Page 49 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

Just like I never knew when it was the last time I’d walk down the street with my child’s hand in my own, I also never knew when it was the last time I’d dance to ‘Boom! Shake the Room’ in Squires, or the last time I’d hold Niamh’s hair back as she puked neon alcopop everywhere. I didn’t know when it was last time I’d have a chips and Mexican beef special in Abrakebabra on the way home, or suffer severe chipulary burns. I didn’t acknowledge what would be my last after-work drinks with the girls, or the last Saturday afternoon I’d spend trailing the shops for a nice top to wear with jeans that night. I had no power to stop any of it, of course. Time cha cha slides on, whether we like it or not. But what I do have the power to do, two decades later, is claim a little bit of it back.

Another column idea comes to mind. Ten Ways to Figure Out Who You Are in Your Forties.

Niamh’s face gives nothing away as she walks back into the room. Her expression is completely blank. This could mean she’s in shock at what she has just discovered and is processing the news. I just don’t know if that news is good or bad, or what even constitutes good or bad. She doesn’t want another baby – she says – but she refused to consider all probable explanations for her missed period. Was that just a case of the lady protesting too much?

‘Well?’ I say, starting to feel a little woozy thanks to the extra strength co-codamol now weaving its way through my blood stream. She hands me the sticks and I try to not think about the fact she has just dipped them in her pee. The first has just one blue line – a negative result. The second – the fancy digital one – says ‘Not Pregnant’.

I look up at her. ‘So you’re not pregnant. This is good, isn’t it?’

‘Just because it’s negative doesn’t mean it’s actually negative,’ she says, sitting down on the bed beside me and taking the two tests from my hand. She holds them to the light and squints at them. ‘I think there might be a very, very faint line on this one,’ she says, handing the non-digital stick back to me. There is very clearly no line – faint or otherwise.

‘It’s a negative, pet,’ I say. ‘You’re home free!’

‘But maybe it’s just too early?’ she says and by the look on her face I’m starting to wonder if she’s upset there isn’t a screaming positive line in front of her.

‘Niamh,’ I say gently, ‘you said you were two weeks late. If you were two weeks late, a bun in the oven would show up on a pregnancy test.’ I have to play this one carefully. Yes, there might be a part of me that wants to shout, ‘I told you so!’ or ‘IT’S THE FECKING MENOPAUSE, WOMAN!’, but I can see that Niamh is not in the place for ribbing or teasing or even being given a stern talking to.

‘So I’m probably not pregnant,’ she says, blinking tears up at me.

I shake my head, which makes me more than a little dizzy due to the co-codamol. ‘Probably not,’ I say.

‘That’s a good thing,’ she says with a nod and an uneven smile. ‘Having a baby at my age would be ridiculous and disastrous.’

‘It wouldn’t be easy,’ I say as softly as I can.

‘It’s probably the menopause,’ she says, as if this thought is really just registering with her for the first time.

‘It probably is. We can go and get you a hormone test done. I could do with one myself so why don’t we both make appointments?’ I say.

‘When we said we wanted to start living more adventurous lives I didn’t think we meant chasing HRT together,’ she says with a weak laugh.

‘We sure didn’t,’ I tell her. ‘The sixteen-year-old us never really took that into consideration, did they?’

‘Nope. Can’t say it was on my list of hopes and dreams for life,’ she says.

‘At least we have each other to do it with. I’ve been kind of in denial that I need HRT but I really think it could help. Between the hot flushes and the mood swings, my dry skin and sudden almost overnight aged appearance, I think it’s pretty obvious my oestrogen levels are through the floor.’

Niamh nods. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to be old enough for the menopause yet.’

‘Perimenopause can start in your thirties,’ I tell her. ‘We’ve done well to get this far.’

‘No, I know I’m biologically old enough for it. I don’t think I’m emotionally ready for it.’ She doesn’t look at me while she speaks, instead keeping her head cast down as if she’s embarrassed to be voicing these altogether understandable feelings. ‘I didn’t… don’t… want another baby but there’s something different about it being my decision not to have more babies than Mother Nature taking that decision out of my hands. I don’t feel in control of my life right now. And God, we’re ageing, Becca. I looked through the Facebook pages of our school friends and I wondered who all those proper adults were staring back at me. Did you know that Marie Barr is a granny now? Twice over? And she looks like a granny. She looks how I remember my granny looking, except with less dootsy hair and she doesn’t wear a pinny all the time. I can’t help but wonder, do I look that old? I mean, I know we’re heading towards fifty but…’

She seems genuinely quite upset and I understand it. The cognitive dissonance between knowing I’m forty-six and realising I look forty-six is quite big, but there’s not a lot I can do about it apart from sticking to the new skincare routine Gabby designed for me at Sonas, and drinking more water. Even then there are definite limits to what that can achieve. I’m never going to be mistaken for being in my twenties again.

‘I feel as if I’m staring my mortality in the face, you know. Bits of me aren’t working as well as they used to. My eyesight has gone to shit for one. If I want to drop a couple of pounds I have to literally starve myself. I wake up stiff and sore now and can’t get out of bed without making some inhuman noise. I know people joke about that kind of thing, but honestly, there are times I feel as if my body is already starting to decay and I just wonder what the point of it all is.’

That’s when Niamh – bouncy, funny, takes-no-shit Niamh bursts into tears.

Today is proving to be the gift that keeps on giving.

33

AN ELASTICATED WAIST IS A GOOD THING

It’s entirely possible that I am too stoned on painkillers to be any sort of a useful comfort to Niamh. Everything feels a little hazy, except for the loud sobs coming from my friend.

‘Forty-six isn’t old,’ I tell her, even though I complain frequently about feeling old. ‘It’s certainly not body-decaying-what’s-the-point-in-life old,’ I tell her, trying to gauge just how serious she is about feeling this way. Is it hyperbole, or is my friend really feeling that hopeless about life? If so, how have I not noticed before now?

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