‘There’s a two-minute break in between each exercise,’ Henrietta said cheerfully, while demonstrating how they were done. ‘And you’ll complete the entire circuit four times before we have a break.’
Someone muttered, ‘Lord!’ It sounded like Noreen, and Tash let out a squeak.
‘Right!’ Henrietta clapped her hands. ‘Partner up with someone, it doesn’t matter who, and pick a station. I’ll blow the whistle when it’s time to start.’
Naturally, Cleo and Tash teamed up, as did Ingrid and Frida and Lesley and Fran.
Maya looked slightly annoyed when she realised she’d have to go with Noreen, perhaps assuming the older woman would be rather slow.
Once they began, however, there was no chance to check how Maya, Noreen or anyone else was faring; Cleo was far too busy just trying to keep going.
‘Oh my God!’ she said to Tash at one point, before stepping onto a squashy ball with a dumbbell in her hands. ‘Is this even possible?’
The aim was to try to keep your balance on the wobbly ball while lowering the dumbbell and performing a series of squats. Neither Cleo nor Tash managed to balance for long before falling off.
They were reasonably good at the next exercise, which involved sitting side by side and passing a heavy, weighted ball between them as many times as possible. Cleo’s arms soon ached like mad, but she wouldn’t give up.
When it came to performing sit-ups with weights on their stomachs, however, there was almost a mutiny.
‘I don’t think I’ve got any abs,’ Cleo said, mid-crunch. She glanced sideways at Tash, who grunted in agreement.
‘This is hell,’ Tash said with a groan when she breathed out. ‘I can’t believe we’re paying to get tortured.’
Cleo snorted, which gave Tash the giggles and she let out an involuntary fart.
‘Oh God! I hope it isn’t the chia pudding,’ Cleo managed to say, with a splutter.
‘Bloody hell! Maybe it is,’ Tash replied seriously. ‘My tummy does feel sort of bubbly.’
This made them both quite hysterical and they might have disgraced themselves in front of everyone if Henrietta hadn’t blown her whistle at that moment, signalling the end of the exercise. By the time they reached the next station, they’d managed to compose themselves.
Cleo was tremendously relieved when they reached the halfway point, and Mark arrived with a Tupperware container full of chunks of chopped up watermelon. Worn out and thirsty, she thought she’d never tasted anything so good.
The break, though very welcome, lasted only fifteen minutes, then Henrietta led a forty-five-minute aerobics class to music.
Noreen, the oldest of them by far, was very red in the face but managed to power on through. She might have hated the gym, but she had a great sense of rhythm and clearly loved music and dancing, even joining in with some of the lyrics.
Not surprisingly, she hadn’t as much oomph as the young Norwegians, who seemed to bounce through the moves without expending any energy, but she certainly gave it her all.
Meanwhile Maya, who had excelled at the circuits, seemed a bit lackadaisical. While she kept up with Henrietta, she didn’t seem to be trying particularly hard. Perhaps she didn’t like the popular, upbeat music. Cleo decided she’d have preferred something less cheerful that no one had heard of and couldn’t sing along to.
At last it was time to cool down, and they did various deep stretches before lying on their backs with their eyes closed and focusing for five minutes or so on their breathing.
Cleo almost dropped off, she was so worn out. They all were, she could tell, apart from Frida and Ingrid, who looked as fresh as daisies. They could probably repeat the whole morning’s activities straight away without any trouble.
Fortunately, lunch beckoned, then they could all enjoy some downtime before Pilates at 6p.m. As Cleo and Tash strolled back towards the villa, they both agreed they were looking forward to relaxing by the pool with their books.
‘It’s hotter than I thought it would be,’ Tash commented, before taking a swig of water from her bottle. She was quite flushed in the face and Cleo was certain she was the same. She also had prickly, uncomfortable patches of sweat under her arms and boobs.
Back in her room after taking a shower, she decided to respond to her daughter’s text. She’d enjoyed the healthy, active morning and felt just about strong enough to cope with whatever might come back.
Her head told her it would probably be better to ignore Erica’s unkind message, but her heart overruled her. Somehow no further communication at all felt worse.
Sitting on the end of her bed wrapped in a white towel, she hit the reply button before typing:
Missing you. It’s nice here. Healthy food and lots of exercise. Maybe we can do something like this together one day? Mum x
There seemed to be no point in trying to address the content of Erica’s message. Cleo had done so many times before and got precisely nowhere.
