It lasted only a few seconds. The door clicked open; a snatch of a woman’s voice was heard; the door was softly closed and a key turned in the lock. That was all.
But it was what the woman said that stopped Mrs Pargeter in her tracks and traced a little finger of ice down her spine.
A young woman’s voice. A voice full of pain, anguish and despair.
It had said, ‘But there’s nothing you can do about it. They’re going to kill me, and nobody can stop them.’
Chapter Five
Mrs Pargeter and Kim Thurrock spent the Monday, their first full day at Brotherton Hall, rather differently.
Kim, in common with all the other guests (well, except for Mrs Pargeter) started with the Seven-Thirty Weigh-In. This ceremony — not actually called a ‘ceremony’, but treated with all the pomp of a coronation — was designed to instil into everyone a proper sense of humility. Harsh reality, spelt out in unarguable pounds and ounces, induced shame and an increased incentive to attain the fantasy of a few pounds or ounces less.
After that sobering experience, Kim Thurrock, fortified by her hot water and lemon breakfast, underwent an hour of aerobics, followed by swimming and weight-training. Her lunch, an exotic melange of cottage cheese and lettuce (garnished with more cottage cheese), preceded a Dead Sea Mud Bath, which set on her like mortar and, if only they could have got it off in one piece, would have made the perfect mould for anyone interested in producing Kim Thurrock clones.
After this she was lashed savagely with Sargasso Seaweed by Lindy Galton. (The Brotherton Hall staff were all qualified to perform all the varied tasks of the health spa, and undertook them in turn, according to some elaborate roster.) Kim then had her pores deep-cleansed with something that in any other environment would have been recognized as a pan-scourer. An hour more aerobics and a very long ride on an exercise bicycle ensured that she was more than ready for her supper, which offered the gastronomic treat of the day — breast of a chicken which had evidently been a recent winner of Brotherton Hall’s Slimmer of the Year Contest. This sliver of meat was parsimoniously garnished with, yes, more lettuce, and the whole complemented by a rather soapy mineral water.
Kim’s day was then completed by a lecture on Body-Tautness Through Yoga, followed by another ugly encounter with the collective conscience of all the guests, the Nine O’Clock Weigh-In. At this ritual those who had put on weight were vilified, those who had kept the same weight were castigated, and those who had lost weight were discouraged from complacency and asked why they hadn’t lost more.
This regime ensured that everyone went to bed in a proper state of humble inadequacy, determined to spend even more time and money at Brotherton Hall.
Mrs Pargeter’s day was different in almost every particular. After a Full English Breakfast (including Black Pudding), she returned to the Allergy Room’ for lunch (Salmon Steaks, blissfully garnished with gooseberry sauce and of course rosti, Charlotte Malakov aux Fraises, enhanced by a good bottle of Sancerre) and dinner (Faisan au Vin de Porto, garnished with prunes and of course rosti, Meringue Glacee, a very decent Barolo, and some more of the princely Armagnac). Gaston Lenoir (formerly ‘Nitty’ Wilson) was simply ecstatic to have someone to show off to.
But Mrs Pargeter did not totally neglect the facilities offered by Brotherton Hall. She read a lot of magazines and dozed in the solarium. She spent a very relaxing time in the jacuzzi and after that had a massage, having first checked firmly that no Sargasso Seaweed (or Brotherton Hall Pondweed) was going to be involved in the process. Her enquiries were rewarded by a deliciously benign pummelling from a large masseur whose initial training had been as a baker.
For both it was a delightful experience. Mrs Pargeter felt herself transported to new heights of physical well-being; while for the masseur the kneading of her warm, abundant, scented flesh piquantly brought back the early days of his apprenticeship.
Though Mrs Pargeter and Kim Thurrock spent their days so differently, it would be a hard call to say which one enjoyed herself more.
The one mildly discordant note in Mrs Pargeter’s day was struck by her visit to the Brotherton Hall doctor for the medical ratification of her ‘Special Treatment’ status.
It was not that Dr Potter made any demur about granting her sick-note — his actions were as unimpeded by ethical considerations as Ankle-Deep Arkwright had suggested they would be — it was just that Mrs Pargeter did not care for him very much.
In spite of his fussily dapper suit, the doctor’s appearance did not inspire confidence. The thin skin of his face was stretched tight over prominent cheekbones and a surprisingly small nose; it looked completely smooth, but when he grimaced — which is what he did instead of smiling — it broke up into a tracery of tiny parallel lines.
There was something slightly out of true about the set of his eyes, which was accentuated by the deepness of their colour, an indefinable muddy hue like the deep silt of an estuary.
And his hair was obviously dyed, to that over-hearty chestnut which is apparently the only brown available to greying men. Though she had been happy to let her own hair settle to its natural white, Mrs Pargeter had nothing against the principle of hair-colouring, but she thought it looked better on women than men. It was still the case that while women might use hair colour as an exotic fashion accessory, men almost always aspired to a natural look; and it was therefore somehow disappointing when they failed to achieve this effect as totally as Dr Potter had done.
There was also something strange about the man’s proportions. He looked short when sitting down; but Mrs Pargeter was surprised how much taller than her he was when he rose to his feet.
Nor was there anything comforting about his manner. Though, given the reason for her visit to his surgery, Mrs Pargeter had not been expecting the full bedside empathy, she had hoped for a little more effort at charm. Being nice to people, however, was evidently low on Dr Potter’s priorities. He signed the required documentation for her, but did not waste any energy on smiles or pleasantries.
Mrs Pargeter quickly decided that the appointment of such an unprepossessing doctor was another part of Ankle-Deep Arkwright’s marketing strategy. The proprietor knew that his guests came to Brotherton Hall primarily to fuel the hatred they felt for their bodies. Surrounding them with perfectly proportioned female staff and offering the services of an unsympathetic medical adviser could only help in their process of willing self-abasement.
Also on that first day, Mrs Pargeter met the ‘wonderful’ Sue Fisher. Whom she found almost as unappealing as Dr Potter.
The goddess of Mind Over Fatty Matter had not come to Brotherton Hall solely to deliver her lecture of the previous evening. She had done that simply because she was there and could not resist the prospect of motivating yet more sales of Mind Over Fatty Matter products.
The real reason for her presence was that Brotherton Hall had received the inestimable honour of featuring as background to her latest Mind Over Fatty Matter video.
How much bargaining had preceded this arrangement, and what kind of deal Ankle-Deep Arkwright had eventually struck to attain it could not be known, but there was no doubt that the negotiations had been tough. The secret of Sue Fisher’s success lay not in her invention of the Mind Over Fatty Matter regime, but in her skilful promotion and marketing of it. She was fully aware of the value of a casual camera panning across the name of any health spa on one of her videos, and had undoubtedly ensured that Brotherton Hall paid appropriately — or, more likely, excessively — for the privilege.
But the way she queened it over the filming showed she had no doubt of who was the senior partner in any deal with Ankle-Deep Arkwright. Just as her regime had eliminated every milligram of unnecessary fat from her body, so she had excluded from her conversation all unnecessary words — like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
But this did not seem to diminish her standing in the eyes of the infatuated Brotherton Hall guests, who watched the making of the video as if they had ringside seats at the Second Coming.
Mrs Pargeter witnessed only a little of the action, as she passed the gym on her way from the ‘Allergy
