Although Helen was only nine, she decided that she alone knew how the rowing machine worked. She assembled us all for a demonstration. To impress us, she set the weights far too high and then attempted to lift them without doing any warmup exercises. She promptly pulled a muscle in her chest. And caused an almighty fuss.
The poor creatures who suffered at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition didn't screech and carry on as much as Helen did. She claimed to be para- lyzed down one side; the only thing that relieved any of her symptoms was huge quantities of chocolate and around-the-clock attention.
Helen was Helen from a very early age.
According to her the pain was unbearable. She asked Dr. Blenheim to put her out of her misery. The rest of us also found her pain unbearable and agreed that she should indeed be put out of her misery.
But Dr. Blenheim said there was some kind of law against doing this. Murder or willful manslaughter or something, I
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believe he called it. Dad assured him that we preferred to call it a mercy killing.
And, as none of the rest of us ended up looking even remotely like Jamie Lee Curtis, in spite of all our exertions, we felt a little bit let down and disappointed and decided to get our own back on the bike by ignoring it.
After a while even Dad stopped pretending to use the machines. He muttered something vague about having read an article in Cosmopolitan about too much exercise's being as bad for you as none at all. I had read the article in question myself. It was actually about compulsive exercisers, truly sick people, but as far as Dad was concerned he now had a cast-iron excuse. He was perfectly justified in abandoning the bike and the rowing machine.
So the two machines were sadly discarded and left to gather dust, along with the pink leg warmers and pink-and-blue twisted sweatbands that we'd bought to look good on them.
In fact, Margaret and I had even bought Dad a pair of pink leg warmers and a sweatband. He wore them once to entertain us. I think there's still a photograph of it around somewhere.
In any event, I was very surprised when I almost tripped over the bike and the rowing machine in Rachel's room.
I hadn't seen them in years. I had thought that they would have long ago been exiled to the Siberia that is the garage along with the SpaceHopper, the pogo sticks, the roller skates, the skateboards, the game of Kerplunk!, the Trivial Pursuit, the swing ball, the squash rackets, the chopper bikes, the Teach Yourself Spanish tapes, the fiberglass canoe and the thousands of other toys and diversions that enjoyed a period of brief but fierce pop- ularity--not to mention causing countless fights--in our family before they fell from favor and their appeal faded and they were cast into the outer darkness, to live with the lawn mower and the screwdrivers.
I was very glad to see them.
If a bit taken aback.
They were like old friends I hadn't seen in years and whom I had bumped into somewhere totally unexpectedly.
I can see now with the benefit of hindsight that what I really needed was a punching bag. So that I could have
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worked off some of the terrible anger I felt toward James and Denise.
But in the absence of a punching bag, and the fact that the current legis- lation forbade me from using Helen's head, the discovery of the bike and the rowing machine was a Godsend. I somehow realized that a little bit of physical exercise might be the one thing that would stop me from going around the bend and exploding with jealousy and resentment.
Either that or vast quantities of alcohol.
So I put down my bottle and my glass on Rachel's dressing table and climbed up on the bike, tucking the nightgown under me. Yes, I was still wearing one of Mum's nightgowns. Not the same nightgown that I started wearing the night I arrived back. Things hadn't gotten that bad. I hadn't sunk that low. But a nightgown that was definitely from the same stable.
Feeling a bit foolish (but not that foolish; after all, I had a half bottle of vodka under my belt), I started to cycle. And while the rest of the house slept I cycled and sweated. And then for a while I rowed and sweated. And then I got back on the bike again and cycled and sweated a bit more.
While James slumbered peacefully somewhere in London, his arm thrown protectively over Denis, I cycled like a madman, in a bedroom that still had posters of Don Johnson on the wall, hot, angry tears pouring down my puce face.
I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself at the poignant juxtaposition.
Every time I pictured the two of them in bed together I cycled even faster, as though if I cycled hard enough I'd get away from the pain.
When I thought of her touching his beautiful naked body I would get another spurt of furious sickening energy and I pushed my body even harder.
I was afraid that I would kill someone if I stopped cycling.
I hadn't exercised in months, had done nothing strenuous in ages (apart from give birth to a child) but I didn't get tired or even get out of breath.
The harder I pushed myself the easier it got.
I felt as if my thigh muscles were made of steel (and they definitely weren't, let me assure you). The pedals whizzed around in a blur. I felt as if my legs were lubricated, they
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worked so easily. It was as if someone had oiled my joints. I cycled faster and faster until eventually the tight hard knot in my chest started to unravel. A feeling of calm settled on me.
I was able to breathe almost normally.
When I eventually clambered down from the bike, the handlebars slip- pery from my sweat, my nightgown sticking to me, I felt nearly elated.
I went back into my room and lay down.
Kate eyed my scarlet face and my soaking nightgown but didn't seem particularly interested. I put my burning face on the cool pillow and knew that now I would be able to sleep.
I woke up very early the next morning. I even beat Kate to it. In fact, in a neat reversal of roles I woke her up with the sound of me crying.
"Now you see what it's like," I thought as I sobbed. "Is it any way to start the day?"
The specters of jealousy and anger returned.
They had stood over me as I slept, looking down at me. "Should we wake her now?" one consulted the other.
"All right," said Jealousy. "Would you like to do it?"
"Oh no, why don't you?" said Anger politely.
"It would be my pleasure," said Jealousy graciously. Then grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and shook me awake.
And I woke to the horrible picture in my head of James in bed with Denise.
The bitter rage was back, coursing through me like poison.