Chapter One
“Look, it’s there if you want it, Mel,” said Shelley, “Just let me know as soon as you can … otherwise Scott will say we have to advertise and you know what that means …”
“Yes, I know,” I replied, “A lot of competition … that I could do without …”
“You’re a good receptionist and we could definitely do with somebody like you welcoming people into the gym … you’re young, attractive …”
“Young?” I exclaimed, almost laughing out loud. “You think thirty two is young?”
“Melanie! Thirty two is nothing; I’m nearer forty now, less than a year until the big day.”
“Oh yes Shelley, forty, oh my God!” We looked and each other and laughed remembering, I suppose, that we’d grown up together really even though Shelley was eight years older than me. I took a sip of coffee. “I do appreciate you offering me this job, you know, but I wouldn’t say I was a very good advert for a gym at the moment … look …” I pulled up my top showing a rather fleshy waistline, “I can definitely pinch more than an inch …do you think it would put people off?”
Shelley shook her head and rolled her eyes. “God Melanie, any one would think you were as big as a Sumo wrestler! You’ve only put on a little bit of weight because you’re sitting at home alone, no husband, no job, so you’re comfort eating. Having a new job, a new focus, should help with that, plus when you finish your shift, you can work out.” She took a long drink from her mug.
“Oh yeah, thanks Shelley, I’m suddenly going to become an athlete?”
“You’ll have a swimming pool and a gym right there when you finish work, and there’s a running club … actually we’ve recently taken on a new running coach, Rob … um, I can’t remember, Rob someone, and he’s very nice … could be right up your street, Mel.” She took a gulp of coffee from her mug.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Shelley, men are not on my list of priorities at the moment and this bloke won’t be up my street, down my road, or even round my corner come to that! And anyway a fit man like him would take one look at me and recoil in horror.”
Shelley laughed uproariously at my great wit, “Don’t be daft, Mel, he wouldn’t do that. Why would he? You’re lovely, really pretty and curvy, men like curves. He’s a really nice guy, quite attractive too if you go for the dark sort of hippy looking types.”
“Well, that rules him out then, I can’t be doing with these new age types. I expect he’ll be into tarot cards and runes, and angels and … things!”
Shelley shook her head. “Really, Mel, what are you on about? He’s into running and weights, he also takes swimming lessons and has clients for personal training … he’s very sporty.”
“I’m not interested, Shelley, men are just not in my world at the moment. Surely you can see that after what Sam did to me?”
Shelley nodded her head. “Yes, of course, Mel … I know, but what do they say? A change is as good as a rest?”
Oh, hi, sorry I didn’t notice you before … yes, you, with your nose stuck in this book, trying to follow the conversation but not really having much of a clue what Shelley and I are talking about. I suppose I’d better introduce us before I go any further …
My name’s Melanie, Melanie Morris, and, unfortunately, you’ve started reading this story when everything in my life is at a really low ebb. For starters, Sam, my husband of eight years left me around four months ago, oh my God, I hate to say the next statement, but it’s true, “For Another Woman!” And then, following very closely on from that, I was made redundant from my job as a receptionist at the local doctor’s surgery, Skelmanthorpe Surgery, our home town, or Skelly Surgy as the locals call it
As you may have gathered, I’m with Shelley at the moment (she’s my cousin) in her beautiful detached house, sitting in her brightly painted kitchen (all green and white and all mod cons of course) at her beautiful square pine table drinking coffee, Nespresso I think it is, those little pods that George Clooney advertises, um, yummy coffee, with a delectable smell. I’m sniffing at it right now and it’s heavenly. I would even go so far as to say that the smell is even better than the taste!
Shelley is beautiful, one of those tall willowy women that seem to bend and sway as they walk and, actually, with her long golden hair and baby blue eyes, she puts me in mind of a host of daffodils languidly moving to and fro in a spring breeze. She’s been married to Scott for around twelve years and they have two adorable little girls, Mya who’s ten and Bethany eight. Mya is dark like Scott with a swarthy skin and eyes that glisten and glitter like currants in a bun but Bethany is pale and blonde and will probably be willowy just like her mum.
Shelley and Scott own a string of leisure centres around the local area, hence being able to offer me a job in the local one. They’ve sprung up like flowers from a bulb in nearby places like Southport and Preston and even in seaside resorts like Blackpool and Morecambe and even Liverpool. The leisure centre’s, the brainchild of Melanie, are called “Hale & Hearty” and have a very distinctive bright orange logo of a stick man and woman running together.
The logo always fascinated me when the first gym was launched almost fifteen years ago, I suppose because I was an impressionable teenager then and totally in awe of Shelley and Scott and what they were achieving, also running was unusual in those days, not like now when you can bump into a runner huffing and puffing on nearly every street corner.
I have a really clear memory of going with Shelley and Scott to view the building that is now our local “Hale & Hearty” Skelmanthorpe. It was a hot summer’s day and I remember squinting against the sun at this very imposing building, a former school set amongst beautiful gardens and a lake which at the time was inundated with geese that honked warnings at us in their forthright manner as we toured the building and the grounds. Ducks swam on the lake, their tiny skinny legs clearly visible as they paddled beneath the clear water.
“Can you imagine an extension just there,” said Shelley, pointing to the side of the imposing building, “Housing a swimming pool, a steam room, a sauna, and a Jacuzzi. Imagine relaxing in the Jacuzzi and looking out of the window at this view.” She spread her arms wide to incorporate the gardens and the lake.
“This is the ideal place for our first “Hale & Hearty”,” agreed Scott.
“And with many more to come,” added Shelley.
You can tell how ambitious Shelley was just by that statement and that she didn’t aim to stop at just one “Hale & Hearty”. The leisure centres are really popular now and Shelley and Scott have dedicated people on their books who have been members since the opening of the first one in Skelmanthorpe all those years ago. Shelley has done really well for herself, unlike me, of course.
The job Shelley is offering is based in the “Hale & Hearty” in our local town, Skelly, as we all call it. If I accept the job, I’ll be the first thing the members see when they come into the reception area and, really, if you saw me at the moment, you so wouldn’t think that was a good idea! I’ve been neglecting myself, I know that for sure, I’ve only got to look in a mirror and first of all I cringe and then I frown and think “now who is that?” When I realise it’s me I sort of fold into myself like an umbrella and try to hide in terror! My looks at the moment are definitely not for the faint hearted.
My long brown hair needs a good cut, well, even a proper style would help, my face where I’ve put on weight is as round as the moon and I’ve developed curves sort of … everywhere! I definitely don’t look like the orange stick woman on the ““Hale & Hearty”” logo, but more like the plump cherub that you see in the shops on pictures and cards (an older version of course).
It’s got that bad that I’ve had to start going to a different branch of Bloomers the Bakers every time I buy sausage rolls or pasties so that nobody knows how many I’ve bought or worse, how many I’ve eaten. Sometimes I go to the tiny shop on the precinct where the shop assistant calls me sweetheart, or the one with a café by the bus station, and then there’s the massively busy one where you have to queue out of the door on the retail park, and if I’m feeling really desperate I go to Huddersfield and buy from the shop that plays loud seventies music like a disco so I’m able to jig up and down whilst waiting for my pastry fix. Yeah, it’s true I’m as sad as that!
I circle my thumb and index finger around the roll of flab that has made its home around my waist. I’m desperate to get rid of it, to evict it, but on what grounds? That it hasn’t paid the rent? Or that it’s squatting and that’s against the law? I know that Shelley is holding out a kind hand and doing her best by offering me this job, and I must admit it probably will help to lift me out of this massive hole that I’ve just happened to fall into or, as I like to think, been pushed into by my ex Sam!
What Shelley doesn’t know though is that I went for an interview last week. Yes, I managed to rouse myself from my pit of depression, made myself look passably attractive and went for it. The job is in a doctor’s surgery again but really that’s all I know. I’d been in my job as Receptionist in Skelly Surgy since I left college at nineteen. I’d be well out of my comfort zone anywhere else, especially in a leisure centre.
I daren’t tell Shelley because I know she’d say that being on a reception is the same anywhere, you greet people and you make appointments, end of story. That’s not true … and anyway look at the difference between being a doctor’s surgery receptionist and a leisure centre receptionist, look at the difference in the type of people for a start, doctor’s surgery - ill people, leisure centre - fit people … do you see what I mean?
Anyway reader now that you know some of the background, I think I can safely leave you to your own devices and trust you to read on with no further help from me. So here goes. Shelley has brought me out of my reverie by suddenly jumping up and announcing that she has to go to collect the girls from school. She picks up our mugs and puts them tidily in the dishwasher then flings her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek no doubt leaving a pink glossy lipstick mark on my skin.
She doesn’t look as though she’s just on the school run wearing tailored black trousers and a lovely red top with some sort of netting around the neck area. She’s wearing full make up and her hair flows long and loose around her shoulders, and she’s putting on a black belted trench coat, pulled tight at the waist giving her a fabulous silhouette.
“You’ll have to let me know by tomorrow, Mel, about the job, okay?”
I nodded. “Yes, okay … “
“We need you, Mel, you’ll be doing us a big favour, you’re a trained receptionist and would be great as the face of “Hale & Hearty” Skelmanthorpe. You’re not fat, you’re lovely. Never forget that okay?”
I nod again; then hang my head as tears start to prick right at the back of my eyelids; kindness always seems to do that to me. I need to go now before I make a real fool of myself. Cold air hits me as I go outside to the car making me hunch my shoulders and button up my coat to the neck. It’s early November and autumn leaves skitter in the wind and lay in bright crimson huddles on the paths leaving the trees bare and forlorn. The sky is a washed out grey like white underwear put on the wrong cycle.
I wave at Shelley as she gets in her car and I see her hand flutter at me through the windscreen like a little white flag. Then suddenly she’s out of the car and running over to me so I wind down the window wondering what she’s going to say.
“Bryce,” she says. “I’ve just remembered, his name’s Rob Bryce … well, I think he prefers to be called Robert.”
I shake my head. “Shelley, I’m not interested in men at the moment … I’ve got a broken heart, remember?”
She grins and says, “I bet he’d help to mend that broken heart.”
I watch her run back to her car, a beautiful silver Mondeo, courtesy of the success of “Hale & Hearty”. She looks like a little girl from the back, the little girl who cradled me in her chubby arms when I was just a baby. My orange Fiat starts like an old man coughing and I slowly drive away, to go home, I suppose, to that cold lifeless house that I really don’t want to go to any more.
***
I wasn’t prepared for Sam’s revelation that evening back in July. It had been a hot day, the sky so very blue with not a hint of cloud; they’d all dissolved to nothing in the heat like candy floss on your tongue. I’d worked a couple of hour’s overtime so we’d arrived home at around the same time. We were both a bit cranky I suppose, red faced and sweating like a baby just woken from its nap. I remember that it was a Thursday.
With relief I peeled off my blouse and skirt that, because of the heat, were stuck to my skin like glue and, wearing only bra and knickers, stood in the bedroom thinking of a cool shower. I struck a pose, hand on hip, and fluttered my eye lashes a little, as Sam appeared in the doorway but, tight lipped, he gave a tiny shake of his head and flung himself onto the bed and just lay, there staring at the ceiling.
I remember asking, “What is it?”
“Nothing, tired, hot,” he said listlessly. He barely looked at me. A faint unease stole over my body as in the shower cool clear water pattered onto my skin and the intoxicating scent of vanilla slid into my nostrils as I shampooed my hair.
“He’s been like this for a while,” I thought to myself, as I put my face up to the shower head and let the water run down my cheeks like tears, “Disinterested, tired, miserable …” I hadn’t been too bothered really. I knew he was busy at work and the years that we’d spent trying for a baby had worn us both down but tonight, the look on his face, the languid response when I questioned him, it suddenly occurred to me that something was wrong, something was badly wrong.
I won’t say anything yet, though. Maybe it’s just that he’s hungry and stressed from work. I’ll make something to eat and we’ll have a drink and then when he’s had a shower, he might feel better and perhaps everything will be okay again.
I went down to the kitchen, my flip flops slapping on the stairs, and then rummaged in the fridge for something to eat, something quick, I really didn’t think I had the energy to cook anything complicated. I found chicken that I could chop into cubes, in the cupboard a jar of Rogan Josh curry mix and rice that could be heated in the microwave in two minutes. “Mm yes, a quick curry.” I poured myself a glass of red wine and set to work.
I remember that the chicken was bubbling in the pan when Sam finally came downstairs. I offered him a glass of wine which he chugged down in one and then poured himself another. He wore blue tracksuit bottoms and a white tee shirt that clung to the muscles in his arms and chest. His blonde hair, lightened by the summer sun, had been washed and was stuck to his scalp, little bits around his ears and his neck already drying and sticking up.
We sat in front of the droning telly, the curry on trays on our laps. Coronation Street was on but I remember that Sam had aimed the remote and the next minute Eastenders came on the screen, a violent scene of a woman and a man grappling and shouting at one another. He changed channels again but a very bloody operation on a dog came into view. I remember I said, “Oh my God, not while we’re eating,” so he switched the telly off and the sudden silence was awful.
“Had a bad day?” I ventured.
“No worse than usual,” he replied shortly. He chewed at a piece of chicken, his jaw moving around and around, the scraping of knives and forks on plates and the slurping of wine being the only sounds. I felt that I would explode if he didn’t speak to me, give me an explanation for his behavior, when Sam, putting his tray down on the floor beside the settee, said so quietly that at first I didn’t quite hear, “Mel, I’ve met somebody else.”
It suddenly occurred to me that, yes, that was the only explanation and shell shocked, yet speaking quite calmly, I asked him, “Who?”
He took a deep breath and said, “Alice Jackson.”
“Alice Jackson?” I exclaimed, struggling to stand up then remembered the tray on my lap which I laid on the floor next to Sam’s. “But she’s a baby; she must be ten years younger than us!”
He looked straight at me, his blue eyes gazing into mine. “Yeah, she’s twenty two.”
“Why Sam?” I asked him, shaking my head in utter disbelief, “Why?”
He wouldn’t look at me; nor would he answer but just sat there, leaning forward his forearms on his thighs, staring at the floor.
“How long has it been going on?” I persisted. “Tell me, Sam …”
He took a deep breath. “A while, Mel … you weren’t interested in me anymore. All you wanted was a baby … “
“Oh what a cliché,” I interrupted. “What an excuse … you’re nothing but an … an … adulterer …”
I saw red, a wall of deep blinding crimson red like blood, and told him that he’d better get out. “Pack your things,” I told him, screamed at him, “And get out. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
He didn’t argue, but stood up and walked from the room. I heard him go up the stairs, his feet dragging and heavy on each step, and then after a while he left, just the banging of the front door telling me that he’d gone. I peered from the sitting room window and watched, my heart thumping and my hands shaking, as he put his suitcase into the boot of the car, before slamming the lid down with force, then he got in the driver’s seat and moved slowly away from the kerb.
I stood there for ages, unmoving, looking at the garden, at the neatly cut lawn and the weed free flower beds, at all the beautiful flowers that we’d planted together. I must have looked like a shop dummy in that window I stood there for so long. When I finally did move, I ached in my bones and was so unsteady on my feet that I felt as though I’d aged by at least twenty years.
***
The beep of a text message awoke me the next morning and I fumbled sleepily on the bedside cabinet until I felt the smooth roundness of my phone and saw a text from Shelley which I could just about see squinting through gummy eyes, “So, wot’s the verdict then? I need to know x”
I checked the time six forty five. “Six forty five in the morning and she has to have a decision! Is she crazy?” I hunched back under the duvet thinking, “No, far too early, she can wait”. I closed my eyes and tried to drift off again back into the land of dreams but, oh God, I was awake now and sleep was elusive and slippery and I just couldn’t seem to get hold of it. The more I reached out to grab it, the more it edged away and lurked in the shadowy corners of the bedroom, tantalising me and teasing me.
I snaked my hand over to Sam’s side of the bed, feeling the smooth sheet, which was cold now and empty and the severity of my situation which could be summed up in two words really flooded into my mind, husbandless and jobless. I hadn’t got the job in the doctor’s surgery. They’d sent me a rejection email yesterday tea time, so what choice did I have now? Well, I couldn’t do anything about the lack of a husband but it seemed that now I could definitely do something about the lack of a job.
Pulling myself up in the bed and leaning against the headboard and soft comfy pillows, I texted her back, “God, you’re an early bird, cheep, cheep. Yes Shelley, I’ll be your new receptionist. Thank you so much xxx”
She texted me back, “Fantastic, report for duty Monday morning for the 7.30am shift. Full uniform provided. Btw I’ll make sure that Robert Bryce is fully prepared for you! x”
I shook my head in exasperation. What was this thing with Robert Bryce? This matchmaking thing with Shelley could be a problem because this guy just didn’t sound like my type at all, and even if he was I didn’t want a relationship with anyone at the moment, the situation with Sam was still far too raw.
Annoyed and irritated, I got out of bed and, shrugging on my dressing gown, stomped downstairs to make a coffee. “What was he anyway, but some new age hippy with a pony tail!”
