The Desperate Bride’s Diet Club (30 page)

Kathy cycled for a long time that evening and had actually gone along the river path that Maggie had suggested. She worked out on the map when she got home that she had cycled around six miles that afternoon. The raspberry sunset streaked the sky. It was very romantic. But she had no tall blond man with kind eyes to share it with.

Edward had spotted
Kathy cycling away just as he reached the cricket stumps. He had gone to wave at her before realising she was leaving the cricket ground.

She was probably bored with him; he understood
that
. He had been far too pushy, inviting himself over every Sunday and then having dinner with her. She might have thought he was just going over there for the food rather than to enjoy her company.

Maybe he
should leave her alone, he told himself. But he knew he really didn’t want to.

ON MONDAY MORNING
, Violet left her car outside the house and walked to the bus stop. She was a little breathless by the time she arrived but felt OK.

The bus turned up, she paid her fare and sat down. It was quite nice to let someone else do the driving. Plus she could people watch to her heart’s content. Or rather fashion watch. A woman got on with such a fabulous handbag
that Violet almost asked her where she had got it from. And those shoes were nice. What about those bangles? Earrings? Her lipstick?

Everyone else must have thought that Violet was one of those nutters you often got on the bus, staring wildly at everyone. But she was just clocking their fashion choices. And wondering if she should flash her credit cards again that lunchtime.

But the small amount
of exercise was good for her. She had flicked through Isabella’s book the previous evening and realised she was now on Rule Number Four. Exercise.

‘For
una bella figura
’ – a fine figure, Violet translated – ‘you must do a little walking each day. We Italians take the evening
passeggiata
’ – walk – ‘before dinner. It is good for both the digestion and the soul.’

Violet wondered whether her bus
journey and short walk would impress Isabella. Probably not.

‘You must do a little activity each day that makes you breathless. You may include
l’amore
, if you wish.’

Breathless? Sex? What it made Violet, to be honest, was a bit stressed. All that revealing of naked flesh and for what? The only time recently that Sebastian had made her breathless was with anger.

It was time to send out the
wedding invitations. She had the invites for her work colleagues in her handbag. But the invitations had brought up the subject of which wedding list to choose.

It turned out that Violet’s dreams of a few choice presents of candlesticks and other keepsakes didn’t correspond with Sebastian’s ideas. He wanted to ask for money instead.

‘We can’t,’ Violet told him, aghast.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not
right,’ she told him. ‘We don’t need it with the inheritance coming next year.’ She had a sudden thought. ‘We could always ask people to give to charity instead, on our behalf.’

‘You must be bloody joking,’ said Sebastian. ‘Some goat given to some loser in Africa? What’s the point? And since when did you start disagreeing with everything I say?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do. Since you’ve lost weight,
you’ve changed.’ He bit his lip. ‘I suppose you don’t even want to marry me any more.’

Violet flung herself at his knees and stared up at him. ‘Of course I do,’ she stammered. Her heart was thumping at the thought of not marrying Sebastian, of being alone.

‘I just don’t think it’s polite,’ she told him. ‘Asking for money like that when we already have so much of our own.’

He rubbed her hair.
‘Let me do the thinking, pumpkin. It’ll be fine.’

In the end, they had compromised on registering for gifts at John Lewis. Violet had spent a wretched couple of hours wandering around the home section with Sebastian, trying to choose cutlery and crockery that they both liked. He appeared as uninterested in the choices as she was so they had ended up choosing a set that neither of them really
liked. Sebastian quickly got bored and wandered off, zapping the barcodes of ridiculous items such as cocktail shakers, a wine thermo meter and a cricket bat.

Violet had glanced longily at the garden section. There were some raised herb gardens in grey that she would have loved. But Sebastian had begun to yawn and get restless so she didn’t bother.

Violet dragged her mind back to the present
and found that the bus hadn’t moved very far. It was barely quicker than the car journey that she had been struggling with every day. The bus lanes made a bit of a difference but the whole town came to standstill at quarter to nine.

She glanced at her watch. She daren’t be late again. She might get the sack. She realised in that instant that she really enjoyed her job. She liked using her brain
and the responsibility.

She made a decision and stood up. It was only a short distance to the office. So she got off the bus and
began
to walk. There was something about walking past everyone in their cars that made her feel quite smug. She wasn’t sure if the fumes were doing her lungs any good but she could feel her face glowing by the time she got to work.

She had just pressed the button in
the lift to go up to her floor when Mark slipped his way through the gap, a little breathless. ‘Good morning,’ he said, panting slightly. ‘Traffic’s a nightmare this morning.’

‘Good morning,’ replied Violet, also still out of breath from her walk.

Her mind suddenly flashed to Isabella’s words on what could make you breathless. Thankfully her blushes were hidden as her cheeks were already red.

‘What have you been up to?’ asked Mark, studying her rosy face.

‘I got off the bus early to walk,’ Violet told him as the lift doors slid open.

They walked down the corridor together until they reached the department. It was only just after nine o’clock.

Violet glanced over to Anthony, who was just finishing a phone call and rolling his eyes as he put down the receiver.

‘What?’ she asked him.

‘Pbkc,’ he told her.

Violet’s mind panicked. Was this some new kind of technology that she hadn’t yet grasped? Or even thought of?

But Anthony’s face split into a grin. ‘Problem between keyboard and chair,’ he told her.

Once she got the joke, Violet smiled back.

She caught the bus home again and realised she had achieved about thirty minutes of walking, including the
short
stroll from her
front door to the bus stop. So the following morning, she got off at the nearer bus stop once more to walk a little further. And then walked to the bus stop instead of the bus station on the way home.

Violet continued the walking each day and lost four pounds that week just from the extra exercise.

All the fresh air and extra movement triggered a yearning for carbs so Violet made some salads
to take into work for her lunch. The possibilities were endless. Cold pasta, mixed with a small amount of good quality pesto, cherry tomatoes, cubed cucumber and a couple of olives. Cold rice mixed with sun-dried tomatoes and parma ham with the fat removed. She even took in some leftover lemon risotto, made with courgettes and a splash of white wine.

Gradually Violet became braver and got off
the bus earlier and earlier each morning. By the following week, she decided it was barely worth the hassle of getting on the bus. So she walked past the bus stop and kept walking all the way into town. Half an hour later, Violet was at work and feeling proud of herself. So she began to walk home too. Violet lost four pounds that week as well.

But at the weekends, she had nowhere to walk to.
Sebastian often played golf or squash but that excluded her so she began to find other ways to keep active.

First of all, she decided to attack the garden as autumn had almost arrived. Twenty minutes of weeding burned one hundred calories, apparently. Violet didn’t know how many calories she used up as she wrestled with a particularly large and pointy thistle that had grown up near the patio.
There were huge gaping holes around the garden by the end of
the
weekend as she tore up massive weeds and thorns. Then she dug over the soil in the gaps to get the garden ready for some new plants. Her arms burned and her back ached from the exercise but it was a good feeling. And she was happier being out in the fresh air than embarrassing herself at a step aerobics class.

‘Why are you bothering?
asked Sebastian, later that weekend.

‘Because it would be nice if the garden didn’t look like a jungle.’

‘Who cares? It’ll be on the market soon anyway.’

Violet spun round. ‘Why?’

He grinned at her. ‘I was hoping my wife would be moving in with me at some point.’

Violet thought about his bachelor pad, which was all cold chrome and black leather.

‘It makes sense,’ said Sebastian. ‘To move
in with me first. Then we’ll sell the flat and get one of those new townhouses on the edge of town.’

Violet knew which ones he meant. Very tall. Very expensive. Not much character.

‘But we can’t afford one, can we?’

Did he notice the hope in her voice? The hope that it was well out of reach.

‘We’ll use your inheritance, naturally.’

Not knowing what to say, she went back into the garden and
attacked the soil with added ferocity.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Mark, staring at her arms the following day.

It was Violet’s first time of wearing a short-sleeved top. She was gradually getting used to baring a bit more flesh.

She glanced down. It looked as if she’d been dragged through a barbed-wire fence.

‘It’s Sebastian,’ she told him, putting a solemn note in her voice. ‘He flays
me.’

Mark looked incandescent, his face creasing up into outrage.

‘I’m joking,’ she told him quickly.

Mark walked away still frowning whilst muttering Italian gobbledygook under his breath.

Later that week, she replaced the empty patches around the garden with some new plants. Then Violet decided to turn her attentions to her house.

That weekend, she began a major spring clean, or rather
an autumn clean, of the whole house. Hoovering apparently burned up 193 calories in an hour. Dusting came in at 173 calories. Mopping floors also at 173 calories burned. And her house needed hundreds of hours to get clean.

How had she lived like this for so long? She had just vegetated in front of the telly and eaten and eaten. No wonder she had stayed so fat for so long. Exercise was a big help.
In fact, during the month of September, when Violet’s weight loss should have been slowing, she lost another stone in weight. It was falling off her body in shock at all the movement. But she felt so much better for it.

Exercise made her hungry but Violet still stuck to her healthy food. In the early autumn sunshine, she reminded herself of summer with a pasta dish with rich tomatoes, a slug
of red wine and fresh basil. She even used a few shavings of Nonna’s marvellous Parmigiano Reggiano to add some flavour. Cheese might be the devil’s food if you’re dieting but Violet was beginning not to stress too much about the odd nibble.

In fact, Violet was stressing less about all the calories and focusing more on enjoying fresh flavours.

But she was so busy enjoying her dinner that she
was almost late, she realised as she hurried up the stairs to the local library. Sebastian always played snooker on a Thursday evening which left her free. In fact, he didn’t even have to know about the class she had signed up for. Which was good because Violet really didn’t want to tell him about it. It would provoke too many questions and she didn’t know yet what her answers would be.

She scurried
into the classroom and took a seat. It was odd meeting people who didn’t know how large she had been. She was down to twelve stone. It helped, she found. The fact that they thought she might only be curvy rather than morbidly obese empowered her and brought her out of her shell.

Nobody in the classroom knew about her weight in the past. And nobody needed to know. Violet was now all about the
present and the future. The past should stay where it was.

‘
Buona sera
!’ said the teacher as he entered the classroom.

Violet glanced at the paperwork on the desk.
Italian for Beginners
said the textbook in front of her.

She got out her notepad and began to write.

MAGGIE TUGGED AT
the hem of her top, trying to pull it down even further.

‘You look beautiful,’ whispered Gordon in her ear. ‘Stop fretting.’

She let go of the hem and turned to face her husband. He was also looking very smart in black trousers and an open-necked blue shirt.

‘Good evening, folks,’ said the man on the stage, talking into a microphone. ‘It’s Friday night so I hope
you’ve got your dancing shoes on.’

Maggie glanced at her feet. She was wearing brand-new black shoes with a small heel. They were a little tight but that was the least of her problems at that minute. Her arms were bare in the new sparkly evening top she had bought. The full black skirt stopped at her knees and she was wondering if her ankles looked fat.

Worst of all were the unexpected nerves.
What if she had forgotten how to dance? What if she tripped up on the dance floor, fell flat on her face and revealed
to
everyone that she was wearing Spanx bicycle shorts underneath her skirt?

‘Shall we?’ said Gordon, turning to her and holding out his hand.

Maggie nodded and clutched his hand as they made their way out to the dance floor. The place was packed with couples of varying ages,
all fighting for space as the music began.

Gordon put one hand in the middle of her back and clasped her other hand at a right angle to their bodies.

They began to move to the music and all Maggie’s cares were forgotten. They had stepped back in time twenty years and it was just Maggie and Gordon. The music sang in her ears as Gordon swept her around the floor. She felt light on her feet for
the first time in years, able to match his step with hers.