Page 28 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

19

ALL THE FEELS

So, we have a holiday on our joint list. Niamh is going to ask her eldest, Jodie, for some ideas because Jodie took a year out before university and visited as many countries as savings, an overdraft and a nice cheque from her granny on her eighteenth birthday would allow.

Jodie did it old school – trains and buses, hostels and the sofas of folks she met on her travels. Needless to say, Niamh nearly had a stroke when she heard about the latter which was thankfully kept a secret from her until Jodie was safely back in the bosom of her family. While she was lucky to come back with all her organs still intact and not stolen from her in her sleep, she was even luckier to come back with stories of great times and incredible sights. She’d avoided the tourist trail as much as possible to spend time walking the cobbled lanes of Sierra de Francia in Spain, Treviso and the Aosta Valley in Northern Italy, the bustle of Hanoi in Vietnam and the sun-soaked beaches of Thailand. I can’t deny it took me a lot of introspection to come to terms with the fact I was brutally jealous of my own goddaughter.

But that will change once we set off on our own adventures – after I figure out how to pay for them, of course. We might have to set our sights and our budgets a little closer to home than Thailand or Vietnam.

We’ve agreed that we will go to a gig. A proper outdoor gig. Maybe even a festival requiring tents, and a complete abandonment of our usual standards of personal hygiene. Laura says she will research who is touring and what is happening in the festival scene, as long as no one at whatever event we eventually choose to go to sings about their pussy.

There was a minor discussion about getting a tattoo – matching of course to signify our friendship – but we didn’t ultimately decide on anything and to be honest I’m okay with that. Because the elephant, let’s call her Nelly, in the corner of the room seemed to nudge me a little with her trunk as the discussion progressed.

I love Laura. I am happy she is back in my life and I am delighted that we can support her during this awful, awful time, but I’m not totally naïve. I know this repair to our friendship is still fragile. And while now might not be the exact right time to pick apart what happened in the big falling out of 2013, I know we will have to cross that particular bridge at some stage.

And that will be incredibly difficult because, when it happened, it almost broke me.

Actually, that’s not true. It did break me. Losing Laura and our friendship, leading to the implosion of our triumvirate of BFFs, is the most painful thing I’ve endured in my life, next to losing my father. It hurt more than my marriage ending. The betrayal cut deeper. When my marriage had ended and Simon admitted he was in love with someone else, it was almost a relief. I knew we’d been flogging a dead horse for a long time and I had suspected there was another woman in the picture. I’d spent so long tearing myself apart, creating versions of what he was up to in my own mind that in the end, his admission felt almost anticlimactic. I’d almost replied: ‘Oh that? Yeah, I knew that.’

But losing Laura? That hurt on a physical, visceral level. She was my friend. My best friend. She was the one who, along with Niamh, was supposed to be there no matter what life did to us. Relationships come and go, but friendships – the kind you make in your formative years – they’re supposed to be forever. They’re supposed to be unbreakable. We’d come so far – more than thirty years of friendship had embedded us in each other’s lives in a way I thought was rock solid. We were supposed to be each other’s person. She was supposed to be the Thelma to my Louise, the Christina Yang to my Meredith Grey, the Rachel to my Monica. To find out that simply wasn’t the case was devastating. I have never felt so betrayed in my life. Laura had known, with certainty, that there was another woman. She had met the other woman. She had cooked dinner for the other woman… That was the real slap in the face in all of this. That was real pain.

I imagine it would have all been even harder to bear if we’d had permanent reminders of each other inked into our skin. I’m not sure I’m ready to take that risk even now…

The girls had left just after nine, each of us promising we would have a think about what else to add to our time capsule-inspired to-do list. I cleared up and took the rubbish to the outside bin so that I don’t get up in the morning to the smell of stale chips, and I’ve been sitting on top of my bed since, trying to make sense of all the feelings currently buzzing around my head.

I’m nervous – of course. We discussed some things that will not just make me step out of my comfort zone, but will catapult me very far away from it, without a safety net.

There’s a bit of excitement fizzing in the pit of my stomach too. Actually, it’s more than just ‘a bit’. Laura isn’t the only person among us to long for a holiday that doesn’t involve the ‘Hokey Cokey’ or, as in more recent years for me, the company of two teenage boys who would literally rather be anywhere else than in the vicinity of their mother in a swimsuit.

But I’m sad too. For Kitty, I think, and maybe even for my own mother. For the generations of mothers who never put themselves first and didn’t get to live out their dreams. I wonder what sixteen-year-old Roisin Burnside, née Moore, would have written if she had put together a time capsule with her friends. Or what Kitty O’Hagan would’ve written. Would it have been that different to what I did? Did either of them want to travel more, to get their dream career, or a tattoo with their friends that they wouldn’t live to regret?

There’s no way to ask Kitty those questions now, but I think that I really probably should ask my own mother. There’s a lot about her that remains a mystery to me. I didn’t even know that she fancied the arse off Harrison Ford until yesterday, for example. I may think I know my mother but I’ve always looked at her as the woman she is, and I never really allowed myself to think too much about the girl she was. I assumed that because I have always seen her as a strong, almost fearless matriarch, that she has always felt strong and never felt afraid. I wonder whether she has ever wished for more than the life she has. It makes me feel ashamed that we’ve never really talked about her hopes and dreams and another UWOS washes over me. Damn it, those feelings seem to be closer to the surface than ever now.

‘I think we’ll have to go and see Granny tomorrow,’ I tell Daniel, who looks at me with his big brown eyes, perking up at the mention of going to see his human granny. I wonder if he knows she refers to him mostly as ‘that dog’ and swears she’s not a dog person but keeps a jar of Markies treats in her cupboard in case he visits.

I give his fur a quick rub and he turns his head to one side and lays it on my lap, staring up at me with such trust that the Unexpected Wave of Sadness merges with an Unexpected Wave of Love for my furry best friend.

‘Wouldn’t it be great if you could write a letter and let me know what you want out of life too?’ I say to him as I get under the covers and snuggle down. He immediately curls into me, one paw on my arm as if he’s giving me an actual, honest to God hug and my heart swells. Oh, to be a dog and able to lift the spirits of those around you with a doleful look and fluffy cuddle.

I rush through my work while fielding calls from a very high maintenance client with a very limited understanding of what my remit actually is. No, I cannot get Lord Alan Sugar to agree to an interview in which he will extol the virtue of the client’s medium-sized data analysis business. Especially since Lord Sugar has never heard of the client’s business, let alone used it. No, it’s not just a matter of ‘asking nicely’.

Sometimes I do wonder how some people make it to positions of authority in business when they clearly haven’t a notion of how the world works. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s generally because 1) The Patriarchy, 2) Some people are just very skilled at sounding like they know what they are doing, or 3) Sheer fluke.

In this case I’m pretty sure it falls into the sheer fluke category. However, as telling a client to ‘wise the head’ is generally frowned upon, I have to use much too big a portion of my daily mental energy working out how to explain Lord Sugar’s lack of availability.

We reach a compromise just before lunch where he says he will email Lord Sugar himself, or send him a message on social media, to ask him directly. I wish him well on his quest and make a mental note to check the business mogul’s social media feed later for any minor meltdowns.

I call my mum and tell her I’m going to call round, forewarning her that Daniel will be coming with me. ‘Would you like me to bring you anything?’ I ask.

‘Am I allowed to say “not a dog”?’ she asks, but I ignore her. She has to know by now that Daniel is like a baby to me since my own babies have cleared off and only really get in touch when they want money or need a pep talk.

‘You love him really,’ I tell her and she makes an indistinct noise which could possibly be interpreted as an agreement so I decide to take it that way.

‘Have you had your lunch yet?’ I ask her.

‘I was just about to put on a tin of soup,’ she says. ‘Do you want some too? I seem to have an excess stockpile of them. Still can’t seem to break the habit of buying for two,’ she says. We both know chicken soup was my father’s favourite and from October to March each year he’d have happily eaten it for his lunch every day. As soon as the temperatures started to dip he would start his annual overconsumption.

‘Some soup would be lovely,’ I tell her, knowing the smell of it filling her kitchen will bring me back to happier times. ‘How about I pick up some crusty bread at the shop too? A tiger baguette?’

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