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I nearly stumbled head over heels into an oncoming dustbin lorry.

‘You can change in the cabin.’ He gestured across the road to the village park, where a rusted, graffiti-riddled door was swinging off the female loos from one hinge. ‘Zip your jacket up and no one will know.’

‘Or, I could zip up my jacket anyway, covering up my T-shirt without having to remove it.’

‘One, it’s not your T-shirt, you are hereby suspended from the Larks running club until complying with the rules and regulations. Two, when you have to call an ambulance because your knee ligament is ripped to shreds, the Larks T-shirt will make me liable, damaging my reputation and harming my business.’

‘Nathan, it’s a warm-up. I’ve been running now for at least three minutes, look at my face. I’m warm.’

‘Three. I’d be gutted if you injured yourself and had to stop running with us. Or needed to postpone the Sort Nathan’s Obsessive Control Issues plan. Or suffered any unnecessary pain. Especially when I could have prevented it.’

‘Okay. Right. Well. I actually warmed up before I got here.’ What impressive technique I maintained, keeping my eyes straight ahead, not even twitching my neck an inch to look at Nathan and try to figure out if there was any hidden meaning behind that comment.

‘Stretches?’

Did squatting in a bush count?

‘Stretches. Now go and bother someone else, I know how to train properly.’

Plus, that stuff about me suffering had successfully stolen the miniscule amount of extra breath enabling me to continue the conversation. I put my head down and tried to focus on putting one step in front of the other, not infuriating emails or flapping dressing-gowns or personal trainers who made me want to get personal. And I almost managed it. My champion’s brain was shaking herself awake and remembering how to do this. How not to be a loser.

I finished sixth.

Now, that deserved a hot chocolate to go alongside my French toast.

* * *

I took a seat with Mel and Bronwyn, able to avoid hunching beside Audrey for once as she hadn’t turned up, having told Selena she had a migraine. I also felt a scrambled mix of relieved and disappointed that Nathan wasn’t there, having gone to take a call from a client. Mel was explaining how the latest change in the benefits system meant that she couldn’t afford to take Tate to his hydrotherapy sessions at the fancy pool on the other side of Nottingham.

‘They reckon we can manage fine on the bus, no need for a taxi.’ She shook her head in disgust. ‘I told ’em, it’s two buses, with a twenty-minute wait in between and over half-hour pushing a pushchair and carryin’ all his stuff. The pool’s busy all the time with lessons for normal kids, who can lift themselves in and out the water. Or them Gladiators are hogging it. It’s only available nine-thirty in the mornin’ – which means somehow dropping the kids at school and catching a bus in town at the same time – or Monday and Thursday evening. I said to ’em, “Have you even read his notes? Seen where the specialist doctor who’s been caring for my son for the past three years says he can’t be outside for any length o’ time in the winter, because of a severely elevated risk of pneumonia. Let alone when ’e’s just come outta soppin’ wet swimming pool.”

‘I pointed to it on the page, with both hands, just in case they’d missed that, with all the other pages of notes about my son’s extensive disabilities and life-limiting conditions. I asked ’em, “Perhaps I read it wrong, do please tell me what the world-renowned expert Dr Wu wrote’ll happen if Tate catches pneumonia? Because I thought that on page four, paragraph two, it said there’s a significant risk of death.”’ Mel tossed her raspberry red hair extension over one shoulder. ‘And I sat there waitin’ until they confirmed that, yes, through a process of logical deductions, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Tate catching the bus to access the hydrotherapy that will help keep him alive could end up killing him.’

‘Woah,’ Bronwyn gasped, around a mouthful of walnut muffin. ‘Did they reinstate the money?’

Mel’s shoulders slumped. ‘Nah. Said they couldn’t, their hands were tied. But one of the women and the man interviewing me cried while they said it. And one of ’em slipped a card in me pocket with the number for a discrimination lawyer.’ She blotted one eye with a napkin, leaving a smear of sugar from her doughnut across her cheek. ‘As if I could afford a lawyer, when I can’t even spring a taxi for something as important as Tate’s therapy. As if I could find the time and energy to fight this, in between hospital appointments and meetings and cookin’ and cleanin’ and carin’ for four wild and crazy kids along with my severely disabled son.’

‘Oh, Mel, the whole thing stinks,’ Bronwyn said, coming around the table to hug her friend.

‘Yeah, it stunk even more when I snuck in and stuffed Tate’s dirty nappy behind the radiator in the office of the boss woman who shoved Tate’s case notes at me and said if it was that important I’d find a way.’

We laughed at that, long and loud. Sometimes life is so darn stinky you have to laugh, or else you’ll never stop crying.

‘What about when Greasby pool reopens?’ Bronwyn asked, after we’d dried our eyes and recomposed ourselves. ‘Where we’re doing the triathlon. Will Tate be able to do hydrotherapy there?’

Mel shook her head. ‘I’ve already asked ’em. With all these cuts, it can barely afford steps, let alone a hoist.’

‘That’s total crap,’ Bronwyn announced, her Welsh accent deepening with passion. ‘It’s plain idiotic. It’ll cost far more to treat Tate’s condition if it worsens than pay for a hoist, surely? You should write to our MP.’

‘Our MP thinks people like Mel should get a job and pay for their own taxis,’ I said. ‘We’d be better off raising the money ourselves.’

‘Amy!’ Bronwyn rounded on me, her enthusiasm loud enough to catch the attention of the remaining Larks who’d not slipped off to enjoy the rest of their Sunday yet. ‘You’re a genius. Let’s do it. Did you hear that everyone?’ she called across the café. ‘Amy’s had a fab idea. We’re going to run and swim and whatever else it is you do in a triathlon to raise money to get a hoist for the new Greasby pool, so Tate can still do his hydrotherapy even though the government’s stolen his taxi money off him.’

Um, are we?

‘You’d better get one of them fundraising web pages sorted, Ames.’ Bronwyn winked as the café erupted into excited chatter. ‘We can get it out there on social media. Maybe tell theNottingham Post?’

‘Or the radio?’ someone else suggested.