Surface Tension - Chapter 8

Are there moments when you can feel your life changing, when you know whatever the outcome from this moment onwards it’s going to be different?  I’m not talking about ‘life events’ like getting married or the birth of your first child.  They take planning, preparation; well in most cases they do.  No, I mean a single point in time when you know you’ve crossed your Rubicon; you’ve had your epiphany, your Pauline conversion.  I’m talking about lights in the sky, fireworks; when your heart starts racing, your breathing’s shallow;  you’ve turned into the final straight, you can see the finish line and you know, you know that you’re going to finish.

            Well, is this it?

            I'm in my lounge.  The sulphur yellow street light bleeds through the partially drawn curtains, casting indistinct shadows across the room.  The room is warm, or at least I am; despite the fact that the heating must have gone off hours ago.  It's still, not quiet, just at rest; the quiet thrub of the fridge, a tap percussively dripping, the low hiss of traffic from the world outside.  I swear I can hear the numbers on the digital clock tumbling, 2:15… 2:16… 2:17. 

            And in sweet harmony to it all is Bill’s breathing.

            She's lying next to me curled like a kitten, her head resting in my lap.  Her hair just falls onto my legs; her lips are pursed, ripe for kissing.  Her left hand reaches out over me, her right is tucked underneath.  She’s been like this for at least an hour.  At first she drifted off on my shoulder, forcing herself awake with a jolt, until it became too much and she gave in; silently acquiescing to sleep. 

 

 There were, I suppose, eight or ten of us in total.  But there was a core.   

            Jonah and I had met in the first few days at university.  We’d found we’d got some lectures together.  I can remember arriving petrified of the whole thing.  So when I found Jonah I heaved a huge sigh of relief inside and funnily enough he did the same thing.  And gradually over the days our network expanded and grew, people flitting in and out, acquaintances gestating into friendships, some dissolving, some maturing.  David was like a meteor, a bright intense light who wanted to dominate us all until he found another, more ‘in’ crowd to hand with.  Josie and Richard gradually froze us out as their friendship became more intense.  We were constellations that shifted depending on your point of view.  But Bill was the constant.  We'd like to think we were catalysts, around which things happened.  Neither of us were successful when it came to 'the ladies', mainly bluff and bluster, content to believe that friendships were of greater value than a cheap one night stand.  There was just Bill.

            Jonah always knew that I liked Bill. For me it was Bill, she was the nucleus around which I spun.  I can remember the sour moment, when what I thought was an evenly balanced and weighted set of scales began to tilt one way. 

It was a bright crisp spring day, white light filtering through, warming the day creating long, sharp shadows.  It was early. I can’t remember quite what I’d be doing. I may’ve been out on the river in one of my farcical attempts to prove that I was a sportsman by rowing.  Whatever, I was hungry and ready for breakfast.  The route to the dining hall led past the stairs to Jonah’s room and so I thought I’d call.

Pounding up the stairs that morning I wasn't prepared to wheel in to Jo’s room to find him locked in an embrace, for that embrace to dissolve and then resolve into two people, the second being Sybil Richardson.

            What happened next?  Apologies, justifications, pleadings and reasonings.  The glib ‘we can still be friends’ but I knew we'd lost our moorings and would gradually float apart.  With Jonah, I played a pretence but I felt he'd betrayed a confidence, taken something that was mine, broken an unsaid rule.  With Bill it was a slow steady decline, a slip sliding away that always contained a veneer, an implication of something deeper. I chose to block this out. As she and Jonah became more absorbed with each other so we drifted apart but  I’d watch her from a far, I know it sounds stupid, weak but there was something in her that drew me. 

           

But that was then, this is now.  And curled up next to me is the woman I want.  Carefully I slide from beneath her slipping a couple of cushions under head to keep her propped up.  She mumbles.  To her here sleep talk is delicious.  Standing above her I watch, simplicity and grace combined.  A new day is dawning, we are spinning around the sun and daylight will come.  It’s inevitable.

            I wander to the window.  From the corner of the street there's movement; an amber flash darts behind one of the parked cars and then gingerly appears, nose twitching, sensing the air, tasting it for food and danger.  The fox steps purposefully into the middle of the road, its ears pricked. It moves with caution knowing it's on foreign territory.  It pauses again, tilting its head to one side considering the sights and sounds it senses. It’s a creature that has adapted to a new world.  I shiver. I hold myself briskly rubbing my arms and I turn to see Bill.  I smile.

 

The  lifestyle club, as our guide insisted on calling it, was impressive.  The non-conformist chapel had been effectively and efficiently converted.  The open spaces of the sanctuary had been cut and divided leaving shadows of the buildings former purpose.  There were the usual rooms with various exercise machines, arrayed in rows ready to go to war against the excesses of the flesh,

            “Of course,” Thomas preached, “Here we do not focus on the body, the mind and spirit are just as important in the quest for peace and perfection and so we have mediation rooms.”  He shows us a couple of plain rooms, simply furnished with nothing other than chairs or bean bags. We flick past spa rooms where various massages, wraps and other treatments are administered.  Some areas are restricted, single sex only, others have no such requirements; though he informs Bill they do have times set aside entirely for women, if that is what she would like.

            “Why's it so quiet now?”  We've wandered through the building without encountering anyone.

            Thomas glances at his watch; “Bill, well Saturday afternoon is often quiet.  In the main our clients have families.”  He leaves the statement hanging in the air as if it is obvious what he means.  “But usually, about now, clients start to come, to get ready for the evening.  It tends not to be the exercise equipment more the beauty and relaxation services that are used.”

            He stops and looks at us, expecting us say something.  With difficulty he raises an eyebrow quizzically. His tanned forehead barely wrinkles.  The pause elongates. He shuffles from foot to foot impatiently.  Finally he breaks the silence with an impertinent: “Well?” but then he recovers and more politely queries; “What do you think of facilities?”

            Bill looks up, flicks back her black bob and fixes him with a longing gaze, eyes rounded and moist.  I feel a pang of jealousy.  Thomas grows a couple of inches.  He leans forward cocking his head into the classic listening position.  Clearly the customer sensitivity training had worked.  When Bill speaks it's carefully measured as if she's talking to a small child with comprehension problems.

            “Changing facilities?”

            Thomas is confused; he's expecting a compliment, (or a declaration of undying love from Bill).

            “Yes?”

             “Do you have them?”

            “Yes?”

            “Well?”  Bill leaves this hanging in the air.  Thomas is now trying desperately to work out what she wants; this isn't part of the script. 

            “We’d like to see them,” and then Bill adds a withering, “Please.”

            “Of course,” Thomas says, his tanned cheeks reddening.  He backs away and leads through another door into a small corridor.  At the end is a fire exit, either side are two doors each with a small sign proclaiming ladies and gentlemen respectively.

            In one move Bill sweeps through the male door, saying, “Can I have a look?  Best to do the gentleman’s changing room.”  She's gone before Thomas can respond.  We follow.

            It's a changing room, a smart one at that; neon lighting glows brighter than in the corridor.  There's a full length mirror for preening purposes and another that runs horizontally at waist height above a row of wash basins.  In the middle of the room is the usual rack and on the wall opposite to the mirrors are a series of cubicles.  At the back of the room are a series of metallic grey lockers.  Bill is standing in front of these surveying the room.

            “I assume the ladies are like this?”  Thomas nods in agreement.

            “Lockers?”

            “We’ve never had any problems, nobody has ever reported anything stolen from us ever,” Thomas responds defensively, his brow again falling to furrow to show his concern.

            “How does it work?  Do you pick up a key each time you come or do you have your own personal locker.”

            Thomas is confused.  He's used to being questioned on the equipment, the help they can offer, their vision and holistic statement of what the club's all about, but interrogation on lockers?  He's uncomfortable in his suit.

            “Er, yes,” he stutters, “Most people choose to have their own locker but you can rent one as and when you require.  Reception will deal with this.  It's not like the town pool where you have to put £1 in a slot.  You wouldn't like to see inside one?”

            “Thank you,” says Bill dismissively ignoring the sarcasm, “What’s through here?”  She points at a door which, on cue, swings open. Out steps a bloke, late sixties, he has a halo of wet white hair, so white it almost matches the towel that's sort of wrapped around his rotund torso.

            “What the…?” he cries almost letting go of the towel.  Bill and I retreat leaving Thomas to calm the malcontent down.

            It is distinctly cooler in the corridor.

            “What was that all about Bill?”

            “We knew they had lockers, the darling at the front told us that.  But seeing them made me realise that if anyone could use them it was pretty meaningless.  They’d quickly realise if a key was lost and they’d get a new one cut.  Also, you wouldn’t keep anything important in a locker which someone else might have access to would you?  No, so we needed to find out if it was possible to have your own locker.  It is, so out next task is to find out which type of locker our key fits.” She produces the duplicate from her pocket to emphasise the point.

            “How do you propose we do that?”

            “There's only one way, we’ve got to try them until we find the one it fits”

            “How?”

            “We become members of course.”

            “Two things, firstly this place costs, is this going to be worth it?  And secondly I’m not sure if I like the use of the royal ‘we’.  This feels more like something I’ll end up doing.”

            Bill turns on her smiles just for me but it’s interrupted by Thomas.  Bill turns the smile to him. It banishes his worried expression. She's tilted her head fractionally down to her chest, so that she is looking up, her eyebrows are arched, her eyes are round, hopeful and imploring.   She bites her lip, turning it from red to white. 

            “We’d like to join,” she says decisively, “wouldn’t we Tony?”