Bless. He thought the idea of him surrounded by twelve fit young women would drive her spare. It would never once have occurred to him that, at fifty-three, he’d be just another leering man trying to score some cheap jokes at the expense of their hard work and athleticism. Not much of a feminist, her Kev.
Kath smiled warmly as she read out the teaser for the next piece – a ninety-second taped bit on a therapy dog who had saved a woman from cracking her head open when she had an epileptic fit in the middle of a busy Sainbury’s. The dog would be coming into the studio next week. The woman, she’d just been told, proved too much of a health and safety risk.
As the piece began to play, and the camera lights turned from red to black, she tilted her head up to Bridie (just smoothing out the edges, Kath) as Kev had his forehead dabbed by Dee (his latest make-up girl). Kath silently wondered how many of their viewers had noticed the chill that had crisped up their exchanges ever since she’d announced she was going on the LifeTime cycle ride whilst Kev headed off to South Africa.
‘Alright you two?’ Stacy asked the pair of them through their earpieces. Her bright tone suggested she knew precisely what was going on. Stacy noticed everything.
‘Great,’ Kath gave the thumbs up.
‘Never better,’ Kev said, giving his hands a brisk rub.
Dave signaled them in from the epilepsy dog segment and the light on camera three lit up red. Kath swiveled to the right and looked down the lens. ‘That’s about all we have time for, folks. Once again I’d like to thank everyone who has donated to LifeTime already and would invite you all to join me on my new Instagram account … details below, if you want to get any snaps of my training sessions.’ She pointed her fingers downwards knowing their producer would pop the details up on the screen as she recited them from memory. She threw Kev a cheeky smile. ‘Kev’s already seen a few pictures of me trying to get fit for the ride. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what’ll be coming your way from Cape Town, but with a few more of my PT sessions whipping me into shape, perhaps one day I’ll be able to take on the Men’s Volleyball Team!’
‘That’s right, Kath,’ Kev pulled her in for a strangely painful half hug. ‘A girl can dream.’
Two hours later, Kath was still steaming. Normally her workouts deflated her increasingly frequent spikes of ‘emotional turbulence’. The menopause expert Kev had insisted she visit never called anything by its actual name opting, instead, to give each distressing, awkward and increasingly difficult ‘phase’ she was going through a pastel-coloured hue. Sometimes she wished the woman would come out with it and call a spade a spade. She wasn’t going through emotional turbulence. She was having a marital crisis and a hormone overhaul.
Kath swung the kettle bell one final time then released it with a light ‘whooof!’
‘That was brilliant, Katherine.’
As she met Fola’s eyes for the first time in the hour-long session, the prickly remains of her anger left her. She loved his voice. The way he said her full name, his voice rounding over the vowels as if they were each a piece of precious, perfectly ripe fruit. Better than Kev’s Liverpudlian accent anyway, or her own, media-softened Newcastle twang.
She put the kettle bell on the rack, watching him in the mirror as he tidied up after one of the other trainers who always left sweat soaked mats and weights lying around after his sessions. That trainer had a book and YouTube following. Seized by an urgent need to know whether what she was feeling was real or not, she whirled round and asked, ‘How do you fancy coming along on a bike ride as a support rider and physio? It’s for charity.’
Chapter Twenty
‘Hey roomie!’ Raven dropped her two large duffel bags with an involuntary grunt and gave Sue an uncomfortable wave. There was a blossoming of droplets along her ebony hairline that Sue was fairly certain had come from exertion rather than the rain she’d just scuttled through to get into the large foyer of the call centre. Raven huffed out a couple of steadying breaths then grinned, ‘Ready for our first sleep over? I’ve brought my own pillow.’ She threw her thumbs up, but, Sue noticed, there was a slight tremor to her smile.
Sue’s eyes dropped to the large, drenched duffel bags then back to Raven. ‘Ummm …’
Raven’s casually ironic air evaporated, revealing a deep, permeating aura of anxiety. Make-up aside, it felt like looking in the mirror.
‘You said today was cool, right?’
‘Today?’ Sue repeated, her eyes doing a strange blinky thing as her mind fuzzed with the increasingly familiar static. She knew this was going to happen. She’d agreed to it. Not less than twelve or so hours earlier. So, why was she acting as if it had come out of the blue?
Raven’s smile faltered, then quickly, as if an idea had struck, she dug into her shoulder bag. The retro flight bag reminded Sue of a bag her mother had once had from British Airways. When she threw it out a few years back she’d told Sue she’d brought it on their honeymoon even though they’d taken the ferry and not the plane (too expensive) across to Ireland where they’d spent three damp days in Waterford trying not to break any crystal, before getting back onto the ferry whereupon she’d become terrifically seasick (she’d discovered she was pregnant with Dean shortly thereafter) and vowed never to travel by sea again. The day after they’d returned, her mother took a job as a checkout clerk at Asda (which she still had) and her father went back to his job at the council (which he still had) and they’d not travelled
