Free Out on a Limb by Lynne Barrett-Lee

didn’t escape my notice that that was thanks in no small part to him. But I let him massage my shoulders anyway. Let him massage my shoulders for a good ten minutes, almost drifting off, because I was tired and he’s good at it. He didn’t speak. He never does. So much of what felt good and right in our relationship didn’t involve any words. Damning, indicative, but nevertheless true. So, ten minutes, give or take. Though it could have been longer. In any event, right up until the moment when he intruded on the comfort of the silence and said ‘D’you remember that scene in The Fabulous Baker Boys ?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t’. Because I didn’t right off. I’d seen the film years ago. So it hadn’t been with him. I was still semi-drifting. Still floating in a place that said ‘It’s actually okay, this. Perhaps it’s all right. Perhaps we can go back to being, you know, close but not that close. For now. For a short while. Till he’s properly over it…’ Stupid mare.
    ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, pressing his thumbs into the back of my neck. ‘You know. The one at the end of the New Year’s Eve gig, when Jeff Bridges and Michelle Pfeiffer are sitting at the side of the stage and she comments that her shoulders are stiff.’
    And then I did remember, because Jeff Bridges reminded me. We’d discussed, at some point, our favourite film stars, as you do. And I’d mentioned Jeff Bridges and he’d mentioned Michelle Pfeiffer and we’d both of us commented how good they were on screen together, and…uh-oh…uh- oh …suddenly I felt myself stiffen too. ‘Charlie –’
    ‘And Jeff Bridges says ‘come over here’. Something like that. And he starts to massage her neck.’ Charlie starts to massage mine. ‘Remember it now? And she’s got that red dress on, and he undoes the zip –’
    And that’s when I bundled him out. Stupid mare.
    The A and the P of the A and P Physiotherapy Clinic don’t really stand for Aches and Pains. They stand for Ashford and Pierce. Those being the surnames of Ken and Brendan, who own it. I don’t recall now who it was that first coined its pet name. Only that it was considered as an alternative for a time, until they decided that given that at least half their patients suffer from the sort of chronic aches and pains that make their lives enough of a misery to render them somewhat snappy in the matter of making jokes about it, it was axed in favour of the former. But everyone who knows them still calls it Aches and Pains. It’s how I’ve always thought of it, too.
    The clinic , which has been open about a decade now, is thriving. It’s based on the first floor of a rather grand building, the downstairs of which is occupied by a similarly posh estate agent’s, staffed by glossy young lovelies and aggressively groomed men.
    To get to us, however, you have to eschew the deep pile of the estate agency doormat, go round to the side door and press the entry buzzer on the wall. At which point, Candice, the receptionist, will bellow a rousing ‘ Hi yah!’ at you, and then, if you’re lucky, also remember to let you in. Inside the door is a small hallway in which an optimistic umbrella plant is making a bid for the canopy, and a decrepit-looking stair lift (and, yes, I’ll admit I’ve had a ride on it) for those patients reluctant and/or unable to negotiate the somewhat precipitous stairs.
    I’ve known Ken and Brendan for a very long time. Ken was in the same year as me at college, and Brendan used to work at Highfield Park too. Early on they were an item, and then they weren’t an item, but though their romantic partnership was short-lived, they’ve remained business partners and friends.
    And friends of mine too, for which I am very, very grateful. They’ve actually been after me to go and work at A and P for years, which is obviously very flattering, and which also made it easy for me to decide to do so now. Yep, I’m going to like working here.
    And on