How Not to Be a Loser

by Beth Moran

  It would be a significant pay rise. Enough to pay for a whole lot of power breakfasts to fuel my meteoric rise as a business professional.

  I had no doubt that I could talk the talk as a senior bid writer. I had managed more than a few conference calls and video meetings without embarrassing myself (apart from the time I knocked my laptop, revealing my ratty old pyjama bottoms to the director of a flashy PR company). But could I walk the walk? Bus the bus? Catch the train to meetings with high-level management staff, march into boardrooms wearing a swanky suit and swing my laptop bag onto the conference table as if I belonged there?

  I had until the end of January to decide whether or not asking Sean for financial help was preferable to a nice promotion.

  I opened the front door and stared at the December grey until a gust of wind caught my hair, sending a shudder through my bones. I whipped the door closed. Swore. Counted to twenty, focused on my breathing, opened the door again and then shut it, this time at what I hoped comprised a normal, unhurried, well-balanced person’s speed. One day soon I would step out there into the midday sun.

  One day.

  Soon.

  I emailed my boss and told him I would think about it over Christmas.

  41

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day One Hundred and Six

  It was the best and the worst day of the year: 21 December, the shortest day. I snuck in an extra-long run, enjoyed a full pot of tea at the café and even ambled home afterwards. By half-past four I was out again, calling in at the bakery, the newsagents and the library, on a glorious, glittering roll. I strode home, dumped my bags on the kitchen table, waved off Joey for the school Christmas party and whizzed back out to meet Mel at the chapel near the square to watch Tiff and Taylor perform in a deliciously dimly lit carol service.

  Check me out – whizzing.

  Singing.

  Popping back to Mel’s afterwards for chilli-smothered nachos and the noisiest game of charades ever.

  Walking home.

  I had smashed the winter solstice. But tucked up in bed later, blissfully opening one of my new library books, I realised with a start that the shortest day meant tomorrow my confinement would start lengthening again.

  Where would I be in six months’ time, on the summer solstice?

  Cowering inside until ten every night?

  Pretending that I was fine sitting in my own garden, rather than trapped like an animal in their zoo enclosure?

  Waving Joey off on holiday with his fully-functioning parent?

  I had better not be. I’d better not be blubbing like I was now, either.

  42

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day One Hundred and Seven

  The Saturday before Christmas was another challenge day. Nathan’s turn this time, following my successful conquest of the party. Joey was spending the weekend with Ben, and I had assembled all the required components of the challenge. Nathan was not happy.

  ‘This is a complete waste of a day.’

  ‘How can doing something fun and relaxing be a waste?’

  ‘It’s not… achieving anything. It’s totally unproductive. I thought you were going to take me to the Christmas market or something.’ Nathan tugged at his hair in distress.

  ‘Wrong! It’s producing happiness and achieving relaxation instead of seasonal stress. Spending a day enjoying yourself has to be the least possible waste of time. How often do you get to completely chill out for a whole day?’

  ‘This isn’t relaxing for me. It’s gross. Chilling out is hiking in the Lakes or kayaking down a river.’

  ‘Organising a nutritional spreadsheet? Creating an ultra-marathon training programme? Lining up your running shoes in order of tread-wear?’ I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing, if you can balance it with occasionally letting things go, being spontaneous and indulgent once in a while, too. If you don’t find relaxation relaxing, then you need more practice. Here.’ I handed him a pair of men’s pyjamas. ‘Get these on, and the challenge will commence.’

  It may have been a little mean, going for stripy, gentlemen’s nightwear, but I figured Nathan probably wore a lot of jogging bottoms and T-shirts at home, and I wanted him to feel as out of his comfort zone as I had in Dani’s jumpsuit. And besides, the look worked, he looked dangerously cute and ruffled, slouched on one end of the sofa, arms crossed and brow tense.

  ‘Help yourself to snacks,’ I said, handing him a plate, my own ‘pyjama day’ wear consisting of a pair of checked lounge pants, fleecy hoodie and fur-lined slipper boots.

  ‘Thanks.’ Nathan took the plate, put it on the coffee table, then glanced at me standing there, hands on my hips. He sighed, picked up a fistful of salted caramel popcorn and dumped it on the plate. I cleared my throat, waiting until he’d added a square of brownie and a couple of crisps before loading up my own plate and taking a seat on the other end of the sofa.

  ‘Now, prepare to embrace a whole different type of marathon.’

  I clicked play.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ I asked, as the final credits rolled for the first film.

  Nathan glanced at me before looking back at the screen. ‘No.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But what?’ He picked up a chocolate truffle and ate it, confirming the definite existence of a ‘but’.

  ‘You tell me. Or don’t, if you’d rather not. You do kind of know all my embarrassing secrets, though.’

  He sighed, brushing at the crumbs sprinkled on his pyjama top. ‘I was engaged for a few months.’

  ‘I’m guessing from the look on your face that she ended it.’

  ‘Yes. But it was the right thing to do. Didn’t stop me feeling like a complete failure, though.’

  I pulled a cushion onto my lap, waiting to see if he wanted to share more.

  ‘The woman I told you about, Gill, who was attacked?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘We were engaged at the time. Although things hadn’t been right for a while, I’d been dealing with it badly, by spending more and more time doing my own thing. The day it happened, I was supposed to be meeting her for a run.’ He paused, taking a couple of deep breaths before carrying on. ‘I tried to keep things going, afterwards, pull myself together and be the man she deserved. But it turned out that instead of deserving a man who stayed with her out of guilt – and by stayed with her, I mean, literally, too terrified to leave her alone for five minutes – she deserved a man who loved and respected her.’

  ‘Chris?’ I remembered Nathan telling me his friend who’d been attacked had married Chris, who ran the Cup and Saucer. Knowing she’d been engaged to Nathan first shed a whole new light on things.

  ‘She married him less than a year after we’d split up. Turned out he’d been in love with her for ages and was just hoping I’d do the right thing and find the courage to end it before the wedding.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you’ve made sure there’s no room for dating on your weekly activity spreadsheet since.’

  Nathan shook his head, offended. ‘Not because of that! Spending my time doing things I enjoy rather than giving in to the must-be-in-a-relationship propaganda is a positive lifestyle choice. If the right woman happened to move next door or something, then fair enough, but I’m not wasting my time hunting for something I’m perfectly happy without, just because it’s popular opinion.’

  ‘Good to know. And according to rom-com scriptwriters everywhere, that’s exactly the way it’s meant to happen. As demonstrated in our next instalment of Christmas feel-good joy.’

  ‘There’s another one?’ he groaned.

  ‘This is a marathon, Nathan. You should know better than most that there’s hours to go yet.’

  ‘My marathons last well under four hours.’

  ‘Well, what kind of challenge would that be?’

  Nathan sank back into the sofa
and stuffed a cushion over his face. I smiled, grabbed a handful of popcorn and pressed play.

  Halfway through the third film, at the point where I wondered if I would start amalgamating with the cushions if I didn’t move soon, I heard a gentle whiffle. Surreptitiously swivelling my eyes across, I found Nathan, eyes closed, slumping into the squishy old sofa, head back, mouth slightly open, crumbs from his tipped-up plate sprinkled across his lap.

  I distracted myself from the sudden rush of longing to shuffle up, snuggle into his chest and drape his arm around me by picking up my phone instead. Incriminating photos taken, plate transferred to a more stable surface, the urge to rest my head on his shoulder and pretend for a few seconds that I had someone to curl up on the sofa with had refused to abate. I left Sandra Bullock gazing doe-eyed at a far less lovely sleeping man and went to heat up a lasagne.

  Nathan found me twenty minutes later, hair comically fluffed up and pyjamas rumpled. I concentrated hard on chopping up a yellow pepper, hoping the word ‘adorable’ might have stopped crashing about inside my brain before I needed to look up again.

  ‘I think I might have dozed off for a moment.’ Nathan sounded bewildered.

  ‘The snoring would indicate that, yes.’

  ‘Snoring?’ He tried in vain to smooth down the feral tufts of hair. ‘I do not snore.’

  ‘I bet you don’t sleep in the afternoon, either.’ I took a garlic and rosemary focaccia out of the oven and dropped it onto a bread board.

  ‘Once. After a twenty-four-hour race.’

  ‘Coach Gallagher, I think you might be getting the hang of this relaxing thing.’ Scooping two slices of lasagne onto plates, I carried them over to the table. ‘Either that or you’re getting old.’

  After our very late lunch/early dinner, even I had to agree that we were Christmas rom-comed out, so we switched to Scrabble. And while, yes, the professional writer in the room may have had a slight advantage, Coach Gallagher could hardly object to his clients exhibiting some competitive spirit. After losing twice, and nearly losing more than just the game over a decidedly dodgy use of a triple word score, he concluded that for the sake of our client-coach relationship we should probably stick to playing on the same team, and moved on to general lolling.

  We checked into the PoolPalforPiper JustGiving page. Donations were steadily creeping up, but there was a huge way to go before the target would look achievable.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘We’ll make most of the money on the day.’

  ‘Maybe Amelia should get publicly involved with the campaign before the day, get her official endorsement behind it.’

  ‘That might well have the opposite effect.’ I pulled my blanket up around my ears, burrowing deeper into the armchair. ‘Being that Amelia Piper is a national loser.’

  Nathan peered at me over the top of his phone. ‘Why would the council name a leisure centre after a loser?’

  ‘It’s not the whole centre, just the pool. And who else did they have? The only other famous local is a convicted serial killer. It was probably a close vote.’

  ‘You were a top UK athlete. People loved how you connected with them. And at eighteen, under enormous pressure, you handled a very difficult situation as best you could. If that makes you a national loser, then I dread to think what it means for the rest of us.’

  I shook my head, refusing to be coddled. ‘I’m worse than a loser.’ Nathan frowned as my voice broke. ‘At least a loser actually takes part. And I don’t just mean the Olympics. What am I supposed to say when Moira Vanderbeek asks me where I’ve been all decade?’

  I squinched my eyes shut, furiously trying to force the tears back inside my head where they belonged.

  ‘Okay, so I don’t know who Moira Vanderbeek is, or what she has to do with it, but look at all you’ve achieved the past few months, Amy. How can you still think of yourself like that? This is putting a serious dent in my professional credibility.’

  I whipped down the blanket. ‘Getting dressed and going outside under the cover of darkness is not an achievement. “Walked around the village, and even once – once – left the village to visit a nearby club” is hardly going to make it onto my Wikipedia page.’

  Nathan was quiet for a while. ‘Over 1.3 million people in the UK suffer from panic disorder. Around a third of them will develop agoraphobia. I think that they, and their families and friends, all the health professionals working in mental health, would be really interested to hear what you’ve overcome.’

  Note to self even while in midst of frenetic battle with inner anxiety monster: Nathan Gallagher has been doing his research.

  ‘I’m hardly a poster girl for mental well-being.’

  ‘You will be.’

  I pulled a tissue out of the box on the coffee table, unwittingly dragging out about six more with it. ‘This isn’t about me, though. It’s for Tate, and for all the other people who long to go outside and get stuck into life but are constantly hampered and obstructed by a society designed with them completely left out of the equation or the budget. They deserve this to be about them, not me providing fodder for TV panel show comedians.’

  ‘So answer the obvious questions, don’t make living a quiet life in the countryside, taking care of your son and doing a job you enjoy a big deal. Then shift the focus where it needs to be. You make a living out of persuading people to believe in companies and organisations. That must include skimming over the less desirable aspects and bigging up the stuff you want them to notice.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure your ancient crush has coloured your perspective. But thanks for the encouragement. I’ll think about it.’

  And I did, for half the night. My anxiety feeding me impressively creative worst-case scenarios, one of which resulted in Joey moving to Colorado, refusing to answer the letters scrawled from my hospital bed. But I knew that while I continued to hide, the fear of being exposed, judged, ridiculed and rejected still held me in its power. What was the point in being able to go anywhere, anytime, if inside my head I constantly looked over my shoulder in dread of someone finding out who I really was?

  I had to face this at some point. And I knew where to start.

  The other half of the night, it goes without saying, I thought about a whole twelve hours spent with another person, who wasn’t my son. I thought about how there hadn’t been one moment where I felt uncomfortable or inadequate, or anxious. For so long, so many of my thoughts and feelings had stayed in my head. With Nathan, I was learning to let them out. To laugh about them, and weep over them. I was remembering the value of listening – to someone else’s opinion, and to stories and problems and circumstances outside of my own boxed-in world. Nathan had this incredible ability to make me feel like his equal, not a client trying to get to grips with basic life skills. I supposed this was what having a friend felt like. In summary, it felt blummin’ gorgeous.

  Phew. I hoped those other feelings – the ones that tap-danced in my stomach and frolicked up and down my ribs before oozing dreamily through my arteries like warm caramel – I hoped they didn’t go and ruin it all. If past experience was anything to go by (and let’s face it, what else did I have?), allowing those feelings any credence, any say at all, would not turn out well.

  43

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day One Hundred and Ten

  Christmas Day was, well, different.

  Joey had a whole list of reasons prepared about why his dad should spend the day with us, rather than alone in his apartment. Shuffling through Christmas Eve, too tired to argue and deciding that another man in my life could only help in the Battle to Annihilate the Stupid Feelings, Joey was bamboozled by how easily I gave in.

  ‘It’s a Christmas miracle!’ he assured Cee-Cee, as they helped prepare lunch. ‘Who’d have guessed my dad would be here!?’

  ‘Not me,’ Cee-Cee muttered, ferociously scraping a parsnip. When the doorbell rang, she ignored it, despite me being elbow-deep in chestnut stuffing, the corner of one e
ye twitching as she scraped harder.

  In actual fact, the day wasn’t terrible. Sean brought presents, and after a couple of glasses of fizz, I decided I might as well enjoy them. He gave me a fitness watch – an expensive one, which played music, workouts and probably the pipe organ alongside monitoring my steps and distance.

  ‘Easy-to-read calorie counter?’ I mused. ‘Are you saying I need to lose weight?’

  But I knew that he wasn’t. And the wry smile confirmed quite the opposite – this was Sean encouraging me. Acknowledging the woman I really was, underneath my illness. Offering a token recompense for his contribution to her demise. To Joey, he gave the predictable far too many, far too expensive things. To my surprise, I shut down Cee-Cee’s tutting disapproval with a glare: it was Christmas. Joey had spent enough years being grateful for the paltry presents I carefully selected to stretch my budget as far as possible. He was owed thirteen years of successful-business-owner dad presents. And like Mel had said back when I first freaked out about the thought of Sean, Joey was not going to be spoiled by a few flashes of a credit card.

  Sean insisted on Joey helping him to do the post-lunch clean-up before they went out to play with his new drone, leaving Cee-Cee and me to undo the top buttons on our jeans and fall into a calorie-induced trance on the sofa.

  ‘You need to be careful,’ Cee-Cee said, after a while.

  Not interested in another row, I pretended to be dozing.

  ‘Closing your eyes and trying to ignore it won’t help.’ She snorted. ‘A Christmas miracle! Next he’ll be setting you and Sean up on dates and some such nonsense.’

  I groaned. ‘Joey has no illusions about me and Sean.’

  ‘Wise up, Amelia. And Joey won’t be the only one getting his hopes up if you carry on indulging his game of happy families.’