At the door she says, 慏id you hear about the body in Tombland??
慛o,?says Nelson. His tone is neutral, but she can see his fingers tighten around the pen.
慖 just saw it on yesterday抯 report. A body was found where they抮e digging up the road to make cycle lanes. Thought to be medieval. Ruth did the excavation.?
慣hat抯 all I need,?says Nelson. 慉nother bloody Stone Age body.?
Judy doesn抰 explain the difference between the medieval and Neolithic periods. She knows that, as soon as she is gone, Nelson will be on the phone to Ruth.
慖f you bite it, write it. If you nibble it, scribble it. If you lick it, Bic it.?Jacquie smiles round at the women sitting in a circle around her. A few smile back, old hands who have been to many Lean Zone meetings. What worries Ruth is that these stalwarts look no thinner than the rest of them.
Ruth is already regretting the impulse that led her to click on the link at the end of Alison抯 email. A link that took her to this village hall, smelling of damp and instant coffee. Lean Zone products are arranged on a trestle table by the door, the Zs on the low-sugar chocolate and diet drinks merging to create one long, soporific ZZZZZZ. Ruth feels pretty tired too after a rather fractious day at work, but she doesn抰 have to collect Kate until six and she has already filled out the forms to join, her untidy academic handwriting sprawling out of the tiny boxes provided.
Is she here because Alison has lost three stone and everyone at the reunion said how well she looked? Well, partly. And partly because she thinks that, at nearly fifty-two, she should make one last effort to become slimmer and healthier. After all, her mother had a stroke in her seventies and Ruth has always been told that she resembles her. And how hard can it be to lose weight? If Jacquie is to be believed, it抯 simply a matter of writing down everything you eat. Oh, and never eating carbohydrates or drinking alcohol.
Ruth is woken out of a miserable low-cal doze by the swing doors opening and shutting. A woman is apologising for being late whilst taking a seat in the circle.
慔i, Zoe,?says someone.
Ruth turns around to see her new next-door neighbour stowing her handbag under her chair. Zoe straightens up and mimes pleasure and surprise at seeing Ruth. Ruth herself feels rather embarrassed. Guilty of the terrible crime of being overweight. But, at the same time, Zoe抯 presence makes her feel slightly better. Although built on the same lines as Ruth and her mother, Zoe looks very attractive to Ruth. She抯 wearing a green dress and low-heeled brown boots and manages to look smart without being overdressed. Her brown hair, which was in a bun last time, is now loose around her shoulders. Maybe it抯 not, after all, the law that you must have a neat bob after the age of fifty.
When Jacquie has told them who is Slimmer of the Week and exhorted them to keep a food diary, they are free to go. Zoe comes over to Ruth.
慓reat to see you here,?she says.
慖t抯 my first time,?says Ruth, feeling rather foolish.
慖抳e been coming to this group for a few months,?says Zoe. 慖 belonged to a different group before.?
慖抳e never tried anything like this before,?says Ruth.
慜h, I抳e done them all,?says Zoe. 慦eight Watchers, Slimming World, Lean Zone. I抦 a yo-yo dieter.?She grins as if this is a wonderful thing to be.
慖抳e just got to get weighed,?she continues. 慔ave you got time for a coffee afterwards??
Ruth had watched in alarm as the women lined up before Jacquie抯 talk to stand on the scales and have the results recorded in their 慙ean Journal? But Zoe makes this sound like it抯 not an ordeal at all.
慖抎 love to have a coffee,?says Ruth.
But what she really wants is a large slice of cake.
Chapter 8
There抯 only one caf?in the village. It抯 rather bizarrely designed to look like an American diner, with bench seats and a lot of chrome and neon, but it抯 still open at five o抍lock, which makes it a mecca for Ruth and Zoe. They sit opposite each other in a booth and drink strangely frothy cappuccino.