Out Late with Friends and Regrets (56 page)

Stop it, stop it.
 
Fin clutched her midriff, sobbing without tears, harsh moans emerging with each breath.
 
She crouched, and took a couple of deep breaths.
 
Then into the kitchen, and sloshed cold water in her face.
 
It dripped down her clean clothing, and on the floor.
 
She looked down at the puddle, then slapped her own right cheek, hard.

Everything turned off, everything checked, she left for Birmingham.

Good old anonymous Birmingham.
 
No associations, everything new.
 
It wasn’t the same room in the motel, but one very like it, a few doors down the corridor.
 
She had to ask at reception for a new light bulb for the reading lamp, but otherwise found she didn’t need to speak to anyone, and was able to settle fairly easily into the week-end’s work with an extra-strong cup of instant coffee at her elbow.
 
She packed her folder away at quarter to twelve, and set the alarm.
 
Despite the coffee, she slept dreamlessly until two minutes before it went off.

It was dull and cold, with a mizzle of light rain which clung to exposed skin.
 
A bright, crisp morning would have been nice.
 
The familiarity of Room 326 was a comfort, although Nicky had insisted on everybody sitting in different seats every day, and teaming up in different combinations.
 
It had enabled the members of the class to get to know each other quickly, and Fin had begun to feel easy with people who were no longer quite strangers.

This morning she still chose to face the door; having her back to a door had always made her feel slightly anxious.
 
She intended to sit quietly and revise last night’s labour, but as soon as her classmates began to arrive she felt obliged to respond to their cheery greetings with more than a defensive Good Morning.
 
Yes, thanks, did you have a great weekend yourself?
 
Good, good.
 
What did you get up to, then? Oh, right.
 
Sounds like fun.
 
So what does he feel about you being a fitness instructor? Did he? Typical man, he should try it sometime.
 
One of Nicky’s beastings should sort him out, eh? No, I just had a quiet week-end, thanks.
 
Bit of a rest.
 
Spent most of it in bed, to be honest.
 
No, not like that, you rude girl, I haven’t got a boy-friend, no time for one at the moment.
 
Might run auditions for the post after the course has finished.

Easy.
 
Nice people.
 
She was beginning to feel part of the team, certainly more so than last week.
 

She got out her timetable, and saw that this morning there would be a test to start with, presumably on the weekend’s homework.
 
On completion, the papers were passed to the third person on the left for marking, answers first supplied verbally by random selection.
 
Fin’s question scored a “Yes, good” from Nicky when she replied, and it was one she would not have known before last night.
 
That boosted her confidence, and she was further encouraged when she received her paper back with three crosses, and one question to which she had given only half the answer.
 
The results were not made public, so not even Nicky could know how everybody had done, but she told the class members to check their wrong answers in their own time.
 
Fin would have liked to know how the others had coped, but there was no way she would ask any of them; she had marked Gary’s, and he had four wrong as well.
 
Other than that there was no knowing.
 
Nothing like the cluster of eager pupils round the lists on the Convent notice board, emitting squeals of triumph or moans of disappointment.
 
Perhaps just as well.

It was the week when Fin actually started to believe that she might pass the course.
 
She still struggled with the increasing number of simulated teaching sessions, often paralysed by an agonising self-consciousness.
 
Nicky told her not to worry, that it was quite common, that it was just a matter of doing it again and again, and that the more familiar the techniques became, and so on.
 
She hoped Nicky was right, and yearned for the breakthrough.
 
But academic stuff was less of a problem.
 
She was happy to spend whole evenings studying, rewarded by the growing feeling that it was all starting to make sense.
 
The sessions on dealing with the public, and complaints, and on health and safety, were easy – mostly common sense.
 
Almost all of one afternoon was spent on psychology, which Fin found so fascinating she resolved to buy the book recommended by the manual, if the local bookshop had it.
 
She could pop out the following lunchtime, and see.

Non-fiction was on the first floor.
 
She prowled the carpeted area, enjoying the smell of the books, touching the spines in her search, and soon found the one she was looking for.
 
The cash desk faced side-on to the street next to a window, giving those waiting to pay a view over the street below.
 
Whilst in the queue Fin could have sworn she saw Marie, hair in a heavy plait, dressed in that familiar way in padded jacket, Indian skirt and soft boots, on the other side of the street.
 
There was a thin, very pale young man beside her, wearing a drab woolly hat.
 
They were pushing their way through the crowds on the pavement, and Fin watched them until they disappeared.
 
She paid, and found a lonely canyon of shelving, where she sat on the floor, staring into space, heart thumping.
 

A setback. It couldn’t possibly
really
have been Marie.
 
Perhaps that was bound to happen.
 
She would keep on seeing Marie lookalikes, until... well, until it didn’t matter any more.

Jetsam’s, Saturday night.
 
Where it had all begun.
 
Ellie had refused to take no for an answer to her invitation to supper, and had countermanded Fin’s order of salad, insisting that she had the house meatballs on a hill of pasta instead.

“Have you weighed yourself lately?” she demanded.

“No, but I’m eating healthily, Ellie, honest.”

“In that case you can’t have been looking in the mirror – the weight’s just
fallen
off you.
 
What with the breakup and the physical rigours of what you’re doing in the week, you’re in danger of losing your looks, dear.
 
Not to mention the fact that you won’t be able to cope with dealing with classes of bolshie students, if you’re a fragile flower.
 
Believe me, darling, there’s no job that takes more stamina than teaching.”

“I probably won’t be in a job straight away, Ellie, it’s quite hard to get in, apparently.
 
But I really am looking after myself – I’ll start taking a vitamin supplement, if it’ll keep you quiet.”

“What you need is protein.
 
Lots of red meat, preferably raw.”

“Believe it or not, Ellie, there’s a vegetarian on our course, and she’s amazingly fit.
 
Being a carnivore is not a prerequisite of the job.”

Benny came to the table with the food, and the smell of it tweaked Fin’s inert appetite.

“I won’t be able to eat all of this,” she warned Ellie, dividing a meatball with her fork and taking a bite.
 
It was good, as only home-cooked food can be.
 
Odd how badly many of her classmates seemed to eat, considering that they aspired to be purveyors of health and fitness; the class favourite appeared to be Hamburger en Boite Polystyrene, while chips doused in curry sauce frequently polluted the air in the classroom when students chose to eat lunch at their tables.
 
Fin’s appetite had been minimal, but she had made a conscious effort to get something of nutritional value into her system.
 

“The old adage about living well being the best revenge is something you need to have tattooed on your forearm, Fin,” said Ellie.
 
Her brow was furrowed, and her eyes intense.
 
God bless her, thought Fin, she really cares about me.
 
And she smiled.

“
Ah, we’ve got some sunshine after the rain!”
said Ellie, consigning a large meatball to its fate.
 
“Bloody good job.”

The hearty meal and accompanying wine felt strange and heavy after so long, but Fin felt warmed and strengthened by it, as by Ellie’s concern.
 
Marie had been like a toothache which kept on returning in waves, and frequently Fin had been gripped by the perverse compulsion to prod the seat of the pain, and make it worse.
 
Rachel had been right about the course being the best thing for her, though; the sheer amount of work elbowed out most of the agonising reruns of scenes from the affair, and allowed little time for dwelling on her loss.

“Thanks, Ellie, that was lovely,” said Fin, parking her cutlery beside the remains of the meal.

“Hmm.
 
I’ll let you get away with that bit left over, since you’ve not been yourself.
 
Yep, you’ve actually put quite a bit away, I’m pleased to see.
 
Benny!
 
Sling us the dessert menu, will you?”

“Oh, not for me, Ellie, thanks.
 
I couldn’t manage any more, not possibly.”

“Well, I didn’t have lunch today, so I might manage some treacle pud.
 
I’ll get you another glass of wine.”

“I don’t think I’d better, I need to do some study tomorrow-”

“That’s two more large glasses of Shiraz, please Benny, and I’ll have the treacle - oh, none left, OK, I’ll take the sticky toffee, then, but not too much sauce, please.
 
No, Fin, you have to think of the wine as medicinal.
 
Full of flavenoids and anti-oxidant thingies, and it’s just
stuffed
with iron.”

“I’m not sure that last bit’s quite true, Ellie, but I feel a hell of a lot better than when I came in.
 
You’ve cheered me up so much.”

“And you can certainly manage another teensy one to smooth out the frown-lines,” said Ellie, indicating the goldfish-bowl-sized glass beside her pudding spoon.

Fin sipped as Ellie dealt efficiently with the sticky toffee pudding, and reflected that friendship was a lot more worthwhile than love.
 
Love put you at such a terrible disadvantage; how often could it possibly happen that the feelings of lovers for each other were perfectly matched?

“So how about a girls’ night out, then?” asked Ellie, licking the last of the toffee sauce from her teeth, “All this time, and we haven’t met your Rosemary yet, aren’t you speaking any more?”

It was true, Fin had meant to get Rosemary into town to meet Ellie and Rachel, but the months had dissolved with baffling speed, and somehow it hadn’t happened. And to her shame, her obsession with Marie had rendered Rosemary’s emails and messages unimportant, peripheral. How could she have been so careless? She had meant to answer the emails. She had replied to one, she was sure of it. Weeks ago.

“I’ve neglected her horribly, Ellie. She changed my life, and I’ve just not bothered.”

“You haven’t kept the rest of us too much in the loop either, you dreadful woman. Oh well, that’s love, I guess,” said Ellie, “but real friends don’t alter when they alteration find. So how about this night out? We’ll do the making-up-for-lost-time thing in style.”

“When? You know I’ve got my practical assessment soon after the course finishes.
 
Don’t know the exact date or the venue yet.”

“You’ll be home before that, though, won’t you? Does the course finish next Friday, or the week after?”

“Week after.
 
Fortunately the theory exam will be done and dusted beforehand, on the Thursday.”

“So we could do it that weekend.
 
Two weeks’ time.
 
Clear the diary for Saturday, all right?”