The Circle of Fire Read online

  The Circle of Fire

  Owen Elgie

  Copyright © 2015 Owen Elgie

  KINDLE Edition

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored, in any form or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  PublishNation, London

  www.publishnation.co.uk

  For Jo

  Who helped me to tell the story I've had inside my head all these years and encouraged me to let my mind soar. It's all your fault, you know. Thank you for everything.

  1

  Slowly easing the door closed behind me, I turned and made my way down the steps from the home of one of my more enthusiastic clients. Lifting my hood up over my head, I braced myself against the fine drizzle, which was ever so steadily drenching the city, and started to make my way down to street level. I was still two steps short of the pavement when the door was opened behind me.

  “Anthony, we haven’t booked for our next session yet.” It practically dribbled down the steps behind me, a torrent of breathless suggestion which had been intended to generate a reaction I was unable to give.

  Taking a steadying breath, I slowly turned round to face the owner of the voice fixing that ever so professional smile. She was still dressed as I’d left her, out of breath with her hair soaked from perspiration. Her voice carried that extra huff of breathlessness caused by strenuous activity and she still had that same grin on her face.

  “Sorry Mrs. Jones. I …”

  “Please call me Stephanie. We’ve been doing this for long enough now that you can call me by my first name.” The comment was accompanied by a small smile and a wink.

  “Stephanie. I’ll have to contact you in the next day or so I’m afraid. I have a family issue I need to attend to and I’m not really sure when it will be resolved.”

  Stephanie beamed again then giggled slightly.

  “I’ll be looking forward to the call then.”

  With that, she slowly eased the door closed, all the while keeping a suggestive gaze fixed on me, and I was again back in the rain soaked street, alone.

  Thank God.

  Walking away from the house of Stephanie Jones, all I could think about was the delight of having to go through this same dance regarding everything. She had been having sessions with me now for four weeks and her advances were starting to border on the ridiculous.

  OK, looking back at that whole exchange, it would be very easy for someone to get the wrong idea about so many things.

  First up, I’m Anthony Johns, Personal Trainer, not gigolo. I’ve been training her at her house for a month, twice a week. She is signed up to do the London Marathon and has been looking for some extra help to be able to be the best she can be. The problem seems to be that she seems to think that her Personal Trainer is also expected to help her with other ‘demands’. I’d been forced to walk that wonderful tightrope of keeping the client happy while all the time keeping her at more than arm’s length. So far so good but this was getting ridiculous.

  I’d been working as a Personal Trainer for years. I spend my working days making Geoff from Accounts and Brian from Human Resources feel terrible, all in the name of health and well-being. I also spend a large chunk of my time doing home visits with Mrs Smith or Ms Jackson who have lots of money and enjoy the attentions of an athletic young man. Let me get this straight from the outset, I don’t just go around sleeping with my lonely housewife clients. I do flirt with them a bit but that simply works as a way of renewing business. I won’t cross that line.

  Walking through the rain, which had decided that the slow insidious soaking wasn’t good enough and had moved on to the out and out downpour, I ran through different ways I could get her to back off while still maintaining a good, paying client. Maybe this was proof that I had to be more professional than simply making the frustrated housewife think she had a chance.

  By the time I’d got to my car, a delightfully aged silver Alfa Romeo (which was cheap to buy but kind of still carried that air of ‘position’), I’d run through at least ten scenarios which would just end up with me getting slapped, wildly insulted or, at the barest minimum, fired.

  Not good.

  What I’d told her had been true regarding the family issue but it hadn’t managed to impinge on what was going on in my life up until now. At the very least I could be satisfied that I was telling her the truth regarding the reason for not rushing to book the next session. I really should stop putting things off.

  Climbing into the car and starting the engine, I resolved to do some more thinking on the subject and hopefully get to the bottom of things.

  It took me about an hour to get back to my flat, park the car and get inside, thanks mainly to the delights of traffic in a big city. I travelled eight miles in an hour and that was pretty good going. Eventually though, the sun having slipped below the horizon, bringing the darkness of a winter early evening, I arrived at my destination.

  Depending on the weather, my front door seemed to warp just enough to make getting into the flat become a pain in the neck as it had today, all the way through to practically locking me out. Leaning just that little bit harder than should have been required, I was able to persuade the door open. Mumbling the usual resolution to finally get the thing sorted out, I edged into my home.

  I live in a wonderful little second floor flat which is close enough to the inner workings of the city of London to make it easy to reach clients in the city but without having to pay quite the ridiculous rents of a property which was truly in the inner sanctum of the metropolis. It gave me the best of both worlds as far as I could see.

  My one bedroom flat had a small bathroom, a pretty small kitchen but a very comfortably spacious living room. Add to that a bedroom, which was also much larger than a flat this size had any right to have, and I was able to feel that I was living in a home designed for people rather than dogs or cats as some of the properties in London seemed to be.

  Working my way out of my coat and my training gear, I could feel the relaxation of being at home start to wind its way through me.

  I dug my work phone out of my pocket and plugged it in to charge in its usual spot by the front door. Looking at the screen, I could see that there was already a message waiting for me from Stephanie. I thought that I’d explained the situation to her on the steps to her home but no doubt she was just saying hello, so there was no way to forget that she was a little bit interested in me. Lifting the phone, I played back the message, feeling just a kernel of discomfort returning.

  “Anthony, it’s Stephanie.” I could hear the absolutely overt sexual tones and it made me shiver. Either that or the wet clothes I was still wearing but you get the picture.

  “I forgot to tell you before you left, when you book our next, appointment, please can you make certain to avoid Wednesday and Thursday of next week. My husband is home for those days and I don’t want to have our time together interrupted. Speak soon.”

  The click that came to signify her hanging up came as a blessed relief. She really was getting very persistent and I was even considering the idea of saying I couldn’t work with her anymore.

  Plugging the phone back in to charge, I resolved to spell out the true extent of our relationship the next time I worked with her.

  Next it was on to my bedroom. I’d say that this was where
the magic happened but this isn’t an episode of Cribs. Besides, what magic?

  Getting changed hurriedly, throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt, which was probably just about creased enough to look effortless rather than a mess, I picked up my personal phone from its charging point next to my bed and checked the screen.

  There were three voicemail messages waiting for me; one from Sarah, one from Kelly and one from Jane. They all had basically the same message, wanting to see me again. I resolved that this situation was another that I needed to get sorted out sooner rather than later.

  Look, I’m not the cheating pig everyone would easily think I am. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, ever and I kind of found my way into this situation. I didn’t like the thought of being viewed as the heartless brute so I found it quite difficult to say no. OK, so maybe a little magic.

  Pocketing the phone and swearing to whichever higher power was listening at that second that I was going to get this mess sorted, I left the flat again, pulling my hooded jacket around me tightly, and started to walk my way through the soaked streets of the city.

  Step by step, street by street, I covered the ground quickly. I didn’t have miles and miles to cover in the rain but I was on the verge of being late for an appointment that I had thought would never happen. That and I was also keen to get to the venue.

  Superman had the Fortress of Solitude, while Batman had the Bat cave. Me, I did my best thinking in the bar.

  As I walked in I was greeted by that most welcoming of sensations. People in the bar looked towards the noise of the opening door and acknowledged me as I made my way in. I was greeted by nods and smiles from the collection of people I knew. There was Barry and John, a pair of guys in their sixties who told very un-PC jokes to anyone who’d listen; Jeff the Beast, a man who made certain that everyone knew that back in the old days he was considered a ‘bit tasty’ when it came to fighting; the dominoes boys of Charlie, Dave and Colin (they never actually played a game but they always had the dominoes spread out on the table in front of them); and Big Al, a twenty six stone man who stood five foot four.

  Each and every one of these people, and many more besides who weren’t currently present, made sure that we were all made to feel welcome and that we had a place to go when we needed to just have a chat and get away from it all.

  As the theme song to the 80’s TV show Cheers said, “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”.

  Making my way to the bar I could see that there was a new face greeting me. She looked young and impressionable with jet black hair and full lips.

  Concentrate on the reason you’re here, will you, for crying out loud.

  Ordering myself a drink, my usual of a bottle of lager, which of course she didn’t know, I sat at the bar and let my mind wander over where I was.

  I’ve been coming in here for the last fifteen years. In all that time the decor hasn’t changed short of more up to date pictures of sports teams. The place has the look of somewhere which had been very well to do when the doors first opened but that nothing has been done since. There was lots of exposed wood, beams and banisters, around the room but they had all lost their colour in certain spots as, over the years, thousands of hands had slowly worn them down without anyone coming to repair what was being done. The paint work can best be described as smoker’s magnolia. The ban may have pushed the smokers outside but the building was still clinging to the proof that it had seen many a nicotine laden cloud over the years. The large single room of the bar was lined with strangely patterned seating, set around an array of different sized tables. There was also a scattering of smaller tables around the floor. The floor itself was carpeted in, what can only be described as ‘pub colours’, that remarkable patterned mish mash of colours which no-one ever has in their homes but which can cover a multitude of stains from spilt drinks, food or, well, anything.

  The walls were covered in pictures of the local area from times gone past but also with pictures of sporting success – Bobby Moore lifting the World Cup, Eric Bristow celebrating one of his World Darts Championships, Henry Cooper in action against Mohammed Ali, the Welsh Grand Slam team from 2008, even photos of teams and sports from all over the world. I can remember a very odd evening having the finer points of Kabaddi explained to me as a new picture of players engaged in their own gladiatorial combat was hung. Sport did play a big part in the life of this place. In every way this place looked exactly like hundreds of other pubs or bars across the country but it was like family.

  You see, up until recently, this bar had been the place where I had spent many an hour discussing all the most important things in the world with my Uncle, David. We had gone all the way through literature in the western world, the socio-political balance being developed in the former Soviet bloc, why there were so many people willing to risk death by eating a potentially poisonous fish in the far east but the majority of our time was spent mulling over the real bedrock of society as a whole - rugby!

  In that bar he and I had decided who was the best player from every major rugby playing nation, some of the minor ones too. We discussed why teams did what they did in certain situations and if Wales would ever win the World Cup (if you asked Uncle David it was always when they would win the World Cup, not if! He’d got very drunk after the 2011 World Cup semi-final when one decision had been what had seen us eliminated and had expressed the belief that the referee had been an imp or some other mythical beast, intent on some kind of mischief! A very weird day at the bar and he had sworn not to mix his drinks in that way ever again). We’d watched the Grand Slam matches that we won and the ones we lost but we had a great time doing it.

  My Uncle had always said that despite the fact he was living in England, despite the fact he had been away from home for so long, he could always feel the call to go back to Wales. He had told me that there was always something pulling him back to Wales and that he would always have a connection to where he was from. It probably rubbed off a little on me. I hadn’t been in years but there were very fond memories from the trip.

  My family comes originally from Wales but my parents moved us away from the Swansea area when I was just a toddler – more money to be made in London. My parents had decided that the life they could provide for their young family could be improved if they left Wales behind. My Uncle had told me from quite early on that he hadn’t ever understood the reasons for the move but it was my father’s decision. We had gone back to Wales for a holiday when I was still very young but after that I never went back. I had asked why there had never been further holidays to Wales as I grew up but things in my life had seemed to get in the way and there was always a good reason not to go.

  So my parents brought me and my older brother Steve to where I currently reside. After that, the sheer weight of normality that was our life had taken hold. Both my parents worked in offices doing office things and my brother and I were kids doing kid things. My Uncle hadn’t been in our lives until my parents were killed in an accident when I was seven and Steve was fourteen but he moved to live with us.

  From the outset he and Steve hadn’t seen eye to eye. Steve never seemed to enjoy spending time with Uncle David and when they did talk they would always end up shouting at each other. Me, on the other hand, all my Uncle and I ever did was have a great time. Where he was always pushing Steve he just wanted me to be happy in whatever I did, hence Steve and David haven’t really spoken since Steve left when he was nineteen. This had also meant that Steve and I hadn’t spoken since Steve was nineteen either. I was twelve.

  After that, life had rumbled on in a non-descript way as I got older and did all those things young people do during the course of school and later life, Uncle David always saying that I should follow whatever it was that was calling to me. I wasn’t ever really blessed with what you could call an academic mind. My whole time at school seemed to me to be a collection of events that I wasn’t really interested in or that I couldn’t work out. None of the teachers seemed to li
ke me and every day felt like a waste of time. My lack of ability coupled with my teachers’ absolute dismissal of me had made me resent school and all the conformity and constriction that it represented. My Uncle never tried to force the issue, though. He just told me not to worry about it when the letters came home from the school detailing my latest act of sullen rebellion. He must have known that I was really trying but books and study just weren’t for me.

  School did have the occasional bright spot buried amongst all the drudgery, though. Sport. I really enjoyed playing sport and training so I simply tried to find any way to keep me in that world as I grew up. Working as a trainer seemed a great way for me to keep doing what I liked without the need to fly a desk. The thought of working in an office was my idea of hell on earth.

  We occasionally heard word from Steve saying that he was with friends in a certain town or had been working abroad but mainly we got nothing. The older I got, the worse it felt. My closest family had abandoned me. I never let it show but there was always a shadow at the back of my mind about why he’d left. There was always a hole in my life but you just carry on don’t you?

  I saw that it had hurt my Uncle as well but he would never admit it. You see, my Uncle was a big brute of a man, old school. Feelings should never be shown and crying made you weak etc. He was well over six feet tall and broad and well-muscled with it. I had good genes but really had to work hard in the gym to get half way to what he was. He’d been a farmer in West Wales so had been working very physically for many years. When he moved to look after my brother and me, he organised some people to maintain his business while he drew a salary from it. Despite twenty years away from the day to day needs of his farm and twenty more years on his own body clock, he had somehow managed to maintain the same level of physique. My Uncle had sometimes been called back to Wales for some reason, spending a week or two away at a time, but he, in the most part, left the farm in the hands of the managers and focussed his attentions on us, leaving the physical work behind.