The Time of Their Lives

by Maeve Haran

  ‘How long till we get the results?’

  ‘I’m afraid the lab needs a week before they report.’

  Sal felt like screaming. All this modern technology and it still took a week!

  She put her on her clothes, trying to think about what the tests might discover.

  There was a coffee shop in the foyer. The aroma reminded her that she hadn’t had any food for hours and that she was starving, so she treated herself to a large cappuccino and a toffee muffin.

  The whole of the next table was taken up by a group of medical staff wearing light-blue scrubs and discussing their mortgage payments. Surely they shouldn’t be out here gathering bacteria while discussing variable interest rates? Sal decided to listen in. If she wasn’t going to find out whether she had breast cancer, maybe she’d at least hear of a cheap mortgage deal.

  And then, halfway through her muffin, she burst into tears.

  CHAPTER 11

  ‘First of all, hello, everybody, my name is Suzanne and my colleague here is Stephen. We’re going to be assisting you in your relationship recovery.’

  St Alphage’s Church Hall was a large, chilly building which the local playgroup had clearly tried to cheer up with colourful collages stuck on with cotton wool. One entire screen was covered in children’s paintings of an assortment of ghosts and ghoulies from Halloween and another with the shepherds and the three kings in an early nod to Christmas. A small convection heater attempted to bring warmth to the twelve chairs set around one end.

  ‘We’d like to start by acknowledging your pain,’ continued Suzanne, who was clearly wrapped up in three layers of warm lamb’s wool. ‘You have been through one of the most distressing and agonizing experiences of your life. I think we should all be silent and take a moment to recognize that.’

  Everyone closed their eyes and looked down, as if it were the minute’s silence on Remembrance Sunday. Laura, despite acknowledging her pain, felt the temptation to giggle.

  ‘Why don’t we all begin by introducing ourselves before you start on your own personal relationship recovery?’

  Laura felt herself flinch. Somehow, every time she heard the words ‘relationship recovery’, she imagined a TM for ‘trademark’ on the end.

  The group of ten consisted of seven women of varying ages, from one in her twenties to the oldest who, Laura guessed, had to be well over seventy. Clearly you were never too old to divorce. Most of the women were in their late thirties or early forties. One, she discovered, was even here for the second time.

  Somewhat to Laura’s surprise there were also three men.

  Each stated their name and a simple sentence on what had happened to make their relationship disintegrate. It was the usual pattern so familiar to fans of TV soap operas: infidelity, unreasonable behaviour, arguments over money, fights over children. There were also one or two new notes.

  ‘I’m Louise,’ the white-haired lady Laura had spotted earlier was speaking, ‘and as you can see, I’m nearly eighty. My marriage came to an end because, frankly, I just stopped trying to make it work.’

  ‘Ouch,’ murmured one group member to another, acknowledging how many marriages would crumble if more women did the same.

  When it came to Laura’s turn she stood up, just as the others had done. ‘Hello, I’m Laura. My husband Simon left me for a younger woman. On our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.’

  A murmur of shocked sympathy ricocheted round the group, which Laura took in with a certain guilty pleasure.

  In a way, the men were the most interesting. The oldest, Gerald, reminded her a little of Simon. He had the bemused yet angry look of a cornered bull. ‘My wife went off, not with another man, just went off. She said if she was going to live another thirty years, she wasn’t living it with me.’

  One or two of the women exchanged glances of immediate understanding. Maybe they had felt the same.

  Ricky, in his thirties, was clearly something of a Jack-the-lad, faithless but charming enough to carry it off – at least for a while. ‘My missus said I was addicted to other women and she’d had enough.’

  Laura was surprised that someone like him had bothered to come, but maybe underneath all the smart talk he’d had enough of a jolt to end up here.

  The last, Calum, was probably in his late fifties, more prosperous-looking than the others in his khaki-coloured shirt, with black T-shirt underneath, with his well-cut grey hair and dark wool coat. ‘To be honest,’ he shrugged with what seemed to be likeable honesty, ‘I’m not sure why my wife left me. She said it was because we never saw each other but I think there was a lot more to it. That’s what I’m hoping to find out.’

  ‘Good,’ congratulated Suzanne. ‘That leads me neatly back to our session. Today we’re going to ask ourselves one question: What was our own role in the break-up of our relationship?’

  One or two people in the group, especially Gerald, looked unhappy at even admitting they had a role.

  ‘What if it wasn’t our fault at all?’ he demanded.

  ‘That’s not really the point, Gerald. This isn’t about fault. I want you to look at it differently. All of us have a part in what happens to us. It may have been the initial choice we made, or the reasons we chose that person, which were more to do with us than with them. Perhaps there are patterns – avoiding conflict, assigning blame – which we follow in all our relationships.’

  Laura thought about her marriage to Simon. How had she not known her husband was having a six-month affair? The truth was she’d been a bit relieved that he hadn’t wanted sex much; it meant she could read her book in peace. Hadn’t she been somewhat complacent about the time he spent away from home? And beyond that, was there not a part of her that didn’t really like him any more? Perhaps Simon had sensed that and it had been part of why he sought out Suki’s arms instead.

  Suzanne went round the circle eliciting from each member an admission that they all had some input into the demise of their relationships.

  ‘In my case, quite a lot,’ Calum, the last to speak, admitted. ‘I think my wife put up with a lot from me before she left. I used work as an excuse not to play as much a part with our children as I should have. When they were little, I found them a bit dull and when they were older, they didn’t like me much.’ He shrugged as if he could quite see their point. ‘It’s better now. They seem to have been able to get on with their lives. So has my ex-wife. Funnily enough, I’m the one who’s stalled.’

  ‘Right, time’s up, I’m afraid,’ Suzanne announced with the brisk sympathy which seemed the hallmark of her trade. ‘That’s an excellent start. Next time we’ll be looking at the reasons why you are better off without the other person – even if you can’t see that yet. Goodbye, and thank you all for coming. You have taken the first step towards relationship recovery.’

  Again Laura heard that hidden echo of branding and smiled.

  ‘Is breaking up not that hard for you to do?’ a voice asked. She found Calum behind her. ‘I was quoting the song,’ he explained, ‘not trying to pry, by the way.’

  ‘Actually, I wasn’t thinking about my marriage.’

  ‘That has to be a good thing.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He held out a hand. It was reassuringly firm. ‘I’m Calum. See you next week.’

  As she walked towards the tube, Laura felt the shadow of her pain lessen a little. Bella had been right. Just talking about it with people you didn’t know but who shared your situation was helpful. She had wanted to shelter her kids from the pain by not saying what she really felt and her friends just wanted to defend her. But here she would have to decide if being defended would really help her.

  Sal sat at her screen and tried to make a list of ideas for New Grey. Not surprisingly, the recurring theme seemed to be about breast cancer: Angelina’s double mastectomy; post-surgery swim-wear; the importance of breast screening. One figure she’d gleaned from her researches really hit her. She and all her friends might think they were still young but you wer
e ten times more likely to get breast cancer at sixty than at forty.

  Come on, Sal, stop all this.

  At least she’d had lots to do preparing for the new job to take her mind off waiting to hear from the hospital.

  She went back to her ideas list. Given the long lead times on magazines, by the time she joined New Grey they would already be working on the Easter issue.

  Sal loved spring. It meant new beginnings, longer days, the promise of summer. The readers of New Grey had time on their hands, limited resources and a huge thirst for knowledge. What about a travel piece on Easter in different places from Seville to St Petersburg to Rio? They could do a tie-in contest with one of the intelligent travel companies who provided really knowledgeable local guides.

  Sal thumbed through her pile of copies of the magazine. She had been studying these along with the New Grey website. What they really needed, Sal decided, were some new columnists, especially an entertaining one. The usual practice would be to sign up a well-known celebrity with a talent in wisecracking humour. The only problem with this was the budget. Celebs expected celebrity fees. And they were often a nightmare to deal with.

  Sal began to browse the web again. When she’d raised the question with Rose McGill, Rose had said she’d stumbled across a funny blog while looking for a discussion of sex for the over-sixties. ‘You should read it. It’s got a wonderful title – a pun on EAT PRAY LOVE – but blow me if I can remember it. I’ll let you know when it comes to me.’ Rose McGill had laughed loudly. ‘I warn you, it’ll probably be in the middle of the night.’

  As Sal sat here, hand on her chin, staring into space, trying not to think about cancer, three words leapt suddenly onto the screen of her phone: MOAN FART DIE.

  It was a message from Rose McGill. ‘Just remembered the name of the funny blog. Enjoy. Rose.’

  A moment later Sal was reading it and laughing uproariously. The writer of this was certainly someone with an uncompromising sense of humour. No sentiment wasted here.

  With a tickle of excitement she read through the blog. Maybe the writer could be her new discovery!

  To her disappointment there were no details given about the blogger. No picture. No self-serving descriptions of the individual’s previous career. And, so far, only three posts.

  The first was entitled: WHY DO MEN LEAVE THEIR WIVES AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS?

  Sal read it at once, grinning and squirming in equal measure. This was great stuff. Biting. Witty. Outrageous in its black humour. This must surely be written by someone whose own husband of twenty-five years had recently left them. Yikes. Poor guy. He was being slowly skewered on the turnspit of his ex’s merciless wit.

  Should she show Laura this? No, maybe she was still too raw. The next blog was a very funny quiz to find out if you were old yet. The final post was probably the one that had caught Rose’s eye: STILL SEXY AT SIXTY. But do the over-sixties actually want more sex?

  What followed was a hilarious demolition job on every famous person from Jane Fonda to Joan Collins who claimed that sex had never been better, and the writer’s own submission that after sixty, sex – no matter how erotically it was offered – couldn’t touch a glass of wine and an old movie.

  Yes, thought Sal, even keener now, if I could get the writer of this to do a column for New Grey, it would be really new and original.

  When the doorbell rang she didn’t even take it in, so caught up was she with her new discovery. It turned out to be her upstairs neighbour, clutching a letter which had been put in her post box by accident.

  Sal saw at once it was from the Princess Lily Hospital.

  Sensing her neighbour’s interest in this development she resisted the temptation to tear it open there and then, thanked her, and shut the door.

  Once inside, Sal ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter, tearing it as she did.

  The letter gave no information, but merely called her back for her follow-up appointment. Sal panicked and looked at her watch to check the date. She hadn’t missed it. It was in two days’ time.

  A fine mist still hung in the trees, lit from behind by veiled pink sunlight, giving Moulsford Woods a peculiar and delicate magic even at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.

  Wenceslaus had gone ahead, his nose wrinkled like a truffle hound’s.

  ‘Look, El-la!’ he called excitedly. ‘Is chanterelle. See there, buried under big tree!’

  At her feet Ella spotted a shiny ochre-yellow fungus the size of her hand, buried under leaves and mud.

  She knelt down and started to scrape the mud off. A small snail fell out and Ella shuddered.

  ‘Snail likes chanterelle too.’

  ‘Careful, Mum, let’s make sure it really is a chanterelle!’

  Ella repressed the annoyance she was feeling at Julia, both for being her usual bossy self, and also for being here at all, especially clutching a mushroom-picker’s handbook. Neither Ella nor Wenceslaus had invited her and yet she had turned up at 5.30 a.m. armed with coffee, croissants and the guidebook to spotting the different fungi. God knows where she’d even found a café that was open.

  Still, it was too glorious a morning to be resentful. The sun was rising now, burnishing the tops of the trees with gold, and it felt as though they might be the only people awake in the world, or in London anyway, witnessing all this beauty.

  ‘It says here there’s something called a false chanterelle which looks the same but isn’t edible.’ Julia pointed to the collection in Wenceslaus’ basket. ‘That one’s an oyster mushroom, that’s definitely edible. And those are just normal field mushrooms like the ones you buy at the greengrocer’s.’

  Ella realized Julia was slipping into head-girl mode, Ella’s least favourite Julia mood.

  ‘That’s a penny bun.’

  ‘Can you actually eat that?’ Ella asked, poking the large mushroom with a tawny pink top, which did indeed look a bit like those old-fashioned loaves.

  ‘Absolutely,’ decreed Julia. ‘Apparently, it’s delicious with pine nuts and lemon. Oh my God, what is that smell?’

  From behind his back Wenceslaus, a wicked look in his eye, produced a six-inch fungus with a slimy green cap on top shaped exactly like a penis.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ demanded Ella.

  Julia’s gaze stayed fixed on Wenceslaus and the penis.

  In the end, Ella grabbed the book. ‘I think it must be a Stinkhorn. Phallus impudicus. Well, it certainly looks impudicus to me, not to mention positively erectus. Insects eat the green slime, it says here, and spread the mushroom’s spores that way.’

  Eventually Julia managed to drag her eyes away from Wenceslaus and his phallus, but only after an indecently long time. ‘Look, Mum! There’s a puffball.’ Quite a small one but I bet it’ll taste good! Let’s all go back and have it for breakfast.’

  ‘And this is edible? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ Julia was back to being head girl now, ‘I am absolutely one hundred per cent sure.’ Just as they were leaving Julia spotted a small pink-capped mushroom and slipped it in with the others. ‘We can look that one up at home.’

  Half an hour later, they were sitting round the kitchen table, tucking into fresh-picked mushrooms on toast, cooked by Julia in lashings of butter, and tasting like food straight from Heaven.

  Ella noticed that Julia was giving all the best mushrooms to Wenceslaus, and hoped it was only because it was his birthday.

  An impatient knock on the door heralded the arrival of Neil, even angrier than usual, to collect Julia for a visit to their sons. ‘We’re supposed to have left half an hour ago!’ he informed Julia, casting a hostile glance round the table, especially at Wenceslaus. ‘I’m glad you were happy to cook his breakfast rather than mine.’

  ‘You didn’t get up at dawn to pick the mushrooms.’

  ‘And why weren’t you answering your damn phone?’

  ‘I forgot it.’

  He glanced at the phone on the table. ‘What’s that, then?’


  ‘That’s an iPhone,’ Julia pointed out. ‘It’s Mum’s.’

  ‘You mean your mother has an iPhone?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘Wenceslaus bought it for her.’

  ‘Well, I hope it was with his money, not hers.’

  Wenceslaus said nothing, refusing to take the bait.

  ‘What a particularly unpleasant thing to say, Neil,’ Ella replied.

  ‘We must get on the road. The boys will be waiting. Naturally, their grandmother doesn’t want to come and visit her grandsons,’ he added.

  ‘Their grandmother doesn’t think they should even be at boarding school,’ Ella replied affably. ‘But as she feels it’s entirely your decision, she stays well out of it.’

  Wenceslaus, clearly wishing to remove himself from the miasma of disapproval Neil had brought into the room, began to clear the table.

  After Julia and her husband had left, Ella tackled the frying pan. The basket of mushrooms next to the oven was empty. ‘Gosh, we got through the whole lot.’ Behind her she heard the sound of Wenceslaus violently retching. With great presence of mind he made for the downstairs loo.

  Ella remembered that Julia had slipped an extra mushroom in with the others, intending to identify it later. Half of it was still on the floor. Ella picked it up and opened the book. Its name spoke for itself. Russula nobilis. It was closely related to the Russula emetica, the Beechwood Sickener.

  ‘Come on, laddie,’ Ella ordered him with a presence of mind equal to his own, ‘get in the car. I’m taking you to hospital.’ She handed him a bowl to have on his knee. ‘Just throw up in there.’

  Laura saw the letter the moment she walked in the door.

  There were others on the mat but there was something about this one that gave off trouble like the glow of lethal radiation. The stationery was cream vellum and the paper was thick and superior. Laura picked it up and examined it. In the corner was a franked stamp with the words Merlin & Whittle, Solicitors.

  The tiny stream of relief and self-confidence that had started to flow in her was instantly dammed.