Page 32 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

With these frequent side quests away from what I am supposed to be doing, I’ve come to realise that the menopause might just be affecting my ability to focus on the task at hand – along with everything else.

Maybe this is the reason a lot of women my age no longer live big and crazy lives and become perfectly happy just to get through each and every day, and maybe reward themselves after with a nice cold glass of wine each evening.

My ‘Ten Ways to Survive Your Forties’ article has stalled at number five which, at the moment, is just ‘surrender to the ageing process and sleep more’. It’s not quite the mixture of inspiration and humour I was hoping for.

Maybe I’ve been too ambitious with my transformative plans. It’s too much to expect me to suddenly go from just about holding my shit together to arranging a completely new supply of shit to deal with on top of everything else. I should accept that I have shit-holding-together limitations and cut myself some slack.

Maybe women like me, who can see fifty waving at us from the top of the hill, should just be happy with our lot. We should leave the adventures to the youngsters and invest our energy instead into finding comfortable cardigans and stylish yet functional footwear.

Perhaps I don’t have to reinvent myself simply because last week was exceptionally emotional and my feelings were stripped raw and easily manipulated. Surely I don’t have to change my current existence because of a letter I wrote thirty years ago. Who would be daft enough to take life advice from a sixteen-year-old, teetotal virgin who loved making up dance routines with her friends in public in the local park? But when I try and tell myself that I can just be me and I’m under no obligation to change for anyone, a little voice whispers in my ear.

‘You are being a complete and utter tit,’ it says. ‘You know you’ve been feeling past it for a while now. You know you’ve wanted more. Stop talking yourself out of it just because you’re tired. Don’t you realise you’re tired because you’ve allowed yourself to get too comfortable?’

The fact that the voice sounds very much how I remember Kitty O’Hagan sounding is not lost on me. And when it’s not Kitty giving me a good talking to, it’s my father’s turn to speak to me from beyond the grave. ‘You’ll be dead a long time,’ he says over and over again. ‘Have you done everything you wanted to? And by the way, your mother really does deserve a nice holiday.’

By Friday afternoon I am semi-delirious with it all. Between the true crime watch-fest, the tattoo trauma, and being haunted by Kitty and my father – who seem to be tag-teaming me like a modern-day Marley and Marley – I am feeling more than a little overwhelmed. (Yes, I know in the book there is but one Marley, but in The Muppet Christmas Carol there are two, and I will always, always defer to the Muppets.)

In fact, I’m feeling so overwhelmed that when I see Niamh’s name pop up on my phone screen I do the unthinkable and let it go to voicemail. I don’t have the physical or mental energy to have actual voice conversations with anyone I don’t absolutely have to today. I’ve answered my phone when work have called, because I want them to keep paying me at the end of every month. I answered my phone when my mother called, because it’s simply easier and quicker to get to the point over the phone. Occasionally she does try to message me instead – Adam having installed WhatsApp on her phone before he left for university – but she tends to get a little flustered, over rely on autocorrect and take at least fifteen minutes to draft even the most basic reply. We have both agreed that voice calls are both our preferred options for communication, even if today that meant my listening to her give a running commentary of Homes Under The Hammer before getting to the point that she wondered if I could take her, and Mrs Bishop, for a wee run up the road to Strabane so that they could have a potter around Asda for Christmas bits. I agreed, of course, and we’re going at eight tomorrow morning because older people tend to get up at stupid o’clock and always have to get on the road as early as possible – even if it’s only a twenty-minute jaunt up the road to the nearest Asda.

All things considered, this means by the time Niamh calls me, I have exhausted my ability to form coherent sentences out loud. It’s already dark outside and I’ve just drawn my curtains against the blackness. I am lying prone on the sofa like a pyjama-wearing sloth. I don’t even feel the desire to have a glass of wine, but I am fully planning on eating the full family-sized bag of Maltesers I bought earlier, and I refuse to feel guilty about it.

When my phone rings again fifteen minutes later, and Niamh’s name flashes up once more, I can’t hold in the yell of, ‘Only psychopaths phone people instead of messaging them,’ before squeezing my eyes shut and waiting for the call to ring out. I know there’s an option to reject call immediately and send them directly to voicemail, but I don’t want Niamh to think that I’m actively avoiding her. It might be true, but it’s not personal. I’m actively avoiding everyone right now.

I think about switching my phone off or to silent but I know in my bones the moment I do, I will tempt the gods of ill fortune to bestow something catastrophic on either my mother or my two boys. I have imagined the scenario in which I miss a vital, possibly life-saving call countless times and I know it never plays out well for anyone. It’s simply not worth taking the risk.

When, half an hour later, my phone rings a third time, Daniel lets out a volley of barks that seem to indicate that he is fed up with my non-phone-answering shenanigans and wants me to take the call before he gets really annoyed and pees on the rug or something.

‘Only psychopaths phone people instead of messaging first,’ I say without even offering a hello. ‘I apologise for saying that if this is a legitimate emergency, but if it’s not a legitimate emergency then I will be ending the call quickly.’

‘Define emergency,’ Niamh says.

‘Something life-threatening, unexpected baby in the uterus area related, or involving a real-life sighting of Michael Bublé – without his beautiful wife – in the city centre,’ I offer.

‘Hmmm,’ Niamh says. ‘It’s none of those so I suppose I should probably just let you end the call…’

I role onto my back and sigh. She has me over a barrel here and she knows it. I’m too nosey and she is calling my bluff fair and square.

‘You’re on the phone now, you might as well tell me,’ I say. ‘But I’m going to warn you, I’m in a kind of funky shitty mood and I might not respond appropriately.’

‘Fair enough,’ she says. ‘I get it. It’s been a fun Friday for me too. If we ever get access to that imaginary time machine we discussed, can we go back in time far enough to give me a good shake and tell me not to go into teaching because in 2024, Year 11 will suck the very life from my bones?’

‘It’s a deal,’ I say. ‘So spill. About why you’re calling. Not about Year 11. Unless that’s why you’re calling, obviously.’

‘No. This is not school related. It’s more exciting than that. We’re going to have a pamper day tomorrow. It’s all booked so you can’t argue. And it’s my treat so you really, really can’t argue. Let’s call it my Christmas present to you. And Laura.’

My stomach sinks with that familiar feeling of guilt that someone is intending on spending their hard-earned money on me. No. This isn’t right. I pull myself up to sitting. ‘Niamh, you can’t do that. It’s too much,’ I protest.

‘Look, every birthday and Christmas for forever, Paul’s mum has got me gift vouchers for that fancy spa on Ivy Lane and I never use them because I tend not to like people hoking and poking at me but look, they’re doing this City Girl pamper afternoon thing and I thought, “There’s a sign if ever we needed one. Frig it. We have to book that!” So I did, for the three of us at three in the afternoon. Do you remember when we were teenagers and Kitty lent us City Girl to read and then we all became obsessed with wanting to be like Devlin and Maggie and whatever the other one was called…’

‘Caroline,’ I say, recounting the characters in the iconic Patricia Scanlan books we had adored in our teen years and into adulthood. ‘I still love those books.’

‘I still want to be like Devlin when I grow up,’ Niamh says wistfully, ‘and if a City Girl pamper afternoon wasn’t a sign from Kitty herself to be more Devlin then I don’t know what is. Sixteen-year-old us would be absolutely wetting themselves with excitement at the thought of a makeover.’

‘Hang on,’ I say as her words sink in. ‘A makeover? What do you mean by a makeover? I thought this was just a pamper thing? You know, maybe a facial and a rub of our shoulders? A makeover sounds a bit more dramatic?’

Already I’m having visions of becoming the human equivalent of one of those awful Changing Rooms transformations in the nineties. Everyone would smile awkwardly at the camera at the end, but clearly, we’d all look awful and be dying inside.

‘I’m sure it’s not. It’s just a bit of pampering with cocktails thrown in. Imagine we could walk out of there looking like actual MILFs,’ Niamh says and I cringe at the thought. I don’t want to look like a MILF. I just want to lie on my sofa, in my pyjamas and my Oodie and eat my family bag of Maltesers like a normal middle-aged woman.

---