Biceps! The Peakwick Papers II

The Peakwick Papers by Charles Swellickens

Part 2

My father moved to Guernsey (an island in the English Channel off the coast of France) after my parents’ divorce, and after I’d graduated, I went down to visit him (and his new partner) in their new home.

It was a difficult time for both of us. There was plenty of mutual misunderstanding that came out of not having seen each other for the best part of seven years. We’d both changed in that time, but when he looked at me he still saw the grumpy teenager he’d left behind when he’d moved out. And for me, he was the angry, largely absent and obviously unhappy man he’d been in the last few years of marriage to my mother.

After a couple of particularly disastrous days, his new partner intervened. I wasn’t going to just take myself off to the beach the next day. I’d come here to spend time with my father. We were all going to do something together. We were going to visit a National Trust property. I agreed, although the prospect of spending a day where old people look round an old house at old things didn’t exactly excite me.

We entered the house, think Downtown Abbey on a very much smaller scale if you’re unfamiliar with National Trust properties, and began the tour. It was the usual stuff. Portraits of past owners, the dining room set up exactly as it would have been in the 1920s, etc. etc. Yawn! You can probably tell what’s coming.

As I entered another room, among the sea of grey, a younger woman, her face positively glowing with health and vitality. For a moment I can’t see anything except her face, then she moves and suddenly that good old adrenaline rush shoots into my bloodstream as the muscles on her bare arms come into my view.

She’s no bodybuilder, but she’s tanned and lean. She’s talking to someone, moving her arm, pointing up towards the ceiling, and my eyes are fixed on her, watching the bicep dance, my heart pounding harder and harder as the rush grows ever stronger.

My father says something to me and breaks the spell. By the time I look back to where she was, she’s gone. All I can think about is getting out of this room and into the next one. I’ve got to see her bicep dance again. I just want to rush after her, in fact I have to stop myself doing just that. My father’s still talking to me. I can barely hear what he says over the cacophony in my head as my thoughts try to work out how I’m going to get out of here (where she isn’t) and into there (where she is) without making a complete fool of myself.

Go. If you don’t go NOW… Creepy… GO. NOW! Tell him you need a pee and just GO… You’re sick... Muscle… Abnormal… Go go go go… Tell him you feel sick… Get CLOSE to her… Stalker!... What are you waiting for?... If these people would just move a little you can get by no problem… GO GO GO… So CREEPY… Tanned… Muscle… Oh God!... Go!... Now!... Where IS she?... MOVE!

Probably not a very good representation of what goes through my head during The Madness, to be honest, a lot of it is visual rather than words, but hopefully you get the idea.

What happened next? Well, I did move, eventually, though by the time I’d got to the next room, she had gone on to the room after that and so it continued. I must have been like a child with ADD, itching to get around as fast as possible. I’ve no idea what my father or his partner thought, or even if they noticed at all. When The Madness descends I always feel as though there must be outward signs, that people must be able to see there's something 'wrong' with me, but it’s impossible to know if The Madness shows until someone actually comments on it.

I did catch another couple of glimpses of her later, outside the house, but she’d put a light cardigan on, so I didn’t get to see her arms again. And here is where The Madness really does earn its name – when I saw her heading towards the car park with her family (I assume it was her family anyway), the idea that I should get my Dad’s car keys off him and then just follow their car did actually pop into my head momentarily.

The power of a female bicep is not only a physical power.