Girl on the Run Read online

  ‘No, she’s away on business,’ I say. ‘And don’t worry – I know you hate this sort of thing. It’s fine.’

  ‘Well, I’ll definitely come to cheer you on for your races,’ he promises. ‘Speaking of which, how’s the running?’

  ‘Ohhh,’ I groan, before I can think of an appropriate response.

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘That good?’

  ‘I have good days and bad days. Sadly, there have been quite a lot of bad lately. At least I’m back on the diet. I had a blip.’

  ‘Happens to us all,’ he shrugs, though my dad has been completely teetotal for years and his stomach has never looked as if it’s made of anything squidgier than titanium.

  Dad runs a minimum of six miles a day and feels – and I quote – ‘out of sorts’ if he doesn’t.

  The irony, by the way, is not lost on me. I have no idea how a lard-arse like me could have been born to a father who used to run across deserts, and a mother whose idea of fun is dressing like The Kids from Fame and high-kicking her way round a dance studio. I’d be the black sheep of the family, if they had any other sheep.

  ‘Have you decided on your race? I must make sure it’s in the diary.’

  ‘Yes – the half-marathon at the end of January. So you’re coming to cheer me on, are you?’ I grin.

  ‘Of course. Karen and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  ‘Oh. Great,’ I say, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  I really want to be happy for Dad. Karen is his first girlfriend since he and Mum split up sixteen years ago.

  But she’s so wrong for him. I don’t think this because of her trying-too-hard bohemian look, permanently put-on telephone voice, the fact that she’s ten years too young for him or even that she’s too clever for her own good. Putting aside Karen’s many and varied idiosyncrasies, she has one fatal, irredeemable flaw: she isn’t Mum.

  Sixteen years after she left him, Dad’s heart has still not mended – I’m convinced of it – even though the days when there was a chance they’d get back together are long gone.

  In the months and years after they split up, I did everything to get Mum to see sense; She was breaking up our family for no reason, I’d argue with tear-stained cheeks and blazing eyes. But she’d have none of it. Being married to a soldier was a nightmare, she’d reply, and explain how she’d never quite appreciated when they got together how difficult it’d be, never knowing whether your husband was going to come back in a coffin.

  Not that him quitting the Army made any difference. Mum would forever stick to her guns: that she and Dad had simply ‘grown apart’.

  Those corny words still ring bitterly in my ears and, frankly, I’ll never understand how she could destroy our family with such a hackneyed, inadequate explanation.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like, Abby,’ she’d argue, and I suppose she’s right in one way. I didn’t live her life. But as much as I love my mum, there’s one thing of which I’m 100 per cent sure. I’ll never be able to truly forgive her for leaving Dad.

  Chapter 35

  I persevere with the running club – determined, despite what feel like monstrous odds, to get back on track. It’s hard work, something I probably only stick with for the same reason I started: Oliver.

  Not that things progress much since his glorious little wave, but just seeing him several times a week is enough to keep me going. Even if I do have the torture of getting fit again to contend with.

  Still, I know it’s for the best. Having told all my colleagues, clients, friends, family and fellow members of the running club that I’m doing a half-marathon next January, I can’t let the fact that I fell off the wagon so spectacularly bring my training to a standstill.

  I make the mistake of giving this speech to Jess one night. Instead of saying, ‘Well done Abby,’ and offering me a one-off glass of wine to celebrate, she signs me up for the ‘running holiday’ that the group is going on next month and, more imminently, a five-kilometre ‘Seaside Run’ the week after next. Both are her idea of an extra incentive, which goes to prove that she and I really are from different planets.

  Despite the cheery title, with its overtones of ice creams, stripy deckchairs and donkeys, there is little to relish about the prospect of the Seaside Run. Admittedly it has a couple of things in its favour: as far as races go, this is small and informal, nobody else from our club will be there, and the route is along the delightfully flat surface of Leasowe Promenade.

  But – and here’s the crucial part – it is a race. My first competitive race. Which means it’s the real deal and there’s no escape.

  Jess goes on and on about how I should try to push myself, and as a strategy, I’ll reluctantly admit that it works. It does provide an extra focus.

  If only the same could be said for work. Oh, that’s perhaps overstating it, but the invoicing issue – the fact it’s such a battle to get some firms to pay up – is starting to depress me.

  If I let my foot off the brake for even a couple of weeks, a backlog appears. I did a mental calculation the other day and realised that the rate at which I’m winning new business isn’t anything like the heady heights of last year, and I’m dreading my next meeting with Egor. Which brings me to the final and most distressing theme of my paranoia: the Caro & Co. issue.

  ‘Have any letters come from Caro and Company today?’ I ask Heidi on the phone, as I’m driving back from a long Friday lunchtime meeting.

  ‘Afraid not,’ she replies. ‘Just an invoice from the water-cooler company and a memo from Building Services about someone pouring their coffee into the yukka plant by the front door. It’s apparently had a catastrophic effect on its ability to thrive.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake – it was only about an inch of cold latte.’

  Heidi sniggers. ‘The Building Services Manager is an amateur botanist. You may have to buy him a couple of cacti to make up for it. Though I’m guessing, the way things are going, you’re not overly keen to make this the start of a beautiful friendship?’

  ‘How did you guess?’

  ‘Anyway, about Caro and Company: I did look out for a letter, but no, there’s definitely none. Sorry, Abby.’

  The more time that passes without me categorically knowing the outcome of my presentation, the more it plays on my mind. And the more I feel like kicking myself with a very large pair of steel-capped boots. It doesn’t help that Tom’s being so mysterious. I’m dying to know what’s going on behind the scenes at Caro & Co. – but he’s duty bound not to tell me anything other than the fact that they’re still deliberating.

  The following day, and with just over a week before the Seaside Run, I am in the passenger seat of Jess’s car as she drives the kids to the park.

  ‘Any more relaxed about the race?’ she asks.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I tell her.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ she grins.

  ‘Your faith is touching. Irrational but touching.’

  She turns into the forecourt of a convenience store and pulls on the handbrake. ‘I need some baby wipes. I’ll only be a minute. Can you wait with the kids?’

  The second the door slams, Lola starts whimpering.

  ‘Oh, Lola, what is it?’ I say in my best baby voice, a voice that used to feel silly until I realised that speaking to anyone under one with the same tone you’d use with your bank manager doesn’t work.

  She pauses and eyes me up. ‘That’s better!’ I chirp optimistically.

  She starts howling. And I mean howling. This is the sort of howl you’d expect to hear during a full moon, when werewolves are on the prowl and the undead are rattling their chains.

  ‘Oh God – I mean, sorry, gosh . . . Lola, um . . . don’t do that!’ I bleat as she removes her dummy from her mouth and in a fit of pique, flings it on the floor.

  I unstrap my seatbelt and see to my relief that the dummy has fallen the right way up. As I pop it into her mouth, I stroke the skin of her chubby leg, adding a ‘There, there, sweetheart.’ Sh
e responds by booting me in the face in a move that could get her a part in Kill Bill – and leaving my nose feeling as if it’s been bludgeoned by a meat tenderiser.

  ‘Oh dear, poor baby,’ I continue as soothingly as possible, but she launches into a series of even more piercing screams, tears flowing down her cheeks.

  ‘You need to make her laugh,’ Jamie informs me.

  ‘How do I do that?’ I ask frantically, trying to make myself heard over her screams.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he shrugs innocently. ‘Mummy pulls funny faces.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, as I look through the shop window and register that there are five people in the queue before Jess. ‘Funny faces it is.’

  I contort my face into a variety of ludicrous expressions, none of which have any effect other than to raise Lola’s crying by several octaves.

  ‘You could sing her a lullaby,’ offers Jamie, shoving a forefinger demonstratively in each ear.

  ‘Good idea. But I’m not great on lullabies. Do you know any?’

  He looks appalled. ‘I’m at school. We don’t do lullabies at school. They’re for babies.’

  ‘Yes, but do you know any from when you were little?’

  He thinks about this long and hard before replying: ‘No.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, as Lola looks as if she’s about to spontaneously combust.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a lullaby,’ he says helpfully. ‘It can be anything.’

  I proceed to perform an enthusiastic if tuneless medley of ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘I Like to Move It’ and ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’, complete with jazz hands and the closest I can get to high kicks in the passenger seat of a Citroën Picasso.

  Each key change has a momentary effect of calming her while she looks at me as if I am a mildly entertaining performing monkey . . . then she howls again. I am reaching the point of desperation, when Lola suddenly cries so hard that she spits out her dummy with the force of a champagne cork. Fumbling, I catch it in both hands – to the apparent delight of both children.

  Lola pauses, smiles and . . . giggles. Encouraged by the effectiveness of the dummy trick, I proceed to make a series of theatrical glugging sounds, cross my eyes, clap my hands and generally act the fool, as her mood improves by the second.

  Eventually, with the children laughing until their sides hurt, I round it off by putting Lola’s dummy in my mouth and sucking it vociferously, simultaneously nodding my head. Based solely on the reaction of my audience, this is a moment of pure comic genius.

  As they collapse in a frenzy of giggles, a loud slam makes me spin round and look out of my window. It is right then – at the exact moment when I lock eyes with the driver of the vehicle parked next to us on the forecourt, in mid-suck of my dummy – that I realise that the Caro & Co. contract will never be mine.

  It doesn’t matter that I do a double-take, hastily spit out the dummy and offer a flaccid smile. I am face to face with David Caro – and he looks even less impressed than the last time he saw me.

  When we reach the park, Jamie darts off to play on the slide while Jess keeps a watchful eye on him as she pushes Lola on the swing.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t recognise me,’ I tell her, more out of hope than conviction. ‘There was a window between us. Plus, I was out of context – not in my work clothes; wearing a T-shirt, jeans and . . . arrgh! . . . sucking a bloody dummy!’

  I look at Jess and realise that she’s not listening to a word I’m saying.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she replies, then snaps out of her daze. ‘I mean – yes. I’m fine. Sorry, you were saying?’

  I frown. ‘I was talking about . . . oh, forget it. I’m bored with fretting about Caro and Co. anyway. Tell me what’s up.’

  ‘Nothing’s up,’ she says innocently.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Jess. How long have I known you?’

  Realising Lola’s swinging has dwindled to a near standstill, she gives the baby a firm push. ‘I’ve got some things on my mind, that’s all,’ she says.

  ‘So spill.’

  ‘It’s nothing important.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

  ‘Okay, it’s nothing I can talk about.’

  I throw her a look that says she’s delirious – the only possible explanation for that answer. ‘Well, now I’m not just offended, I’m one hundred per cent convinced the real Jess has been abducted by aliens. I know about everything, from the haemorrhoids you got in pregnancy to the strange noises Adam makes during sex.’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Maybe those are part of the problem.’

  ‘Haemorrhoids?’

  ‘No, the— Oh, look, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Is something wrong between you and Adam?’

  She thinks for a second. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Yes.’ She pauses. ‘No.’

  I look at her and she can’t meet my gaze. Then: ‘Yes,’ she finally confesses.

  ‘What is it?’

  Jess scrunches up her face. ‘We’ve been married for six years. And sometimes it feels like there isn’t much magic between us any more.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘What do you mean, is that all?’

  ‘Well, it’s inevitable that you feel like that sometimes, isn’t it? Especially with two kids and busy lives, and . . . the first flush of true love can’t last for ever. Besides that, you’ve never gone in for all that fluffy, romantic stuff, have you?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ she says, sounding unconvinced. ‘But lately I’ve started thinking things that I probably shouldn’t. Wondering how things would be if . . .’

  ‘If what?’

  ‘Oh, look. Don’t worry. I’m just being silly. A premature midlife crisis,’ she laughs.

  But I can’t help wondering whether there might be more to it than that.

  Chapter 36

  On the morning of the Seaside Run, I have the same severe weather warning in my stomach that I had before my driving test. It’s not an auspicious thought, given that I failed three times (though the last time was only through a collision with a milk float that got in the way of an otherwise faultless three-point turn).

  I am hyperactive, despite having been awake all night, and dress in the manner of a jittery bride in the clean running gear laid out last night.

  I spend an inordinate amount of time perfecting the tightness of my laces, convinced that if they’re too loose or taut, I’ll blow the whole thing. I attach my race number (13 – now there’s a good start) with trembling hands, then pace round my kitchen, trying to think of something more exciting to do than go to the loo, which I’ve done six times today already.

  When I arrive at Leasowe Lighthouse, I get out of my car and look around for Jess.

  ‘Here she is, Paula Radcliffe!’

  I look up and see my mother waving demonically as she teeters across the field in designer jeans, impractical heels and Gucci sunglasses.

  ‘No quips, thank you,’ I say, shooting her a look. ‘This is traumatic enough.’

  ‘You’ll be great,’ she insists, then she scrutinises my face. ‘Though you do look a bit peaky.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Thank you. It’s nerves.’

  ‘Nerves are good. They’ll give you a boost. Where do I cheer you on?’

  ‘You’re not even meant to be here,’ I tell her. ‘This is only a practice race.’

  ‘I’ve got a three-grand stake in this now,’ she replies indignantly. ‘I’ve got to check out your form.’

  ‘I’m not a racehorse,’ I point out.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

  ‘Neither would I.’ I spin round to see Dad looking anxiously at Mum. ‘Hello, Gillian.’

  She stiffens. ‘Richard.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ I say. ‘Nobody needed to come. This is a practice.’

  He shrugs. ‘I had nothing on so I thought I’d wander over.’
>
  Mum starts rustling round in her handbag and produces a Curly Wurly, which she proceeds to unwrap. I hardly ever see Mum and Dad together these days and it’s weird when I do – it makes me feel on edge.

  ‘Are you all set, Abby?’ Dad asks as we walk to the race start. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I shrug. ‘A quivering wreck.’

  He smiles. ‘With all that adrenalin, you’ll fly round.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I said,’ adds Mum, nibbling at the Curly Wurly. They briefly make eye-contact then look away. ‘Sharon not with you?’

  ‘Karen,’ I correct her.

  ‘She couldn’t make it,’ Dad says awkwardly. ‘She’s at a conference. But how are you, Gillian? You’re looking very well.’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ she says breezily.

  ‘From what I read in the press, Calice is thriving,’ he adds.

  ‘Touch wood,’ she nods politely. ‘We seem recession-proof. Not that I take anything for granted.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There’s another awkward silence.

  ‘How about I take you both for lunch afterwards?’ Dad suggests. Against all my instincts, my heart surges with hope.

  ‘I can’t,’ Mum replies quickly. ‘I’m . . . I’m regrouting the bathroom.’

  I manage to stop myself snorting. What she really means is ‘I’m paying a tiler to regrout the bathroom’. Unless my mother, who has never been near a Black & Decker in her life, has developed a sudden cure for her terminal aversion for DIY.

  ‘I’ll come,’ I offer.

  ‘Oh. I’d thought you might come home for lunch,’ Mum says.

  ‘You said you were doing the bathroom,’ I point out.

  ‘I was, but . . .’ she pauses. ‘Oh, whatever you like.’

  I spot Jess next to the start line and she bounds over. After a brief catch-up with my mum and dad, she turns to me eagerly. ‘Well, Abs – come on. We need to get ready.’

  The warm-up lasts for fifteen minutes, before Jess and I head to the start line, my heart bouncing round my chest cavity as if made of rubber. This doesn’t bode well, given that I haven’t even started running.