“Calm down, calm down!” Mum taps me on the knee.
“Mum, it IS BURNING!” Dove is rolling around laughing at me. “You can shut up!”
“You’re such a baby.”
“If you think you’re so good, why don’t you try it?”
“Dove’s used it lots before, after her free-jumping.”
I HATE Dove right now. She looks at me all smug.
“It will go away in a minute, just hold on.”
The pain eventually fades and I can start to breathe again even though I feel like an absolutely disgusting hot sweaty failure pig in a blanket with rogue dog hairs sticking to the salve.
I lie back down and let Mum continue to rub and it’s nice now that my nerves have gotten used to the tingling burn of pure actual fire. I replace the buttons of cucumber over my eyelids.
“I think you might be right.” Mum cuts the warmth of the balm with her voice. “The gym might just be a stretch too far for you, BB, with your asthma and everything. Maybe just stick to swimming for now, eh?”
I nod, feeling so sorry for myself. I grab a circle of cucumber, snatch it off my eye and drop it into my mouth, crunching, like some rich lady of some posh house being massaged and eating grapes. Happy, in the safety of knowing that I’m never going back to the gym again.
CAPERS
Gross minuscule hunchback pond toadettes. What even are they?
PESTO
You can make a pesto out of anything. I don’t know what pesto exactly means in Italian but I bet it’s something like “anything and everything sauce.” I do mine just the regular way, lots of basil, good olive oil, toasted pine nuts, salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and grated parmesan, and the great thing is, because the sauce goes in the blender you don’t have to bother with that tiny mousey grater to grate the parmesan!
“It’s FINE that the gym is not for me. It’s just not. Like how I’m not that into dolphins. I don’t JUDGE people that are into dolphins and go all round the world to swim with them, the same way I don’t judge people that like the gym. The gym is just not my thing. And that’s OK. It’s probably not really for loads of people. Anyway, I bet I walk about five thousand steps when I’m working a shift at Planet Coffee, so that should improve my fitness in no time flat. I’d rather swim to the middle of an ocean or climb up a rock like some wonderful strong Amazonian woman than be tasking it to the drill of some ugly dance song like some robot worker bee in the air-conditioned gym room. NO THANKS.”
“Yeah, but you’re a member now, you have to go,” Dove presses.
“Dove, my bum is dead, do you understand? DEAD.” Dove giggles at me. “AND I went YESTERDAY, Dove. Nobody goes to the gym this much in a whole lifetime.”
I go on, making sure I’m not being insensitive, but my misfortune only seems to make her howl harder, so I continue. “That class has absolutely ripped my muscles to pieces.” I de-wedge my shorts out of my bum crack. “It’s dead. R.I.P., bum. The seat proper rubs your thighs too. I want to see the damage but I’m too scared to look.” OUCH. OUCH. OUCH. I wrangle my way to the fridge, hobbling like I have a hula hoop attached to my hips that I mustn’t drop. “I feel the need to sue them.” Dove cracks up.
“Sue them for your dead bum.” Dove pinches her nose and whines, “I’m Bluebelle and I can’t do anything because my bum has died,” mimicking me. “I cannot unload the dishwasher because of my dead bum, I can’t feed the dogs because of my dead bum, and I can’t even enjoy any of this delicious pesto because of my dead bum.”
“The last bit isn’t true, though, ’K?”
“Someone’s got their appetite back, then. Maybe the gym wasn’t so bad after all?”
Maybe.
Yeah, my body is heavy and sore, but I suddenly feel a lightness tremor through me that almost gives me butterflies.
I think about Max.
I wonder if he’s thinking about me.
SOUP
After MY ONE ALLOWED DAY OF REST I know the expectation of the gym is going to start rat-a-tat-tatting on my door again, so when Dad suggests some soup for lunch I am well up for the distraction….
I always hate the idea of soup but never usually mind it when I’m eating it. I always find that I’m pleasantly surprised.
“What soup is it, though?” Dove asks before she fully commits to eating it.
“Leaf.”
“Leaf? Leaf soup?” I ask. “What do you mean, ‘leaf’?”
“Are you following a recipe, Dad?”
“Course I’m not following a bloody recipe!” He rubs his hands together like he’s conjuring up a master plan. “You girls, this time we live in, nobody does anything from their imaginations. Why do you have to follow a recipe? It’s just soup. Soup! Just boil up some vegetables, add stock and season with a few magic bits and bobs. Yes, it’s leaf. Leaf-flavour soup. What’s the big deal?”
“Maybe that leaf doesn’t actually really have much flavour. I’ve never heard of leaf soup,” Dove says.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve never heard of turtle soup either but it’s a thing,” Dad smugly assures us, clapping down the lid of a saucepan to make his point.
So, leaf soup, it turns out, is all the bags of salad leaves and spinach from the fridge, boiled up, blitzed and turned into sludge.
“It’s not done yet, there’s more, I have to add my magic now….” And I realise the same moment Dove does. Dad’s larder is completely rinsed. Everything thrown in the bin. He just hasn’t seen it yet.
“We can have it like that, Dad, don’t worry,” I say, but it’s too late. I can hear Dad’s heart shattering to pieces.
“Your mum did this, didn’t she? I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
There follow lots of swear words and Dove and I pour ourselves a bowl of leaf soup and blow bubbles on our spoons, laughing hard. With some salt, pepper, a scrape of nutmeg and a blob of cream it’s actually all right.
SWEET AND SOUR
After “lunch” Dove’s friends knock for her. They are going to the skate park. Mum gets all jumpy and panics and makes Dove a peanut butter sandwich in a rush, which Dove, being Dove, leaves on the side and forgets about. I’m so baffled by people who can forget about food.
And I am left with Mum and Dad, witnessing their sweetness turning sour….
NO! The arguing is too much. Mum at Dad. Dad at Mum. Mum calls Dad a “loser.” She says he takes it out on her that his career is “down the pan.” He laughs and says “that’s rich” coming from her and calls her a “parasite.” She throws a book at his head. The dogs do stress yawning and clap their teeth. Dad calls Mum a “soppy teenager with emotional issues.” He tells her she has “too many regrets” and “needs to let go and stop harbouring.” Mum cackles in Dad’s face and says that he’s the “teenager.” She calls him a “freeloader,” a “failure” and a “joke.”
Then Mum cries.
The house is on the boil like the soup.
And I have to get out. I have to feel something. Go somewhere I can take out all this BLEUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and maybe that place could possibly be the gym?
Who knows, maybe I’ll try it again?
You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Doc?
Whatever, nobody is still going to be reading this, surely?
And I charge upstairs and pack my bag ready for the gym. But I can just hear them, rowing, rowing, rowing, and my room is a state and everything is everywhere and it’s too hot and my thighs rub and my bones ache and my mind is all rattling and numb.
And then it comes…tight. My chest. I’ve got no air. Wheezing and coughing. Tightness. Sharpness. And I can’t catch my breath. I sit down. Try to keep calm. Where’s my inhaler…? I can’t find it. I tipped my bag upside down looking for my stupid gym bag. Where’s my night one? My stronger one? NO! I grip the bedsheets, scramble around the bedding…W
here’s my…My chest is sore. Stubborn. Refusing to lift. I can’t speak or even open my mouth. The panicking is making it harder to inhale. I don’t want to make a fuss. This is my fault. Just calmly breathe in and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and out. In and…
You’re fine.
You’re fine.
You’re all right.
I’m all right.
DRIED MANGO
There is NO way in hell this stuff is completely natural. It is the sugariest invention of all time. If it really is just mango, like it says it is, why does it have to be so expensive? Why is dried fruit more expensive than fruit, when fruit grows on trees? I HATE it when people try to charge for nature. Like, you know when you go to book a hotel and they charge more for a “sea view”? It really annoys me because how can you charge more to look at the sea? The sea is NOT yours.
This mango is addictive. Are you allowed to eat the whole pack? Of course you are. You HAVE to eat the whole pack. I like it when you can see the imprint of the gauze that they’ve baked the mango in printed on the dried flesh. I like the chewy bits that are a bit burnt and golden on the edges.
I am chewing, still, as I go up to the reception at the gym. Just so I don’t change my mind. Just so I stick to my guns and see this through. They look surprised to see me. They thought I was just another one biting the dust, whatever that means. It’s impossible to bite dust.
“Welcome back,” says Ibiza, glaring at me like some vile evil fairy-tale stepmother who thought she’d got rid of me (by means of a spin class) until I resurrect myself from the dead.
“One for spin class, please,” I say proudly. The girls do a delayed…OOOO-KAY…as they hand me my pass.
“It’s not me teaching it today, I’m afraid,” Ibiza says, as if that fact should change my mind.
“Too bad,” I say. Which I don’t know why I say as it’s not one of my typical sayings but sometimes we say things, don’t we?
I don’t hang around long enough to discuss asthma. And why should I have to? They obviously weren’t that concerned with my well-being.
Spin. Right. OK. Fine. Not. A. Problem.
I bounce up to the changing rooms. Skinny, muscly girls clanking in lockers, hair dryers purring and the smell of perfume and coconut and moisturiser. It’s all more threatening and serious up here than the communal spirit of the changing rooms for the pool.
I dump my stuff into a locker and see my phone is ringing. Max.
I don’t answer it. I don’t need a man getting in my way right now. It’s time to spin and sweat and, dare I say it, I’m almost looking forward to it….
BLOOD
I am first in the cycle studio and take my time to organise my bike. Even though I have absolutely ZERO idea what I’m doing, seeing as I never made it past the warm-up before. The room smells of old sweat. Dehydrated glands squeezing out old beer and curry from people who probably call nuts a “treat.” Damp towels. The floor has an extra layer of sticky sweat laminated over it. I catch myself in the mirror. The bike is a skeleton next to me. Hard. Cruel. Wheels smile at me with a flash. Like the ones I see at home.
I wonder if my boobs joggle around all the time, or just at the gym.
The bike’s screws are orange with brown rust and don’t seem to turn properly. I can just hear this awful screech every time I dare turn a knob. I hear the door open. Forget it, I’ll just ride the bike the way it is. An older woman with a pixie face enters. She looks like one of those wrinkled hairless cats. She starts fiddling around with these weird trainers she has on that look like tap shoes. Bet she actually enjoys eating raw seaweed as a snack.
“Do you need some help?” she asks me.
“Yes, please.”
“Have you been to spin before?”
“Sort of.”
“Come here, let me help you.” She taps over with her silly show-offy shoes. Trip. Trap. Trap. “You have to have the seat hip height and the handlebars need to be a forearm away, like this….Stand there.” She measures me. “Gosh, you are tall, so let’s bring the seat up a bit. These things are quite rusty! They need oiling.” She screeches the seat up with a bang; it locks into place. “Try that?”
I hop clumsily onto the seat. “Yeah, that’s better.” But the poor donkey bike beneath me groans in pain. Shut up, you.
“Good. OK, now pedal for me….”
I start turning my legs. I feel self-conscious pedalling on demand; what if it’s just her and me? One-on-one spin tuition. Surely that’s a good thing but the thought alone makes me feel physically sick. “Your legs shouldn’t fully lock when they straighten; you need a bit of give.” I nod. “And when cycling on a resistance you mustn’t be pushing too hard so that your knees are struggling. No strain, OK, knees always forward. You push and pull from here….Yes, that’s good.” She smiles and swivels the gear dial around for me. “And when you’re on a lower resistance, when we sprint, like this, you mustn’t be bobbing round in the seat like you are now; you should be locked in, firm, you see? Engaging all the muscles, the core, the arms. Keep your form. You don’t want to injure yourself. And breathe. You’ll soon get the hang of it.”
More people start to enter and the room suddenly fills. Phew. It’s not just us. Thank goodness.
This instructor seems so nice, no wonder it’s a full class.
She pulls a headset out of her bag. Why’s she got that? There are a lot of people, I suppose. It must be quite hard to hear. Plus, her voice is quite soft. Fine. OK. I gently begin to turn and the wheels spin in response. Others begin arranging their bikes just like I was taught moments ago except they don’t need guidance. I watch how everybody fixes theirs. People exercise for different reasons: weight loss, fitness, habit, depression, alone time, boredom, last-minute bridezilla panic, last-minute holiday panic….
The instructor swings one leg over her bike at the front, which is facing us, like a cowgirl mounting a horse. Still, I’m glad we have an older lady taking the class, it should be nice and relaxed. Miles away from the nightclub Ibiza trauma.
She then affixes her microphone and peels her top off…Errr, why does she have a six-pack and a flat pair of breasts? If I tried to take my top off, while wearing a headset, I would be suffocated. But oh no, not her two little kidney-bean perkies popping out of her tiny yellow belly top. Her arms are muscly and toned. Her stomach is ripped, muscles pinging out of every square. I was NOT expecting that bod.
“She’s had four kids, you know,” a woman with a stache whispers in my ear. “Un-believable.”
I gawp.
“RIGHT!” she roars at us—awwwright, motor mouth! “YOU LOT ALREADY DECIDED HOW MUCH ENERGY YOU WERE GOING TO SPEND IN THIS ROOM TODAY. I WANT TO SEE THIS SPIN CLASS SPEND YOUR ENERGY LIKE THE MONEY YOU SPENT IN YOUR GAP YEAR WHEN YOU WERE EIGHTEEN….”
Can everybody stop going on about bloody gap years? I gulp. I’m not even seventeen. I haven’t even got any money to spend today, let alone in a year. Still, I pedal…Everybody else is. I’m gathering by the class’s reaction that this must be her weekly motivational speech.
“I WANT YOU TO WORK HARDER THAN YOU’VE EVER WORKED, SWEAT LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SWEATED AND DON’T STOP…UNTIL YOU CHUCK!”
Chuck? What does she mean? Vomit? Surrounding spinners pant like thirsty dogs, sniggering at the idea of being eighteen. Chortling at the thought of chucking. Meanwhile I feel food rising in my throat.
“LET’S GO!” And the music begins as she roars, “WELCOME TO HELL!”
The music is some sort of heavy death metal. Loud screeching electric guitars and terror-tomb drums. A big screamy high-pitched voice sneering away.
Oh. God. Oh. God. Oh…
HELL?
THUMP. THUMP. TURN. TURN. MORE. MORE. HARDER. HARDER. GO. GO. GO. GO. ROUND. ROUND. Heart is pumping. Legs are burning. Sweat is POURING. Head is spinning. Ears are blurring
. Blinding. Eyes are watering. Nose is dripping. ROOM is tight. Air is NOWHERE. Sweat from my forearms. My chest. And all around me are other people. Competitively spinning and groaning and churning with gritted teeth and crinkled eyes and wrinkled foreheads and spinning legs that look as though they might take off like that scene from E.T. where they cycle past the moon. In fact, the man in front of me is cycling so hard that sweat is just squirting onto the ground. I’m trying to catch somebody’s eye to do an eye-roll or something, any sign to be like…“HELLO? ISN’T THIS HELL? IS IT JUST ME OR ARE WE ALL DYING? ARE WE ALL INSANE?”
But they’re all locked in, spinning tight. Normal people, hypnotised. And I am on the outside, staring in at the discipline and strength, just thinking HOW? I look up at the instructor as she bellows at us to turn on another gear. Her six-pack is splattered in pearls of sweat, her taut, ripped body is churning as she tells us to go up again. Why is she not drinking water?
“COME ON!” she yells again.
And the whole room spins so fast that the sound changes to a whisking noise, like spinning cupcake batter on a high speed. I taste blood in my mouth. Rancid iron mixed with phlegm. I think of my remarkable sister. I am spinning for her. Keeping fit for her. My heart beating for her. For me.
The music is buzzing, vibrating through the metal frame, and I am pounding, spinning, sweating in my oversized T-shirt and I want to take my top off so badly but nobody else is. EVEN though it’s boiling hot and all I have on underneath is my one sports bra. My boobs are so big, I don’t want them flopping around, but the instructor, she’s only wearing a crop top too, surely it’s fine. Everybody else just seems to be suffering, panting away with red raw cheeks. Oh, whatever.
I take my top off. People stare. WHATEVER. Fudge off!
THAT’S BETTER. PHEW. I feel my boobs and arms rattling away. My back fat quivers. My sweat trickles into all my folds, leaking into the flesh but WOW I feel better. Stronger. My tummy fat rolls over my leggings and the lip of the elastic is all folded down. Teeth gritting. I’m like a girl in one of those adverts to show that girls can do stuff. Locked in.
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Page 24