oily overalls. Not for him the show and tell of fancy clothes. To my mother’s constant dismay, he always picked out the shirt with the frayed collar, the trousers with the oil-stained cuff.
I patted the sleeve of his worn brown jersey and sighed. ‘Come on, I’ll get you home.’
• • •
I accepted Dad’s offer of getting the vegetables ready for dinner, knowing the comfort of an old ritual he’d had with Mum might help ease his pain. Once the chook was in the oven, Dad headed off to his room with the paper and I got out my laptop to catch up on emails. One from Stephanie was at the top:
From: Stephanie Scanlan
To: [email protected]
Subject: Wish you were here!
Hi sis!
Every time I arrive in this cold grey city, I swear I’ll never come again. Even in the middle of summer there’s a chill in the air and everybody looks so pale and unhappy. It’s so depressing.
I’ve been traipsing from one bookstore to another and it’s all a bit of a drag. The only bright spot was a cocktail party at some posh address in Mayfair where I met a very nice fellow who’d read several of my books and was most enthusiastic about them. You’d have liked him too. And no, he wasn’t younger than me, not this time. Purely platonic, I swear! I’m off for a massage now. It goes with the luxury hotel package so I wouldn’t want to waste it. I polished off the complementary Dom Pérignon last night, along with the foie gras, so had to make up for it in the hotel gym this morning. Very flash, like you’re inside a Greek temple. They even have an in-house personal trainer who looks a bit like a Greek god!
The summer sales are on now too — fantastic bargains. You’d love the shoes. If only I didn’t have to work!
Give my love to Dad
Steph
Well, that cheered me no end, as you can imagine, and did nothing to reduce my sister envy. But I daren’t mention it to anybody, especially not Simon when he came over to watch a Bourne DVD later that night: he already thought Stephanie was several sandwiches short of a picnic.
Adam was out flipping burgers on the night shift at McDonald’s and Dad had tactfully returned to his room after dinner, so things got a bit steamy on the sofa for a while, particularly when there was a let-up in the movie action. But I can never really relax with Simon when I know my father is just across the hall, no matter how discreet he’s being. I know that, at his age, his waterworks are likely to send him on a mission to the downstairs loo just when Simon and I are in a particularly tight clinch. Sometimes I think I’ve come no further than when I was a teenager terrified of exactly the same sort of passion-killing parental interruption. I sent Simon home with a kiss and a promise to call him later in the week.
Without Simon beside me in bed that night, I lay wide awake for what seemed like an eternity, worrying about Dad, about Mum, about Stephanie, about Adam, and most of all about that conniving cow Jacinta. What’s the bet, I anguished, that she got herself pregnant just to trap Steve into staying with her. Not all that long ago, Steve had been showing a very strong interest in coming back to me. Not that I wanted him to, of course. I’d have to be careful or people would think I was turning into the dog in the manger my mother was always on about — I might have grown out of my old teddy bear, but that didn’t mean I wanted anyone else to have it!
By Sunday night, however, I was ready to forgive the pair of them for the inexplicable pain I’d been feeling over their impending bundle of joy. After all, I rationalised, there was no way I wanted to have another baby. No thank you! But if Steve wanted to go down that path again, he was welcome.
Well, at least that’s what I thought until Charlotte came bouncing home from her weekend with the happy couple.
‘You should see all the baby gear Jacinta and Dad went out and bought on Saturday,’ she enthused, plonking herself down beside me on the sofa. She went on to describe everything until it eventually dawned on her that I might not want to know.
‘Sorry, Mum. I forgot.’
‘It’s okay, Charlotte. Don’t worry about it. I don’t want you having to censor yourself every
time you come home from seeing Dad.’ I put down my wine and offered her a glass.
‘Oh no, I’m not drinking now. I’m going to show solidarity with Jacinta and stay off it.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Did you drink when you were pregnant with me, Mum?’
That threw me. ‘Er, well … yes, one or two. Every now and then.’
‘Mu-uuum, how could you? Alcohol’s really bad for babies in the womb. They can get foetal alcohol syndrome.’
‘Yes, but we didn’t know that then. Besides, like I said, it was only the occasional drink. And you certainly never had foetal alcohol syndrome. You were over eight pounds when you were born.’
‘Well, I’m going to stay off alcohol for the next few months anyway. I don’t need it.’ She looked at me closely. ‘You know, you could do without it too, Mum. It’d be good for your figure. You’re always going on about wanting to lose weight.’ She fetched her bag, unzipped the top and fished out a booklet. ‘Look, this is the nine-month eating and exercise plan. It’s great.’
I scanned the pages as she flipped them over and praised the Lord that this sort of thing hadn’t been around when I’d been pregnant. It looked positively spartan.
‘You could do it too, Mum. Look at all these exercises. We could do them together. That would be fun. Then you could get fit and lose weight.’
‘That’s very nice of you to offer, Charlotte, but I don’t think so. I’m not pregnant.’
Although, when I glanced down at my tummy, I realised I was making a passable imitation.
Chapter 6
It’s just as well I’m not one of those conspiracy theorists because on Monday, during a heavy-going meeting with my long-time IT client Phil Wiggins, I got another tune-up about how a bit of exercise would be good for me. We’d stopped discussing finding some vehicle for him to promote his technical wizardry and attract new clients through the internet and had started talking about the weekend, over coffee. Predictably, Phil wanted to tell me all about his latest mountain-biking expedition. He’d been up mountains and over precipices and all the usual rough-and-tough stuff that computer nerds like him get up to outside work to make up for having such a lifeless job staring at a screen all day. It has always been beyond me how anyone could enjoy such discomfort on wheels and call it fun. Personally, I’ve always felt that anything you can’t do in high heels isn’t worth doing.
Phil, a short, wiry and excessively fit man in his late thirties, was winding himself up into a paroxysm of joy describing some ghastly situation he’d gotten himself into. I was thinking call the rescue helicopter, but no, he’d ridden out more or less in one piece and by the sound of it had thrived on the adrenalin rush ever since.
‘So why don’t you come with us next weekend, Penny?’ he said, out of the blue.
‘What, me?’ I suspect I squeaked.
‘Sure — you look like you’d love that sort of thing. You know, out in the fresh air, lots of exercise. You wouldn’t have to worry about going on a diet then!’
Well, he might have survived the perils of Death Valley, but he nearly didn’t survive that observation. Admittedly, I’d often confided in Phil about my latest diet or my irregular walks with Tigger. He’d been a client long enough to call a friend. But at that moment I could cheerfully have wrapped his handlebars around his head.
‘What do you mean?’ I countered. ‘I get plenty of exercise. Like when I’m running late and the takeaway’s about to close.’ I gave him a wry smile. ‘You know, Phil, if you weren’t such a treasured client of mine …’
‘Gotcha!’ he cried and burst out laughing. ‘You should have seen the look on your face.’
I could feel myself flushing bright red. ‘You really know how to hit a girl where it hurts, you dog.’
‘Sorry, Penny.’ He looked momentarily shamefaced then the twinkle returned to his eye. ‘But the offer’s always open.’
‘You’re most kind,’ I said with a tinge of sarcasm. ‘And you’re quite right, I do need to get out and exercise more. But I don’t think clambering up the side of a mountain with a bike then freewheeling back down through tussocks and rocks is quite my thing.’
Phil pointed at his scraped knees, smiled deprecatingly and said, ‘I sometimes wonder if ACC is going to tell me that one day too.’
We finished our coffee and resumed our discussion about his new product, and naturally I let the offer slide. But it did get me thinking. I’d noticed more than one shirt and pair of trousers were stubbornly refusing to do up.
Back in the car, while hurt pride was still fuelling my resolve, I phoned Directory for the number of the nearest gym and dialled it. Before I had a chance to change my mind, I found myself with a booking to see a personal trainer at lunchtime the next day.
Silly me. I’m really adept at promising to be a good girl tomorrow. I’m not so adept, however, at actually being a good girl tomorrow.
• • •
It didn’t take me long to realise that I was in no shape to be even seen inside a gym. Too flabby, too pale and too uncoordinated by far. And I didn’t have a thing to wear. Well, okay, that’s a slight exaggeration — I did have my old track pants and a number of perfectly good T-shirts. But I’d seen the ads on TV with all those Lycra-clad young women, trim, taut and tanned, in tummy-taming tops and thigh-hugging shorts. Anything unlucky enough to hug my thighs would require industrial-strength elastic to prevent terminal reverberation.
It was clear: the only way I could ever set foot inside a gym was when I was already just as trim, taut and tanned as the resident gym bunnies. But it didn’t escape my sense of irony that I stood no chance of becoming trim and taut unless I set foot inside the aforementioned gym.
So I made a small start. I cancelled my appointment with the personal trainer and, instead of spending my lunchtime at the gym, I drove to the nearest sportswear store and purchased a pair of sturdy Lycra shorts. They encased my thighs with enough industrial-strength restraints to stop them wobbling in the (increasingly unlikely) event of them being forced into star jumps or pounding a treadmill.
You’ve got to start somewhere and having the right gear is, in my opinion, as good a start as any. At least, that’s what I told Nicky when she surprised me coming out of the lift with the telltale sports shop bag.
‘I’ll believe it when I see you on the cross-trainer,’ she said.
‘Don’t be such a sceptic,’ I laughed. ‘It could happen.’
‘The only machine I can see you using at the gym is the vending machine.’
‘Four months on a rowing machine without a break should do the trick,’ Ginny threw in on her way past.
‘What would you know? You’ve never set foot inside a gym,’ Nicky called to her departing back.
‘I did once — never again,’ Ginny said, pulling a face. ‘I twisted and gyrated and jumped up and down and sweated like mad for half an hour. And that was only getting the leotard on. By then the class was over.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘You and I had a pact never to attempt anything you couldn’t do in Manolos.’
‘Just shows you I’ve learned my lesson,’ she called, before escaping to answer her ringing cellphone.
‘What colour did you get?’ Nicky asked, prising the bag open.
‘Just black,’ I replied. ‘I prefer to keep myself inconspicuous.’
‘You could have tried a bit of colour. These days gym gear is just as much of a fashion statement as what you wear on the high street.’
‘The only fashion statement I’ll be making is that black is the new black,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m not one to follow fads.’
‘No? What about those bright blue stilettos you bought?’
‘Hardly a fad,’ I said. ‘You all said you’d never be seen dead in them.’
‘Darn right,’ Ginny said, reappearing. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing you in them since the day you bought them either.’
‘Saving them for Ginny’s annual charity fancy dress, perha
ps?’ Nicky teased.
I was about to leap to my own defence when I realised they were right — I hadn’t in fact worn the periwinkle winkle-pickers anywhere outside my own dressing room.
‘No, they’re the original killer heels,’ I admitted. ‘As in, “My feet are killing me”.’
They’d seemed such a steal at the time, reduced to fifty dollars from way over three hundred. But it wasn’t until I’d put them on to go to one of Ginny’s glitterati parties that I’d realised why they were such a steal — no woman over thirty-five would be able to stand up in them for more than twenty minutes without experiencing vertigo.
So it was with a new resolve to give the pointy-toes at least one outing that I scrunched my feet into them after work later that week and tippy-toed down the road to the appointed bar for my regular Ladies’ Philosophical Society meeting.
The five of us in the society, known as Philly for short, met up years ago at one of those women’s business network events, when such things were something of a novelty. The business network had long since passed its use-by date, but we five had struck a common bond and continued to get together after work at irregular intervals for post-traumatic stress therapy. Mind you, trying to call a meeting can sometimes be harder than scheduling an appointment with Milo Weinstein, the famous facelift surgeon, as we all get so busy. But cocktail hour with the girls is better than visiting a therapist. And believe me, we have all needed the therapy at one time or another.
Take Liz, a partner in the tony law firm Cavendish McIntyre. Like the woman who lived in a shoe, Liz has more children than anyone else could cope with, but she still manages to be impeccably dressed, as if she’s just come off the set of Boston Legal, and never seems stressed. When she miscarried her sixth child, instead of crying with relief as most of us would have done, she was so upset she told us she was going to see a shrink. ‘Try a session with us first,’ we emailed her back. Sure enough, after a couple of hours, a few wines and a lot of tears and laughter, Liz announced that she felt so much better she was going to go home and try for a seventh that very night. Fran produced a pair of edible panties out of her handbag to help get Liz’s husband Graeme in the mood.
Head Over Heels Page 5
