That would be ridiculous, if he had a face like a church. What I mean is, his face makes me think about the pictures you see in churches. Those blokes with shiny light round their heads. Saints and holy people. And when we got to the flat and Abs opened the door, he came out into the hallway with his hands clasped, as if he was just about to deliver a blessing, or marry us, or something. He gave a sad smile to the air somewhere near my head, pressed his lips together, then helped us carry the boxes from the car and into the spare room. Then he made us both a hot chocolate with a generous splash of Baileys in it, and cleared off. He did give another sympathetic smile to the room I was in, and touch my shoulder, but he could have been touching a rack of tracksuit tops for all we both cared. Lovely guy, though. How many boyfriends would happily let their girlfriend’s slobby, depressive friend move into their spare room indefinitely? Abs is so lucky. They’re always kissing, or just touching each other’s hands or arms when they pass each other. He’s so affectionate and sensitive. It’s very moving.
Ooh, this is the bit where Julia Roberts turns up at Hugh’s place looking for a haven. That’s where I would go if I could. Not that I’m not grateful to Abby and Tom for providing a roof over my head in my hour of need, but there’s no way Hugh would have dragged me reluctantly round a load of shops the day after moving in like Abs did. He would have doubtless brought me some croissants in bed, with orange juice and coffee, kissed my head really tenderly, then left me alone to wallow in my misery. Or made energetic love to me all afternoon. Either one would have been good. Frankly, all I wanted to do at that point was lie in bed under a duvet, with or without a naked Hugh, but Abby wasn’t having any of it.
‘Get up,’ she said, yanking the curtains back at something like five a.m. ‘I’ve made a plan.’
I pulled the duvet up over my head. ‘Jesus, Abs,’ I whined. Yes, I know I was whiney, but I was dog-tired, I couldn’t help it. ‘It’s the middle of the night. You know I’m not sleeping well at the moment, seriously. I didn’t get off until gone two, and five or six hours’ sleep just isn’t enough. I can’t get up yet. Call me in a couple more hours.’
‘It’s midday.’
I didn’t move for a second or two, then took hold of the edge of the duvet and dragged it slowly down, gradually exposing my entire pale face. ‘What?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, for someone who’s not sleeping well at the moment, you sure do sleep a lot.’
I stared at her a moment, making the extremely rookie mistake of engaging in direct eye contact with her almost straight away. She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips, and I felt that oh-so-familiar feeling of resignation.
‘Come on, Daze, you need to get up. We’ve got things to do.’
I knew resistance was futile, but I gave it one more try anyway. She would not have respected me if I hadn’t. ‘Yes, I know I’ve got things to do. It starts with “s” and ends with “leep”. Or “ob”. Or maybe “igh”. All three of which require that I remain horizontal, right here.’
‘Oh no you don’t, young lady,’ she said, snatching the duvet off my cold miserable body, leaving me curled up in the foetal position, trembling. ‘Come on, get up.’ She strategically positioned herself two millimetres from my face. ‘We’re going shopping.’
‘Abby, I don’t want to go shopping. You know I don’t. There’s no point anyway. I’ve put all this weight on and I’m not buying anything until I’ve lost it all.’
‘I don’t care about that. Come on, get up, we’re going out like it or not. You’ve got half an hour.’
I have no idea how it is that Abby manages to make me do things I absolutely do not want to do. When she starts talking, I have that feeling in my head, that absolute granite determination, that no matter what she says, I will not do it. I am in charge of me, not her; I can simply refuse. Like those people who go to presentation evenings for the free champagne, sniggering to each other about the poor saps who get taken in by it all; and then come away with two weeks a year in a flat in Beirut. They’re scratching their heads, thinking ‘How the fuck did that happen?’ No one else in my life has ever managed it with me. Not Mum; not Naomi; not even my dad, when I saw him (and, being less familiar with him, he was always more scary). Naomi once tried so hard to get me to do something – lend her my denim jacket for a date, I think – that she lost her temper and kicked a hole in her bedroom wall. But I didn’t relent. Actually, that just made me more determined. I didn’t need the jacket that night, wasn’t going out and never wore it much anyway. But if she thought she could get me to do what she wanted, just because she went red in the face and performed an impressive karate kick, she was wrong.
I felt instantly sorry for her of course. As soon as she’d done it, she froze, clapped her hand to her mouth, then sank to the floor and started sobbing. I got down there on the floor with her and cuddled her for ten minutes until she’d calmed down. Didn’t loan her the jacket though.
It took me just over an hour to get ready for Abby’s shopping trip, which is probably my personal best for extremely slow and reluctant preparation for an outing I have no interest in and don’t want to be a part of. Twenty minutes after that, we were walking across the car park in town, heading towards the main shopping precinct.
‘Trainers?’ I was saying, trailing a good four or five feet behind her.
‘Yes.’ She turned her head to the side as she spoke to me, in recognition of the fact that I was behind her, but she refused to turn all the way round to face me. ‘You liked those trainers of mine, didn’t you? The ones you wore last week when we went out for that short walk?’
I shrugged. She couldn’t see me. ‘Mnyer,’ I said – the audio equivalent of a shrug.
‘Good,’ she said decisively, interpreting – no doubt deliberately – my indeterminate sound as a positive. ‘You need some proper trainers for the MoonWalk, and you need them straight away so that you can train in them. Tom’s told me what to look for, and where to go, so it won’t take long.’
‘Oh.’ Insanely, I actually felt a bit disappointed. Then I realised I was insane, and cheered up.
We found my perfect pair of trainers in the first sportswear shop we went in. Thank God. I had never been in a sportswear shop before then, and I felt about as comfortable in there as a flabby, spotty lamb in a slaughterhouse full of fit, attractive lambs. The salesman – Martin – made me get up on a treadmill right there in the middle of the shop, in front of absolutely everyone, then turned it on and made me walk on it while he filmed me. I felt like I was somehow starring in my very own porn film. No doubt the footage will find its way onto YouTube eventually. Truly horrific. I actually lost the ability to walk sensibly. I’m twenty-eight, for God’s sake, and have been able to walk competently on and off for the past twenty-six years; but when that rubber surface started to move, I was Bambi on ice. My feet went behind me before I had even worked out what was happening and my body stretched out until I was almost horizontal. ‘Move your feet, Daisy,’ Martin said helpfully, nodding to encourage me. ‘Try to walk normally.’ Abby clapped her hand to her mouth at this point, and said nothing.
‘How fast is this?’ I panted, desperately dragging my feet forwards in a pseudo-run as fast as I could to bring my body back upright.
‘Four K,’ Martin said. ‘About two and a half miles an hour. Get your balance, then we’ll speed things up a bit.’
I panicked. I must have done. There’s no other explanation. One minute I was upright, walking confidently and calmly, even starting to enjoy it in some insane way, then Martin leaned
