and had to grab the handrails to steady myself, but didn’t manage to get a proper grip in my panic. My shoes scuffed the walking surface repeatedly and I kept staggering forwards, my arms flailing in the air. Eventually I managed to grab the handrails again and lifted my entire body weight off the platform, but my elbow gave out and I collapsed suddenly back down onto the walking surface, and fell onto my knees.
‘YAAH! HELP ME!’ I yelled out as I was gently and smoothly transported to the end of the conveyor and deposited into the insoles display.
‘Christ alive!’ Martin yelped, and leaped into the air in a rare moment of abandon, as the entire rack of insoles teetered for a few seconds, then finally tilted forwards and showered me soundlessly with weightless packets of feet-shaped foam. ‘Jesus tonight, are you all right?’ He touched down lightly by my side and bent over to look at my humiliation more closely.
I nodded. ‘I’m fine. But I need to put my bruised ego in your accident book.’
He blinked, then frowned a little. ‘Oh, right.’ He straightened up and glanced quickly at Abs, who was by now folded in half with one hand over her mouth and the other wrapped round her belly. He looked back at me, then craned his neck anxiously towards a door marked ‘Staff Only’. ‘Well then, I’d better just go and get … the …’ It was obvious he was struggling to understand whether I was serious, so I let him off.
‘No, it’s fine, I’m fine, don’t worry.’ I stood up and picked boxes of feet out of my hair. ‘See? No harm done.’
Martin visibly brightened. The thought of paperwork was clearly bringing him down. Obviously one of those types who excelled at sport at school. ‘Oh, great! Well … I think we probably got enough footage there, so …’
I was frankly astounded by that statement. As far as I could work out, the only footage he’d have captured featured me upside down in the air, which wouldn’t have told him an awful lot about my walking technique. Oh, except for the fact that I wasn’t very good at it. But I had no intention of having another go, so I didn’t argue.
Abs – red-faced and still amazingly silent – and I followed Martin over to the wall of trainers and he talked us through which pair he thought would be most suitable.
‘Now Daisy,’ he began earnestly, ‘the interesting thing about the way that you walk is …’ But it wasn’t interesting at all. My attention immediately wandered over to some movement behind the demon treadmill. Two boys in hoodies, both around fourteen or fifteen, were glancing furtively around the room, then focusing back towards the in-store pharmacy. They were obviously about to start shoplifting things. I wondered vaguely whether to mention it to Martin, but it was far more interesting to see what happened. They moved closer together so their hoodies met up and formed a kind of hoodie tunnel for them to talk in. They conversed for a few seconds, re-emerged and looked around again, then edged nearer to the display. After one more quick scan of the room they were satisfied that no one was watching, so advanced finally to the display and, in a lightning-fast and clearly well-practised manoeuvre, seized a small, familiar-looking purple box each. The boxes flashed briefly in the air between them before being instantly concealed somewhere about their person and they moved off quickly. I turned back to Martin to alert him, but then noticed that the boys were slouching über-casually over to the tills. Of course. They weren’t shop-lifting; they were buying their first condoms. Romance isn’t dead.
Eventually I had to tear my eyes away and pay the million pounds Martin wanted for the space-age trainers he’d selected. Apparently they were made with some kind of new technology, involving a recently developed innovative substance probably derived from something that fell to earth from a galaxy far, far away, and would improve my balance, increase my fitness and tighten up the overall tone of my buttocks and thighs as I walked.
‘Wow,’ I nodded, exaggeratedly impressed. ‘Are they bringing an end to suffering and world poverty too?’ I handed over a thick wad of cash.
Martin looked from side to side, a tiny frown confusing his face. ‘Er, well … no. I don’t think so. Not really. I’m not sure that’s … You know, because they’re not made in the …’
I sagged with disappointment. ‘Oh. What a shame.’ Then I brightened. ‘Well, never mind. It’s certainly a relief to hear that the scientists are all keeping themselves busy.’
Martin glanced at Abs, then back at me. ‘Erm, I’m not sure that I …’ He trailed off.
I smiled and nodded. ‘Yeah, you know, after that whole cure-for-cancer fiasco.’
‘Right, OK, well, thank you very much,’ Abby said suddenly, grabbing my arm and dragging me towards the exit. ‘Bye!’
So I had the magic trainers. In a cardboard box, in a carrier bag, on the back seat of Abby’s car. As we drove, the bag jangled softly, and little gold and rainbow-coloured sparks erupted from it then evaporated in the air. Abby kept up an excited monologue all the way back to her place, about how great it all was, and how I could now finally start my proper training, and get out on the streets every day, starting tomorrow, even if it was just for twenty minutes to begin with, and then I could build up to an hour by increasing by ten minutes every day. And she would join me at weekends, and some evenings. And we would both get fit and toned and healthy and then complete the MoonWalk next month really easily and feel fantastic and a huge sense of achievement as well as raising a bucketful of cash for the cancer that killed my mum, which would in turn contribute towards improving research and treatment and could in the end help save someone else’s mum or daughter or sister or grandmother or auntie. I said nothing. I wasn’t feeling it. One step at a time, I thought. No need to get carried away.
OK. Julia Roberts has just told Hugh that she’s just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. I adore this bit. Internationally worshipped multi-millionaire A-list movie star falls for witty and diffident but obscure small bookshop owner, and propositions him. It makes you believe that anything is possible. Like maybe one day I’ll be standing in Tesco by the hair removal cream and Matt Damon will happen to have popped in for cotton buds and a travel iron, and he’ll see me and tell me he’s actually just a simple man who’s fallen in love with a simple girl or something, and all he can offer me is his heart, no more, no less. And unlike Hugh I’ll snatch his bloody hand off and jet off with him straight to his Beverly Hills mansion for a life of parties and extravagance.
Hugh has turned her down though. Big mistake. Huge. But it all works out in the end. Of course it does, it’s a film. I’m a bit distracted this afternoon, actually. Can’t concentrate properly on the story. Well, I do know the story already, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t get something new out of it each time I watch it. The problem now is that it’s already half past three, and Abs is likely to get in from work anywhere between four and five, without warning. Being her own boss, she can finish work as soon as she’s had enough. No, all right, probably not as soon as she’s had enough. Not that exact second. She probably has to finish the lesson she’s giving before packing up for the day. Be a bit much if she just leaned over on the bypass, opened the driver’s door and gave her current pupil a good shove to send them tumbling out, then drove home. But she’s a professional, I’m sure she doesn’t do that. She probably pulls over first. Anyway I have no way of knowing what time she’ll get in, which means I have to be ready. I wait for a good shot of Hugh’s face, then pause the film. I can come back to that. I need to shut my computer down, put my quilt back on my bed and get the magic trainers on before she gets home. Then I can tell her I’ve just got back from a twenty-five-minute walk.
My messenger makes the popping noise just as I’m about to close the web page I’m on. I have to move quickly now. That message is bound to be Abby checking up on me.
