I wondered if Bronwyn was Nathan’s client, too. I could imagine them in the gym together, him correcting her squats posture. Her dabbing at the sweat on her face and neck with a tiny towel…
‘And this is everyone else. Everyone, Amy’s finally turned up!’ she called. ‘I won’t bother with names; you’ll figure us out soon enough.’
Nathan started off by taking us through a few stretches, occasionally throwing out a pointer and ignoring the comments the women shouted back, one after the other like machine guns:
‘You try doing that with your legs at my age!’
‘Blummin ’eck, Nathan, I’ve given birth to five kids, I could ’ave a go at that move, but the results wouldn’t be pretty.’
‘I’ve had two and I’m not going there.’
‘I’ve had none and I still don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘No one should be attempting that at this time in the morning, love.’
‘No one should have towatchyou attempt it…’
‘At any time!’
And so it went on. Boy, these women could talk. While simultaneously jogging on the spot, sticking their faces down between their knees and, a short while later, their head torches bobbing down the old railway line towards the woods.
Except for one woman, I’d guess not far into her twenties, who was the only one apart from me to save her breath for the run. She was tall like me, too, but with a much more solid build. One of those bodies made to carry some curves. I guessed that in the right clothes, with the right attitude, she’d make a stunning plus-sized model. Slumped at the back in a tracksuit that looked borrowed from a ’90s rapper, head down, shoulders hunched, face miserable, she appeared nearly as much of a lost, lonely loser as me.
‘Audrey!’ the woman with the massive fake hair and balloon boobs shrieked back at her every few hundred metres. ‘For pity’s sake, put some effort in. Even Mel’s beating you. Do you want to be fat? Stay single for the next twenty-one years?’
‘Shut up, Selena,’ several of the women panted.
‘It’s not a competition.’ Nathan had spent this first mile or so zipping up and down the line of ten runners, covering about five times the distance of anyone else, while still managing to utter words. And nice, encouraging ones at that. ‘You’re doing great, Audrey.’
I slowed down a little to run alongside her (only a little, but still – not the slowest, even having taken over a fortnight off!). ‘She seems a bit of a cow. Is she jealous?’
Audrey nearly choked on her own incredulity. ‘Hardly! Look at her.’
‘Looks like she’s desperately trying to hold on to her past looks because without them all that’s left is a mean and repugnant personality. What gives her the right to bitch at you like that? If I were you, I’d be tempted to get fit just so I could catch her up and shove her off the top.’
Ouch, Amy, who’s the bitch now?
Well. That Selena woman had made me really mad. I felt substantial sympathy for crushed and cowering women who came last in their running club because they felt they deserved last place in life. Out of the all the Larkabouts, I thought Audrey might make a good, non-intimidating, non-invasive friend.
‘She’s my mum.’
Ah. Oh. Right.
Time to suddenly get too out of breath to speak for a while and shrink back into the shadows where I belonged. During which time my brain would try and fail to think of something to say to somehow remedy suggesting someone murder her own mother.
But by the time I’d thought of something (‘sorry’ – not much else I could say, really), we’d hit the steepest part of the hill, and Audrey dropped so far back I could only make out her head torch, pointing at the ground. It was impossible to stay with her without slowing to a walk. I would have swatted away my pride and walked anyway, only Nathan swooped back to jog alongside me.
‘How’s the ankle?’
‘It feels a bit unsteady, that’s all. I’m taking it easy.’
‘Oh, this is you taking it easy?’
I considered the layer of perspiration plastering both my trendy bottoms and hi-tech top to my skin. Damp, straggly hair. Breath sounding like I was blowing into an invisible harmonica. Did I want Nathan to think this was my ‘taking it easy’ look?
‘I’ve been resting for nearly three weeks. My fitness may have regressed slightly.’ I glanced at Bronwyn, further up the hill. She was chatting away to the woman next to her, their hands gesturing like hyperactive shadow puppets. The other woman even found the strength to throw back her head and laugh.
‘You’re doing great. Just don’t push it too hard the first week. I don’t want you waking up so stiff tomorrow it puts you off coming back. Some of the group have been building their fitness for years.’
