Wake Up Happy Every Day by Stephen May

easily imagine that if she ever has a child she’ll be sitting in sports halls all over the country reading or knitting, while little Marley or little Dinah takes part in judo or Irish dancing or whatever. She could be doing what she’s doing now for years. And then there might be grandchildren. Wherever she goes, whatever she does, it might always be a simple twist on what she’s doing now.
    Sitting with her wool and her thoughts Lorna is able to tune out most of the class. Despite this she’s aware that Megan is the best. Not just the fastest in the sprints, but she has the quickest reflexes in the various games they play. There’s this one game where everyone is wearing boxing gloves but instead of fighting each other, they have to slap the elbows or the shoulders or the arses of a partner without getting slapped themselves. Megan is terrific at it. She is lightning fast – in – slap – and out, like an otter gulping fish in a rushing stream.
    She is also the most elegant. Some of the other women are quick and strong, but with them there is always a sense of effort, of labour. Everyone else in the group is plum-faced and soaked after a few minutes. Megan is merely slicked, glistening, tinged with just enough of a hint of colour to make a spectator think of apricots or peaches. And she keeps control of herself too. She stays nimble on her toes and her back stays straight where others begin to hunch and shuffle slightly as the class goes on – like they are becoming old in front of everyone.
    And when they hit the pads or the bags the class is encouraged to vocalise, and most grunt formlessly, but Megan restricts herself to a controlled percussive pa pa pa-pa. Or, when jabbing, a quicker, aspirated rhythm pha-pha-pha . Long and short of it, Megan is good. And for a nicely brought up middle-class white girl from Berkeley, she is aces. Lorna gets that.
    When the class starts sparring, Lorna puts down her needles and her wool. People trying to hit each other is always fascinating. It is gruesomely compelling outside the Ginger Goose in Bradford on a Saturday night, and it is still very watchable here now.
    The way it works is that the class do two-minute circuits. Ten stations: skipping, squat thrusts, press-ups, bag work, step-ups and oh, loads of things, and one station is the ring where Linwood, the instructor, defends himself against each girl in turn. He doesn’t really fight back, though he sometimes taps the women on the forehead – gently, so gently – if he thinks they are leaving themselves too open.
    It is clear to Lorna that this is what the women pay for. Ten dollars for the chance to hit a guy in the face? A total bargain. However tired the women are when they come off the bag work, they perk up significantly once they are in the ring and loosing off shots for real. And it is for real. While even an amateur onlooker like Lorna can see that not one of these try-hard soccer moms would last a minute in a real fight, and probably not survive even one decent counter-punch from Linwood – in their heads they are fighting for their lives.
    Just how good Megan is can be gauged by the fact that Linwood does genuinely bop her on the nose a couple of times. Hard enough to make the watching Lorna wince. Hard enough to bring a proper flush to Megan’s face for the first time. And when Megs comes out of the ring she doesn’t go to her next station but goes straight to the showers saying, ‘I guess we better get going Lorna, my dear,’ and she’s trying to sound breezy and doing OK but Lorna can still hear angry tears in her voice. And Megan can tell that her roomie knows she’s not so blasé because she gives a wibbly-wobbly smile and says, ‘I’m OK – just need to work on my defence. Can’t be going forward all the time. Give me five minutes, ’kay?’
    While she is in the shower Linwood comes over to Lorna.
    ‘You know, I’m hard on her because that’s how she’ll get better.’
    Lorna just looks