Deadlift Day

Ray stands at the edge of the free weights area holding a printout. The printout says Deadlift 3x5 in the physio's handwriting, and underneath, in smaller letters, ask for help, don't be proud. The gym at half past six in the morning is not what he expected. He'd pictured lads in vests slamming things. Instead there's a woman about his age doing slow squats with a broomstick, a man in a turban reading a book on the bike, and a kid in his twenties wiping down a bench with the seriousness of a surgeon. Ray has had a bad back for nine years. Nine years of lying on the kitchen floor, of hot water bottles, of a chair at work that cost more than his first car. When the physio said the word deadlift he laughed, and she didn't laugh with him. "Your back isn't weak because you lift things," she said. "Your back is weak because you don't." The kid with the cloth notices him hovering. "You all right there?" "I'm meant to do these," Ray says, and shows him the paper like a note from his mum. The kid reads it. He doesn't smirk, which Ray had braced for. "Nice. Have you done one before?" "I've picked up a bag of compost. Wrongly, I think." "Right. Come on then." His name is Dev. He puts an empty bar on the floor and adds two rubber plates that turn out to weigh five kilos each. Twenty kilos altogether. Ray feels slightly insulted and then, when he tries to pick it up the way he picks up compost, feels his lower back tighten like a warning and understands. "Stop. Hips back. Chest up. Pretend the bar's a suitcase and you're too posh to bend over for it." Ray tries again. Something different happens. His legs take it. The bar comes up along his shins and he's standing, holding twenty kilos, and his back is just there, doing nothing in particular, which is the most it has done nothing in nearly a decade. "That's it," Dev says. "Again." He does five. Then five more. Then five more. Between sets he sits on a bench and looks at his hands and there is a faint red line across each palm from the bar. "Same time Thursday?" Dev says, as if this is a normal thing to say to a stranger. "I'll be here." In the car park Ray checks his printout. He hasn't ticked anything yet. He finds a pen in the glove box and puts a tick next to Deadlift, and then another next to ask for help, and then he sits there for a minute with the engine off, feeling his legs hum.