Out Late with Friends and Regrets (40 page)

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
 
Come on, then.
 
Let’s get down to it.”

The awful thing was, once she could face it and admit it to herself, was that she had grown away from the shop far more than she had thought possible.
 
The distance between herself and her living had become more than geographical.
 
When Paul was alive it had been the centre of her devoted interest, a real and important part of herself when the parallel but unpredictable universe of home life threatened to overwhelm her.
 
For the millionth time she asked herself why she had stayed with him.
 
Well, she had thought she loved him, and he her.
 
Mad.
 
Mad, as one is, in a mad world.
 
Mad, and knowing no better.

Harford, though, Harford was technicolor to Cantlesham’s sepia. Every day promised fresh experience, and reasons to be thankful.
 
She and Ellie had gone to Jetsam’s a couple of times, “on the pull” as Ellie had said with relish, but with neither of them managing to score amongst the mainly straight crowd.
 
Not that it stopped them having a great time, and either fraying their legs at the ends in the disco, or ending up in an energetic hours-long debate with new friends in somebody’s kitchen. Fin wished she could see more of Rosemary, but the time just seemed to evaporate. The fact that Woodside was on the outskirts of Harford, and a detour off the route to Cantlesham, didn’t help. They emailed, Facebooked and phoned, of course, with Fin giving lively accounts of her activities: the stalker, the gym, her new friends, the house.

Fin had worked hard to make her house her own, and it was pretty well as simple and organised as she had aimed for: the canvas awaiting the brushstrokes of her life.
 
The garden was next year’s project.
 
She treasured occasional nights in on her own, listening to music, or watching television.
 
But often she went to classes at the leisure centre, or gym sessions.
 
She was sure she had improved her fitness enormously in the few weeks since joining, and kept an eye out for WPC Karen Boland.
 
She could now certainly give the girl a run, literally, for her money, should she happen to occupy a neighbouring treadmill again.
 
Well, maybe.

Despite the lack of a gossip-worthy love life, and the unease in the back of her mind concerning the health of the business, she had never been so happy.
 
She had rung Petra a couple of times, ostensibly to see how she had settled in and to say hello, and how was Lizzie, and how indeed was Lizzie’s gardener; and had received a decidedly neutral “Fine” in response.
 
She had been very relieved indeed that the stalker was not mentioned.
 
So he, too, was consigned to the same box as the shop’s prospects.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Hay,” said the petite Asian receptionist called Dolly, “but we’ve had to cancel the aerobics class again – Louise’s little boy is still in hospital, and we can’t get anyone to cover.”

“Damn.
 
I really like that class.
 
No wonder you’ve got posters all over the public areas saying why not train to be a fitness coach.
 
You’re obviously desperate.”

“They’re not our posters actually, it’s the company that does the training, advertising for business.
 
They do several courses a year, mostly in Birmingham.
 
Why don’t you have a go?”
 

Fin laughed, flattered.
 
“Oh, Dolly, you make a girl feel wonderful.
 
Perhaps you haven’t noticed the words ‘Are you aged between eighteen and thirty?’”

Dolly’s huge eyes widened still further with amusement.

“Well, you could pass for thirty.
 
And you must be fit, the time you spend in this place!”

“If nothing else, you’ve made my day.
 
I’ll take a ticket for the gym, please, and a sauna after. Thank you.”

Fin sat in the changing room after her sauna.
 
If all the instructors had to be under thirty, who the hell taught the fifty-plus classes?
 
She was sure she had seen an older woman with a mic pack coming out of one of the studios one morning.
 
A couple of languid young women in shades of pink came into the changing room as she dressed, texting as they giggled over what she said and what he said back, and comparing manicures. And these girls could go and train to teach people to exercise whereas she herself would be considered too old.
 
Outrageous.
 
Not that she had the slightest inclination to become an instructor, it was just the principle.

Later, looking up something on the internet for the shop, she tapped in a search for ‘fitness instructors – training’, and was surprised to find a long list of results, admittedly most of them in London or associated with regional bodies.
 
But Pro-Train, the one on the posters, was indeed based in Birmingham.

Bastards. Ageist bastards.
 
She opened the home page.

“Whether full or part time, you could be earning £££s as a Pro-Trained fitness coach... Nationally recognised qualification... increasingly marketable skills... Government drive to address the Nation’s fitness shortfall...”
and so on.

Despite herself, she read the page with interest, and linked to the online questionnaire.
 
Next to
Date of Birth
it stated
(You must be over 18).
 
Nothing in the way of an upper limit.
 
Almost in the spirit of issuing a challenge, she filled it in, including the medical and fitness history questions, and her CV, such as it was.
 
Not that she could afford six hundred and – what was it? – for the course, for which she would need to stay in Birmingham, with all the additional expense that would be involved in accommodation, anyway.
 
And it was the wrong time of year; with Christmas coming up, she couldn’t possibly spare the time.

It would be a great part-time job, though.
 
The pay, she gathered from the FAQs page, could vary enormously from organisation to organisation, but most instructors were self-employed (cheaper and easier for the companies and councils running things, she thought to herself, with a wry smile) and could work in more than one venue, depending on their skills.
 
It would certainly relieve the pressure on the shop a bit, if she were working two or three nights a week.
 
It would be interesting to see how they turned down her application – was there actually an ageism law yet?
 
She would write a sharp letter to the local paper, and mention Pro-Train by name.
 
Oh dear, she was turning into Angry of Harford.

Send.

It wasn’t quite a Jenny Agutter moment, but Fin had to hold herself back from running to the figure in the oversized floppy beret, and crushing her daughter to her as never before.
 
As it was, Anna squealed “Hey, Mum!” as Fin hugged her, “I need breath for my work, you know!”

They stepped back momentarily.

“Blimey, Mum, you look great!
 
The new life obviously suits you.”

The move to the city she meant, of course.

“I like it a lot, darling.
 
Lots going on, lots of new stuff, friends, and - stuff.”

She could feel herself hyperventilating slightly. She must stop swallowing repeatedly; Anna might notice how nervous she was, and know something was up.

“Well, honestly, you look heaps younger than last time, and you’ve got a kind of different look... I know, you’ve found a new man! It’s gotta be love, right?”

Oh God.
 
I’m sorry darling, sorry, sorry, sorry...

Fin smiled and took a controlled breath.

“What a lovely compliment, Anna, thank you!
 
But no, I haven’t met a new man, unfortunately-”

Unfortunately? Bad word choice. Edit out. You’re going to have to tell her anyway, wimp.

Just a bit longer to enjoy that lovely, heartfelt smile, the compliments so genuinely meant to please.

“I didn’t actually mean unfortunately, I
am
very happy with things, there’s no man, and that’s cool.
 
Now do you want to go for a coffee, or shall we go straight home?”

“Home, please, Mum, I’m dying to see it.
 
You can take me clubbing later!”

Fin laughed out loud.
 
She had actually been planning to take her to Jetsam’s and later introduce her to Ellie, and Rachel too, if she could be persuaded to come along.
 
Not quite clubbing in Anna’s understanding of the word, but certainly a colourful backdrop against which to hint at Fin’s personal drama, a context in which demonstrate her life as it had become.
 
She wouldn’t actually tell Anna in front of the others, of course.
 
Either early, over a drink, or after, when they went home.
 
Difficult to know how to play it; there were so many imponderables.
 

At home had to be better; no distracting noise to blur the clarity of what she must say; it would be calm and matter-of-fact, but unambiguous.
 
Then she would have to deal with whatever followed.
 
She had rehearsed her speech, just as she had rehearsed the one to prepare her little girl for periods, and that other one about married people making a baby.
 
And later, about the pill, and condoms, and being careful.
 
By the time the moment came for that particular advice her influence had weakened, but fortunately Anna had made up her own mind about the connection between birth control and independence.
 

“This is actually quite a nice town, Mum,” said Anna, as Fin drove her the pretty route past the park, mellow sun warming the old stones of the University the other side of the river, “and it’s a lot bigger than I was expecting.”

“You London girls,” replied Fin, “Harford is actually a major city, did nobody tell you? Built on a mediaeval centre of commerce, wool, grain, that sort of thing, huge fluctuating population thanks to its university, cathedral built in the reign of -”

“
Mum!
”

“Yeah, OK, look, this is the Triangle, where I live, look out for the exotic food shops, and the funny little cafes and delis.”

“Ooh,
just
like London, I shall feel right at home!”

Fin clung to the warmth of the sendup, and tried to cram her worry into the problems box. The lid just wouldn’t close.

She encouraged Anna to talk about her life at drama school, and with Janet.
 
There was so much she didn’t know.
 
Anna admired the house appropriately, comparing it with “after” shots on makeover shows.
 
Perhaps she meant bland.
 
That was OK; bland was fine for now.

“What would you like to do while you’re here, Anna darling?” asked Fin, “I thought tonight we might go to a local bistro-disco-bar sort of place, and meet a couple of my friends.”

As she spoke, it occurred to her: how boring that must sound to a nineteen-year-old. People double Anna’s age probably didn’t interest her at all; even Ellie might not seem that exotic and interesting, after the cavalcade of the weird and the wonderful – and young – who cavorted through her world.

“Actually Mum,” said Anna, “would there be any chance we could get last-minute tickets for The Resolve?
 
They’re doing ‘The Vortex’, and it comes off tomorrow.”

Why hadn’t she thought of that?
 
Her daughter was an aspiring actress, and The Resolve was a heavily-subsidised little gem of a theatre which put on a rather more adventurous programme of productions than the populist River Theatre, home of blue-chip farce, touring tribute acts and soap star panto.
 
Fin had never been to either.