*
She still looked deep in thought this morning. They gathered at the same table in the bar for an early breakfast of hand-rolled (whatever that meant) muesli and summer berries, washed down with unsweetened apple juice. It was fairly tasty but not very fulsome. Rose wished they could be breakfasting on bacon and eggs, or, at least, enormous croissants with shedloads of butter and jam. Some women at the neighbouring table – a gaggle of twenty-something blondes – were drinking Buck’s Fizz, she noted, with acute jealousy. Lucky cows. They obviously weren’t on the Health and Rejuvenation Package and didn’t have an obstacle course to do today; they were probably going to lie by the pool and flick through magazines while their big toes were gently massaged with jojoba oil.
Wendy was pensive and Rose, Sal and JoJo were hardly animated themselves: they were all studiously avoiding the elephant in the room, or rather, the ex-boyfriend in the stunning Cotswold manor house. It was a massive deal – Wendy’s hot old flame was not long forgotten and Down Under, but ready to be remembered all over again and under the same roof as them for the next two days. The situation hardly made for bright, chirpy conversation this morning, as three-quarters of them constantly had one eye on the door. Rose hoped Wendy couldn’t detect something was up.
‘Where are we meeting for this damned assault course?’ asked Sal, chewing disconsolately on a spoonful of dry muesli. She’d overslept and had had to be bundled down for breakfast all grumpy.
‘Beyond the swimming pool,’ said JoJo, ‘The brochure on my bedside table said it was taking place somewhere called The Shaded Glen.’
‘It sounds quite nice,’ said Rose hopefully.
‘It won’t be,’ snarled Sal, ‘it’ll be some muddy hell. Morning, Tamsin.’
Tamsin appeared at the table clutching her phone. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ she said. ‘Work stuff.’ She sat down.
Looking at Sal, JoJo frowned and curled her hand round her glass of cranberry juice. ‘I still can’t reiterate enough how sorry I am I booked the wrong package, guys. I’ll never live it down!’
‘No, you won’t,’ declared Sal. ‘We’ll always hold it against you. I’m joking,’ she added, clearly seeing JoJo look quite distressed. ‘Look, it’ll be fine. It’ll be a laugh, I’m sure. Well, it won’t be, but we’ll try and make it one. Don’t worry, JoJo,’ she continued, ‘I’m secretly rather pleased your perfectly organised façade has crumbled into dust. It makes you more human. Next thing we’ll know, you’ll be waving your knickers around or – shock horror – having relations with a man!’
‘Well, now you’re just being silly,’ laughed JoJo. She glanced at Tamsin. ‘I bet you don’t have time for a boyfriend, do you, Tamsin? With the amount of work you obviously have to do?’
Tamsin smiled. ‘Not really,’ she offered.
‘Why are you so busy, Tamsin?’ asked Rose.
‘I’m trying to make partner,’ she replied. ‘Still not easy in a man’s world, but I’ll get there. I had to bring a load of case notes with me this weekend – hence the enormous suitcase.’
‘JoJo studied law, you know, a hundred years ago,’ said Sal.
‘I did,’ admitted JoJo. ‘Family pressure at the time. It wasn’t for me.’
‘Family pressure can be huge,’ agreed Tamsin and Wendy shot Rose a worried look.
JoJo’s phone started vibrating, loudly, from inside her bag – it caused the bag to move slowly up the table, like a black leather tortoise. Aware everyone was looking at her, she grabbed the phone, looked at it swiftly, tapped out a one-line text, then crammed it back in her bag.
‘Actually, I do have a boyfriend,’ said Tamsin. ‘His name is Hugo. He’s a solicitor. We try to make what little time we have for each other, although it’s hardly quality. We’re both usually on our phones all the time, working.’ She shrugged resignedly.
‘That’s really sad,’ said JoJo.
‘What are you talking about. Mrs Can’t Leave Your Gadgets Alone?’ spluttered Sal. ‘What’s sadder is you not putting yourself out there at all! Don’t you think it would make you happy to have someone in your life?’ she added, more kindly.
‘You’ve changed your tune!’ teased JoJo and swiping at her with a napkin. ‘Mrs Love ’Em and Leave ’Em. And, no, I don’t. Happy is work,’ said JoJo and she and Tamsin looked at one another.
‘Yes, happy is work,’ said Tamsin quietly. They were still looking at each other. After a while they both had to look away.
‘Hey!’ said Sal, suddenly. ‘We’d better go, hadn’t we? It’s nearly half past.’
They all stood up. ‘Hang on, what are we supposed to wear for this assault course?’ asked Rose. ‘Apart from trainers, I didn’t bring any fitness gear, did you? I thought we’d be wearing those lovely white dressing gowns most of the time.’
‘God knows!’ said Sal. ‘I hope they don’t expect us to do it in our pants!’
Heidi, from Reception, was walking towards them. Her braids today were of the Princess Leia variety and she was carrying a large canvas bag with ‘The Retreat’ embroidered across the front.
‘You were supposed to pick this up from reception,’ she said, a pretty scowl on her face, as she stopped at the table.
‘What is it?’ asked Sal.
‘Fitness wear, for your time here at The Retreat.’ She handed Sal the bag, who rifled through it and started pulling out items of clothing. She brandished a cropped top saying ‘Choose Health!’ in the air, followed by a bright pink pair of what looked like school PE knickers, with The Retreat emblazoned in gold on the bum.
‘I am not wearing these!’ exclaimed Sal hotly.
Heidi smiled sweetly, looking quietly thrilled. ‘Everyone has to wear the same, I’m afraid, for all of our fitness pursuits, and these pieces do look fabulous in our promotional photos.’
‘You haven’t seen my legs!’ gasped Sal. ‘And no one is taking a picture of me in these pants! Dear Lord, they’re all the same,’ she cried, continuing to rummage through the bag and holding up another pair of bright pink pants. ‘Bloody gym knickers!’
‘It’s entirely up to you, of course—’ Heidi smiled ‘—if you wear them or not, but if you do not wish to wear the attire then you will not be permitted to take part in the assault course—’
‘Hurray!’ called out Sal.
‘—and if you don’t take part in the assault course you forfeit your place on the Package and will be required to depart from the premises. No refunds,’ Heidi added.
‘We’ll wear the attire,’ sighed JoJo. ‘We’re amongst friends. Who cares if we look totally ridiculous?’ Rose knew JoJo would care – she was always well turned out – this would be her personal idea of hell. Rose looked at Tamsin again – another permanently well-turned out woman – but she didn’t look too horrified. She was all toned though, wasn’t she? She probably looked all right in just her pants.
‘It’ll be great,’ said Wendy, her going-along-with-it attitude coming to the fore. ‘Honestly. Let’s do it. Let’s wear the stuff and do the assault course – you never know, we might surprise ourselves.’
‘Ok˚, Wendy,’ said Sal, resignedly, ‘your hen weekend, your decision, but if anyone, and I mean anyone, tries to take a photo of me in these repulsive clothes then I’ll have their guts for garters!’
They went up to their rooms to get changed. Rose chose a top from the bag that said ‘Sweat Like a Pig to Look Like a Fox’ which was probably the worst one, to be honest, but what did it really matter, especially considering what they were teamed with? The PE knickers were horrendous: one size fits all, sadly – they were all very small but extremely stretchy, to optimistically fit all frames. Yeah, right. She looked in the mirror and burst out laughing. The t-shirt was too tight and rode up her stomach like a wayward bus and the PE knickers cut into her bum cheeks and made her hips look massive. She looked like a tarty, slightly less rotund (but getting there) Bessie Bunter on sports day – horrific. And Sal didn’
t look much better. Her t-shirt said ‘Sore Today, Strong Tomorrow’, her bottom was also straining for release and for ironic and rebellious effect she’d tied one of the curtain tie backs round her forehead like a ninja warrior. Heidi better not spot that, thought Rose.
They met the others in the corridor. Wendy was sporting ‘No Excuses’, in cobalt blue; JoJo, ‘Don’t Wish For It, Work For It’ (very apt for her, Rose thought), in yellow; and Tamsin was declaring a good old-fashioned ‘No Pain No Gain’ in pale lilac. Excellent; they all looked utter cretins.
‘Let’s do this,’ said Sal, in a cheesy American accent, and they headed for the lifts, Wendy pinching everyone’s bums (except Tamsin’s) and squealing how much fun this was all going to be. It was all very funny, thought Rose, so far, but she failed to see how an assault course could be fun. It was bound to be absolute torture.
‘Nice pants.’
‘Thanks,’ Rose said automatically. They were coming out of the lifts. A man was coming in. She looked round and the man who had spoken was the blond Adonis, from last night. ‘Hi,’ she added, quite redundantly and rather embarrassingly.
‘Hi yourself,’ he replied, with a grin, before the lift doors closed on him.
‘Who was that?’ asked Wendy, as they made their way through the lobby to the front entrance.
‘Rose’s hunky admirer,’ said Sal.
‘He’s not my admirer,’ said Rose. ‘He’s just a bloke I literally bumped into last night.’
‘He is hunky though,’ conceded Wendy. ‘Very handsome.’
‘And he admires Rose,’ said Sal, matter-of-factly. ‘He’s got that glint in his eye when he looks at you. I know that glint.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Rose. ‘Only because you’re getting glints left, right and centre at the moment. Are you sure you’re not just imagining things because of all the action you’ve been getting with your hot chef? Some of us are glint-free.’
Even as she said it, and attempting to protest too much, Rose knew she was beaming and that everyone could probably tell she was. Sal thought a handsome man had a glint in his eye for her! This was quite epic for Rose, especially these days. Her home life was definitely glint-free. There was nothing like that in Jason’s eye when he looked at her. All she could see in his eye, these days, was slight disappointment, the kind of low-level contempt bred from familiarity and an eternal and unspoken ‘have you done my washing?’
They didn’t connect any more. What with the travelling and the snoring and the fact neither of them made a blind bit of effort with each other, there was nothing much to connect. It wasn’t even that they took each other for granted; they simply never saw each other, and when they did, they never saw each other, not really. They were not merely ships in the night, but ghosts, shadows of their former, better-looking, more fun and interesting selves, who slipped past each other in that house, unseeing. It was horrible really. Rose had tried to call Jason the other night, before she went to bed. Hong Kong was seven hours ahead so Jason would have been just at his desk. His mobile wasn’t answered, so she’d tried the work line and that bloody Susie had answered it and had trilled at Rose that Jason had just got in but had popped off to get himself some breakfast. Rose had put the phone down in a rage. Rose wasn’t stupid. The pair of them just thought she was.
Ugh. Rose stuffed her feelings about Jason to the back of her mind. She had an assault course to get on with, in very bad pants. The group of friends – and Tamsin – walked down the side of the pool house towards the wooded area in the distance that must be The Shaded Glen.
‘Oh, blimey, look at those lot, lording it up,’ Sal said as they passed the pool house’s massive windows. She pointed out a row of white dressing gown-clad blondes reclining on loungers at the edge of the pool and having their palms massaged. ‘I saw them in the restaurant last night.’
‘I saw them at breakfast,’ added Rose, staring at them. ‘Knocking back Buck’s Fizz.’
‘Lucky cows,’ said Tamsin, out of nowhere. She was phoneless, for once – there wasn’t anywhere to fit it in the gym knickers. ‘Still, they’ll get fat, just lying there. We’re going to get fit.’
‘Quite right, Tamsin!’ said Sal, winking at the others and linking her arm through Tamsin’s, who didn’t shrug it off.
‘It might even be fun?’ suggested the criminal lawyer. She looked at JoJo, who shrugged.
They all marched down to the woods. In the centre was a clearing. And in the clearing were sights that would make anyone’s heart stop, man or woman, young or old. A massive trench of muddy water with a climbing net at the far end, a brick wall facing them at the other, and ropes hanging from a horizontal bar along one side. A series of huge tyres, laid out in rows on the right bank of the trench. Three long metal tubes wedged into the ground on the left bank. And an enormous commando net stretched over the far corner of the clearing and secured to the ground with giant tent pegs.
‘Oh my God,’ said Rose, any little bravado she may have had disappearing on the warm summer breeze. ‘I’m not going to be able to do any of that! I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. I barely survived a maiden Zumba class.’ It was true, she’d struggled. Once was definitely enough in her case and the woman running it had been scary; she’d looked like Rosa Klebb from the James Bond films and had shouted too much. Rose wondered what the instructor for this seventh gate of hell would be like. They’d all seen An Officer and a Gentleman – it was one of Rose’s favourites – and everyone knew how horrible assault course instructors were. They were the devil.
‘One of those pegs is loose,’ said Tamsin, and she sprinted all businesslike to the commando net.
‘I bet she was top badge earner in the Girl Guides,’ noted Sal with a smile. ‘Head girl, too,’ she added.
‘I expect Frederick was head boy,’ said Wendy, ‘although I don’t actually know.’ She looked sad about that, and bent down to retie her shoelace.
There was a rustle, from somewhere behind where they were standing. Someone was coming. A tall figure, clad in camouflage gear and huge, military boots was walking towards them. Rose wondered at first, her heart suddenly and bizarrely pounding like crazy, if it was the Blond Adonis running this activity, but no such luck. Their luck was out and so was Wendy’s.
Steve Marsden – the Steve Marsden – was heading in their direction.
‘Oh, crap!’ muttered Sal.
‘Oh, no!’ cried JoJo.
‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Rose.
‘What’s the matter?’ Wendy asked, bobbing back up from the ground and looking at them, perplexed.
‘You may want to cover your eyes,’ said Rose, at a loss what else to say. There was no escape – they couldn’t wrestle Wendy to the ground, or slap their hands over her eyes, or make a makeshift blindfold out of PE knickers – Wendy was going to see Steve and they’d managed to keep her away from him for . . . ooh . . . about a quarter of a day. Damn, damn, damn! What was Steve doing running the bloody assault course?
‘Why?’ said Wendy, and then her voice dropped by about ten octaves, to a near whisper. ‘Oh my good God.’
Steve Marsden was now standing right in front of them and looking from face to face with a highly amused expression on his.
‘Well, I never did,’ he said. ‘Sal, Rose, JoJo . . . and Wendy. How the devil are you, Hammington?’
Wendy looked like she had seen a ghost. She stumbled slightly on the uneven ground; Sal grabbed her arm and held her steady.
‘Steve,’ she stammered. ‘Steve. I don’t think I can be seeing straight. I don’t believe this. What are you doing here?’ She now turned bright red and started to sway slightly, despite the fact that Sal still had hold of her arm. Rose really hoped she wouldn’t faint.
‘It’s been a very long time, Ms Ham,’ said Steve, not answering the question, and a charming and friendly smile lighting up his still-handsome face. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m good. I’m very well
, thank you,’ replied Wendy, robotically, like she was answering a distant aunt on an obligatory Boxing Day visit. ‘How are you?’
‘Fantastic, thanks.’
There was a beat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I own The Retreat,’ Steve said, rather smugly, Rose thought. ‘I built up a fitness business in Brisbane, sold it and came back here to do the same thing. I’ve sold three businesses in the UK now, and bought The Retreat a year ago.’ He seemed to wait for applause and admiration. None came, although Wendy did look suitably dumbstruck. ‘And I run the world-famous Physical Stamina Optimiser Challenge here. Some like to call it an assault course; I like to call it fitness heaven—’
‘When . . .’ stuttered Wendy, her face now pale again. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her face in a stretchy Alice band – Rose knew Wendy hated her hair like this and would be itching to pull it free and toss it around her shoulders, for confidence. ‘When did you get back? From Australia?’
‘Ten years ago.’ Steve was standing with his legs quite far apart, like a tripod. He looked so proud and confident, thought Rose, the complete opposite to Wendy who looked like she was about to expire.
‘Ten years ago!’ Wendy came to life again; blood rushed to her face returning it to bright pink and she jerked up straight, her eyes wide.
Steve laughed. ‘Time flies, eh?’ he said with a chuckle. ‘I did think about calling you, but I didn’t know if you’d want me to. It’s been a long time,’ he repeated. ‘But I must say, it’s pretty good to see you, Hamster, you’re looking really well.’ He had the remains of an Australian accent; it suited his still-charming voice.
‘Of course I didn’t want you to call me!’ tinkled Wendy in a shrill high laugh Rose didn’t think she’d heard before. The others looked at each other in alarm. Wendy was totting it all up, wasn’t she; all those months and years she was single, or with hopeless blokes, while all the time her first love was back in the country. ‘But thank you for the compliment,’ she managed to utter. ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’
Four Bridesmaids and a White Wedding: the laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of the year! Page 8
