row of treadmills and exercise machines facing a wall lined with televisions and mirrors. I stood in the doorway watching two men spotting for each other over a bench press. The stronger of the two was pressing eighty kilos. If you counted the bar, it put it up to ninety. There’d been a time when I could max that. Not now. Not yet anyway.
I closed the door, unbuttoned my shirt, stripped down to my underwear and studied a poster of a male body depicting core muscle groups. Another showed nerve points, ligaments and skeletal structure. I flexed my biceps, and decided I’d need to live in the gym and do nothing else but lift weights if I ever wanted to look like the men in the posters. I put my pants and shirt on a coat hanger and hung it from the door handle. Relaxation music played from a stereo in the corner. The room was warm and humid and filled with the smell of lavender and baby oil. I could hear the faint pounding from the squash courts next door and felt better already, even if I could no longer participate in any of the activities going on around me. Just being here was therapy. That and the massages.
‘Early,’ Anthony said as he entered the room. ‘Good form.’
I shook my older brother’s hand and sat on the padded table.
‘Stretched, warmed up?’
‘Of course,’ I lied.
Anthony unzipped his gym bag, removed a towel and a bottle of oil.
‘Don’t lie, Rubes. This’ll hurt if you don’t stretch.’ He tossed the towel over. ‘Do some now. Back in a sec.’
I stood in front of the mirror and rolled my shoulders, neck and arms, then gripped my elbow and held it behind my head, stretching the lateral muscles in my back and my triceps. After a minute I grabbed a handful of fat on my stomach in frustration and tugged at it. Not a big handful. Not a sixpack either. Used to be.
‘Worried about the gut, Rubes?’ Anthony said, coming back into the room. ‘Don’t stress too much. You wanna see some of the slobs that come in here with their New Year’s resolutions that last all of two sessions. Mate, I’ve seen better bodies in a scrapyard.’
‘How do I get rid of it?’
‘You need to sweat it out.’
‘Sit-ups?’
‘Useless.’
I stood still while he examined the scar on my shoulder. Anthony was taller than me, thinner, fit as a butcher’s dog. Lighter hair too. The golden boy. Our father’s genes.
‘How’s it been? Stiff in the mornings?’
I smirked and Anthony pushed me playfully. ‘So stiff you could hang a towel off it, right? You know how many times I’ve heard that one?’
‘How many?’
‘Lost count. What about this, a guy comes in the other day with a sprained ankle. I asked how he got it and you know what he says?’
‘No, but I assume you’re going to tell me.’
‘Smart arse. Maybe now I won’t. How’s your shoulder?’
‘Tight. Tell me.’
He lifted my arm, moved it in an arc and listened with a stethoscope to my ligaments clicking. ‘Still swimming regularly?’
‘Three times a week. Tell me about the ankle guy.’
‘No weights, I hope. Told you about that, remember?’
‘Just the swimming,’ I said. ‘Come on, now I wanna know about this guy.’
He put the stethoscope down and rolled his own shoulders, like a boxer before a fight. ‘Okay, he was riding his bike along the Esplanade, checking out all the chicks, and bang! He goes over the edge and falls three feet down to the sand, comes off the bike in front of the whole bloody beach and twists his ankle.’
Anthony was laughing and so was I. I’d once seen a man do the same thing on roller blades, except he went into a palm tree. St Kilda was full of dangers.
‘Okay, let’s get going,’ Anthony said. ‘You’re not running yet, are you?’
‘That’s why I’ve developed a gut. How long before I can?’
‘I said soon. On the bed. I’ll do your back first.’
I lay on my stomach, closed my eyes while he ran oily hands up and down my back. Good pain, they called it. The hands moved up to my neck.
‘Geez, you’re tight as a frog’s arse.’
‘That’s what Ella used to say.’
I heard him chuckle. ‘Been a bit tense lately?’
I nodded.
‘Stressed?’
‘A little.’
‘Dangerous job, police. Bad for you.’
‘A plumber died in a ditch last week,’ I countered. ‘He didn’t retain it properly and got buried alive. All jobs are dangerous.’
‘Not this one. Brace.’
I closed my eyes as Anthony ran an