by Sarah Tucker
‘Oh no, God no, Jane at work is being wonderful. I’ve told her stuff and she cried a lot, bless her, but she’s being wonderful. And Mick, well, Mick’s Mick and I’ve fudged it a bit as, well, as I don’t want to see his reaction. It won’t help me. I know he’s got a right to know, but it won’t help me.’
‘He should know, Doreen,’ I say, ‘he should know.’
‘I’ll tell him if it gets really serious.’
‘It sounds really serious already.’
‘No, no, we don’t know that yet. Not for sure. No need worrying him needlessly. And if there is something to worry about, then he’ll know he’ll have something to worry about rather that worrying about if he should be worried or not. No need worrying him needlessly because it doubles my stress rather than lessens it because he can’t handle the stress so I have to handle him being stressed as well as my stress if you see what I mean.’
Doreen is gabbling. She is stressed.
‘Well, I can handle the stress, Doreen. I can handle the stress. So what have you done about it?’
‘Been to the doctors. The doctor says it’s malignant, which obviously means the Big C. It’s strange when they say cancer. You expect them to say it in a whisper as though it’s a rude word, like fuck, but they don’t, they say it in a very matter-of-fact way, like book, or dog, or handbag. And I was a bit stunned when he told me because I thought it was a cyst and they’ve run in my family, so I thought it would be that. But it wasn’t. And he told me as I was on private that I could have it done immediately, which I obviously am. And I was due to have it today, but can’t because I’m working today and there’s an important conference call I’ve got to take, so it’s on Friday.’
I’m so angry.
‘What do you mean you were due to have the operation today and you’re not because you’re working? For Christ’s sake, Doreen, I don’t want you here, I want you in hospital. I want you here for many years to come, not today.’
‘Oh, Hazel, I am going in and I will be fine. Absolutely fine.’
‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘Only Jane and you, now. I haven’t told the other girls yet. I don’t want to rain on Fran’s parade. The girl’s getting married soon. And Carron has her own issues and Valerie’s wrapped up in little Nelly.’
‘I’m coming to the hospital with you on Friday.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’
‘No, I’m coming. You need some support for this. Even if you can’t tell Mick. You’ve been with me through my tough times. You were there through my divorce, sitting at the bottom of the stairs with me.’
‘Yes, I believe I told you to cut his balls off.’
‘Yes, well, perhaps that wasn’t your most constructive piece of advice ever.’
‘It would have worked, though.’
‘Doubtless it would, but I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you. I’m going to round up the girls. You need to tell them. They are your friends, Doreen. We can help.’
Chapter Seventeen
Confronting Fiona
Knock on the door.
I’m in the house with the girls. I’ve organised a light lunch round my place—for Doreen and the girls. Just nibbles and wine and stuff. They all know now. About the lump. About it being malignant. And hopefully it being caught in time. Because most are, aren’t they. That’s what we all think and say and say to Doreen, when we talk about it. Not that we want to make it the main point of conversation at the moment. Not at the moment. So it’s just me and the girls. Fran and I are going to the hospital with Doreen this week. She’s having her operation to have her breast removed. We’re going to give her support. Everyone is tense but trying to be very cool. We’re going to the hospital because we want to. And because she’s asked us. But she seems in good spirits. She’s talking about sex and boardroom politics and the guy at the gym with the cute arse as though she hasn’t a care in the world.
I open the door. A slim brown-haired girl with pretty eyes is staring at me. I have met this girl once before. Only once. She came into my office a month ago. Just to say hi to her boyfriend. Who at the time was Joe. At the time. Fiona is not smiling. I feign that I can’t remember her. Or that she was once Joe’s girlfriend. I check her hands for knives. But can’t see any. She’s with a friend, who’s taller and plumper than her and looks angrier than her. Fiona knows where I live. Play cool.
‘Hello.’ Her voice trembles slightly.
‘Hello, Fiona isn’t it?’
‘I understand you and Joe are seeing each other.’
I look at her. Her eyes are puffy and red. She looks tired. Not as tired as Doreen, but tired.
‘We’re not seeing each other, Fiona. We work together.’
‘I know what’s going on and I don’t know how you could do it.’
I can hear her voice breaking. I’m embarrassed for her. I don’t want her to carry on because I’ve been in her shoes. I wouldn’t do what she’s doing. I would have too much pride. But I feel for her. I resist the urge to mother her, just in case she has a knife hidden somewhere.
‘Have you spoken to Joe?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he more than likes you.’
Joe has told Fiona he more than likes me. I’m confused and rather cross. I don’t want to tell Fiona that Joe hasn’t told me he was going to tell her, or get into the nitty gritty of non-kiss, dirty dancing, because then that will cause unnecessary hurt, and because, damn it, I more than like him, too. But Joe, how can a man be so lucid in court and so bloody inept out of it? So I speak.
‘Right, well, that’s between Joe and I. If you have an issue with Joe, you should speak to Joe. Not to me.’
‘I’m asking you to leave him alone.’
‘It’s his decision, Fiona.’
I feel quite sick. I felt sick because of Doreen and her situation and now I feel even more sick. I may just throw up on the doorstep right in front of her. I remember David’s girlfriend saying this to me over the phone when I confronted her with their affair and this is what she said. It’s David’s decision. And I freeze, because I’m now the other woman. Okay, I haven’t split up a marriage where there is a child involved, but I’ve caused pain, this I can see on her face. This face that was so much happier when I first saw it. Fuck, double fuck, fuck. Why can’t she be nasty and angry? Much easier to come back against.
‘It’s also your decision.’
Christ, does everything go round in circles? This is just what I said to David’s girlfriend. That is exactly what I said. It’s also your decision, I said to her. And then I said to her, That is all I need to know about you. And hung up. Mind you, she turned out to be a neurotic, moody, incredibly arrogant cow who in the end made David’s life hell, so what do I care.
‘I think you should speak to Joe about this. This is none of my business. If you want to resolve it with him, you do it, but it’s none of my business.’
‘Have you kissed him?’ she asks. I can tell she’s praying for a no. She wants a no. Her whole demeanour tells me she wants me to say no so she can live the lie. She wants me to say we’ve just had tea together. I remember this is what I desperately wanted David’s girlfriend to say. Fat chance. If I say any more she will continue the conversation and I don’t want her to, for her sake as much as mine. So I say, ‘I’m with my friends, and this is not a good time.’
Fiona takes a breath. ‘All I want to say is, I couldn’t do what you have done. I couldn’t have stooped so low. I couldn’t have stolen someone else’s boyfriend. You could have any man you wanted and you took Joe. You took someone else’s love. I hope you’re pleased with yourself.’
Fiona leaves in tears. The best friend still scowling. I check for knives. No, still no knives. I can feel best friend is mouthing ‘I’ll be back’ like some Arnold Schwarzenegger clone.
I return to the girls who are staring at me. They’ve heard everything. I expect catcalls of bitch and sl
ut. Instead Carron says, ‘You handled that with grace and dignity and sensitivity.’
I hadn’t expected that from Carron.
Fran remarks, ‘You did. You could have been meaner or less honest, but you were sympathetic without being a pushover.’
‘So you’re not judging me?’ I say.
‘Friends don’t judge,’ adds Doreen matter-of-factly. ‘You said so yourself. Friends don’t put friends in little boxes. We like you for who you are, faults and all. Plus the fact you can get a man ten years your junior from a girl who looks like that, well, to be honest, you’ve made us all feel fucking good about turning forty. For fuck’s sake, you’ve had a girl looking that stunning telling you that you could get any man you want.’
‘You didn’t answer her but you can tell us, have you slept with him?’ Doreen asks.
‘No, I haven’t. Strange that, isn’t it. But, well, it’s quite exciting. Seeing each other every day, most days, and just waiting. He still needs time by himself, because of Fiona. I don’t know why he’s told her, because, well, he hasn’t told me. But strangely enough, we haven’t done anything.’
Doreen looks bemused. I don’t think she understands the concept of trying to get to know someone emotionally before you see them naked. I’ll be the first to admit I’m usually impatient for the first kiss and sexual encounter, mainly because I feel silly trying to play coy about what I want and don’t want. And also, to be blunt, because I love having sex. I’ve never been one of these women that prefers chocolate to sex, even bad sex. But then I’m much more fussy about my sex than I am about my chocolate. Being sexually innocent in your early twenties is provocative, being sexually innocent as you turn forty is just plain sad. However, I’m finding the fact Joe and I haven’t made love after all these months intensifies the electricity.
Four bottles of Chardonnay later, Waitrose nibbles, and peppermint teas, we are all emotionally exhausted and hoarse with philosophising about life, boob jobs and younger men.
The girls leave together. Fiona and best friend are not waiting with knives but the others come out with me just in case. To bear witness should I get stabbed.
Chapter Eighteen
Meeting Joe’s Parents
I understand.
Joe understands that the weekend he has organised for us in Verona, to be our first romantic time together since his split from Fiona has to be cancelled. He looks for a split second disappointed, but he understands. I resent the disappointment. Understand it, but resent it. Doreen is more important. But I see it in his eyes he understands. He says there will be a next time. And I say I hope so but that Doreen needs me now and I want her to have next times. And I want her to have a forty-first and forty-second and forty-third year that are good and wonderful. And I’m selfish, so I want her company. And I want her to spend some of her next times with me. I don’t want to lose her to a heaven that may not appreciate her the way I do. The way her friends do. I know she can be bossy and very abrupt and rude, but I’ve known her since I was eleven, I know she cares about all of us, and I love her dearly. I love her irreverence, her take-life-by-the-balls attitude, her drink from the cup and nick someone else’s and drink theirs, too, if they’re too stupid or lazy to do it. I love the way she defends her friends and family and yet isn’t averse to stripping us down a peg or two. I love the way when I meet her she greets me with an open warm smile and makes me laugh within the first few minutes, and gasp the next. I love the way I am when I’m with her.
But today, after work, I’m meeting Joe’s parents. Sheila and Norman Ryan. They’re not Australian, they just have Australian names. They’ve been married for over thirty years. Norman was a tennis player and deputy headmaster, who was in the army in India. He met Sheila when he was at a dance. It was an ‘excuse me,’ and Norman was dancing with another woman and Sheila excused the dance (very forward at the time because only men were supposed to do it) and she danced with him and the rest led to marriage and babies. In that order.
They live in a house in Richmond, so only a stone’s throw from me in Wimbledon village. They’re on the hill in a home they couldn’t afford if it were up for sale now. Fine for them. And they have a garden and a view of the river. And take walks along the green and occasionally meet the Attenboroughs (David and Richard) who are on nodding terms with them, if not buddy-buddy. All this I hear in the car on the way to Joe’s parents. He talks about them with an open affection. He doesn’t come across as a mummy’s or daddy’s boy. More someone who has been loved and nurtured by both of them. I’m looking forward to meeting them.
I want to make a good impression so I’ve spent an hour prior in the bathroom trying to make myself look beautiful, and okay, I admit it, younger.
I’m still upstairs de-ageing my face when he knocks on our door. I’m trying to puff out those lines round my eyes. The Dermologica package says it will ‘kill the wrinkles round the eye area.’ It contains Vitamin E, Vitamin C and Provitamin B5 and licorice, comfrey and burdock. Am I supposed to put this on my face or eat it? But the lines are still there. I can still see the lines. Lots of the little fucking things. And they are not disappearing. They are still there. I can see them. I don’t need a microscope. And they’re not laughter lines, they’re I’m-getting-older lines. And I’m getting facial hairs. Lots of them. I’ve got a definite moustache. Okay, it’s only light and white and fluffy but it’s definitely there. It could turn into a hard brittle one and then Joe will get chin burn like I did when I went out with Simon that time and he was such a passionate kisser but I had this big horrible scab on my chin for weeks. Everyone thought I had scabies, whatever that is.
I’m ready. I check myself out in the mirror. I look okay. I’m wearing pink. I look good in pink. Can a woman turning forty still wear pink? Not if she looks forty. But what does a forty-year-old look like these days? Everyone is looking better, fitter, younger. So I look good for my age because I don’t look my age, so is age a moot point? Oh, shut up, mind. Shut up. Shut up. Just look in the mirror, Hazel, and look at yourself and tell me what you see. I see a woman wearing pink who is glowing with happiness and nerves and anticipation and feels like a teenager meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time. But it’s the real first time, because I’ve never felt quite this excited before. Not even when I met David’s parents, mainly because they were so under-whelmed with meeting me. Of course, Joe’s may be the same. Perhaps it’s me and parents. But this time I want to impress, but I want to be me. And if I’m myself I think they’ll like me.
I walk down stairs. Joe’s wearing all black and looks edible. The only way to describe him is edible. He looks at me as though he wants to eat me, too. Perhaps this is not a good look to nurture in front of my daughter or his parents. I go toward him and kiss him on both cheeks and then notice Sarah, who is grinning from ear to ear. Sarah shakes hands and asks if he wants something to drink. I say we’ve got to go, Joe says we have time and he would love to. I think, shit, this leaves time for Sarah to make immediate spontaneous decision about whether she hates or just loathes him, and is this wise.
I leave them in the kitchen chatting. It’s best to leave them by themselves. They’re still talking half an hour later so I walk in.
Sarah looks up and smiles at me. ‘Hi, Mum, I’ve got to go now. Joe was telling me how he knows about the college I’ll be at. He says the music scene is very good there.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, anyway, have a lovely time. Good to see you again, Joe.’
She gets up, and says, ‘Have fun.’
And I look at her and think she means it. I think she likes him. I think she likes him. But not that way.
Quickly, she kisses me on the cheek and whispers, ‘I like him.’
The journey to Richmond takes less than ten minutes, despite the fact that traffic in this pretty part of just out of London suburb is usually dreadful. He tells me I look beautiful and strokes my cheek. I just want to look young.
Two people stand in
the doorway of a large Victorian house fronted with large pink and yellow hydrangeas. They look in their late fifties but Joe assures me both his parents are in their seventies and eighties, his father being ten years older than his mother. They smile. The man’s whole face beams. The woman’s smile is on her lips. To be expected as I’m dating her little boy. I try not to fall over or trip up as I walk along their pathway, as they’re able to stand for a good few seconds before I’m able to shake hands and introduce myself. I feel about sixteen. They ignore my hand and give me a hug each which I find rather sweet.
I get shown to the sitting room, which is immaculate but in a comfortable sort of way. Creams and browns and some greens and navy everywhere, with watercolours of boats. Some pictures I recognise of Tuscany and Florence and Siena, probably painted by local artists. I get the ‘Joe has told us a lot about you. Lovely to meet you. So I believe you live near here. Oh yes, but sorry we took such a long time getting here’ chatter.
Cups of tea and battenburg cake (I didn’t know they still made that) with bread pudding (made by Sheila) are put out, and tinned salmon sandwiches with cucumber. The Ritz couldn’t have done better. Norman tells me about his time in India and how he was given the toilets to clean and put so much water over them, none of the soldiers bothered to use them. Sheila tells me how when Joe was born, Norman was playing tennis for the county, and won that day. He was playing doubles with his partner Norman Booth, and it was quoted in the local newspaper. Norman Ryan won the Richmond Cup today with Norman Booth spurred on by the birth of son Joe who was born as the last game was played. Sheila shows me the newspaper cutting which she presents with pride. They ask about Sarah, who I explain is off to college this year, to become, hopefully a journalist or barrister or actor, she can’t work out which. They talk about Joe in an affectionate but not cloying way and they make me feel, like, well, like one of the family. Sheila tells me some stories about Joe as a little boy while we eat supper, lasagne cooked to perfection, and the most alcoholic sherry trifle I’ve ever eaten (and enjoyed). They’re funny and fun, warm and unpretentious and I’m not surprised they’ve produced a son like Joe. Doesn’t always follow, it’s just nice to know it does sometimes.