Page 75 of Sisters Making Mischief
1. Do things I like to do. Particularly when it comes to going to concerts and films I think I would enjoy.
2. Don’t do things I don’t want to do. Especially cleaning the windows. All my neighbours seem to use the same firm, which turns up with a van and a long brush on a stick and they seem perfectly happy with it.
3. Travel to places I want to see, not places other people think I should see. I do want to go to Italy, I’ve always wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, but Stephen said the wait to get in was hours. So, I will splash out and buy a Fast Track ticket and hang the expense.
4. Learn a new language. Spanish? Italian? Both? There are daytime courses at the local community centre. As well as pottery, yoga and lots of other things. Investigate?
5. Throw out every black garment I own. Especially that dress Stephen made me buy for our thirtieth wedding anniversary. The one with the yellow and white stripe. It makes me look like a Liquorice Allsort.
6. Buy more colourful things.
7. Change my car.
I thought about this one for a long time. I’d never bought a car on my own before, Stephen had always been in charge of that, although the only thing he knew how to do was put petrol in it. The last time we went to several showrooms, where all the cars looked the same to me and most were grey or silver and the only preference I had voiced was that I would like a red car, so I was easier to see and presumably easier for other people to avoid.
I ended up with a grey car with a grey interior, so effectively, I was the same colour as the road.
When I had asked if the car had conformed to the proposed Euro emission regulations, Stephen and the car salesman who was a spotty oik called Jazza, looked at me in astonishment, the way one would a dancing dog, and they had both laughed. Although I don’t think Stephen would have known a Euro emission if one had whacked him on the back of the head with a shovel. Therefore…
8. Go to a garage where they don’t sneer, chuckle to themselves, patronise or make me feel like a fool and will actually speak to me without looking over my shoulder for my husband. And buy a red car. A big one. One that I choose.
Luc drove a red truck, and I wondered if I could buy something like that. A car that stood out a bit, that showed some spirit. A car with a rugged name likeThugorJuggernaut. I’d always had a bit of a thing about them. Perhaps I could have one now?
9. Buy some new bed linen with flowers on and chuck out all the old stuff. I don’t like polyester sheets, particularly cream ones, and if I get a new duvet, I want one that makes that satisfying crackly noise when I turn over.
10. New pillows. The old ones have been used and washed so many times they are like Weetabix.
11. Find my white trainers at the back of the wardrobe and wear them as a fashion statement. I think they look cool, Stephen said I wasn’t going to play at Wimbledon any time soon, so why pretend I was.
12. Go to Wimbledon.
13. Throw out the plastic washing-up bowl. Isabel’s right. It’s disgusting.
14. Visit John in New York, and stay at a hotel, not with them. Go to a Broadway show. Leave halfway through if I don’t like it.
15. Get a decent haircut. I look like my mother. And go every eight weeks, not every eight years.
‘I’ve brought you a flask of coffee. What are you doing?’ Isabel said from the doorway. It was still raining, and she was peering out from under the hood of her raincoat.
Behind her, Marcel and Antoine stood, tails wagging, doggy smiles on their faces, completely unbothered by the weather, just glad to be included in the way dogs often are.
‘Making a bucket list,’ I said, looking up and being mildly surprised to find I wasn’t already out doing new and exciting things, but was still only thinking and planning to do so. I went back to my list before I could forget this feeling.
16. Do the things on this list, don’t just think/talk about them.
‘Oh, have you developed some terrible disease since last night?’
‘No, but I do think I need to have some direction in future. I’ve been paddling around in the shallows for long enough. I’m sixty-three, how much longer do I have?’
‘Oh, stop it, you’re beginning to sound like Eugénie,’ Isabel said. ‘I’ve brought you a bit of cake, too, in a sandwich bag. And some more painkillers in case you’ve run out.’
‘Thank you, cake would be lovely, what sort?’
‘I made sponge cake and flapjacks, but I left the flapjacks in the oven too long and they are a bit dangerous. I didn’t know if your teeth would cope with them.’
17. Make a dental appointment for a check-up – not been for five years.
‘But I don’t think I need the painkillers,’ I said, ‘I think I’m okay.’
