Page 12 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

I turn to face her and, of course, she has the time capsule in her hands and is examining it intensely.

‘Is that it?’ Niamh asks me. ‘Oh my God! Let me see it!’

I’m not sure why I feel nervous as they read what we had scrawled on the outside of this box thirty years ago, but I do. It’s the kind of nervous where I feel itchy under my skin and very much on edge.

‘God, remember that! When you insisted we spelled Becki with an i because it was cool?’ Niamh laughs.

‘It was cool!’ I reply defensively, even though I haven’t spelled my name like that since circa 2001. There comes a certain stage in life when saying ‘It’s Becki with an i’ makes you sound emotionally stunted.

‘It was,’ Niamh agrees. ‘I was so jealous that you had all these variations of your name you could choose and I was stuck with Niamh. There aren’t any ways to shorten Niamh.’

‘Or Laura either,’ Laura says. ‘Apart from Laurs, and I hated that.’

‘But at least Laura was a cool name. Like Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks,’ Niamh says and Laura shudders.

‘I hated that show. It scared the bejaysus out of me. Remember that creepy bloke who did all the killing… what was his name again?’

‘Bob,’ I say, thinking of the face of the supernatural killer who still haunts my nightmares.

‘That’s it! Bob!’ Laura says. ‘Absolutely terrifying.’

‘We have to open it, don’t we?’ Laura says once we have talked over the bizarre moments of the original Twin Peaks and agreed that the recent updated series was just a fever dream that made no sense to anyone.

‘I think it would be rude not to,’ Niamh says.

‘I think we need to,’ Laura says, her voice a little more sombre. ‘God knows I could use a distraction from today.’ The sad look on her face is enough to give me the push I need to lift the box and agree it is time for the great opening.

‘I think we’ll need scissors or a knife,’ I say, examining the very thorough sealing of what is essentially a box of tat. We really did want to protect our secrets, it seems.

‘And a top up of our glasses,’ Laura says, grabbing the wine bottle from the kitchen counter.

‘We might actually need a second bottle,’ Niamh grimaces. ‘And more Tayto.’ She retrieves another bottle of wine from the fridge, effectively wiping out my in-house alcohol content and leads the way through to the kitchen where she immediately plonks herself down on the rug in front of the fire – much to Daniel’s disgust. ‘That,’ his epic side-eye seems to say, ‘is my spot’.

I sit down beside her and start running the edge of one of the blades of my pair of scissors along the join between the lid and the box itself.

‘Do you know, I’d forgotten about this entirely,’ Niamh says. ‘It only came back to me when you mentioned it, Becca. I’d never have given it a moment’s thought, otherwise. I’d a very hazy memory in the back of my mind but if you told me I’d dreamt it, I’d believe you.’

‘We made it in Becca’s kitchen if I remember correctly,’ Laura says. ‘Though didn’t we all write our letters separately at home and bring them over? God only knows what utter guff I wrote. I can only imagine if Robyn were to write one now. It would be full of teenage angst and woe. I don’t think we were as woe-filled as teenagers nowadays. Even before Mammy got sick, my beautiful, happy wee girl had morphed into a walking streak of misery.’

‘It will pass,’ I reassure her. ‘Both my boys went through the horrors of thinking the world was a bin fire and that their generation are the only ones who ever gave a shit or tried to change things for the better. They seemed to care a little less once they got money in their pockets, were able to get into a pub without getting ID’d and didn’t live at home any more.’

‘We had our own dramas though,’ Niamh says. ‘And who’d be a teenager now. What with social media and the pressure to appear to have the perfect life all the time. At least when we were that age, and making absolute dicks of ourselves, we didn’t have to worry if we would go viral the next day.’

‘And we didn’t have to worry about the world and his mother seeing our geeky teenage years either – you know, when you’re still growing into your face. I swear I looked like Mrs Potato Head from 1990 through to 1996,’ I say as I slice through another layer of yellowed tape. ‘This is harder to get into than Fort Knox,’ I mutter.

‘You’re showing remarkable patience,’ Laura says. ‘I’d have torn into that by now.’

‘I don’t want to risk damaging anything inside it,’ I say as the blade of the scissors finally slips under the lip of the box lid. ‘God only knows what valuable treasures are hidden inside this box!’

The room falls silent as I slice around the final layer of tape until the lid is free and ready to come off.

‘I really hope this isn’t rubbish,’ Niamh says, as three sets of eyes fall on the shoebox that holds a snapshot of the people we used to be and the dreams we used to have.

9

‘POSITION OF THE FORTNIGHT’

It turns out we used to pretty much be the nerdy teenagers we remember. The box doesn’t hold a wealth of surprises. There are a couple of editions of Smash Hits magazine – one with Take That on the cover and another with Dean Cain as Superman. The part of my heart that was insanely in love with Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman does a little flip. God, that man was gorgeous back in the day. As was Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. She was my first girl crush. I blush when I remember getting my hair cut in the same bobbed style she wore as if that would set the scene for a glittering career in journalism.

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