Club House which occupies a central position close to the green. There’s a section of tall hedging that surrounds an outdoor dining area and offers the perfect vantage point to carry out my undercover operation.
The park grows busier but after half an hour, I wonder if I’m wasting my time. The girl who posted the tweet about the workout didn’t specify a time and it’s possible I’ve missed them. I couldn’t leave the apartment until Charlie was safely out of the way. He’s spending his day checking out his new commercial contracts at New Mersey Retail Park and was too anxious to notice my impatience for him to leave. I haven’t spoken to him about Lewis, and even last night, when I mentioned the nuisance calls in passing after Ruth messaged to say there had been more during her shift, I didn’t suggest who might be behind them. Charlie would only tell me I shouldn’t assume it’s Lewis. I don’t. There’s the possibility it’s Ellie acting under instruction.
We’ve never had this many put-down calls before. Is it a coincidence? No more than it is for me to be in Chavasse Park when Lewis turns up with his boot-campers. If he turns up, that is. I could have missed him by minutes, or the session might have been relocated or cancelled all together. It rained overnight and the grass is sodden.
Shuffling from one foot to the other, I press my hands to my cheeks to warm both. I sweep my fingers beneath a fringe that has become slick with moist air and is sticking to my forehead. My hair will be a frizzy mess within the hour, which is annoying because I’d taken particular care with my appearance. If I do manage to spot Lewis or, more to the point, if he spies me, I want him to know that I’m a force of nature, just like Meg had been before he stepped into her path.
‘What do you think?’ she’d once asked. We were backstage, peeking through the curtain after dress rehearsals for the alternative nativity play Meg’s sixth form drama teacher had co-written with her students. I wasn’t part of the production but I’d shown up to rehearsals once too often and when one of the cast had dropped out, I’d been commandeered to play a sheep. It was originally a talking part but after an unconvincing performance, the script had been adapted around me.
‘What do I think of what?’ I asked. I was playing with my hooves rather than eyeing up the group of students who had gathered in the auditorium for a sneak preview, and continued to loiter with intent despite the performance being over.
‘Him.’
She pulled me closer and I followed her gaze to the group of boys who had lost interest in heckling the actors for an encore and were kicking at the parquet floor tiles. Charlie was there too but that wasn’t where Meg had her sights.
‘Lewis Rimmer?’ I asked with genuine shock. There was no doubt he was drop-dead gorgeous but there was a rumour he’d stabbed someone in revenge for his cousin’s death, and that was why he and his mum had had to run away in the middle of the night with only the clothes on their backs. Clearly it was an exaggeration but I panicked every time he caught me looking at him, and I could never imagine talking to him without stumbling over my words.
‘Oh, Meg, you can’t,’ I whispered.
‘You’d be surprised what I can do.’
And that was the thing with Meg: I never could second-guess her. She’d been in a foul mood for weeks as the pressure mounted before opening night but the minute she put on her costume for the dress rehearsal, she was a different person.
‘At times like this, Jen, there’s only one way to find out if it was meant to be,’ she added. ‘If my public want an encore, that’s what they’re going to get.’
And with that, Meg flicked back the curtain and ran onto the stage. The Angel Gabrielle sparkled in her sequinned ballgown, revealing jeans and trainers as she lifted the hem of her dress. She was running fast and her pace didn’t slow as she ran out of stage. She leapt over the footlights with her arms held out wide in a swan dive.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and neither could anyone else. Charlie was one of the first to react but Meg had her own flight plan. She didn’t doubt that Lewis would catch her, although it was more of a tumble as she thumped into him, knocking off his glasses as the two of them were sent skittering to the floor. She was sixteen and she thought she was indestructible but the countdown to her death started that day. She had two more Christmases, two summers and only one more birthday.
The sound of shouting pulls me back to the present. I see two blokes on the opposite side of the park look down over the tiered steps that rise up from the ground level. I can’t see who they’re laughing at but I can hear a man yelling instructions. Bodies clad in Lycra begin to appear one by one, their contorted features burning red and their backs bent.
‘Move, move, move!’ a man hollers. I’m too far away to hear their weak replies – it’s only Lewis’s voice that travels.
When he reaches the summit, Lewis is straight-backed as he continues to jog on the spot. I thought I was prepared for seeing him in the flesh but I’m overcome with such a sense of loathing that my damp skin burns. Here is a man who thinks nothing and no one can defeat him. I step away from the hedge so that he can see me if he chooses. That’s all I want – for him to look at me and know that I’m not scared. Except, despite my fury, my legs are like jelly and I flinch each time he yells, recalling how often he had screamed in Meg’s face.
Unable to pretend I’m as brave as Meg for a moment longer, I stumble back into the shadows and remain there like a frightened rabbit, caught in the headlights of indecision and fear. I want to stand up to Lewis but what if he takes one look at me and laughs at my frizzy hair and shaking body? He might have reinvented himself with contact lenses and a manbun, but in the last ten years, I’ve stayed the same. I haven’t moved on from Meg’s death, I’ve been swept along by the sheer force of time, and that’s how it’s always going to be unless I do something.
So do it, I tell myself, although it could be Meg’s voice I hear.
When I reappear from behind the hedge, the group have moved onto the grass. If it’s too wet to lie down on, none of the prostrate figures are complaining. It’s grotesquely symbolic that Lewis should be the only one left standing and I don’t think about the consequences as I stride towards him.
Lewis is wearing a vest top and shorts that cling damply to his body, and his arm and leg muscles glisten with perspiration. Veins on the side of his neck bulge and if he would only stop shouting instructions to his class for two seconds, he might turn and notice me fuming from the sidelines. He doesn’t stop, however, and the first to note my presence is a young woman who has dared to defy his order for another set of push-ups by resting her chin on her hands.
‘EIGHT. NINE. Oh fine, why don’t the rest of you give up too?’ Lewis yells. He glares at the rebel and she points at me with her eyes.
There are moans and groans from the group as they collapse onto their bellies while their personal trainer forgets they exist. He’s looking at me, his eyes darkening from steel-blue to iron, and I don’t think either of us has blinked.
‘Are we finished?’ asks the rebel. When she receives no reply, she raises her voice with what little breath she has left. ‘Lewis?’
‘Since you’re so good at shouting the odds, Shannon, you can take everyone through the cool down and then we’ll call it a day,’ he says without looking at her.
Shannon stands up with a grunt. ‘Right, people, the sooner we do this, the sooner we can all get home and dry.’
Lewis stretches his shoulders as he steps away from the group and walks
