me?’
‘I did. I do. No other way to put this, but we won’t be needing you any more. Margaret’s maternity leave is over and she wants to come back as soon as possible.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’ve been a godsend,’ Susan continued, ‘and … you always knew it was temporary, right?’
‘I did.’ Margaret had been on maternity leave for a year and a half and I’d begun to think that she wouldn’t be back.
‘I’ll let you know if anything else comes up – that is, if you’re still available.’
‘Right. Thanks. When is she coming back exactly?’
‘Ah yes, about that. As soon as you’ve worked your notice. You were supposed to have been told last week but it appears that … well … bit of a mix-up. Embarrassing. One of those tasks that everyone thought someone else had done. Mary thought I’d told you, I thought she’d told you. Unforgivable. My apologies.’ She didn’t look very sorry. She looked as if she wanted me to go as soon as possible.
‘Right. Got it.’
‘Thanks for filling in for her, Caitlin, really, you’ve been a star and, once again, so sorry not to have let you know before.’
‘No problem.’
Big problem.
*
After work, I bought a paper then went to the café opposite for a coffee and a think. Talk about bad timing. A few weeks ago, it wouldn’t have mattered so much, but now it did. We needed every penny that I brought in. I needed to make a list so got out my notebook.
Options:
Get another job, any old job. Don’t want to.
Go back into teaching. Too much admin these days and been there, done that. I need a job, not a career.
Buy Scratch cards. No. Waste of money. Will buy one anyway.
Rob a bank. Haven’t got a gun. Put ‘get water pistol’ on the shopping list. Wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.
Go to bed and hide under the duvet. Tempting, though can’t remember when I last had a good night’s sleep.
Research sleep remedies.
Message Tom Lewis, have steamy hot affair. As if.
I went back to my notebook and wrote:
Reasons not to contact Tom Lewis.
I am married.
That way madness lies.
I have bunions, occasional chin hair and senior moments. Hardly love’s young dream.
It’s all very well meeting up with an old lover when you’re young and fit, I thought, quite another when your body is on a fast journey south. Tom would remember me as a young woman, long limbed and skinny, not an old bird with wrinkly knees. Forty years was a long time ago. I hadn’t responded to his Facebook request so I didn’t know where he was now or why he had got in touch, apart from to say hi, I’m still alive. Maybe he just wants to catch up. Fine. All the same, he may still be shocked if he saw me now. Forget him, Cait. Be sensible. Task in hand. Job. Work. Money. Put any nonsense about Tom out of your mind.
What was it Dad always said? ‘Sink or swim. Those are your choices.’ That was it. I don’t want to sink so I’d better buck up my ideas and start swimming, I thought. Get home, get focused. I can do it. I’ll find something else or make a plan, write a book. I’ll think of something.
*
‘How was your day?’ asked Matt on hearing me come through the front door.
‘I’m no longer needed.’
‘At the surgery?’
‘Yep. Just have to work my notice then that’s it.’
‘Oh.’
‘I know. Oh.’
‘Bad luck, Cait. I am sorry. Want a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks. I’ll be up in my study looking for a new job.’
‘No. Come on. Relax. Go and see Lorna as you’d planned. You’ve had a knock. There’s plenty of time to look for a job.’
‘Is there? And how are the bills to be paid?’
‘We have enough money for a—’
‘Six months, a year if we live frugally,’ I said. I knew I sounded snappy and instantly regretted it.
Matt put up his hands and backed away. ‘Fine. You do it your way.’
‘I will.’
I went up to my study and shut the door. I felt bad. It wasn’t Matt’s fault that I’d lost my job. I’d been short with him. I am a meanie as well as unemployed. I must resolve to be more patient.
I had a quick look through the paper but there were only a couple of jobs for building construction workers and one for a receptionist in a tattoo parlour. Not really my line.
I looked at my computer and reread Tom Lewis’s message. ‘Never forget, you were always one of the cool ones.’ And look at me now, I thought. Not so cool after all, Tom. Unemployed, over the hill, and mean to my husband. I thought about deleting the message but, as my finger hovered over the button, I hesitated. Should I reply to him? No. What good could possibly come of it? Just say hi? Wish him well? No. Not today, anyway.
Lorna. I’ll go and see Lorna as Matt suggested and talk to her about it. She was my go-to friend for advice. I’d known her since I first came to Bath over twenty years ago, when Sam and Jed were in junior school. We’d met at the school gate when we waited in all weathers to pick up our kids and had clicked from the start. She was working as a GP back then and I’d liked her intelligent face, no-nonsense manner and dry sense of humour – still did – and though she was eight years younger than me, I’d always felt that she was the older sister I’d never had. Much as I loved Debs, her solution to most problems was to do the Tarot cards or howl at the sky on a full moon. Her advice was never what I expected, like the time Jed had got into trouble at school for giving cheek to a teacher. ‘Good for him,’ she’d said. ‘Shows he’s not going along with the crowd.’ And the time Sam had been sacked from a summer holiday job as a waiter for dropping food all over a customer, she’d suggested that we go over to the restaurant after closing hours and write ‘Shut down due to rats’ on their door. I knew she meant well, but she’d always been a rule breaker and her advice and behaviour were not always appropriate. I loved spending time with Debs because she was fun, but Lorna was the one I turned to if I really needed to talk. I picked up the phone to call her but it went to message so I decided to email her.
‘Hi Lorna.
