‘We can do whatever we like, Jamie.’
‘Exactly. We’ve got each other.’ Like me, he was close to tears. I knew how much he’d always tried to be strong for me, for us. His role had been to hold it together, when I couldn’t.
‘We’ve got each other,’ I said, handing him my paper napkin. ‘You are more than enough for me.’ I leaned across the table, ran a hand through his hair, gently wiped a tear from his eye. ‘It’s you and me. We’re in this, together.’ He rested his cheek against the palm of my hand. ‘It’s time to start living again,’ I said. ‘Deal?’
‘Deal.’
Jamie died less than a year later.
‘Holly?’ Angus touches my shoulder, bringing me back to the group. ‘You were miles away.’ He hands me a paper napkin. ‘You’re…’ He gestures to my eyes.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I say, disorientated, relieved attention on me is deflected when our coffees arrive, though aware Angus is watching me.
We spend the next fifteen minutes going through injuries (none yet), medication (‘Anti-depressants,’ confides Angus), have I hit the menopause (not yet, got that treat to look forward to), how much time do we all have (‘Too much,’ Angus replies) and the exercise we’ve done in the past (‘Not a lot,’ Angus and I admit, ‘None ,’Lauren mumbles). Angel is clever, not singling out Lauren as the most challenged with her smoking and chronic back pain, along with her living circumstances. Nor does she make her feel the odd one out for not having done any exercise since games lessons at school, when Jamie and I used to play tennis and cycle, and Angus has climbed mountains and excelled at cross-country running. Angel is now making it clear that exercising in your late forties and fifties has a different set of challenges from Lauren’s. For Angus, testosterone levels decrease from your early thirties. For me, my levels of oestrogen are falling, which impacts fat distribution, she tells me. Basically, I’ve become more attached to the fat around my thighs and belly. Angel also points out that some of her mid-life clients can feel more risk-adverse, thinking mid-life is a journey towards the mundane and the menopause. ‘But it doesn’t have to be,’ Angel enthuses. ‘It’s never too late to start,’ she says to us all. ‘Leaving the house today was the biggest mental challenge. You’ve made a choice to be here. You’ve all done brilliantly.’
Lauren doesn’t react; I find it hard to know how much she takes in, but I like Angel for saying it.
‘Which leads me to my final question, guys,’ Angel says.
Angus makes the sound of a drum roll.
‘I want you to think aboutwhyyou want to get fit,’ she says.
‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Angus says. ‘I’ve let myself go. I want to be able to get out of a chair without an Olympian effort.’
‘I don’t fit into half my clothes anymore,’ I say. ‘I want to go back to my normal dress size.’
‘Oh yeah, me too,’ says Angus, making us laugh.
‘I don’t want to be too thin,’ Lauren replies. ‘I’m a size sixteen. I don’t want to look as if I haven’t eaten for six years.’
We smile at that.
‘But I wouldn’t mind not losing my breath all the time,’ she points out earnestly.
‘That’s all good,’ Angel says, yet I sense there’s a ‘but’. ‘For me, guys, as you can probably tell, I’m not your average-sized personal trainer. I’m a size sixteen too Lauren, and proud of it, right. But never, in my wildest dreams, did I think this is what I’d end up doing. I was fresh from uni, with a sparkling degree, I landed a great job, enjoyed it for years, but then along came a colleague who destroyed my confidence. I began withdrawing, binge-eating, staying at home. There were some days when I didn’t even want to get out of bed.’
Angel seems the least likely person not to want to get out of bed.
‘I didn’t have the confidence to resign. Carried on working there for far too long, my mental health deteriorating. In the end I quit.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lauren mumbles, chewing her thumbnail.
‘Don’t be! It was the best decision I ever made. Should have done it a lot sooner. Anyway, the story has a happy ending, guys! So my GP gave me some meds for anxiety,’ she continues, ‘but she also prescribed exercise. I began running, and became hooked. When a friend suggested I do this as a job, saying how good I was at motivating her to get fit, I thought she must be joking because I was convinced I needed to look a certain way or be a certain type. In fact, all my life I’ve believed I need to be slimmer and brighter and stronger to do anything. I realise now, it’s all a load of bollocks. I am who I am. So, this is my question to you. I exercise for my mental health. I exercise to feelwell, not to be thinner, Holly, and not to be a certain dress size,Angus.’
‘Wow, how do I beat that?’ he reflects. ‘Although I seriously wouldn’t mind shedding a few stone for my physical health, to keep my heart ticking and diabetes at bay. That has to be a good enough reason.’
She nods. ‘Sure, it’s a great reason, and that will happen, the weight will come off in time.’ She pauses, trying to work out what it is she’s trying to explain. ‘Put it this way, I know, from experience, all of you are going to dip at some point, you’re going to want to sleep that extra half hour in bed, especially on a miserable wet day like today, so that’s why I always ask my clientswhythey want to do this. Whenever you decide you want to change something in your life, you meet resistance. Subconsciously we all want to stay in that comfortable, safe, familiar place, particularly as we get older.’
I shift in my seat.
‘This isn’t just about losing inches around our waist. I’ve been lucky enough to see, with all my clients, that when they feel better their relationships and their sex lives improve.’
‘A two-in-one treat,’ mutters Angus, before adding, ‘That would be a miracle. Mind you, my non-existent sex-life can’t exactly get any worse.’
‘Mine’s non-existent too,’ I say.
I haven’t been on a single date since Jamie died. I can’t remember the last time I was touched. I feel starved of human connection, skin on skin.
