The Saturday Morning Park Run

With disgust I glanced back down the leafy path. I hadn’t even run that far.

There was only one thing for it: coffee. And thank God for The Friendly Bean, which was within staggering in distance. Urging my protesting wobbly thighs back into action, I walked to the café, grateful for the emergency fiver tucked into my phone case.

With coffee in hand, too self-conscious and aware of my beet-red face and underarm circles to stay inside, I limped out to the small enclosed area a little way beyond the café. Circled by shrubs and bushes, it had a small paved area with a pair of benches at right angles to each other bookmarked on either end by an abundant flower bed. It was filled with blousy peonies in shades of pale pink and dark rhubarb red, like big pom-poms surrounded by fans of dark green leaves. I stared at them for a moment, struck by the colours. When was the last time I’d actually noticed flowers? Or even had time to sit and look at them. Or to smell them. Everything had been grey for so long. Without thinking, I leaned over to take a deep sniff.

‘Gorgeous, aren’t they?’ said a voice.

Startled, I looked up to see an elderly lady with a fine frizz of soft white hair around her head, like a snowy aura, marching towards me. Something rattled at the back of my brain; she seemed awfully familiar.

She plonked herself down on my bench, almost spilling the coffee I’d put down next to me.

‘Lovely morning. You carry on with your communing with nature, dear. Don’t mind me.’

Feeling a little caught-on-the-hop, I gave her a weak smile. I didn’t normally ‘commune with nature’ as she’d put it. I probably looked a bit strange. Oh, to be in one of my smart suits like a normal person. I wanted to tell her that actually I had a very responsible job and was a ‘someone’ in real life. I closed my eyes as if doing so would shut her out and I could ignore her. I didn’t want to be that person who was desperate to talk to someone because it might be the only adult conversation I had all day. Maybe I could phone Ros and see how things were in the office. I winced thinking of all the things I should be doing there. The list started to snowball and I had to force myself to open my eyes.

The cheek! I looked into twinkling blue eyes peering at me over the top of… my takeaway coffee cup.

‘Help yourself, why don’t you?’ I said, taken aback but trying to gain the upper hand. My withering sarcasm failed to make so much as a dent in her cheery smile.

‘Don’t mind if I do.’ Without a care, she lifted my coffee in toast and took another slurp. ‘Oh, that hits the spot. I do adore a good cup of coffee. That’s one of the things I do miss.’

For a moment I stared at her, completely thrown by her blithe disregard of my indignation.

‘It’s not good for me,’ she said. ‘Bad for the old ticker, apparently. Why is it all the good stuff is so terribly bad for you? I mean, Brussels sprouts, they taste bloody awful and do dreadful things to your digestive system. I remember my Great Uncle Vincent – that man could clear a room… Why aren’t they bad for you? Swede, another disgusting, tasteless vegetable; why couldn’t that be terribly bad for you instead of chocolate and wine? I do love a good glass of Malbec. And the health police constantly on at you. I keep telling them I’m too old to care but… they insist on serving bloody decaffeinated rubbish. Instant at that. I ask you. I mean, what do you think about decaffeinated anything… a crime against human nature, I think. Stands to reason. God put caffeine in for a good reason. Not that I’m awfully matey with him up there right now. Guess I might decide to become better acquainted when I get closer to shuffling off the old mortal coil. You find that they all become God-botherers when they get older. I call it hedging your bets. Not me. If he doesn’t like me the way I am, tough cookies.’ She held out the coffee cup. ‘Here you go, dear. Don’t worry, I drank out of this side and I’ve got nothing worth mentioning. Not that I can recall anyway.’ Her brow furrowed as if she were giving it serious thought.

My lips twitched and much as I wanted to maintain a dignified distance and ignore her unwanted presence, I was intrigued and, to be honest, entertained by her. I rather liked her forthright untarnished views. She said it as she saw it and it was very refreshing.

I could see exactly which side she’d drunk from by the ring of fuchsia-pink lipstick lining the cup, so I took a sip of my coffee from the other side. It must be hell to have to go without coffee.

‘I’m Hilda.’

‘Claire.’

‘So what are you doing here?’ She eyed my shoes. ‘Running?’ She lifted her own feet and regarded her Day-glo trainers with satisfaction.

I laughed. ‘That was my intention. I’m a bit out of practice. Today was more about shuffling. I didn’t get very far.’

‘You’ll get better. I’ve not seen you here before. It’s very good for you. Running, that is. A bit every day and you’ll soon be up and… running.’ With a chortle at her pun, she poked me in the thighs. ‘Gets the endorphins going. Do you work in an office?’

I nodded, not wanting to admit that I was on temporary hiatus. It would be too embarrassing explaining why. She might think I was taking the easy way out, time off when there was nothing really wrong with me. I clenched my fists under my thighs. And she’d be right. Dr Boulter had overreacted. I could probably go back next week once I’d caught up on a bit of sleep.

‘You don’t want to get an office bottom, do you?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Office bottom, also known as spreading arse. Too much sitting down.’

‘Ah, no. I don’t.’

‘So, a bit further every day and before you know it you’ll be running a marathon,’ she said with an air of complacency. ‘I can tell we’re going to get on famously. What did you say your name was again? That’s the downside to being old: butterfly brain. By the time you get to my age, it’s so full of stuff, I lose things in there.’

I smiled, rather charmed by her description that shied away from forgetfulness.

‘I’m Claire.’

‘Pleased to meet you Claire and welcome to Command Centre.’

‘Command Centre?’ This woman veered from sensible and stately to completely whacky in nought to sixty. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.

‘Yes, this is my little spot. I know everything that goes on in this park.’ She patted the plump pink peony heads at the end of the bench on which we were sitting as if they were pet dogs, thereby loosening a few drops of rain. ‘It’s my personal fiefdom, if you like. I’ve lived around here off and on for sixty years.’ She pointed to the rather smart Regency houses that just peeped over the trees to the south of the park. ‘I used to live in one of those when my son was small. He used to want to come to the park a lot then. Play on the swings. Feed the ducks. Children,’ she sighed, ‘they grow up so quickly. One minute they’re clinging to your hands, the next minute they’re packing you off to a home. Of course, he hasn’t been here for years. Do you have children?’

‘Er… no.’

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘I’m looking after my nieces for a week while their mother is away and I’ve just taken them to school.’

‘Ah, that must be fun. How old are they?’

Mmm, the jury was out on the fun bit. This morning had been a bit of a nightmare. ‘Poppy’s ten and Ava’s six’

‘Lovely ages. Shame they have to grow up really. My son’s turned into a pompous twerp.’

‘How old is he?’ I bit back a smile at her weary dismissal.

‘Forty-five going on ninety-five.’ She shook her head and pursed her walnut-wrinkled mouth. ‘Don’t ever let anyone dump you in a home. I come here every day, just to get out of that dreary place.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Dreary place, weren’t you listening?’ She gave me a mischievous grin. ‘Also known as The Sunnyside Memorial Home for the half-dead and totally bewildered. My son insisted. I had a bit of a fall and broke my hip. He was all for putting me in a care home on the south coast. I’m old but I’m not senile.’ She gave me a wicked grin. ‘So I started running again, just to annoy him.’

‘How does that annoy him? I’d have thought he’d be rather proud of you running at your…’ my voice petered out.

‘Oh Lord girl, don’t be shy. At my great age. It’s all right, you can say it. With these wrinkles, I’m in no position to be getting coy about how old I am. If I’m still running every day, there’s no way he’ll get a doctor to say I’m not fit enough to live independently. I run around the park, just one loop, every single day. Rain or shine. And no one’s going to stop me.’

‘I remember you,’ I blurted out. ‘Sunshine-yellow tracksuit.’ Startler of pigeons. Harbinger of coffee disasters.

‘That’s my particular favourite. So good of you to notice it. I have a rather lovely emerald green one as well. Which reminds me, I haven’t done my stretches and at my age, they’re a must.’

She stood up and began doing a series of lunges. I watched in amusement as she bounced around the small area with more enthusiasm than skill.

Finally, jogging on the spot, she waved a hand at me. ‘Right, toodle-pip. Same time tomorrow.’

I shrugged. Today’s attempt at running had been woeful. Maybe I’d been a bit hasty emailing Dave about the 5k. The treadmill in the gym always seemed so much easier. Maybe I’d get the train into Leeds and visit the gym instead.

With a sniff, she turned and began to jog away down the path to join the main drag through the park.

I watched her retreating figure. At least it had been nice to have some company; she was a character and she’d made me smile quite a few times. In fact, my face felt positively mobile for once instead of having that stretched, clenched-teeth feeling that, now I thought about it, had been around for a lot longer than a few weeks. When was the last time I’d felt anything other than an insidious sense of doom and that everything was about to go wrong?

Chapter Seven

The kitchen looked as if a small tornado had swept through it. Spilled milk on the table, dried cornflakes in the bowls, which had acquired superglue-like properties, and abandoned toast crusts – apparently Ava’s hair was curly enough – as well as a pool of sticky orange juice that had been tramped across the floor, down the hall, and there was one tacky footprint on the cream lounge carpet. Breathe, Claire. It was okay. I could do this. I’d got the girls to school… and only five minutes late. I didn’t dare look at the bedroom where I knew there’d be a pile of abandoned school uniform items. Who knew children could generate so many dirty clothes? Little Ava could attract food, mud, and paint to her clothes, skin, and hair in equal quantities. There were even red paint and orange juice stains on her white ankle socks – although grey would have been a better description; they hadn’t been white for a long time.

The mess set all my tidy-senses tingling, bringing with them that familiar on-edge something-bad-was-going-to-happen feeling. As soon as I’d cleaned the juice from the floor by the fridge, I realised that underneath the fridge was filthy. So I pulled that out. Then I attacked the dust behind it. But the sides of the kitchen cupboards beside it were disgusting, so I cleaned off the sheen of grease, only to find that the extractor fan was also covered in a film of the same grease. With each bowl of hot soapy water I filled, I felt like the sorcerer’s apprentice. Each time I pulled out or moved something, there was more to do. The tiles behind the cooker were food-stained. The ceiling needed painting. The flooring was marked.

I stopped, realising that my breath was coming in shallow pants. This was ridiculous.

But even though my brain registered the onset of panic, I was still taking the shelves out of the oven to scrub them.

This was crazy. I should be at work, not doing this. Work, where I knew what needed to be done. Knew what I had to do. Where I had a million things to do. There were reports to be written. Data to be analysed. By now a gazillion emails to be responded to.

I also missed the routine of going to work. Getting up at six. Leaving at six forty-five. Wearing a smart suit. Being someone. Being recognised in the office. People there knew who I was: a senior manager. I missed having things to do.

Oh God, I needed something to take my mind off things.

I grabbed the BBC Good Food Magazine, almost in desperation. Cooking. That would give me something to do. And I was not going to think of the meeting that I should have been at in Bradford this morning. Who was taking it instead of me? Would they be presenting my work? Would the client know where I was? Surely the company wouldn’t tell them I was off with stress. Please no. And would they have found the additional notes I’d made?

I put down the magazine in despair. I looked at my watch as I spotted the cobweb in the corner of the room. Should I phone Ros and tell her where to find the notes? She could email them over. I could almost feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it all.

‘Hi Ros, it’s me,’ I said at the same time as reaching up the wall with a duster.

‘Claire, how are you feeling?’

‘I feel fine,’ I snapped, immediately irritated and frustrated because I’d spotted another bloody cobweb. ‘I’m not ill.’

‘No, dear. Now, if you’re phoning about work, I’m not to speak to you. If you want me to tell you that TJ got an A in his biology exam, I can do that. And Rissa was in a dance show last week and Ty took a catch in his cricket match.’

‘But I just need you to tell the team that I—’

‘Claire. You are signed off. I’m telling you, you’re not my boss at the moment. So I get to boss you around. And I’m telling you: clear your head. Work will carry on, just fine. I’m going to miss you but you have to give yourself some time.’

‘But there’s nothing—’

‘I’m no doctor but even I could tell you haven’t been right these past months.’

‘What? That’s rubbish.’ Even as I said it, I could feel a slight trembling of my hands.

‘Claire. You’ve been running on empty for a long time. Now, make the most of this time. Learn to dance, enjoy the sunshine, and smell the flowers. Do the things you enjoy instead of being cooped up in this stuffy place. It’s just a job, honey.’

I reached for the cobweb and noticed my hands really were shaking. Do things I enjoy? What things? I enjoyed work. I wanted to be there.

It had never ever been just a job. I was a career woman. On track to make partner.

My stomach lurched with the horror of realisation.

They wouldn’t give a partnership to someone who’d been signed off with stress. My career was toast. And my kitchen was a mess. Just look at the state of it. I couldn’t even manage to get that straight, so how the hell could I hope to salvage my career?

The panic that, like a malignant shadow, had been dogging me all morning with the frantic cleaning, suddenly engulfed me. My throat closed up and my breath stuttered in my chest.

I put my head down on the kitchen table and wept.

The bout of crying left me feeling worn out and lethargic, too tired to do more than raise my head from the table and glare around at the kitchen with all the half-finished jobs. I was as wobbly as a new-born giraffe and didn’t trust my legs to stand up yet.

For the first time, it occurred to me that perhaps Dr Boulter had a point and that I should think about taking better care of myself. I was clearly run-down. I scowled at the tatty kitchen floor which looked no better for my manic scrubbing and the hideous red and orange wallpaper on the ‘feature’ wall. This was supposed to be my grown-up, Instagram-perfect, I’ve-made-it home. It was laughable; I couldn’t even get my house straight let alone do my job. An epic fail on both counts.

Oh God, I had to sort myself out. Prove to them back at work that I was fine. Dr Boulter might be right about my need to be healthier but he was wrong about the stress. I snatched up the BBC Good Food Magazine. In the next three weeks, I was going to cook. Proper nutritious meals. Get myself back on track. Proper exercise, proper meals, just like the doctor had ordered. But would it help?

I didn’t know any of the mums in the playground and felt just as self-conscious waiting outside Ava’s classroom as I had that morning. Poppy, apparently, was old enough to be released into the wild by herself and was allowed to come and find me. Alice had had to give approval for me to collect the girls and this morning yesterday I’d had to check in with the teacher, Miss Parr – a smiley, fresh-faced girl of at least twelve – whom Ava clearly adored.

Keeping my head down, I focused on my phone to avoid the other mums’ speculative looks. Had Alice told them what had happened? I was embarrassed that they might know about my health issues and that I wasn’t currently working.

I’d managed to fill the rest of my day by doing some cooking and tidying up the bedroom Ava and Poppy were sharing. Neither were thrilled about having to share the big double bed, and I didn’t blame them, but I hadn’t got around to furnishing the third or fourth bedrooms since moving from my two-bedroom flat in Headingly. Ava’s rumpled side of the bed had looked as if rampaging squirrels had run amok in her sheets overnight, scattering the pile of soft toys she’d insisted she had to bring. Nine in all, each of which had a name and a reason as to why it had to accompany her. And at bedtime, every last one had to be given a goodnight kiss and cuddle before Ava would climb into bed. In contrast, Poppy hopped straight in and opened up her book. She was currently reading something called Skulduggery Pleasant with a slightly macabre front cover. On her side of the bed, the covers had been neatly pulled up and her pyjamas were folded on top of the pillow. Ava’s PJ bottoms hung from the shade on the bedside light and the top dangled from the bed post at the end of the bed.

After bringing order to Ava’s side of the room, I’d been relieved to find that it was nearly three and time to collect the girls and that somehow I’d managed to fill my first non-working day.

When Ava’s teacher, Miss Parr, beckoned me over with a stern expression, I immediately began to worry that I’d forgotten something this morning.

She gave me a tight smile. ‘It would be really good if you could do some reading with Ava this evening. We do encourage children to read every day, if possible.’

I glanced down at Ava at her side and winced. Ava’s hair was an astonishing bird’s nest that had long-ago escaped from this morning’s plaits. Clearly, I also needed to do better on the hairdressing front. ‘And if you could practise spellings with her too, well…’ She paused and gave me one of those non smiles that contained a definite touch of admonishment, ‘that would really help her.’

‘Of course,’ I said a little too eagerly, wanting to be the perfect mother-substitute in Alice’s absence. Ava’s hand snuck into mine and I remembered her tears and her woeful cry that she was always bottom.

It was something I had intended to ask Alice about when she called but my sister hadn’t been in touch at all since she’d left last Friday which made me feel faintly uneasy. I had to remind myself that this was typical Alice. Trying to curb my irritation, I decided to send her a chatty text telling her the girls were great and suggesting that she video-chatted with them this evening.

Surely they had Wi-Fi at the retreat? Even Mum had sent an email from the middle of the ocean. She was thrilled that Alice had managed to get a holiday and I got kudos for being such a good sister.

‘Did you bring a snack?’ asked Ava as we crossed the playground, Poppy skipping towards us.

‘No but you can have something when we get in.’

‘But I’m starving,’ she wailed. ‘Can we get some sweeties from the shop?’

‘Why don’t you wait until we get home? I’ve bought some nice grapes and bananas.’

A pout appeared on her face. ‘Hello Poppy,’ I turned with relief to my elder niece.

‘Hello, Auntie Claire. I’ve got a letter about a school trip. Can I go?’

‘I got letters too,’ announced Ava, lifting her plump arm and waving her book bag at me.

‘Let’s get home and then we can look at the letters,’ I said with a sudden surge of pleasure at being needed and having something to do. Letters I could do. This was something I could deal with and be efficient-Claire again. The Claire I was at work. ‘And who likes spaghetti Bolognese?’

‘Me, me,’ cried Ava dancing around my feet.

‘My favourite,’ said Poppy with quieter enthusiasm. ‘Did you make it or is it a packet one? You know they’re full of trans-fatty acids.’ Her small pink mouth pursed in disapproval.

‘I made it,’ I said. ‘Well, the sauce.’

‘By yourself?’ Ava’s saucer-eyed admiration and Poppy’s approving nod made me grin at them both. Feeling like a hero was something I could get used. After my ridiculous meltdown earlier, this was balm to my soul. It had been a long time since I’d felt such a sense of achievement. Although, if homemade spaghetti Bolognese brought me superhero status, it showed just how far I’d fallen.

Listening to their happy chatter about their days – what they’d eaten, how brilliant super-speller Lucy Chambers was at maths and how the five-a-day fruit and veg maxim should really be ten-a-day and a host of other nutritional facts that Poppy had absorbed in Science – took us from the playground to the edge of the park. The same park I was striding through not that long ago, feeling like I could take on the world. How quickly things had changed.

‘Can I go on the swings? Can I? Can I?’ asked Ava, her chubby legs already deviating from the main path that cut through the park to my house towards the enclosed playground area.

‘That all right with you, Poppy?’ I asked, giving my watch a quick glance. We had plenty of time and nowhere to be. Unlike Ros’s kids who had Cubs, ballet, trampolining, and football to be ferried to, Alice’s children didn’t appear to have any after-school activities.

She looked surprised and shrugged. ‘I guess. I’ve got my book with me.’

I’d noticed that Ava got her own way an awful lot. Alice always deferred to her while poor old Poppy often had to play the sensible older sister. It was a role I remembered well.

We diverted to the small play area which had a couple of swings, a roundabout, a rope walk, and several one-seater rocking animals on large springs for which Ava made a beeline. Poppy chose a swing and before long was flying high, her long spindly legs earnestly propelling her backwards and forwards.

Ava, with her butterfly attention, zig zagged from ride to ride, calling for me to watch, catch, and chat to her before I escorted her to the slide where she directed me from her Nelson’s Column position at the top of the steps. Her bossiness with her precise instructions, no there, not there, was quite comical, although I caught Poppy rolling her eyes from where she now sat on one of the benches by the fence with a book.

A few minutes later I heard a snuffling noise and when I looked behind me, I saw a scruffy grey and white lurcher loitering by the fence. The next time I glanced over he’d poked his nose through a gap and I watched as Poppy put out a tentative hand to stroke the top of its head. I heard her crooning gently to the dog as it tipped his head to one side as if paying careful attention to her. The dog was just like her: all skinny legs and big brown eyes.

‘Look! Doggy! Doggy!’ cried Ava leaping from the end of the slide and barrelling over towards Poppy with her sturdy body. ‘Doggy!’ she screeched even more loudly, climbing on the fence and leaning over, waving her arms like a whirling dervish towards the dog. The dog, which had been quietly making friends with Poppy, immediately began bouncing about, its back legs springing from side to side, barking in a high pitch which was growing ever more hysterical.