‘I’ll pop out every hour to check it’s OK.’ He pushes his body back into the driving seat. ‘Honestly, it’s easier to climb Kilimanjaro.’
Ours may be first-world problems, but they don’t end there.
‘I’m so sorry, but you booked so late that we have limited availability,’ says the receptionist. ‘The only spa slot is at four o’clock this afternoon, although the pool is of course available, and our restaurant has some lovely specials on. We have a beautiful woodland trail you can do, using our unique nature spirit walk app, and there are some good attractions within a short drive.’
‘I’m not getting back into that Ferrari,’ I say, resembling a WAG on acid.
‘A nature spirit walk sounds interesting,’ Joe deadpans, and I try not to giggle.
‘Shall I book you both in for the massage package? A double session. The last of the day. We have a VIP hen night later so the hotel will be closing for a private party.’
‘Told you so,’ I say.
After a long lunch and a short walk, Joe is directed to the male changing rooms while I filter off into a different zone, led by an officious young woman in a white tunic. I’ve never been to a proper spa before and I imagined white sofas and sheepskin rugs, glasses of champers sipped in matching dressing gowns with maximum fluff, followed by a simultaneous massage on twin beds, holding hands and dreaming of beaches. Instead, I’m given a pair of paper knickers and led into a bathroom so clinical it could easily be relocated to a hospital. You’d also be forgiven for thinking the woman was a midwife as she’s constantly handling crisis calls. Barking orders into her phone, she adds two carafes of red wine to a bath slowly filling with hot water.
‘Why are you turning water into wine?’
‘Because you’re having the wine and chocolate spa experience? That was what you booked, wasn’t it?’ No one mentioned that, and the receptionist wasn’t the most organised in the world, but haven’t I been talking about a #JustSayYes hashtag? Perhaps I can make up a problem where the solution is a wine and spa experience. With your dog obvs, although Doodle has been dumped with Eva today. I nod my head and the woman briefs me about taking a bath, showing me a red button to press if I’m in distress and a yellow one if I need anything, all the while on the phone to a more important guest. Leaving the taps running, she goes off to attend to them.
I dip a finger into the water, bringing it to my mouth. It tastes like diluted vinegar and looks like the contents of a birthing pool. After the baby’s popped out.
I duck out after a quick soak, waiting for the spa therapist’s next move. It comes as a salt scrub. She coats a scouring pad in white grains and scrapes it across my body. I hate the sensation and there’s still no sniff of champagne. After a cold shower, which reminds me of school PE lessons, she turns to a trolley, and picks up a bowl of the kind of mud that belongs at Glastonbury. Assessing how much sludge she will need to cover me, she starts to load my skin up, often with one hand as she is interrupted every couple of minutes by a new crisis. I soon smell like cinema popcorn; sweet and slightly nauseating. And at the point I feel most turned off by the smell, she begins the process of wrapping me in layers of cling film, her phone now cleaving into her chin.
‘Shouldn’t it be foil for the Sunday roast?’ I ask, but she doesn’t get my joke as she’s banging on about a missing crate of avocados.
Perhaps I should feel grateful to have her as she is clearly the most senior member of staff on duty and the guests in the penthouse seem super important. Apparently the chef can’t provide the required avocados for the all-natural facials they are demanding as he used them up for the guacamole on Taco Tuesday. In addition, Botox Busters is an hour late so far and the bride-to-be is getting angsty as the shelf below her eyelids needs removing and she needs fish lips ASAP.
‘Everything is natural and organic here.’ At last the masseur turns her attention back to me, phone still tucked into her neck as she wraps me. ‘Where we can, we prepare our own treatments using plants taken from our gardens, including this chocolate marinade created especially by our head masseuse.’
‘How long will I have to stay trussed up like this? One hour for the bird and another for every half-hour of cooking? Will my skin turn brown and crispy when I’m done?’ I joke, pulling my stomach as she coats me in yet another layer of cling film.
‘The treatment takes forty-five minutes. We have powerful heaters. It may feel a little claustrophobic but try and ignore the discomfort. Your body temperature will soon return to normal.’
‘I wonder how my friend is doing with this,’ I say. ‘He has to go monitor his car for bird poo every hour and I can’t imagine him being coated in chocolate mud. Although he’d be delighted to know the marinade on his backside was fully traceable from farm to fork.’
She’s not listening as they suddenly have enough avocados. Crisis over, phew! She checks my plastic coating. ‘This treatment will improve the appearance and the feel of your skin by drawing out all the excess fluids and toxins. You will sweat, which will help you lose weight. But slimming is just the tip of the body iceberg. Your lymphatic system will have a huge boost.’
Did she just call me an iceberg? She covers me with towels and slides lamps across the room. ‘They will go off by themselves, but I’ll be back by then to rinse you off.’
She disappears. The room is dark, the lights are hot, and I find being hand dipped in chocolate mud and oven baked is not so bad after all.
When I wake I’m cold and can’t move my arms. I try to wiggle my fingers, but everything is held together by an industrial amount of cling film. The heat lamps have snapped off, seemingly ages ago, leaving only the dim glow of the uplighters staving off total darkness. Thankfully my mouth is unimpeded. I call out for help. Silence. Unable to hear any whale music or splashing from the pool, I have no idea if it’s day or night.
After my cries go unnoticed for ten minutes, I start screaming I’ve been battery farmed for my white meat. Is this some kind of joke? Where’s the woman in the white apron smelling of sandalwood and control? I try to force my arms and legs out of the wrapping, but they are stuck fast. I decide my only course of action is to try and hop to the door fully cling-filmed. Lifting my back, I turn my bottom, managing to dangle my legs over the bed. My plan is to hop onto my two feet and hope I don’t topple. I feel like I’m trying to get out of a more extreme version of a Ferrari as I push off without being able to grab on to anything. I close my eyes and hope to meet myself on the other side.
I drop.
And unbelievably I land on my feet. But my heels skid and I crash down on my backside. Thankfully, the towel slides with me, the layers of cling film also provide some protection and the floor isn’t concrete. I try to do a sit-up, and when that fails, I wiggle. I’m basically my own version of a caterpillar cake as I crawl my chocolate-coated body towards the door.
The handle is way out of my reach. I cry for help again. There’s a knock and a faint voice asks if I’m all right. I cry out again, this time with relief.
Someone pushes against the door, but my body is blocking their entry. I try to wiggle away but don’t get very far. It’s hard work being a caterpillar. No wonder they all want to change into butterflies ASAP.
‘What’s the obstruction here?’
Joe? ‘It’s me. I’m in the way of the door.’
‘Why?’
