How Not to Be a Loser Page 7

And besides: crowds, noise, a microphone in my face, journalists. And the likelihood that to ceremoniously open a swimming pool in my name, I’d probably be expected to go inside it. What if I panicked? Surely I would panic?

  The very thought of it made my bones clack together.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t not do it.

  But, boy, I had some work to do in the meantime.

  I put the invitation back in the drawer and ate a carrot.

  14

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Twenty-Eight

  The following day, there was another Sean message to mess up my head and boil my blood. I saved the document I’d been working on and hit Google.

  If it turned out the absent father of my child had been wrongly imprisoned, or in a coma for the past decade, I might have felt a twinge of sympathy. But according to articles in online business magazines, and various conference speaker biographies, the managing director of Mansfield Recruitment, head office Denver, Colorado, needed sympathy from no one. I clicked on his website, teeth grinding at the staged image of him dunking a basketball (no boring sitting behind a desk for Sean Mansfield!). Ugh. Sean hated anything to do with sport. Apart from me, that was. For a while, anyway.

  No mention of a wife or children. Mostly, it seemed he played golf, posed on aeroplane steps and made money. A lot of money. Sean Mansfield had recruited the heck out of Colorado. No surprises there. He was an expert at persuading people to ditch one career for, well, empty promises, broken commitments and a truckload of disappointment, in my experience.

  And now, for some reason, he had turned his persuasive powers in the direction of my son.

  Message deleted.

  After meeting Sean on the bus, I started seeing him almost every day. Fitting a secret romance in between training and my parents’ cashing-in-on-the-celebrity campaign wasn’t easy. But the drama of sneaking off, defying authority and making my own decisions was part of the adventure.

  The craving for normal – too young, too inexperienced to know that normal was an illusion – had burst out from behind my fierce ambition. I was sick of the weight of expectation. The relentless pressure to follow orders. Sean tapped into my deepest doubts about whether Cee-Cee and the other coaches, my parents, my sponsors, squad, even saw me as a person any more.

  ‘You’re a means to an end,’ he told me, as we lazed on the grass in the university park. ‘When was the last time they asked what you want, how you feel? Gold medals and hard cash. That’s what they care about. They don’t know the real you. If you never swam another stroke, you’d still be the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I love these shoulders.’ He bent then, tucking the neck of my T-shirt back to kiss my bare skin. ‘Your back, your incredible legs. Arms. Chest.’

  I pushed him away, giggling, as after kissing each body part he made a pretence of going for my chest.

  ‘But, to me, you’re so much more than that. They want you for what you can do. I love you for who you are.’

  Every ounce of air whooshed out of my lungs. I goggled at him, speechless.

  He laughed. ‘Well, you must know I love you. Why else am I here, not studying for my exams, like everyone else?’ He gently pressed his nose to mine. ‘You’ve messed everything up, Amelia Piper,’ he breathed. ‘I’m utterly under your spell. So you’d better love me back, or I’m in serious trouble.’

  Oh yes, I loved him back. I loved the way he looked at me. How he casually took my hand whenever we were together, stroking it with his thumb. I loved that he always asked me what I wanted to do, and listened to my answers with a funny, furrowed brow. I loved the afternoons spent doing nothing, lying on a blanket watching the clouds drift by, dreaming, dozing in each other’s arms. I loved that he never, not once, pressured me to do anything I didn’t want to. Which, of course, made me want to do things I’d never have considered otherwise. Once exams were over, we swapped a picnic blanket for his bed. A girl prone to fierce obsession, my allegiance had changed. I no longer lived and breathed for the water. I lived, breathed, hoped, dreamed, dressed, lied and schemed for Sean Mansfield. And the more my lap times suffered, the more Cee-Cee sought to compensate with diet plans, gym workouts, video analysis, motivational lectures and the threat of actually losing, the further she drove me into his undemanding, understanding arms.

  As the Athens Olympics drew closer, Amelia Piper, swimming hope of the nation, began to pull away.

  15

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Thirty

  I bought myself a new pair of trainers. I figured that stopping looking like a loser would help me to stop feeling like a loser, and as a result, stop me acting like one too.

  Except I’d bought them online, of course, and they were slightly too big. The following Saturday, I stuck on an extra pair of socks and wore them anyway. The only trouble was, after three kilometres (mostly running, some walking, NO stopping!), I had what felt like blisters the size of beach balls beneath each ankle bone. I managed a hobbling sort of canter, wincing with every galumphing step as I decided to ignore the screaming agony and continue on for at least another K, but the combination of unsteady footing, pain-spawned sweat stinging my eyes and a particularly dark stretch of trees meant that my too-big trainer caught in a rabbit hole, sending me ricocheting head over bouncing-behind down a muddy slope and into the ditch at the bottom.

  Oh, crap.

  I half rolled, half scrabbled to a sitting position. Not an elegant sight, I’d imagine. I used my hoodie sleeve to wipe some of the mud from my face before gingerly bottom-squelching out of the ditch, which thankfully contained only an oozy dribble of actual water, and hoicked myself onto a rock and took a moment to steady my shaken nerves, forcing a wobbly smile in an attempt to laugh it off.

  I was wondering whether to take my trainers off, and negotiate my way home in sopping socks, when I heard footsteps crunching on the path above me.

  No. Don’t be following me again. Don’t have seen me tumbling down the slope like a bouncy ball, squealing like a piglet…

  ‘All right down there?’ a woman’s voice asked. ‘That looked a right tumble!’

  Okay. This was somewhat better. I swivelled on the rock to see two women peering at me from a few metres away. My heart accelerated at their pale T-shirts, what looked like the silhouette of a bird, wings outstretched, on the front. I’m no ornithologist, but I was guessing that was a lark. Scanning around, I couldn’t see anyone else, however, so perhaps the incident could be contained.

  One of the women asked, ‘Do you need any help?’ Judging by her precise accent, it was the other, who had what appeared in the dusk to be orange-squash-coloured hair, who’d spoken first.

  ‘Um, I think I’m okay,’ I said and made to stand up. Only to quickly plop back down on the rock again.

  Yowch.

  I tried again, this time carefully putting all my weight on my right foot, seeing as my left ankle appeared to be at the least sprained, and, judging by the bolts of lightning now shooting up my leg, quite possibly smashed into smithereens.

  ‘I’m fine. Honestly,’ I gasped, clearly not fine. ‘I don’t want to hold you up.’ Or attract further attention, like a big, strong male lark to toss me over his shoulder and carry me back to the path.

  Or did I? That image lingered in my brain long enough to confuse the matter…

  No! I didn’t! Definitely not! No, no and thrice no.

  No.

  ‘Don’t be crackers,’ Orange Squash said. ‘Yer not goin’ anywhere. Let’s get you back up the slope first, then find some mobile reception and call an ambulance.’

  ‘No, really,’ I winced. ‘My son’s at home by himself. I need to get back. I’ll be all right once I’ve walked it off a bit. Please. Carry on with your run.’

  Ignoring me completely, the women slid the last couple of metres down the slope and tucked one of my arms over each of their shoulders. Not so bad for the woman nearly as tall as me, but I had to
stretch down several inches just to reach the top of Orange Squash’s head. I hopped, swore, stifled a lot of sobs and somehow made it to the top. The taller woman, Dani, a red bandana framing dark skin, called for her husband to come and pick us up. Orange Squash, real name Mel, inspected my ballooning ankle with surprising tenderness. Her official diagnosis: ‘Totally buggered.’

  I insisted on hopping to the exit, where Dani’s husband Derek could park his car, but had made it less than a few metres before he jogged up. Scooping me up in his arms, (impressively muscled, despite a full head of grey hair), he carried me the quarter of a mile back to his Land Rover and gently placed me on the back seat.

  The sun was beginning to rise behind the treeline. I closed my eyes and counted slowly to ten. Then twenty.

  ‘All right?’ Mel asked, from about an inch in front of my face.

  I opened my eyes, tried to summon up a smile. ‘I’m fine, honestly. Thanks so much for your help.’

  She hopped into the seat next to me, surprisingly agile for someone of her size – sort of teapot-shaped, short and stout. ‘You keep sayin’ yer fine as much as you want. Looks to me like yer gunna puke any second.’

  Yep. A wise one, old Orange Squash Mel.

  Thank goodness for wipe-clean leather seats.

  My Good Samaritans saw me back home, propped up on the sofa with pillows and dosed up with painkillers, and then proceeded to… not leave.

  Dani made a pot of tea and rooted about for the ingredients to cook a post-run breakfast (cheese and spinach omelette). Mel came downstairs with a pair of thermal pyjamas she’d found in my bedroom drawers and insisted on helping me change into something comfortable ‘that don’t reek’. She made an ice pack with frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel and used a bandage from one of Joey’s old sports injuries to add compression.

  ‘No ibuprofen for a couple of days, then use it to help bring the swelling down. Ice pack for ten minutes every two hours, no hot baths. Stick it up in the air now an’ again, too. You’ll be right, it don’t look too bad.’

  When I asked if she had medical training, she laughed.

  ‘I’ve got five kids, one of ’em with multiple disabilities. So, yeah, I guess so. They’ve ’ad more breaks and bumps and whatnots than I can remember. Spent so much time in the walk-in centre, we should get our own cubicle.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be getting back to them?’ I didn’t want to seem rude, but I felt all twisted up and tense having strangers in my house. And no clue as to when they might leave.

  ‘Nah, it’s fine. Me mum’s there.’ She settled back into the armchair. Dani also seemed settled in for the morning, making another pot of tea after clearing up the remains of breakfast.

  When Joey sloped into the kitchen at around nine, they were still here. ‘Good morning, Joey,’ Dani said, following him in. ‘Your mother said you’ve a gala today, so let’s get some good energy into you. We can do wholewheat pancakes. Or porridge. The others had an omelette. What do you fancy?’

  ‘Um.’ Joey sounded like he was wondering if he’d actually woken up yet. ‘The others?’

  ‘Oh, not all of us. Just me, your mother and Mel.’

  ‘Right.’ There was a pause. ‘Who’s Mel? And you?’

  ‘Dani. Very pleased to meet you. Your mother tripped and fell off the top of Top Woods. We found her in the ditch at the bottom and got her home.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m fine!’ I called through. ‘Just a mild ankle sprain. Nothing to worry about.’

  Joey disagreed. As did, it would seem, everyone else.

  ‘That’s it,’ my son instructed me, while scoffing a mouthful of scrambled eggs. ‘You’re not running in the dark by yourself again. I forbid it. What would’ve happened if Dani and Mel’d not been there?’ He waved his fork at the pair, who’d somehow managed to take on the role of surrogate aunties in the half hour he’d known them.

  ‘Then someone else would’ve come along. There are loads of runners and dog walkers about at that time.’

  ‘Yeah, but if you’d smashed your head as you plummeted down, knocked yerself out and no one saw you, you could’ve been there for hours. Days!’ Mel shook her head in imagined horror.

  ‘What she said!’ Joey agreed, vigorously.

  ‘What do you want me to do, Joey?’ I asked, the pain making me irritable. ‘Stop running? Go back to how things were?’

  ‘You could try running in daylight,’ Dani suggested. ‘Less risk of you falling, and more chance someone will spot you.’

  Joey shook his head. ‘She has to go when it’s dark.’

  ‘Eh?’ Mel wrinkled up her forehead. ‘What, you a vampire or summat?’

  ‘I have an… anxiety condition that makes it easier for me to go out when it’s dark,’ I mumbled.

  Joey did an enormous snort. ‘Understatement.’

  ‘Well, that leaves only one option,’ Mel said, grinning. ‘Yer’ll have to join the Larkabouts.’ She nodded at me, frowning. ‘Once that ankle’s better, o’ course.’

  Which I was rather hoping could turn out to be a very, very long time…

  16

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Thirty-Eight

  Or not, as it turned out. Pain that initially felt as though my ankle had been crushed in a vice soon faded to a mild ache. The swelling disappeared within a few days, and after a week I was itching to get out there again. Having caught the whiff of freedom in those woods, the thought of slumping back into captivity sent me frantic. The problem was, I’d hit a stalemate with my son.

  He’d ‘happened’ to mention it to Nathan at the swimming gala. Nathan then ‘happened’ to give Joey a lift home instead of Lisa. So, obviously, then, he’d earnt the right to come inside to give me a lecture about the lunacy of running alone.

  ‘I’m really sorry about your friend,’ I said, once he’d paused to take a breath. ‘But there are loads of people there, and I always take my phone.’

  ‘No signal up there,’ Joey said, butting in.

  ‘I’ve weighed up the risks, and the chances of something awful happening are miniscule if I keep running. As opposed to every day being awful if I let fear win, and stay in this house. I won’t waste any more time. And trust me, I’ll be paying more attention from now on, I won’t risk a moment’s carelessness hurting me again.’

  ‘Why not give the club a go? That way everybody’s happy,’ Nathan replied, running exasperated fingers through mussy hair.

  ‘This may surprise you, but when it comes to my physical and mental health, I don’t especially care if you’re happy about it!’

  ‘I meant you and Joey. And I really think you’ll enjoy it. You’ve met Mel and Dani; the rest are just as nice. No one’s going to judge you. Mostly. Well. Except maybe one. And you can ignore her. Everyone else does. There are tons of benefits to running in a group.’

  ‘You might actually make some friends, for a start,’ Joey said.

  I glowered at him, still very miffed that he’d invited Nathan in while I was splayed out on the sofa in my pyjamas, body unwashed, hair unbrushed, face un-concealered, bra discarded onto the floor beside me. Thank goodness Nathan had stopped to take off his trainers, giving me time to shove the bra under the sofa cushion.

  ‘You will make friends. But more than that, you’ll have motivators, people to inspire and encourage you. Share tips. You’ll get a professional programme, including warm-ups and cool-downs, the right variety in distance and terrain. Everyone’s progress hits another level after joining a club.’

  ‘I don’t need motivation, or someone to encourage me. And I know how to warm-up and cool-down.’

  Nathan tried again, ‘But being part of a team is just… different. Special. Right, Joey?’

  ‘I think Mum already knows that,’ Joey replied, looking straight at me.

  Once Nathan had left, Joey played his trump card: ‘Give the Larkabouts one session or I’ll tell Cee-Cee you’re sofa-ridden.’

  I do not tolerat
e blackmail as a way to conduct family business. I particularly hold no truck with children attempting to control or manipulate their parents.

  However, I did pay attention to the distress in my boy’s brown eyes when he said this. I gave serious credence to how he twisted up his T-shirt with worried hands and hovered around me for the few days it took to recover.

  If I was going to get back out there again, and while I couldn’t wait, I knew it was going to be tough again after a week in the haven of my house, it would be to join the Brooksby Larkabouts, 6 a.m. in the leisure centre car park.

  Joey ordered me some running leggings and a jacket to negate the embarrassment of me wearing my old gear in public. His embarrassment, not mine. I gratefully accepted his choice of sportswear, even as I rued the fact that the trendiest gear in the world couldn’t change or hide the woman floundering about inside it.

  Only I could do that. Stop floundering. Change the woman.

  17

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Forty

  I knew I couldn’t keep ignoring Sean’s messages. Beneath the bluster, my accident had been a sharp reminder that however determined I was to become a fully functional parent, I was still only one person, and I couldn’t guarantee that nothing would ever happen to affect that. Joey deserved to have someone else he could turn to, who would fight his corner and provide for him. And I didn’t want that to be Cee-Cee again.

  Would his father be any better?

  Did I owe Joey, Sean – myself – the chance to find out?

  And if I didn’t reply, initiate some contact, would Sean take matters into his own hands? He’d found out my phone number, it wouldn’t be hard to discover Joey’s…