‘Unfortunate.’ Raf shook his head sorrowfully. ‘You shouldn’t have persisted about buying new ones.’
‘Yes, I vomited on Raf. Why don’t we go and find our table?’ Georgie started to edge towards the dining part of the pub to try to stop all thehilariousvomit-related chat.
‘Can I bring drinks to your table?’ asked Raf. ‘Hair of the dog, Georgie?’
‘I’m drinking water.’ She could still hear Raf laughing even when she’d walked away and sat down with her back to him.
‘So, did anyone else go for a run this morning?’ she asked. ‘Why haven’t any of you added any photos to the chat yet?’
Ankita and Declan had both been running, but that was no surprise, because they were both regular exercisers; Ankita hadn’t even bothered with any fitness-related resolutions.
‘So neither of you had running as one of your resolutions?’ she asked Poppy and Beth. ‘I thought you had an exercise resolution every year? I’ve spent my entire adult life wanting to be about a billion times fitter than I actually am, so it’s always on my list.’
‘Me too, normally.’ Poppy was looking no less gloomy than she had last night. ‘But next year. I hope. I’m still breastfeeding for the next few months. And I feel so unfit that I don’t think I could even work my way up to a jog at the moment. And obviously I wouldn’t fit into any of my running kit.’
‘No, honestly, if I can go for a run, so can you. I mean, I actually vomited at the end, that’s how unfit I am. And my running kit’s way,waytoo small. Iknowthat I’m going to sound like a slap-me-now-instant-fitness-evangelist, but we could go together. When we’ve both bought some new kit. You honestlycannotbe more unfit than I am.’
‘I don’t think so. I’munbelievablyunfit.’
‘So am I. Ivomited. And it wasn’t because I was hungover, it was because of the run and because I was too hot.’ Georgie looked round but there was no sign of Raf. She was fairly sure that if he told Poppy she could run she’d be in her jogging kit within the hour.
‘I’m sure you could go running, sweetheart.’ Declan was smiling at his wife. ‘The most surprising people can work their way up to running very long distances from a very low starting point.’
‘Thank you.’ Poppy did not return his smile. ‘A very low starting point. The most surprising people. Thank you.’
Georgie stared at her, alarmed. Poppy never sounded bitter like this.
‘No.’ Declan shook his head, looking as alarmed as Georgie felt. ‘I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Just that you’ve just had a baby so you haven’t had the opportunity to do any running recently.’
Poppy didn’t smile at all. What had happened?
Declan was still shaking his head, looking a bit swivel-eyed worried.
‘What about you, Beth?’ Georgie asked, panicked. Running was clearly too contentious a topic.
‘I decided to do swimming and yoga instead. And I don’t have any other resolutions other than one big one, which is also my secret so I can’t tell you about it.’ Beth wasnotgood with secrets; she’d tell them all by the end of the month, if not the week, Georgie was sure.
‘Is Dominic joining us?’ asked Ankita. Dominic was Beth’s fiancé. He wasn’t thekindest person and Ankita had been quite vocal about how she didn’t think he was right for Beth.
‘No.’ Beth’s face clouded over for a moment. ‘He changed his mind. I think he wants to catch up on some work.’
Ankita raised one eyebrow and pursed her lips, clearly not impressed.
‘Speaking of which, I just came for five minutes to say hi.’ Declan stood up. ‘I need to go and get on with some admin. The amount of paperwork GPs have to complete seems to increase exponentially year on year.’
Georgie snuck a look at Poppy. She in her turn was taking a sideways look at Declan. She was slightly frowning with her eyes narrowed, like she was kind of sizing him up. Really odd. Georgie wasn’t exactly a relationship expert, never havingactually had a long-term one herself, but in her experience couples did not usually look at each other like that. Although, equally, all couples did argue at times, everyone knew that, and having a baby was a prime time for arguing, with all the pressure of lack of sleep and childcare. That was probably what it was.
‘Okay,’ she said, to take Poppy’s mind off whatever was going on between her and Declan. ‘I’m going to talk you all through my vomiting incident in detail now.’
And it worked. Everyone laughed and everything was fine all the way through their roasts.
And then Ankita said, ‘Who’s got space for pudding?’
‘Definitely me.’ Georgie reached for the menu. ‘I earnt it with that run.’
‘I can’t,’ Poppy said. ‘Resolution.’
‘What? No puddings at all?’ Ankita asked. ‘For a year?’
