Girl on the Run (29 page)

‘I’m Janice Gonzales and I’ll be your Sunny Runners holiday rep for the next four days. A very warm welcome!’

She pauses, as if expecting a round of applause.

‘Well,’ she continues, undeterred by the silence, ‘I hope you’ve all had a look around our beautiful hotel and a rest after your journey. Tonight’ll be a chance to relax, make friends and sample the culinary delights of the region. Don’t go too heavy on them though,’ she grins, ‘because tomorrow, we’ll be up and at ’em at eight for our first session!’

‘Whoopdeedoo,’ I whisper.

As Janice’s high-pitched spiel continues, and continues – way beyond most people’s tolerance levels – I find myself looking at Doctor Dishy’s feet. I am mesmerised by them. This might sound strange, but it’s a seminal moment. Normally I despise men’s feet. I mean
despise
them.

Even men who normally take pride in their appearance seem not to pay the flimsiest attention to their feet. It’s as if they’ve forgotten they’re there. I don’t know when it became socially acceptable to parade around with thick nails, hard skin and milky-white toes sprouting pubic-style hair, but I seriously wish it wasn’t.

Doctor Dishy’s feet though, are nothing less than perfect. They are the sort of feet you’d see modelling in a Next Directory: tanned, beautifully manicured without even a hint of flaky skin. It takes all my self-control not to leap across the aisle and kiss them.

‘So, everyone,’ Janice concludes, ‘by the end of this holiday, we at Sunny Runners hope you’ll be relaxed, charged and motivated enough to take your training to the next level at home. And if you don’t, then it’s tough . . . cos there are no refunds for lazy beggars! Ha ha ha!’

I flash a look at Jess, trying to catch her eye. But not for the first time since we left home, her mind appears to be on other things.

Most of the group have an early night – including Doctor Dishy, to my infinite disappointment. I order a wake-up call at seven-fifteen the next morning, but still manage to be late when I meet the others at the promenade.

Mau is dressed in top-to-toe ice-cream colours and looks like a walking Neapolitan wafer. ‘I thought you’d never make it,’ she grins, jogging on the spot.

‘Sorry, but the only wake-up call I’ve had on holiday before was when I had to catch a plane. It goes against my principles.’ I scan my surroundings and register that someone’s missing. ‘Where’s Jess?’

‘Assumed she was with you, love,’ shrugs Mau.

‘No. Well, that makes me feel better already. If even Miss Sportypants turns up late on day one, there’s hope for us all.’

As Janice instructs the slow group to follow her, I spot Jess running to the middle group.

‘You okay?’ I mouth.

‘Fine,’ she nods, as she heads in the other direction.

The run takes us along the coast, past golden beaches, dramatic rock formations and crashing waves. It isn’t even nine o’clock but the sun is already warming my shoulders – and it’s impossible not to enjoy it. The scenery’s breathtaking and the group is relaxed and happy.

When we return to the hotel, I feel a real sense of achievement. This is day one of a holiday, it’s not even ten o’clock and, instead of loitering at the buffet deciding between a second croissant or one of those ambiguous cold meats that the Dutch seem to like, I’ve been
exercising
.

After a shower, I meet Jess by the pool, pull up a sun-lounger and spread out my towel. As I remove my sarong, it strikes me that this grand bodily unveiling isn’t as traumatic as usual. Okay, so the lithe bronzed bunch on the other side of the pool still haven’t got much competition, but I feel . . . passable. Maybe beyond passable. Hell, I feel pretty bloody good – and am not afraid to say it.

A trace of cellulite remains, but a lot less than before. My stomach isn’t flat exactly, but it’s as close as it’ll ever be. And some of my muscles – my calves in particular – are rock hard. Of course, if you’d asked me six months ago which area of my body I’d most like to improve, I can’t claim my calves would’ve been top of my priorities. I’d put them about twenty-second, just before earlobes. But beggars can’t be choosers.

The point is, I feel stronger, slimmer and, most astonishingly, sporty. Which is ridiculous – this is
me
we’re talking about!

Jess and I read the books we bought at the airport, comparing notes every so often as we soak up the sun. After an hour or so I find myself drifting off. I have no idea how long I’m asleep, but wake to the sound of footsteps. I prise open an eye and am confronted by the feet of my dreams.

‘Mind if I join you?’ asks Oliver.

‘Not at all,’ I reply, flipping on to my back. I realise halfway through the procedure that this might be a mistake. The entire right-hand side of my body is a fresco of miniature pineapples, courtesy of the impression from my towel.

‘Oh dear,’ I grin self consciously, covering my legs.

He smiles as Jess rouses from her slumber. ‘Oh,’ she says when she realises we have company. ‘Hi, Oliver. I’m going for a dip.’ I make a mental note to thank her later for leaving us alone.

‘How was your run this morning?’ Oliver pulls up a lounger.

Despite my increased body confidence, I endeavour to breathe in as far as I possibly can without losing the ability to speak. ‘Wonderful. I feel set up for the day. I never thought I’d say that.’

‘Ah. Our reluctant half-marathon runner,’ he adds teasingly.

‘Not that reluctant these days,’ I correct him. ‘I’m starting to think I might enjoy this running lark.’

‘It’s addictive, isn’t it?’

‘Kind of. If only I wasn’t addicted to wine and chocolate too, I’d be brilliant.’

‘Well, you’re allowed to indulge on holiday. I know I’m hoping for a significantly later evening tonight than last night.’ He grins.

‘Are you?’

‘Definitely.’ Then he does the most astonishing thing: he winks. Doctor Dishy
actually
winks at me. I don’t quite know how to respond, except to giggle spontaneously, completely blowing my attempts at sucking in my stomach.

The rest of the day is a lazy, hazy, sublime mixture of chatting, sunbathing – and flirting.

It’s as if Oliver has finally discovered how to do it – and now there’s no stopping him. He brushes hair away from my face. He meets my eyes constantly. At one point, he even offers to rub sun cream in my back, an experience so pleasurable I come close to losing consciousness.

As the sun starts to fall, his come-ons become so obvious, so outrageous, that as I head to my room to prepare for dinner, I am utterly convinced:
tonight is the night.

I dress for dinner in cotton trousers and an ethnic top, and am in the process of pinning up my hair when there’s a knock on my door. It’s Jess.

‘Thanks for the timely departure today,’ I say. ‘Seriously, it was perfect. Oliver has spent the entire day coming on to me. This is it, Jess. He and I will get it on tonight. I know it.’

Then I take in her appearance and realise she’s dressed in jeans and a hooded top i.e. not her usual dinner attire.

‘I’ve decided to go home,’ she tells me quietly.

My eyes widen in disbelief. ‘What?’ I ask. ‘Why? Where did this come from?’

Her face is filled with sorrow as she sits on my bed. ‘I can’t stop thinking about what you said on the plane about Adam.’

‘I didn’t mean you should go home,’ I argue.

‘I know – but you were right about him. Completely right.’ She puts her head in her hands. ‘God, look at me: gallivanting in the sun while my devoted husband looks after our two kids.’

‘I never said that! I just said you shouldn’t leave him. Not that you’re not allowed a holiday. Adam wouldn’t object to you being here.’

‘I
object to me being here.’ She twiddles her key card and looks up. ‘There’s a plane later tonight.’

I sit on the edge of the bed and put my arm round her. ‘Bloody hell. One minute you’re telling me you want temptation and diamonds, the next you want to hop on a plane back to your husband. This isn’t like you, Jess. Why don’t you stay here and think? It’s an opportunity for some breathing space. For you to get away from it all and work things out.’

‘This isn’t away from it all.’

‘What do you mean?’

She sighs. ‘I’m in turmoil wherever I am – here or home. Besides, I’ve done nothing but think since we arrived.’

‘And your conclusion?’

‘That I’ve been an idiot. And I want to go back home to my husband.’

‘She left? Just like that?’ asks Geraldine when I bump into her and Mau in the Ladies before dinner.

‘Something came up with Jamie, her little boy,’ I fib. ‘Plus, he started school in September and he hasn’t entirely settled yet. She feels bad not being there for him.’

‘Jess never struck me as a fussy mother,’ says Mau. ‘She’s always been admirably level-headed. Must be serious.’

‘I hope he’s all right,’ adds Geraldine.

‘He’ll be fine,’ I reply, wishing they’d drop it. ‘It wasn’t an emergency or anything.’

I head out to join the rest of the group and am almost at the dining room when I look down and realise I’ve left my lipstick in the Ladies.

I push open the outer door and am about to step back into the room, when I hear Mau’s voice sounding urgent and worried. Something about it makes me stop and listen.

‘Geraldine, you can’t,’ she scolds. ‘You absolutely can’t. I know how desperate you are, but it’s not fair. Besides that, things don’t work like that these days. Men no longer agree to marry women just because they get pregnant.’

‘Tom would,’ Geraldine replies sulkily.

I want to back out quietly but am aware that if I open the door again, it will creak and they’ll hear me.

‘Listen to me,’ Mau says. ‘This is the sort of thing women used to do in my day and all it set them up for was an unhappy marriage and miserable children. If you and Tom are meant to be, then it will happen. You
cannot
blackmail him with your blinking ovaries.’

‘Let me tell
you
something, Mau. I am thirty-three years old and I
need
a baby. Tom and I would make wonderful parents – he just doesn’t realise it yet. But if a baby came along, I know how he’d feel. He’d be smitten. It’d be perfect. It’d be exactly the happy ending both of us wanted. You’ve got to understand.’ Geraldine’s voice dissolves at the end of the sentence and I realise she’s crying.

‘Listen, luvvie,’ says Mau softly as Geraldine sniffs. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything daft. You can’t use a baby to hold the man you love to ransom.’ She pauses. ‘Do you love him?’

‘Of course!’ Geraldine squeals. ‘How can you doubt that?’

Mau doesn’t answer. Instead, as she turns on the tap to wash her hands, I use the opportunity to back out of the door and into the night, without my lipstick. And for the first time since I met them, I wonder if Geraldine and Tom were made for each other, after all.

We sit on a terrace floodlit by a full moon as my skin tingles in the breeze. Most of the group’s members look as though they’ve caught some sun today: including me, though my colour is courtesy of a deliriously expensive fake-bronzing lotion called Miami Tan. Apparently, all the celebs are using it, though presumably in conjunction with several trips a month to Barbados, because it isn’t quite as effective as I’d hoped. At least not compared with Mau, even with the numerous top-ups before dinner.

I am supposed to abstain from drink this evening. Not because I am a member of AA, or pregnant, or convalescing from a yeast infection and on strong antibiotics, but because of our longer-than-usual run tomorrow – a fact that reignites my prejudice against the term ‘running holiday’. It’s not that drink is banned exactly. But nobody – except Tom, who’s defiantly had two beers – is indulging.

Still, I don’t dwell on it because I have other things to dwell on – namely, Doctor Dishy. If, after spending all day and evening flirting with me, he doesn’t finally deliver the goods and make a pass, I might be joining Jess on the next flight home. One by one, the group retires early to bed, until there’s just me, Oliver and Tom, who has decided to have a third beer.

When I look at Tom tonight, it’s easy to see how I could have fooled myself, temporarily at least, into thinking I had feelings for him. His undeniable gorgeousness is all the more evident tonight – with burnished skin on his forearms and a hint of freckles on the bridge of his nose.

But that’s why I’m so certain Oliver’s the man for me. It says everything that I can put him next to this god-like creature and still fancy him more.

The mood between the three of us is light, largely because the conversation has strayed to Tom’s grandad, who is applying to be a lollipop man.

‘His friend did it and got a CBE so I have my suspicions about his motives, though he denies it,’ Tom grins. ‘Plus, given that he’s half-blind, half-deaf and the wrong side of seventy-five, God help the next generation of local kids if he’s successful.’

As Oliver disappears to the loo, I take my opportunity to lean into Tom.

‘Listen, I don’t mean to be rude but . . .’ I gesture to the door.

‘What?’

‘Well, could you just bugger off?’ I say jokingly. But I’m not joking.

‘Charming.’ He says it lightly, but I notice his jaw tighten.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ I say. ‘Besides, Geraldine’ll be getting lonely up there.’ I say the words before the recollection of my overheard conversation filters through my brain. I stiffen at the thought that she might be there, ready to instigate her plan.

I just hope that Mau persuaded her otherwise. Not that I can say anything to warn Tom. I mean, it’s none of my business. Though the thought of him being caught by one of the oldest and cruellest tricks in the book – getting pregnant to nab a man – makes me feel slightly queasy.

He looks at me with hot eyes. ‘Geraldine will be getting her beauty sleep.’

I try to hold his gaze defiantly, but can’t. Fortunately, he stands, though clearly with reluctance. ‘Fine. Boot me out so you can let our friend seduce you. See if I care,’ he says flatly.