Page 25 of Sorry I Missed You

10

Jack

I pulled on a pair of boxers and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror, turning to the right and then the left, sucking in my stomach and then letting it fall out again. Fuck. Was this what I had to look forward to now I was thirty? Was it really all downhill from here like they said in the magazine articles I’d read about sluggish metabolisms? I groaned, looking over my shoulder to see how I looked from behind. Not great, I concluded. Not great at all.

I heard a door slam opposite and the slapping of multiple pairs of feet on the stairs. Feeling uncharacteristically nosy, I went into the lounge and looked out of the window, hiding my half-naked body behind the curtain. The front door clicked and Rebecca sprang down the front steps, simultaneously doing some kind of over-arm stretch. She looked like every other north London woman I’d seen, in her black leggings with a gaudy pattern down the side and a matching tight-fitting vest that were probably from the phenomenally overpriced gym-wear shop on Heath Street. She looked fit, though, I had to admit, like a proper runner and I absent-mindedly ran my hand across my decidedly less-ripped-than-they-used-to-be abs.

Taking another peek, I watched her doing some warm-up lunges, her ponytail swishing around between her shoulder blades. And next to her was the same up-himself, slick guy with the booming American voice I’d seen her with last week. He was definitely her boyfriend, then. Women liked blokes like him, probably, with his nice suits and his mature attitude and his perma-tan. He had it all together in a way that I – clearly – did not. I tutted to myself as he started lunging, too; I could see his quads bulging even from this distance. Then they both jogged off. Rebecca was fiddling with her phone which was strapped to her arm and he was skipping sideways, first with one foot leading and then the other, like I’d seen footballers do when they were warming up at the side of the pitch. Seriously, who did these two think they were, David and Victoria Beckham?

I looked at my watch: 7.05 a.m. If I was serious about getting into shape, I would actually have to get out there and do something about it at some point. If I went for a run now, I’d have to shower again, but that felt like a crap excuse not to do it. I’d have plenty of time to have my second shower of the day and still make it to the pub on time for my lunch shift. If I wanted leading man roles, I was going to have to suck it up and push myself, even if what I really wanted to do was to make myself three slices of buttery toast, maybe even put some peanut butter on it, then slump in front of Good Morning Britain. The competition at castings was getting fiercer and fiercer and if I could get the upper hand in any way at all, I had to try.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled on a pair of jersey tracksuit bottoms, fished a black T-shirt out of the washing basket and put on my running shoes, which I noticed were still looking vaguely new, probably because I could count on one hand the number of times I’d actually been out running in them. I downed a glass of water, grabbed my headphones and forced myself out of the door.

Outside on the driveway, I did a few half-hearted stretches myself (blatantly copying what I’d just seen Rebecca do) before setting off with relative enthusiasm. Rebecca and American boy had gone left, probably heading through the woods and onto the heath, so if I went right and round towards Kenwood House, I should be able to avoid them altogether.

Twenty minutes later, I staggered back into the driveway of Marlowe Court, probably bright red and sprouting sweat from every pore. I hadn’t taken any water with me, which I’d used as a convenient excuse to cut my run short and head home. Dehydration was extremely dangerous, after all; it would have been reckless of me to carry on without being suitably hydrated.

I stopped dead when I saw Rebecca about to put her key in the front door, her boyfriend doing hamstring stretches behind her. Damn, I’d thought they’d be out for at least an hour. Wasn’t that what people like them did? A mini-marathon of a morning?

I looked over my shoulder, wondering whether I should reverse back out of the driveway and hide down the road a bit until they’d gone in, but if they caught me doing it, I’d seem like a weirdo. The other option was to brazen it out because, after all, why did I care what they thought of me? So what if I was sweating profusely – wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when you exercised? Anyway, as far as they were concerned, I could have run 10K; there was absolutely no reason for them to know I’d only made it halfway to Bishop’s Avenue and back.

In the end, I went for the second option, walking confidently up to the front door and doing pointless side stretches as I went. I pretended I hadn’t seen them until the last minute. Mind you, American boy didn’t appear to have noticed me anyway and barged through the front door the second Rebecca got it open. She was just about to slam it in my face when she saw me standing there like a knob.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said, putting her foot in the door to stop it closing.

Bar a stray hair falling across her face and a smear of sweat on her upper lip, she didn’t look as though she’d exerted herself in the slightest. In fact, she had the air of someone who’d taken a leisurely walk to the corner shop and back. This was, allegedly, what happened when you really got into running, or so I’d been told. It became easier the more you did it. Rebecca should be pushing herself harder, really. I felt inordinately smug then – maybe I was doing something right after all (i.e. exercising to the point of exhaustion).

‘Thanks,’ I said, grabbing the door.

‘Been for a run, too?’ she asked as I followed her inside the foyer.

‘Yep,’ I replied, wiping my face on the arm of my hoodie to stem the flow. ‘I really went for it this morning.’

‘How far did you go?’

I followed her up the first flight of stairs. ‘Um, not sure, actually. I didn’t track my route today.’

What was I talking about, ‘tracking my route’? What even was that, and if I wanted to pretend I was the sort of person who ‘tracked my route’, why wouldn’t I have ‘tracked’ it today?

‘What about you?’ I asked, trying to talk normally and as though I wasn’t desperately in need of oxygen. This made it worse, and by the time I got up the next flight of stairs, I felt as though my chest was about to explode.

‘Only 4K today,’ she answered, taking the stairs two at a time.

‘Not bad,’ I said, struggling to keep up, gutted that I’d only managed half that distance.

She shrugged. ‘I actually like cardio. I’m one of those annoying people who hogs the treadmill for an hour at the gym.’

I bet she was.

We reached our floor at last and not a second too soon because I seriously thought I might be about to pass out. Her boyfriend was leaning against the wall with his ripped arms crossed. I acknowledged him with a tight smile – I thought I ought to – and he gave me a flick of the head back.

‘Bye, then,’ I said breathlessly to Rebecca.

‘See you,’ she said.

There was a lot of jangling about of keys all round as we both let ourselves in. They were probably off to NutriBullet a protein shake, or something. I, on the other hand, thought I deserved a treat after all that exertion and so I made myself the biggest bowl of Rice Krispies known to man and slumped on the sofa, flicking on the TV. I didn’t fancy the news, so I flicked on BBC iPlayer and went for something familiar and comforting: re-runs of Doctors, which reminded me of being a drama student when I’d watch daytime TV for hours on end. Only in the holidays, mind you. Drama school wasn’t the sort of set-up where you popped in for lectures now and again and had loads of free time to go to the library/sleep. It was full on, 9–5 every day, often running over into the evenings if you were working on a play. I realised that since I’d left nearly ten years ago, my life hadn’t got any less full on. That was the thing: when you wanted to be an actor, it took over your entire life. There wasn’t time for anything else, what with having to factor in making some actual money.

I zoned out in front of the TV, slurping cold milk into my mouth, gripped by a scene where a boy gets knocked off his bike and the driver doesn’t stop and races off in a blind panic. Wait a minute, I thought: I recognised the driver. I leaned forward, squinting at the screen, fumbling around for the remote to rewind it. It was definitely him: Charlie Mathers-Thompson from the year above me at LAMDA. I put my cereal down half eaten. It was a good role. Charlie became an integral part of the episode; turned out his character knew the boy he’d mowed off the road and had done it on purpose. There was a very dramatic scene where he snuck into the hospital ward and was caught twiddling with dials on the life support machine, trying to finish the boy off.

I rewound it, watching it again and again, working out how I would have done it differently, muttering the words under my breath, as though I was practising for an audition. I could have got this part if they’d called me in for it, I knew I could. Then I fast-forwarded ahead to the credits and noted down the name of the casting director. Ah. I’d auditioned for her once before, for an EastEnders spin-off. I made a mental note to ask Chad to send her my résumé and headshot again, remind her who I was. Since I still hadn’t heard anything about Project Afghanistan, I couldn’t let the ball drop. I had to keep pushing forward, even if it meant annoying Chad in the process.

A text pinged and I glanced down at it. It was Luke.

You working today?

Course I was working, I was always bloody working.

I sighed, covering my face with my hands. When was I going to catch a break? Because I knew this wasn’t how my life was supposed to be. I was an actor, a good one, but the way things were going, it felt like I’d be stuck behind a bar earning minimum wage forever.

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