‘I’m a personal trainer. Mostly. I love coaching the swim club, and the Larkabouts helps me sleep at night. I’ve only ever stalked one woman.’
‘By one woman, you do mean me?’
Nathan laughed. ‘I’ve told you, you’re the only woman crazy enough in these here parts to run solo at night.’
‘While sober, anyway.’
‘Fair point.’
‘So what kind of clients do you have, Mr Personal Trainer?’
Nathan rolled his shoulders. ‘All sorts. People rehabilitating after injuries or surgery. Wanting to lose weight for a wedding. Midlife crises. Quite a few who suspect their partner is having an affair. Or are recently divorced and trying to feel better about themselves.’
We entered the car park, where up ahead a group of women lounged against the wall of the centre, or sat on the steps outside the main reception. As they saw Nathan approaching, half of them stood to attention, or started doing stretching poses. Ones which seemed to focus on the chest or bottom area. Well, gotta stretch out those glutes before a good run, I suppose.
‘And how many of them are female?’ I asked, letting some mischief leak into my voice.
Nathan sighed. ‘I get a lot of clients through the Larkabouts. Or mums of the swim club kids. And more women use personal trainers than men. Plus, more women tend to be free during the day, which is when I like to work.’
‘All of them, then?’
‘No! Not all of them. And I resent the implication that people only hire me because…’ He trailed off.
‘Because what?’ I asked, all innocent. I’d spent many a long hour, once upon a time, hanging out with ridiculously fit, confident guys who oozed testosterone. Banter and jibes were the way we’d expressed sportsmanship, built team bonds. It felt weirdly comfortable slipping back into this role. Like being a teenager again.
Only Nathan was my coach, not my squad-mate. And I was not a teenager. I was a thirty-two-year-old mum who looked nearer to fifty. An unfit, messed-up, frumped-up, full-on failure.
Get a grip, Amy. Know your place!
‘Hi, Nathan!’ the Larkabouts chorused as we reached them.
‘Who’s this?’ one woman asked, looking me up and down. She was probably one of Nathan’s clients. Rail thin, apart from balloon boobs bursting out of her running top, with a massive dark ponytail, taut face and wrinkled neck.
Before I could coordinate my jellified legs to turn around and sprint right back out of there, never to return, I heard a familiar voice.
‘Amy! Ey up! ’Ow’s yer ankle?’ Mel barrelled through the group, which took some doing given her girth, and reached up to give me a hug, holding on until my anxiety unclenched its claws from my lungs and I could breathe again.
‘It’s great, thanks,’ I mumbled. ‘I like your hair.’ It was purple today, scraped into several teeny bunches all over her head.
‘Yeah, the girls did it.’
I remembered from our previous conversation that Mel had two girls and three boys. Her girls were six and eight, the boys seventeen, thirteen and four. ‘Five kids, four dads,’ she’d scoffed. The first two were with her childhood sweetheart, who she’d married at eighteen. ‘Then, that monster-evil cancer got him. And I plum lost me mind with grief. I was that lonely without him, I fell from one crappy mess into another. Only good to come out of them bad years were Taylor, Tiff and Tate. Then, with Tate being the way he is and all, I woke up. Pulled meself together. Started running and met people like Dani. So, family Malone’re back on the straight and narrer now.’
‘Is Gordon looking after them?’ I asked. Gordon was the relief carer for her youngest son, Tate, who had a rare chromosome disorder resulting in multiple disabilities. I reckoned if Gordon was looking after all those kids at six in the morning, he might actually be an angel who simply moonlighted as a care worker for kicks.
‘Nah. No point. They never wake ’til I get back. And if they do, Jordan’ll stickLove Islandon; they’re addicted to that crap.’
‘Jordan’s the eldest?’ I made no comment on my opinion about children watchingLove Island. Who was I, mother of just one child, to judge?
‘Yeah. I call him my lifeguard. Mostly I try to let him have a normal teenage life. You know, sleepin’, eatin’, on his phone, chasin’ girls and gettin’ inter trouble. But he always spots when I’m at the end of me tether. Runs me a bath or cooks dinner. “I’ll be Mum today,” he says. Gets the younger ones playin’Minecraftor summat. Him and the Larks, they’re the reason I’m still sane.’
‘Still sane?’ a young woman with gorgeous black hair tumbling round her hoodie asked, in a strong Welsh accent. ‘Who you trying to kid?’ She turned towards me. ‘Bronwyn. You must be Amy,’ she said, and gave me a massive wink with huge brown eyes.
‘Um.’
‘Yeah, Mel and Dani’ve told us all about you,’ she grinned.
Right. Not Nathan then.No, Amy! Of course not!
