Sweatpants at Tiffanie's

by Pernille Hughes

  Tiff had met her before when she appeared in the office demanding advances on her spousal allowance. Tiff failed to see what Blackie had been thinking getting involved with her, but then as Shelby had noted, he probably wasn’t thinking, at least not with his head. She was, whilst being bereft of any virtuous qualities, in possession of a mind-boggling set of boobs. Well, thought Tiff benevolently, Blackie was only human.

  ‘You’ve done a sterling job, Miss Trent. He’d have been over the moon with all the people who’ve come,’ Leonards now said to Tiff, rubbing the remnants of grave soil off his hands.

  ‘Well, by his age he’d met enough,’ Shelby pointed out, ‘He’d had a decent innings.’ Tiff hated that phrase this week; Gavin’s words echoed constantly in her ears. ‘Right, who’s for the pub?’ Shelby said, clapping her hands together. ‘I am gagging for a drink.’ She headed towards the cars.

  ‘God, I hope there’s enough money behind the bar,’ she muttered. Leonards chuckled behind her.

  ‘It’s all taken care of. The landlord will pass on the bill if there’s a shortfall.’ He paused, then said gently, ‘You should relax now, Miss Trent. It’s been a difficult few days.’

  Tiff nodded. It had indeed, on the grand scale of pants, been a steaming pile of a week. Aside from grieving for Blackie, lamenting Gavin, forcing herself to visit her two remaining clients and overseeing the funeral at super-fast speed under Blackie’s instruction of ‘get me sorted quick as billy-oh’, she’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to find somewhere to live.

  All the rental properties she’d had details for looked shocking. Maybe she wasn’t desperate enough yet. A week on Shelby’s futon would sort that no doubt, but for now she allowed herself to procrastinate; crawling into her own bed for the final few nights and blubbing uncontrollably. She’d think about the future tomorrow.

  Leonards squeezed her shoulder as they passed through the gate. ‘I need to see you, Miss Trent, regarding the will. Is Monday morning 9 a.m. convenient?’

  ‘Me?’ Tiff asked, surprised, but then she supposed it made sense; there’d be the financial records to hand over to whoever inherited the gym. Would it be very bad form to offer her continued services to the new owners? What was the etiquette on touting for business at will readings?

  ‘Miss Trent?’ Leonards interrupted her thinking, making her feel guilty. What sort of a person thought about scoring work out of their dead friend? A bad one, she answered herself. An imminently skint and homeless one, she countered herself back.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll be there,’ she said and tried not to groan. Pulling the paperwork together would easily consume the hours she’d allowed for flat-hunting. But handing over a decent report was the least she could do on Blackie’s behalf, and who knew, they might ask her to stay. She chided herself again for the profligate thoughts. This wasn’t who she was. She hoped she could attribute it to the lack of sleep; she was so tired she could hardly walk straight.

  ‘Yes,’ Leonards continued, ‘Blackie recognised the support you’ve given him. It shouldn’t be a surprise he’s left some words for you. Just look,’ he gestured at the dispersing crowd, ‘you did that. For him.’

  Tiff’s eyes followed his hand. She’d only done what anyone would have done for an old man who didn’t have any family to speak of. Well, maybe not the second Mrs Black, but anyone else. For all her posturing in the church, she’d briskly detached herself from any organising when Tiff had called her, asking only to be informed of where and when. It sent a chill down Tiff’s spine how someone could behave like that. Pulling her jacket closer, her eyes came to rest on a figure standing to the side of the church porch.

  Tall and broad-shouldered, the man stood with his hands clasped reverently in front of him. Next to him, on the most gravity-defying heels Tiff had ever seen, stood a younger blonde woman with her hair hanging loose, almost down to the hem of her skirt, which ended just under the curve of her bottom. It was safe to say Blackie was no longer the focus of the crowd’s attention.

  But Tiff’s eyes were on the guy. The way his head was cocked slightly to one side, looking at her, appeared deliberate. At first, she hoped he’d remove his sunglasses to give her a better look at his face, work out why he was gazing so intently at her, but as she focused on his features; his shaved dark hair, his tawny brown skin, she realised he wasn’t in fact wearing any. He was simply sporting two shockingly-fresh black eyes. A couple of the other boxers wore a bruise or two from recent bouts, but nothing as severe as this. The way he stood, totally still, made an already exhausted Tiff anxious. It’d been a tough day already and now this.

  Realising she was staring, Tiff dropped her gaze and started making her way beside Leonards.

  ‘Tiff! I’m dying here,’ Shelby shouted from the car, oblivious to the disapproval from other mourners. ‘My mouth’s as dry as a corpse.’

  Much as she would’ve preferred to look away and disown Shelby at that precise moment, the alternative was to look back at the man. Something about him was bothering her, but the punched eyes convinced her she didn’t want to know what that was. Local economy being what it was, Kingsley wasn’t without a criminal element and Blackie’s Gym hadn’t always turned out the most upstanding characters. Some had, Blackie was sad to say, been beyond reformation and gone onto careers in less salubrious or legitimate fields. What with everything else, Tiff felt she had enough on her plate and scuttled on.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Drink, Tiff?’ The shout from the bar was a welcome one, as the Pig & Whistle was rammed. There was no way she’d get through, at least not without kicking some shins. Now was exactly the time she needed Shelby’s foghorn mouth and industrious elbows by her side, but she’d been shanghaied on the way from the funeral. The evil Lorraine, Shelby’s generally absent boss, had unexpectedly appeared at the beautician’s salon and had subsequently phoned to shout about Shelby’s scrawled Closed due to bereavement sign on the door.

  ‘Tiff! Drink?!’ Ron, Blackie’s assistant coach, had noticed her chronic lack of bar-presence and come to her aid. Tiff was briefly stunned by Ron’s offer – he was generally an abrasive man who kept himself to himself, but then funerals often made people behave out of character.

  ‘Gin and Tonic with a packet of scampi fries, please.’ There were times in life when only scampi fries would do. They had seen Tiff through the woes of her teen life and she needed a pack now. ‘I’ll be over there,’ she shouted across the din, pointing to the far corner where there appeared to be a pocket of air available.

  Safely tucked into the corner, Tiff surveyed the room. The packed pub was bouncing: the sadness of the day was being sloughed off, as anecdotes about Blackie were bandied back and forth; about his coaching methods, his encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport and from the older set, tales of his own boxing achievements back in the day. By all accounts Blackie could have been something, if not for a leg injury. Instead he’d dedicated himself to furthering the careers of others.

  There was something pleasing about watching people reminisce. The sad eyes of earlier were now lit up as they drew on memories of Blackie, shared their experiences and celebrated him.

  ‘Where’s your mate?’ Ron asked gruffly, setting their drinks on the table.

  ‘Shelby? Currently spitting bricks having been unceremoniously summonsed back to work. I pity anyone being waxed this afternoon.’ Ron looked uncomfortable. Tiff suspected it was more at the mention of women’s grooming than in sympathy.

  ‘He’d have enjoyed this.’ For a second Tiff saw a hint of a smile on Ron’s face. It was a rare occurrence. He normally nurtured a persona of miserable old git.

  ‘He’d be totally narked to be missing it,’ she said, letting her own smile unfold for the first time in days.

  Ron sat down on the nearest stool, legs spread wide in that way blokes had, as if their tackle was simply too huge to be accommodated between closed knees. Tiff took a long slug of her drink, closed her eyes and leaning back into the banquet seat, t
ook her first moment to relax.

  ‘Know what’s happening to the gym?’ Ron asked. Ah, that explained the friendliness.

  ‘Nope. You?’

  ‘He never said. Just that it’d be left in good hands. He was a vague bugger when it suited him.’

  ‘Ha!’ she said with a short mirthless laugh, remembering numerous occasions when Blackie’s hearing got selective and his answers non-committal. ‘But on the other hand, he could be as forthright as they came.’

  ‘He didn’t suffer fools,’ Ron said with a nod, clearly concurring with Blackie’s policy.

  Oh, how she missed him, and it’d only been five days. Ron apparently felt the same, Tiff thought, as they sat in silence. The lack of conversation suited her; she was still slightly freaked by having spoken more words to Ron in the last five minutes than in the last eight years. Ron had joined as assistant coach the year before she started.

  Tiff sensed the change of atmosphere in the bar almost immediately. A whisper flew through the room followed by a hubbub of greetings by the doors. The mass of boxers, visibly gravitated to someone on the far side. Neither Ron nor Tiff could see who it was, until the crowd parted in a Moses fashion and two people gained instant access to the bar.

  ‘There’s bar presence for you,’ Ron noted, but Tiff was busy staring. The guy at the bar was the guy at the church, still flanked by the woman in heels. From Tiff’s current position, it was apparent his face was not only bruised, but also very swollen. And under the swelling, his nose bore a strong resemblance to a banana. Whoever he was, he’d recently taken a fair old beating.

  Ron let out a slow long whistle. ‘Well well well, Blackie would have been flattered, not that you’d recognise him easily.’

  Tiff looked from the guy to Ron and back.

  ‘You know him?’ Tiff knew many of the boxers’ names, but not faces.

  ‘You must know him. From the telly?’

  ‘I don’t watch much telly.’

  ‘But you watch the boxing, don’t you?’

  ‘Nope. Never,’ she stated, tight-lipped. In spite of working a large part of her week around boxing, she’d always made a point to have nothing to do with the sport after hours. She didn’t watch it, she didn’t read about it. In fact, outside of what was happening inside Blackie’s walls, she refused to listen to news from the boxing world. She had a terrible feeling she might, right now, be looking at the reason for that.

  ‘He’s a world champion,’ Ron explained, incredulous at her ignorance. ‘Career like a firework; more wins, more titles than anyone else in the shortest time. Fights like he’s angry at the world. Absolutely stellar. But fireworks burn out, don’t they? On the brink of retirement, and given those bruises, I’d say it’s due any minute.’ Ron shook his head. ‘How’s Blackie got on his radar?’

  The deep feeling of dread had twisted a knot in Tiff’s belly, but she managed to ask weakly ‘What’s his name, Ron?’

  ‘Mike Fellner. Mike “The Assassin” Fellner.’

  ‘Right.’ Tiff’s heart sank another rung down the misery ladder. ‘Gotcha.’ No wonder he’d been looking at her. Seriously? As if this week hadn’t been dire enough. Life had pummelled her twice already and here was a brisk jab to the guts.

  ‘See, I said you’d know him. Household name, even for philistines like you.’ Ron gave her an unimpressed snort, but her focus was on the bar, where ‘The Assassin’ was still greeting fans. Then he was looking for a space to sit or maybe for someone. There were only two empty chairs in the room. Tiff retracted to blend in with the flocked wallpaper. An encounter was not something she could deal with. Not today, not this week.

  ‘I suppose he must have met Blackie,’ Ron said with a grunt.

  ‘Blackie was his first trainer,’ she supplied, tersely. She braced herself as she saw him approach the table, feeling in all senses backed into a corner. His date moved away towards the toilets and Tiff briefly considered joining her, then fleeing via a window.

  ‘You sure?’ Ron asked, unconvinced. ‘He never told me that. Why wouldn’t he have told me that? That’s a great claim to fame.’ Ron’s curiosity had turned to disgruntlement at having been kept out of the loop. ‘How would you know, anyway? You don’t follow the sport.’

  Tiff didn’t answer, she’d zoned out, trying to prepare for the imminent arrival.

  ‘Tiffanie Trent.’ He said it as a statement. His voice was deep and low, but carried as far as it needed to, in spite of the babble of the room. She felt foolish for not having recognised him immediately. But the bruising, the nose, the growing up – ten years did things to faces and bodies. Plus he was the last person she wanted to see.

  ‘Mikey Fellner.’ She didn’t know what to say, or what to do, so she settled for matching his opener, although she was moved to fidget and pull at her clothes, in an attempt to escape feeling appraised. Fail. Epic fail. Everything about that moment made her want to crawl under the bench. As if she didn’t feel rubbish enough already, seeing him in front of her dredged up every bad thought she’d ever had about herself.

  He sat without being invited, knees spread wide, trousers taut against monster-muscled thighs. Tiff sensed Ron instinctively retract his own legs fractionally in what she assumed was some weird macho knob deference. Respects paid, Ron introduced himself with uncharacteristic gusto. Tiff experienced a faint sensation of nausea, as Ron gushed on, not put off by the fact Mike’s attention was rock solidly on her.

  ‘So,’ Ron finally concluded, ‘how do you know each other?’

  Mike arched one eyebrow, but he didn’t comment. Instead a silence ensued as they all waited for one of them to fill Ron in. Eventually Tiff caved out of sheer choking discomfort.

  ‘Mikey and I went to school together, Ron.’ She knew this wasn’t enough of the truth, judging by the way the other eyebrow now met its wingman, but she couldn’t bear to venture deeper into it. Opening it all up, peering at what it had been, examining what it had done to her, would twist the knife in an already debilitating wound.

  She waited to see if he’d offer more.

  He did.

  ‘Ron, mate,’ he started, genuinely as if he’d known Ron forever, ‘this was the first and last girl to break my heart.’ He didn’t say it with any sense of wistful nostalgia; in fact, it felt as if Mike bore a grudge.

  He had a bloody nerve! He had a bloody nerve even showing up here in his fancy suit with his fancy girlfriend and coming up to her like this. Something shifted in her, something akin to anger that overrode the hurt.

  ‘Um, want me to leave you to it? Catch up, like?’ Ron was torn; he was sat with a boxing legend, but it was all feeling a bit … squirmy.

  ‘Stay put, Ron. I’m leaving after this drink,’ she said pointedly, refusing to be intimidated by a man who had no right to try to make her feel bad about the past. He was the one doing the heart-breaking, not her. Tiff tilted her chin at him. ‘It’s been a long week and I’ve got a killer headache.’ This was a whopping lie. She had packing to do, but nobody needed to know that.

  ‘You look different, Tiff,’ Mike said, ignoring her headache.

  ‘It’s been ten years, Mikey,’ she snapped, conscious that after the last week, she did not look her best. Sod’s law they’d meet when she was looking rough. ‘You’re hardly the fresh-faced teen.’

  ‘You should see the other guy, Angel,’ he countered. Angel. No-one had called her that in years. His tone was curt, and whereas ‘Angel’ had once made her feel special, it now sounded vaguely like a put-down. ‘And don’t let the bruises fool you. Every bruise I ever got brought experience, a lesson to protect myself better next time.’ Tiff knew he was making a point, but she wasn’t having any of it. He had let her down. She held his gaze, trying not to rise to the bait, but the simmering fury kept building.

  ‘I didn’t recognise you at the church. Maybe it was the blinding ego.’ He was different. He wasn’t that lanky lad anymore, whose body was growing in spurts his self-image couldn’t keep up with. He’
d obviously got the muscles from the boxing, but they now balanced his limbs in a way they hadn’t when they were teens. They weren’t the arms she’d stroked and clearly not the chicken’s legs she’d once entwined with her own. She flushed at the thought, then looked away, hoping he wouldn’t notice the bloodrush.

  ‘Looking a smidge red there, Tiff. Maybe you aren’t used to seeing me with another woman,’ he said, ignoring her swipe. ‘I only had eyes for you back then.’

  Well, she definitely wasn’t rising to that. She didn’t give a stuff who he was with. That said, she couldn’t help but think about what his eyes must see now. Last he saw her, she was sixteen, confident – cocky even – the daughter of the local bank manager. Physically she still looked similar. She’d gained some weight, but who didn’t do that when they settled down with someone? That was happiness, right? And her hair could probably do with sorting, but Tiff had learned a long time ago to avoid hairdressers and the insatiable gossiping. But this was a funeral, so she was entitled to look weary and wan, if not slightly dishevelled. He could put it down to grief, rather than her life being a total shitstorm.

  Not that she cared what he thought either. Why would she care about his opinion? They’d known each other a long time ago, she reminded herself, for an intense but short time, and in the end, they’d crashed and burned. So why should it bother her, when she was deeply in the throes of losing Gavin, what Mikey bloody Fellner saw when he looked at her? After today she doubted they’d meet again, so, pulling herself up in her seat, Tiff decided she’d look him straight in the eye and not be cowed.

  ‘I’m not used to seeing you at all, Mike. It’s been ten years since you went. Ten years. And you’re long forgotten.’

  He made a show of looking around the room, where right on cue all the boxers who’d greeted him earlier looked over. Bastards.

  ‘Clearly not that forgotten.’

  ‘Oh, get a grip, Mike.’ She was finding it hard resisting the urge to punch him in the face. ‘They don’t remember you; they didn’t know you. They’re just celebrity gogglers. World champion or performing seal, same/same to them.’