The Perfect 10

Lisa was so enthusiastic about the gym I almost didn’t join. Her obsession with fitness had always been so alien to me. I just could not understand what pleasure she could derive from running at 6 a.m. in the rain, as opposed to, say, eating fish and chips in front of EastEnders every Tuesday. Part of me, although envying the way she looked in jeans, was pleased not to be her – it looked so joyless, and seemed so obsessive. But now, somewhere down a sweaty road, I have joined her sisterhood.

We kiss hello and chitter-chatter down to the changing rooms, where Lisa strips off to get changed without a second thought. I manoeuvre myself so that my back is facing her as I unhook my bra, so she can’t see how deflated my breasts have become. The talk almost immediately falls to Anna.

‘She has put on over … five stone.’ Lisa whispers it with shame.

‘God, did she tell you it’s that much?’ I ask, so sad for her already.

‘And that is with the baby … out.’ Lisa pauses before the last word to give the sentence added impact and dramatic effect, and it makes her sound a little ridiculous. As if she is one of those narrow-minded, middle-aged, middle-class women who wear too much hairspray and who have honed their sensibilities to be easily shocked just so they can wallow gloriously in the outrage. I glance around the changing room to see if anybody else is listening, but thankfully they aren’t.

‘But, Lisa, a lot of that will come off with the breast-feeding. It burns up a huge amount of calories – over one and a half thousand a day,’ I say.

Lisa shrugs a hopeful ‘maybe’, but I see a delighted glint in her eye as she wonders how anybody could let themselves go so badly, indulge themselves so much. I wonder if she has forgotten who she is talking to, as we both snap on Lycra training shorts.

‘I just mean, Sunny … she ate everything!’

‘Yes, I know, but she was on that crazy diet just before she got pregnant,’ I say.

‘It was only Atkins,’ Lisa retorts.

‘Yes but she’s a vegetarian,’ I say, still baffled. I gave up all the weird and wonderful diets when I was a teenager. If the cabbage soup diet does work for somebody, it is a short-term goal, a quick fix for half a stone, not a recipe for life. Admittedly I didn’t diet much during my early twenties, I mostly just ate, but I could tell even then that counting points or drinking shakes or not eating fruit was not going to keep me occupied for the time it would take to lose half my body weight. I needed to change the way that I ate, not just cut back for a while.

‘Well, anyway,’ Lisa pulls her hair into a ponytail in front of the mirror – her jaw line is so smooth, not a wrinkle in sight, ‘she’ll have to join the gym now … I mean, how much have you lost, Sunny?’

‘About seven stone so far,’ I say quietly, and hope that nobody hears.

‘Right, and you’ve got like a stone to go or something?’

‘Kind of, maybe two …’ I say.

‘Right. Well, that isn’t that much more than Anna, and she put that all on in nine months! You took a lifetime to get that big!’

‘Uh-huh,’ I say, and nod once, turning to leave the changing room. I make a mental note to go to see Anna soon, and take her some unroasted nuts and a small bar of dark chocolate as a treat.

Lisa is, of course, oblivious to the way she sounds, so there is no point saying anything. I just never want to think like her. Of course, in the class, I become her. I am zoned and focused. I can picture my muscles flexing and stretching, I monitor my breathing, I know exactly how many calories I am burning as we roundhouse kick to the left and right, and bruise the boxing bags with our jabs and undercuts, and skip like boxers for ten minutes until my cheeks fizz with saliva. Then we hit the floor and do twenty minutes of sit-ups. Lisa and I smile at each other occasionally in the mirror, sharing the high. It’s not just chemical, it’s the knowledge that we are effectively airbrushing ourselves, refining and toning and perfecting.

Barry, our instructor, is a hard squat ex-squaddie. Lisa and I shake out our muscles after an hour and twenty minutes, and only then do I notice that we are surrounded by red-faced exhaustion. The other class members are fighting for breath, and somewhere to go to sit down.

‘Good effort, girls. Ten out of ten.’ Barry puts a hand on each of our arms, anointing us with a fitness blessing. We give him a suitably reverent smile, stopping just short of genuflection.

We head to the bar upstairs with wet hair after long hot showers. Lisa’s spot has grown bigger with the heat, swelling to a dangerous level: if it were a volcano I’d be evacuating about now.

Two guys stand in suits by the bar, with fresh pints of lager, and squash rackets poking out of their gym bags. One of them smiles at us as we squeeze past, and apologises for his bag, which barely sticks out at all.

Lisa sighs and says, Thank you!’ in an exasperated tone.

He looks confused and a little insulted, and I mouth ‘It’s fine, thanks’ at him and smile a little weakly as we walk past.

We order two black coffees and the girl behind the bar says that they will take a few minutes and she will call us when they are ready. We settle ourselves in a corner away from the plasma screen showing men’s tennis on clay courts somewhere hot.

‘Have you thought about yoga, Sunny? It would help with your definition,’ Lisa says as she reads the back of a gym pamphlet, eyeing up the new classes on offer.

‘I could do. I guess I am still concentrating on the fat burning at the moment, the high impact cardio stuff, but I know that yoga is supposed to be good.’

‘I mean, it doesn’t appeal to me as much, but I’ve been working my muscles for longer, so they are in better shape. And you never know, it might help with your loose skin.’

‘Maybe,’ I say, and look over to the bar to see if the drinks are ready. They are just being poured, so I grab my purse, saying, ‘I’ll get these,’ beating a hasty retreat before I actually start to cry.

I pay, but the cups are a strange shape and they burn my fingers, so I carry Lisa’s coffee over to her, and pop it down on the table as she thanks me. I turn to go back and grab the other cup, but the guy with the squash racket from earlier has followed me over, carrying the second cup.

‘That’s what I like to see, black coffee, not undoing all your hard work, not like us boozers. Where do you want it?’ he asks with a smile.

‘Oh, you didn’t have to do that, thank you. I can take it from here,’ I say, thinking, how lovely! How chivalrous! How unusual!

‘No worries. I’ll pop it on the table,’ he says with a cheerful grin. He has an Australian accent and thinning hair. He is equal parts muscle and fat, and I think his chest looks welcoming, and I decide he must give good hugs.

‘I’m sure she could have managed,’ Lisa mumbles under her breath, but both the Australian and I hear it and I give her a strange look.

‘That was my pleasure,’ he says to me pointedly, smiling, and walks back to the bar.

‘Lisa, that was a bit rude. Do you know him or something?’ I ask.

‘No, thank God! I mean, could he have been any more obvious? Jesus! And look at him – he’s all fat! Like you want some huge fat guy hitting on you.’

‘He was just being nice, I think,’ I say, blowing on my coffee, embarrassed.

‘Well, if you flirt with guys like that, Sunny, you only have yourself to blame,’ she says, and flicks her hair, picking up the leaflet again, not making eye contact with me.

‘I wasn’t flirting … I was just … being polite …’

‘OK, if you say so.’ She throws the pamphlet down and smiles at me with quite apparent disbelief.

‘What’s wrong?’ I say, confused.

‘Just don’t be so naïve, Sunny. I could have every guy in here hitting on me if that’s what I wanted, but it’s just about respecting yourself. I know you aren’t married yet, so it’s different, but … don’t be too obvious.’

I am sure my mouth falls open.

‘Are we still running on Thursday? I know the weather report is bad, but it would be such a shame to miss it. I love that we can jog together now. It’s so much nicer having somebody to run with in the week. I’m so happy for you, Sunny – and for me too, of course, because I get you to run with!’ She lifts her coffee cup and toasts it in my direction. It’s her way of apologising but still I feel hurt.

I check my watch. ‘I’m really sorry, Lisa. I have to dash. I have a delivery at three.’

I grab my bag, and peck her goodbye. She looks slightly baffled as I run off, and I’m completely unable to make eye contact with the big Australian as I dash past.

‘It might help if you talked about the incident in a bit more detail – the emotional impact you feel it may have had on you.’

‘No.’

‘Not yet?’