Chapter 16: An Evening With Friends

Warwick. Friday. Morning and Evening.

Nine Days After Jenny returns

Gymnastica

The firm has given me time off work to spend with my wife again! In the aftermath of the merger announcement, there is part of me that thinks I ought to be back at my desk, showing I am keen to get up to speed with the 'new situation;' making sure they see I am keen to do what I can to make the new business a success. However, compassionate leave is compassionate leave and I worked well beyond the call of duty and beyond what I was being paid for when Jenny was away. After all, it filled the void she had left. It gave me things to do. It helped me forget that there would be no one at home when I got back. Now, there is a new situation at home. Now I have some time for us. Now I have time to get to know her all over again. To be the couple we once were and most of all, I want to start doing normal things. The sort of things any young couple like us might do, so, as a start, we are going to the Gym.

When Jenny left — well, that's not right, is it? I mean, I just don't believe she 'left.' I know she does not want to be — maybe is not able to be — completely frank just at the moment. Anyway, when she disappeared, I joined a local gym, to get myself ready for when she came back, to be a reasonable piece of 'eye candy' for her. Now, we can go together and here we are, walking from the car, holding hands, just like normal people.

I have a membership card. Jenny does not, so we stop at Reception.

"Hi, I am Joe McEwan. I'm a member, but my wife isn't. Can I sign Jenny in as a guest today?"

The receptionist looks up and smiles; smiles at me and smiles at Jenny but for her, the smile is ever so slightly quizzical. Of course, Jenny is very striking. Beautiful and deeply tanned with her smooth head. I suppose I am not the sort of bloke the receptionist expects to see with a girl like Jenny?

"Yes, of course. That will be £12. It would be cheaper if you both had joint membership. You know that?"

Jenny helps out: "Yes," she says, "but I have just come back from being away. It's something we will have to fix."

I am surprised by the easy and confident way Jenny has just said that. Almost as if it was a response she had made ready and kept handy, just waiting for the moment when it might be useful. Jenny always used to be 'clever with words, ' so, is this Jenny getting back to the person she was, or is this someone who has to be careful with what they say? Someone who must be able to quickly play the right cards and get themselves out of trouble?

All the while, the receptionist has been busy filling out a guest pass.

"Joe?" she says, "You just go through the turnstile as normal and I will let Jenny through the gate, here." She presses some switch behind her counter and a glass partition between the turnstile and the counter opens for Jenny to walk through.

"Just follow Joe to the Changing Rooms. The Girls are next to the Boys. If you haven't used a gym before, one of the instructors on the gym floor will show you what to do. It's Gary, Paul and Melissa today..."

"Thanks," calls Jenny over her shoulder. I laugh to myself. I have seen Jenny naked. If there is anyone who needs to be shown how to use a gym, it's not her!

When we reach the gym, it is immediately clear who is the expert in this environment. Jenny mounts one of the treadmills and begins a warm-up routine. Soon, she's walking briskly, then jogging, running, sprinting and, for the next half hour, she repeats five-minute intervals of jogging, running, sprinting, jogging, running, sprinting. She seems to move without effort, gliding strongly along with only a growing bloom of perspiration on her face and back, as a sign of the physical effort she is making. I can't keep up. I am nowhere even close. By the end of it, I am exhausted and Jenny is merely glowing.

She asks, "Have we time to use the weights? It's time I did my upper body programme. It must be weeks since I..." but I never find out because she stops her sentence abruptly and moves off to another part of the floor.

As she walks away from me, I see her set against the equipment and the other members. Thin girls and muscly young blokes. Older men and women showing the effects of too much food and wine over the years — and Jenny. I had almost been at the point of disposing of her clothes, but I never quite got around to it because I could not finally admit she was never coming back. Her shorts (she always used to wear lycras) and a white sports bra top she wore were still in the wardrobe. Before, they were maybe a little loose. Now, she fills them perfectly, but not just 'fills them.' They stretch taught across a taught statuesque figure. Her bum is perfectly outlined by them. The white bra over her brown skin is wonderful and when she turns to smile back at me, I see she comes complete with a six pack — or is it even an eight pack?

With the confidence of a pro, Jenny takes the 'Olympic' free weights bar and places it on the horns of the 'supine chest press' bench. She slips two 20 kilogramme plates onto the bar, one each side and then pauses for a moment before adding two 5 kilo plates. The whole thing, bar and plates, now weighs 65 kg. She slides into position, takes a wide grip, inhales deeply and drives the bar, all 65 kg of it, smoothly upwards. She pauses and lowers carefully until her upper arms are parallel with the floor and then drives upwards again. She does this ten times and then, after a rest of a minute or so, she does another set of ten, and another set of ten after that. On a good day, when I am rested, I can do three sets of six repeats. But, that's with only forty kilos, bar and plates together. Jenny has not finished. She moves on. I can see she's going to do an inclined shoulder press. She's got a twenty-two kilo dumbbell in each hand. She powers through three sets of ten lifts. She moves to the arm curl bar (twenty-five kilos, three sets of ten) the vertical pull down machine (three sets of ten repeats, sixty-five kilos on the weight stack) and rounds off with three sets of triceps dips with twenty repeats in each set.

Whilst this body-building tour de force has been going on, I have been trying to carry out my own programme, but I can hardly keep my eyes off her. I am not being possessive. I am just fascinated at what my wife, the slim, almost delicate girl I married, has become. When Dr Elba told us at Heathrow — that she thought Jenny had been well looked after, where ever she had been — I thought it was a fatuous thing to say but now I am forced to agree. Completely agree. Jenny's body is magnificent. Strong. Toned. Sculpted. There's something else, though, about how she looks. Isn't it just a bit sinister?

As I struggle through my own programme, I see her talking to one of the instructors. It's Gary. I can overhear snatches of their conversation against the background of pop music videos being played on the TV screens suspended from the gym ceiling.

"Hi, I am Gary."

"Gar ee? Prevyet! Ya Vyera."

"Huh?"

"Menya ... sorry! I have been living abroad. Getting used to English again."

"That's why I have not seen you before! So, new member?"

"Er, well, Joe signed me in. He is my husband."

She turns to find me and waves.

I acknowledge her wave and Gary waves back. He looks disappointed. Was he thinking of approaching Jenny with something more than professional interest? He knows me but I can tell that he had no idea I had married this Amazon of a woman. But then, I didn't, did I? One day I kissed Jenny 'goodbye' and months and months and months later, an Amazon returned and diffidently claimed to be my wife.

Despite superficial appearances, she is Jennifer. But, I still wonder who she is; I mean, who she really is, now? She has marks on her skin. Neat, careful, precise. Clear rows of numbers and letters tattooed on her. At the back of her neck. Peeping out from above her left bra cup. At the bottom of her back. Above her right ankle. And there is one more that only I have seen, above her mons. They all say the same thing:

836-906-368 К АН 101109 РЖ.

I am embarrassed and resentful about these little strings of numbers and letters. I want to drag Jenny along to see Ros Buchanan or someone like her, to have them covered up or, better still, removed altogether. Wiping the page clean and restoring Jenny to how she was before. I am angry at them and at whoever did them to her. They look like marks to signify membership or maybe belonging, or perhaps ownership — but no one owns Jennifer. She is my wife and I am her husband. That's how it is. That is how it is going to stay. Then, I am hit by the idea that, if these are membership or 'belonging' marks, which she asked for, then she is excluding me. She never asked if it would be OK. She has not told me what they mean. Am I just supposed to look at them and draw my own conclusions?

We have finished our session. After getting washed and changed, we are sitting in the gym café, looking at swimmers in the pool. I have a black Americano. She has only water and I wonder again, who is she now?

Indigestion.

Joe and I are going to Cathy and George Corbins' home. Going out for dinner to friends! How long ago is it since I was able to do that? Just to go out because I wanted to? To go with Joe. Just him and me?

Living in England again feels so strange. It's the small things which make it so. Joe drives 'on the wrong side of the road, ' so to speak, and all the road signs look wrong. It takes me several seconds to understand which language it is in. Russian? Swedish? English?

Cathy and George live a few miles away from us. Before, I would sometimes jog over to Cathy's and she would give me a lift back and then have coffee at our house. Then another day, she would do it the other way round. I would actually prefer to walk if I could. Cars — my recent memory of cars — always took me to places other people wanted me to go, not places I wanted to go. This is our car and Joe is driving and we are going to friends, but part of me still expects to see Neena in the driving seat and hear her giving me instructions about what I have to do next. Without noticing, I have closed my eyes. Joe's voice says,