Page 53 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

THE RECKONING: PART ONE

My to-do list is now as follows. In no particular order:

1) Speak to Ruairi about a Donegal trip with Mum.

2) Book a Donegal trip with Mum.

3) Clear up the scattered and shattered baubles from the landing. Use what is salvageable to decorate the Christmas tree.

4) Research a trip to Amsterdam and whether or not pot brownies interfere with HRT.

5) Arrange doctors’ appointments for both Niamh and me, preferably on the same day, to get hooked up with some of the good stuff.

6) Warn Adam that Niamh is raging that Instagram knew her daughter had a boyfriend before she did.

7) Get worming tablets for Daniel. I do not want to have to deal with bum crawlers on top of everything else.

8) Take Daniel for his Christmas haircut, with added photoshoot with Santa Paws – because it’s cute, okay? I don’t have to explain myself to anyone!

9) Put the Christmas duvet covers on the boys’ beds in preparation for the return of the prodigal twins.

10) Order the god damn turkey or it will be potato waffles and turkey dinosaurs for Christmas dinner. And not for the first time.

11) Work on these column pitches for Grace at Northern People. If I can offer her a selection to show my diversity, I might be in with a better chance.

12) Get in touch with Laura and try to sort this mess out once and for all, even if it means amicably deciding to cut all ties.

It doesn’t look like much when you say it out loud, I think. Except it really does look like there’s quite a lot to do and only me to do it. And some of it is just an absolute land mine of emotional trauma.

Some things on the list are easier to deal with than others. I pop Ruairi a WhatsApp voice note because he never answers his calls, and it’s just easier than trying to type out a lengthy message. I also know he hates WhatsApp voice notes and if it’s not a little sister’s job to annoy her brother’s very existence then whose is it?

I get up before eight so that I’m poised and ready to participate in the GP appointment Hunger Games as soon as the surgery opens. My finger hovers over the dial button as I watch the clock face change from minute to minute in the countdown to eight thirty, the theme from Countdown playing in my head as it does. Once it reaches the magic hour, all I have to do is hit the call button approximately ninety-four times before I get through, only to be told all the appointments are booked up and I need to call back tomorrow. It’s now almost nine thirty and as Ruairi has yet to listen to my message or reply, not a single thing can be ticked off my list, which I now need to put on hold while I get on with some work. God knows I do not want to add ‘search for a new job’ to the bottom of my list.

By lunch time, I’m getting a bit antsy that Ruairi still hasn’t listened to my voice message so I type a shorter version of it and hit send. In the war of attrition between siblings, I should’ve known he would win. He usually does.

No messages have landed in my phone from Laura, which is entirely understandable and expected, but yet it has me on edge. I want to get in touch with her, but I don’t know the best way to do it. It seems so impersonal to deal with something so big via text – and the written word is so open to misinterpretation that I’d risk making things even worse than they already are.

I’d perhaps contact Conal if I wasn’t worried that by now, I look like a complete psycho who loses dogs, runs out of houses and makes his sister cry. Plus, I don’t have his number – which is probably a good thing.

I use the nervous energy that is coursing through my body to clear up the baubles from the landing floor and I brave the pain which still exists in my rear to carry the tree down the stairs. This earns me a tilt of the head from Daniel who is clearly unimpressed that I’ve not taken him out for a walk or set off on a quest to reunite him with Lazlo. Guilt nips at me, but it’s icy outside and I simply can’t risk slipping and doing further damage to my already battered bum. Every gluteal muscle I own cringes at the very thought of another impact with the ground as if begging me to be gentle.

‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ I tell the floppy-eared mournful beast on the rug and promise him a breast of chicken with rice later as an apology.

By teatime – when Daniel eats the meal I’ve lovingly prepared for him in approximately two and a half seconds – I feel a little more in control of the day. I’ve done a sneaky little bit of internet research into Amsterdam and found a gorgeous houseboat on the canal which is rented out as an Airbnb, which doesn’t seem to cost the world but is a little different from the norm.

Ruairi has finally replied and told me of course he’d be up for a weekend away with Mum, but he’s up to his eyes in his very important job so if I could just make the arrangements and send him the deets and the bill that would super. I don’t have the energy to be annoyed at his presumption that I have the time to make the arrangements single-handedly. This is Ruairi. This is what he has always been like. There’s little point in me trying to change him now. And besides, Ruairi would book something outrageously expensive, or in the middle of nowhere, or which has a strict no-dogs-allowed policy. Wherever we book, there must be room for Daniel. He is, after all, the closest thing I have to a partner at the moment.

I’ve even channelled my anxiety-induced hyperactivity into completing the first of the ‘Ten Ways to…’ columns. And coming up with an idea for another. ‘Ten Ways to F*ck Up Your Life in Your Forties’. I accept that while I seem to have direct experience of this with the implosion of my newly resurrected friendship, it might be a hard sell to the magazine. Still, it should be cathartic to write.

But perhaps most importantly, by teatime I’ve decided to put on my very brave big girl pants and go and visit Laura. Just the thought of it makes me want to boke my insides out, but I can’t live with the weight of my hurt, and the guilt I feel at hurting Laura just after her mother died. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I do always make it about me, but surely sometimes it is? Surely it was when Simon left?

I’ve realised the best way to tackle all this horrible tension is to face it head on, in person. Even if it’s hard. Even if we both cry. Even if we both come to accept that the Laura and Becki who wanted to be friends forever all those years ago are not going to get their wish.

I feel so sick worrying about it that I can’t eat my dinner, which Daniel is delighted about. He’s not a dog that would ever turn his nose up at a second chicken breast, which is a good thing as it acts as a distraction to get me out of the house without him spotting me heading for the door. I’m not sure I could handle the look of ‘but you said it was too cold to go out’ judgement on his face. I am already riddled with guilt and fear. So much so that my hands are shaking as I get into my car, and it’s not just from the cold.

I’m nervous. I’m more nervous than I’ve been in a long, long time and given that the menopause has reduced me to a ball of anxiety where I can risk a panic attack just leaving the bins out, that really is saying something.

When I get to Laura’s I sit outside for ten minutes, willing myself to just get out of the bloody car and walk up to her door. You’re not walking into Mordor, I tell myself. You’re visiting a friend. Or someone who was a friend. There is no need for you to feel as if you’re about to walk the Green Mile. The hardest part of this will be getting out of the car given your bruises. You’re a big girl and you need to act like one.

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