Page 11 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

When the doorbell rings a third time, followed by a loud rattle of my letterbox and a shout of, ‘We know you’re in there!’ I give up the ghost and haul myself out of the bath.

I recognise the voice from my letterbox, of course. What I don’t know is why she’s at my front door right now. And why she has used the word ‘we’.

‘I’m coming!’ I shout, pulling on the dressing gown and slipping my feet into my incredibly non-sexy but very comfortable fur-lined Crocs (let’s start a campaign to normalise comfortable footwear, please!).

‘Hurry up! It’s throwing it down out here!’ Niamh calls. Or at least I think that’s what she shouts. Daniel has moved on to the next song in his back catalogue and is howling and scrabbling at the front door. I wonder if I could actually train him to answer it for me?

Flustered, sweating and deeply uncomfortable about answering the door with nothing hiding my vagina except for an old dressing gown that could possibly get caught in a draught, I make my way downstairs. Daniel dances around my feet, showing way too much excitement for a dog who’s just finished a substantial walk, and I have to shoo him away before opening the door.

The ‘we’, it turns out, is Niamh and Laura – the latter of the two still dressed in her black dress and coat, her face streaked with mascara and one hand holding aloft a bottle of peach schnapps. My stomach lurches at the very sight of it, remembering many a hangover born from peach-flavoured over-indulgence.

‘For old times’ sake,’ she says, with a hiccup. ‘It’s what Mammy would’ve wanted.’ Laura staggers through my front door, and wraps herself around me in a hug. Over her shoulder I see Niamh mouthing, ‘I’m sorry!’ before adopting her very best teacher voice. ‘Laura arrived at my house, very upset and said she needed her girls to get her through this evening and that nobody else could understand how much she was hurting.’

‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Laura sobbed into my shoulder. ‘I really let you down, and I’m sorry. Forgive me please,’ she cried.

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ I say, tears springing to my own eyes. ‘And of course we’ll be there for you to help you through this. Can I just put some knickers on first?’

8

WHO KILLED LAURA PALMER?

I feel so much better when I’m wearing a fresh pair of knickers. There was no way I’d have been capable of holding a prolonged conversation with anyone with my vagina not put away behind a good cotton gusset.

I’ve put on my favourite grey sweatpants with matching sweater. I give my hair a quick blast with the hairdryer before twisting it up on top of my head in a loose bun. In my mind I look like an effortlessly chic influencer who lives a life of brunches with the girls and exudes natural beauty. In reality I probably look like an inmate in HMP Maghaberry – and the kind who would cut a bitch at that. But now is not the time to think about vanity – my friend needs me and that is what matters.

By the time I get back downstairs, Niamh has already set up her very own ad hoc cocktail bar and has mixed us three syrupy sweet peach schnapps-flavoured drinks. Even the smell is enough to evoke a memory from the late nineties of great nights out and less great mornings after. There was nothing quite like the hungover sugar crash that came following a night on peach schnapps and pineapple juice. What on earth had we been thinking?

‘Here we go,’ she chirps, and hands me a glass. I look at her face, and at Laura, who has stopped crying for the moment but whose eyes are horrendously swollen and red. All three of us stare into glasses with trepidation.

‘Remember when this was all we would drink?’ Niamh asks.

‘We thought we were so cosmopolitan. Everyone else got wasted on alcopops or cider and we were drinking this,’ I say, my nose wrinkling at the smell.

‘I can’t remember the last time I had peach schnapps,’ Laura says, her voice hoarse from crying, and I want to tell her there’s probably a very good reason for that, and the reason is that it’s not actually very nice. I keep quiet though. I am putting all my energy into the girding of my loins to drink this sugar-laden concoction.

‘Well, ladies,’ Laura says. ‘Here’s to my lovely mammy who will be smiling down from heaven at the sight of the three of us together again. Cheers, big ears!’ she says and we all knock our glasses together before taking a drink.

The sweetness makes my brain hurt and I shudder. Niamh, meanwhile, has lowered her glass and is staring at me wide-eyed. I know that look well. The twins used to get that look in their eyes when they overdosed on Fruit Shoots. We were either heading for chaos or an emotional breakdown.

I’m distracted by a gagging sound to my left and turn to see Laura staring into her glass as if it has just personally offended her. ‘Dear God, that’s sickly sweet,’ she stutters.

‘That’s a very polite way to say rotten,’ I tell her with a grimace.

‘It’s worse than rotten,’ Niamh says. ‘It’s hoachin’.’ Now there’s a word I’ve not heard in at least a quarter of a century. In our younger years it was a frequent flyer in our vocabulary as a descriptor for really, really, really rotten. It could be interchanged with words such as bangin’, boggin’ and mingin’.

‘It probably wasn’t my best idea,’ Laura sniffed, on the verge of tears again. ‘I was just trying to do something nice in memory of Mammy and…’ I wrap my arms around her as she gives in to a fresh round of sobbing.

‘It was a lovely gesture,’ I soothe her. ‘And luckily, I have wine in the fridge so we don’t have to keep drinking it if you don’t want to. But if you do want to keep drinking it, then we will be brave and persevere in memory of the legend who was Kitty O’Hagan!’

Laura lets out a little laugh and then cries a bit more before settling herself. ‘No, I think Mammy would understand if we gave up on the peach schnapps and went for wine instead,’ she says.

‘Thank God for that!’ Niamh says, not wasting any time in fetching a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from my fridge and three wine glasses from the cupboard.

‘I’ll get some crisps out too,’ I say, realising that we are all old enough now that soakage is an absolutely essential survival tool in avoiding the dreaded three-day hangover that seems to wade in uninvited whether it’s a skinful or a thimbleful of wine consumed. ‘And then we can talk properly.’

I have my back to Laura and Niamh as I decant a few packets of my finest Tayto Cheese and Onion crisps into bowls, and I’m just trying to work how many crisps is too many crisps when I hear an exclamation from Laura – and this time it’s not a sob, or a cry, or an expression of grief.

‘Holy shit!’ she says. ‘Where on earth did this show up?’

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