The ‘host’ for the sales and marketing team had arrived – a stern-faced young woman in a purple tracksuit who wore a whistle around her neck – and instantly had them all running on the spot in the lobby. Sarah and the others looked on in silence.
‘I can’t even . . .’ said Amira, before tailing off.
The door to the emergency stairs burst open and out came Rachel closely followed by Ewan. Sarah swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
‘Hello, troops,’ called Rachel, with that strange smile that wasn’t really a smile. ‘Hope you’re all warmed up and ready to go.’
She was all in skin-tight Lycra, a silver and pale-blue vest and matching leggings. On her head was a pale-blue baseball cap, through the back of which her black hair was pulled in a sleek ponytail.
Ewan, walking a few steps behind in his Arsenal kit, was like an oversized puppy in her wake. Even through her own twisted-up nerves, Sarah felt a twinge of pity for Chloe. The first experience of rejection was never easy.
A large shape came bounding in through the main hotel doors like a force of energy.
‘Howdy, folks.’ The shape skidded to a halt.
Through her misery, Sarah registered that the man attached to the greeting was handsome. The kind of handsome you don’t normally see outside a TV or cinema screen. He had floppy blond hair, close-set blue eyes and darkish, well-defined eyebrows that lifted when he smiled – as he was doing now. A way of appraising you that wasn’t assessing so much as appreciating, as if you were both sharing a marvellous joke.
The effect on the rest of the group was instant. Amira, who’d been sprawling in a chair texting furiously, zipped her phone into her jacket pocket and sat up straight. Charlie peeled himself off the wall where he’d been leaning. Sarah was pretty sure he was holding in his stomach. Chloe reddened as the new arrival glanced her way and a pink flush bloomed like a sudden flower on her chest. Paula seemed to stand up straighter, hoiking up the elasticated waist of her trousers. Even Rachel wasn’t immune.
‘So you’re the one in charge of whipping us all into shape,’ she said, giving a smile in his direction that was quite different to the one she normally used. ‘How frightened should we be on a scale of one to ten?’
‘That’d be an eleven, ma’am.’
Rachel laughed, revealing a tiny dimple in her cheek Sarah didn’t think she’d ever noticed before. Behind her, Ewan’s face set hard. This would be interesting. Ewan was so used to thinking himself the alpha male of the group.
‘I’m Will your personal trainer – or torturer if you prefer. Haha, just kidding. So, we’re going to be doing an activity outside this afternoon where we take on the other team over there. Just look at them. It’ll be a walk in the park.’ He gestured towards the sales and marketing group who were executing a complicated stretching manoeuvre in pairs: this involved one person arching backwards with their arms behind them, while the other stood behind them and linked their own arms through their elbows before lifting. There was an awful lot of grunting.
‘It hardly seems fair to pit them against us,’ said the new, jolly Rachel. ‘Like taking candy from a baby. Look at them, they’re quaking in their boots.’
They weren’t the only ones. Sarah was afraid, with the kind of low-level fear that winds itself around your internal organs like bindweed. She tried to get herself in check. She just needed to make it through the next twenty-four hours and then tomorrow she’d be home again. She should relax. But all the time she was conscious of the thing she wasn’t saying like an abscess inside her waiting to burst.
Outside on the lawn an obstacle course had been laid out in two matching lines. The tightness in Sarah’s chest intensified as her eyes took in the long tunnel made of netting and the hoops laid out in formation and what looked horribly like items of fancy dress.
The sales and marketing team were already running laps in preparation.
‘I feel like I’ve died and woken up in student rag week hell,’ said Charlie. ‘Please tell me we’re not going to have to put those hideous clothes on. Surely there’s some clause in our contract that prohibits the public humiliation of employees by being forced to wear outfits from Stag ’n’ Hen Warehouse? Those things don’t look very hygienic.’
Will clapped his hands.
‘Your attention, please, ladies and gents. Before the games commence, and just in case it wasn’t exciting enough for you already, we have a special guest star joining us. It’s your very own CEO, Mark Hamilton. Don’t say we don’t spoil you.’