and give them a heart attack. I could be the fun alternative to Dignitas – cheaper too. And oh, guess who got in touch? Tom Lewis. I told you about him once. He contacted me through Facebook of all places. I haven’t accepted him as a friend yet. What do you think? I’m curious to know what he’s been up to for the last forty years.’
No. I wasn’t ready to tell her about Tom yet, so I deleted it. I’ll be seeing her with Debs tomorrow, I told myself. I can talk to both of them then.
*
At seven o’clock, I went to my writing class in the village hall. The topic was ‘Turning Points’, and we had to do an exercise listing those times in our own life. Easy peasy, I thought as I wrote:
Matt losing his job.
Me losing my job.
Message from Tom.
Deaths of Mum and Eve.
Jed and Sam leaving home.
Discovering I can no longer get into size twelve.
Now … how to turn those topics into a fun children’s book, there was a challenge. I spent the rest of the class thinking about Tom Lewis and remembering what we used to get up to under his Indian bedspread.
Cait
Items lost:1) Mobile phone (again). Found it in the fridge.2) Reading glasses, searched everywhere, sitting room, bedroom, bathroom. Found them on top of my head.
Supplements taken:1) Garlic, good for everything and keeps vampires at bay.2) Devil’s claw for arthritis.
Senior moments: 2.1) Sent birthday card, meant for my friend Annie in Manchester, to her sister Jess in Brighton. Annie’s name. Jess’s address. Luckily Jess let me know and forwarded it.2) Went out in a rush to meet Debs and Lorna for an early supper and only noticed when I got to the restaurant that I was wearing odd sneakers, one blue, one grey.
‘So. What’s on the agenda tonight?’ asked Lorna after our waiter had taken our orders for pasta and they’d had a good laugh about my shoes.
‘Debs?’ I asked.
‘Me finding a new man,’ she replied. Her partner, Fabio, had left her six months ago. They’d been to Wales to do a Tantric sex workshop and Fabio had fallen in love with the woman running it. He was now living in the Welsh mountains and, according to Debs, was getting laid on every ley line.
‘And you, Cait?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Matt and I are both unemployed.’
‘But the surgery?’ Debs asked.
‘Not needed any more. I don’t know what we’re going to do. It wasn’t meant to be like this at my age. We were supposed to be retired, a picture of happy contentment, sitting on rocking chairs on a veranda in the sunset without a care in the world, grandchildren and dogs at our feet.’
‘Chewing tobacco and strumming a banjo,’ added Debs. ‘Is there a white picket fence in there somewhere too?’
‘Course.’
‘You’d be bored out of your mind.’
‘Probably. What about you Lorna?’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing in particular.’ I never pushed her to talk about Alistair, because she wasn’t one to air her grief in public; that wasn’t her style and I’d taken my lead from her after Mum and Eve died. Lorna was a doer, not one to wallow – or tolerate other people wallowing, for that matter – but lately, I could tell by the shadows under her eyes and the weight loss she didn’t need, that she still missed her late husband sorely.
‘OK, back to you Cait,’ said Debs as the waiter brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio and poured three glasses. ‘What exactly happened to Matt?’
‘There was nothing for him to do, he was told, and not to waste the train fare.’
‘That’s appalling,’ said Lorna.
‘Yes, total crap. Didn’t he see it coming?’ asked Debs. ‘They can’t just drop him with no warning.’
‘He knows that there are tribunals he could go to but I don’t think he wants to go that route, losing his job was humiliation enough.’
‘I must check his horoscope and yours. It will be Uranus causing trouble somewhere. Uranus is the planet that brings the unexpected. If it’s badly placed, it can cause surprises like you both losing your jobs.’
Lorna rolled her eyes. Although we were both used to Debs’s predilection for consulting the stars on every occasion, Lorna always had to let it be known she thought it was all nonsense.
‘I can see you rolling your eyes, Lorna, and that’s because you’re Scorpio which means that you would scoff at astrology. Typical of the sign.’
‘Sure,’ said Lorna.
Debs was Gemini and a heart-on-her-sleeve type: open minded, great communicator, endlessly curious, exploring meditation techniques and alternative therapies and passing on her newfound discoveries to everyone, whether they were interested or not. Not that she always practised what she preached. She advocated healthy eating, detoxifying and regular liver cleanses, but drank like a fish, loved a takeaway and occasionally smoked roll-ups. She talked about forgiveness, taking responsibility and not blaming others, but was furious about Fabio and, so far, hadn’t found a remedy to restore her equilibrium. Neither Lorna nor I had dared ask her if the break-up had been foreseen in her horoscope.
‘Will he get any redundancy money?’ asked Debs.
‘A small amount. It’s all a sore subject. Whenever I ask he says, “Just leave it, Cait, not now.” It’s never the right time and I haven’t been able to have a proper talk about it with him.’
Debs tutted. ‘He probably needs to talk.’
‘Not to me apparently.’
‘Maybe he can get another job,’ said Lorna as our waiter brought a starter plate of toasted ciabatta with tomatoes, garlic and herbs. ‘Part-time. Consultancy. Surely his experience counts for something?’
‘That’s what I said, but he said apparently not. It’s a young person’s business.’
‘Another job then?’ Debs suggested.
‘I put that to him as well. “Doing what?” he asked. “Stacking shelves in Tesco’s? No one hires sixty year olds in my business,” he said. He’s very down.’
‘And what about you?’
‘I’ve been looking, but there’s nothing that really appeals.’
‘I
