If there’s a hotter, smellier and more cramped men’s changing room in Britain than the one at our gym, then I’d like to hear about it. It’s next door to the sauna and connected to it by an air vent. My glasses steam up the moment I walk in. After a workout, I shower, towel off, and before I’m dressed I’m soaking wet again with perspiration.
There’s room, just about, for up to four people at a time. Sometimes there are six or seven in there showering, robing or disrobing. Intimate is the word. You have to negotiate your personal space with your neighbour and watch where you put your hands when attempting larger, more sweeping movements. Everyone is forever apologising to everyone else for accidental space violations or knocks and buffets. I was towelling my back the other week and accidentally poked a chap right in the eye as he was leaving.
The floor is permanently awash with water from the shower and the tiny sink. At this time of year also mud. The two wobbly blue plastic slatted benches are cleverly designed so that anything placed upon them — socks, underwear, watch, glasses — immediately falls on the wet floor.
The overcrowding and discomfort has a unifying effect, however — victimhood can be marvellously sociable — and very often conversations break out between strangers about the conditions. Last week, I exchanged grievances with a man who was using the sauna, and had come into the changing room for a cold shower and a period of reflection before going back for another baking.
He was sitting alone in his swimming trunks when I walked in. The floor was wetter and muddier even than usual and he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, contemplating it sadly. ‘Not very nice, is it?’ he said. I wanted to get in and out of there in the shortest time possible, before the place filled up, so restricted myself to a brisk ‘Like third bloody Ypres,’ then I whipped off my coat, shoes, socks, jeans, pants, fleece, shirt and vest in short order. Then I heard the door open behind me, and someone else come in, and I mentally prepared myself for our limited space and oxygen to be further reduced by at least 25 per cent.
Two cries of astonished mutual recognition made me turn around. The sauna bloke was on his feet and holding the newcomer affectionately by the elbows. ‘Simon!’ he said. ‘Brim!’ said the newcomer, who was dressed in gym kit and pouring sweat. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘How long has it been? Three years?’ ‘Nearly four,’ said Brim. Then they fell silent, mutually embarrassed.
And then the sauna bloke, Brim, now crestfallen, still holding the other bloke lightly and affectionately by the elbows, said, ‘Simon, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t in my right mind.’ And Simon, tears starting into his eyes, looked up into Brim’s and said, ‘Yeah, well. These things happen. It’s all in the past now.’
I was standing there stark naked and within a short arm’s reach, I now realised, of a touching reconciliation scene. Furthermore, it was a touching reconciliation scene involving a pair of English Buddhists, I realised, judging by the potted accounts of the last three years of their lives ‘serving’ in various ‘communities’ both here and abroad that they now offered each other. ‘I haven’t stopped thinking of you since that day,’ said Simon. ‘Me, too,’ said Brim, emphasising his feelings by gripping his old friend’s arms more tightly and shaking them. They were a couple of really nice, genuine fellas, these Buddhists. I felt like draping my arms around their shoulders like a gratified football manager and saying, ‘Well done, lads.’
After many lingering expressions of regret and promises of renewed love and friendship, Simon departed. When I was fully done up in my gym kit and ready to go, I turned to the sauna bloke, Brim, who’d now sat down again, a bit shaken, and I said, ‘I’m intrigued to know what could have caused two nice fellas like you to fall out so badly.’
Instead of replying, he looked at me and laughed. He was laughing with joy and gratitude and relief, I supposed, that the bad karma that had been dogging his footsteps for almost four years had been so unexpectedly and so easily neutralised. He couldn’t stop laughing, either. He had a sincere and melodic laugh, with a lot of chuckle in it, and what sounded like a cappella notes. And as he looked up at my face, what he saw there only seemed to confirm him in his view that the world was an extraordinary and comical place. And he looked so happy and sort of shriven that I laughed back at him. And we both stood there like that for a moment, laughing at each other. Then I went upstairs, still laughing to myself, to work out.
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