‘My God, I suppose this means you pulled the pro.’ Liza resigned herself to missing her turn on the toning table.
‘Did I ever,’ declared Dulcie, realising she couldn’t keep the stupid grin off her face if she tried.
‘And he is divine, so funny and charming ... Wait till you meet him, he’s a dream come true! I’m telling you, this is the real thing. It’s love.’
The housewife, bored and starved of affection, and the gorgeous, bronzed country club tennis coach. Honestly, it was such a cliche. Then again, Liza realised, things like this happened all the time. It was how they became cliches in the first place.
Recognising a bad case of lust when she saw one, she nevertheless decided to humour Dulcie.
‘Good in bed?’
‘The best. Oh, and the body is to die for—’
‘And is it mutual?’ Liza felt it was her job to strike a note of caution. ‘Is he as besotted with you?’
Dulcie looked radiant.
‘That’s the best part, he really is! Honestly, we talked nonstop yesterday evening, then he took me back to his place .. . he’s rented a fantastic flat just behind Royal Crescent—’
‘And you bonked the night away.’
‘We did, we did,’ Dulcie agreed happily. ‘It was out of this world.’
’So when are you seeing him again?’
‘Midday. On the tennis courts.’
Liza raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re going to bonk on the tennis courts? Won’t you get in other people’s way?’
‘We won’t be bonking. He’s giving me a tennis lesson.’
Dulcie tried hard to sound casual, to pull it off. Somehow, though, the words came out lacking conviction, even to her own ears. It was like hearing Linda McCartney say, ‘Yum, bacon sandwich.’
Liza raised the other eyebrow and said, ‘Oh dear.’
Dulcie cracked at once. You could fool a lot of the people a lot of the time, but not Liza.
‘Okay, I know. He’s a health freak.’ She groaned and covered her face with her hands. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’
Liza hid a smile. The way Dulcie made it sound, health freak was on a par with mass murderer.
‘It’s his job to be fit, that’s all. You don’t have to join in.’
Dulcie wished she could be so sure. That was the thing about Liza, she never compromised herself. If she didn’t want to do something she simply didn’t do it.
But Liam’s idea of breakfast had been three Shredded Wheat, a handful of multivitamins the size of horse pills and a malt and wheatgerm milkshake, and although he hadn’t forced the horse pills on her, he had made her eat two Shredded Wheat. Without sugar either because he didn’t keep empty calories in the house.
From little hints dropped here and there, Dulcie had begun to suspect that coming clean with Liam wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. He might not be interested in a health slob, a bone-idle junk-food junkie whose idea of a really good workout was trying on ankle boots in Russell and Bromley.
‘He’s everything I want,’ she told Liza. ‘I’m not going to risk losing him. Anyway, how hard can it be, getting fit? Come on, don’t laugh—’
‘You aren’t serious,’ said Liza, wiping her eyes. ‘You, of all people, a born-again Jane Fonda.’
But Dulcie wasn’t to be swayed. ‘You don’t understand,’ she cried. ‘He’s worth it.’
The coffee shop overlooked the tennis courts. Liza watched a tall, vaguely familiar-looking chap in a yellow and white tracksuit make his way out on to the court closest to them. Next to him walked Imelda Page-Weston, her sleek white-blonde hair shimmering in the sunlight.
‘Is that him?’
Dulcie’s head swivelled round. You knew it was love when just the sight of him made your heart do Skippy- the-kangaroo impressions. She watched Imelda say something to Liam and swing her racket experimentally above her shoulder. Liam positioned himself behind her and showed her how she should be doing it. He grinned and whispered something in Imelda’s ear that made her shake with laughter.
You also knew it was love, Dulcie reflected, when the sight of him touching someone like Imelda made you want to bash that someone’s brains out with her own Slazenger.
She realised Liza was watching her.
‘He’s a tennis pro. It’s his job to flirt,’ Liza pointed out. ‘I know.’
‘And there are always going to be women who flirt back.’ Fit women. Healthy women. Women who took care of their bodies.
Women who liked salad.
‘I know that too,’ said Dulcie, gripped by a perverse longing. That only made her want him more.
Preparing to walk out on to the court was worse than any dental appointment. Having spent an hour in the on-site sports shop, Dulcie was kitted out in a new Lacoste shirt and a staggeringly expensive pink and white tennis skirt. What with the racket as well, she’d blown quite a hole in her credit card. Still, Dulcie reasoned, she’d be saving money on junk food.
Since her stomach was growling and she no longer ate crisps, she made her way back to the coffee shop and — ignoring the astonished eyebrows of the woman on the till — virtuously bought a couple of muesli bars
