‘You don’t seem happy – and I don’t mean just about your team not winning.’
‘I’m fine, Cait. I don’t need you to tell me what to do.’
‘Fine. I’m off then.’
‘Where to?’
‘Work. It’s Monday. I work at the surgery. Remember?’
‘Course.’
‘Then I’m going to pop in to see Lorna.’
‘What for?’
‘I said I’d drop off a book.’
‘What is it?’
‘A House Full of Daughters.’
‘What’s it about?’
She looked at her watch. ‘Matt, when have you ever shown any interest in what I’m reading?’
‘So what was it about?’
‘I’m late. I’ll tell you when I get back.’
‘What time will that be?’
I could see her grit her teeth. ‘Not sure.’
‘What’s for lunch?’
I knew I was being annoying, I couldn’t stop myself. You always hurt the one you love, so the saying goes, and I did love Cait, but I’d let her down and that was hard to live with. Although we’d both worked in our lives, I’d always been the main breadwinner and had been happy to be so. I’d liked being able to provide, prided myself on being someone who could be depended upon. Plus, for decades, I’d been Matt Langham, programme-maker, a man with an interesting job, somebody. Now what was I? Who was I? Matt Langham. Who was he now? What had he got to contribute? I felt as if I’d gone back to the boy I was when fifteen years old, unsure of where he wanted to go or what he wanted to be. I was rudderless. Just Matt Langham, and it scared the crap out of me.
‘Fridge is full. Take your pick.’
‘Just wanted to know if you’d be joining me, that’s all, no need to get pissed off.’
‘I’m not pissed off. I … oh never mind.’
‘Never mind? You don’t seem happy, Cait, never mind me. What are you feeling?’ As if she’d like to throttle me, by the look on her face.
‘I’m feeling I’ve got to get going, Matt, thanks for your concern. Er … don’t you think you ought to get dressed?’
‘Why?’
‘In case someone comes to the door later.’
‘Who cares? I don’t. I’m retired, a free man,’ I said as I indicated the pile of cards I’d put back on the dresser, ‘free to choose what I want to do; least that’s what they all say. So I can wear what I want when I want, and if I choose to wear my dressing gown all day then I can.’
‘OK. Right. Fine. See you later.’
‘Probably. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Maybe you could go and get some new paint brochures. If we’re going to sell up, we’ll need to bring the house into this century.’
‘I wouldn’t bother,’ I said. ‘If we do have to sell, people will only paint over in their own choices.’
Cait sighed. ‘That may well be, but I wouldn’t want estate agents saying “in need of modernization” on our house description. It doesn’t sound good. A lick of paint will make it look more attractive – lighter, brighter. We have been meaning to do it for years. Besides, it will give you—’
‘Give me what? Go on, say it – something to do, that’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? Well, I don’t need anything to do, thank you very much.’
Cait was about to speak, but stopped herself and left. I heard the front door slam a moment later. I’d been mean, goaded her. Why? I hadn’t planned to. If pushed, I could tell her I felt like a failure, but what good would that do? None, I know she thinks I’m a miserable old prick who ought to have a shave then get out and do something useful. Should I tell her how sorry I felt? No, in my business, you never admitted failure, you kept smiling through and talked it up, up up. Media work is all about good PR. Maybe Cait and I should have a huge row, let it all out, clear the air. No, best not, best we try and weather the storm, sigh a lot. This too will pass. So what to do? Look up nose- and ear-trimmers on Amazon?
I gathered the small pile of How to Survive Retirement books and went to sit back on the sofa in the sitting room to read or throw them out the window.
*
Cait
Chin hairs plucked: 2
Senior moments: 2 1) Raced upstairs to fetch something before going to work. Got to bedroom. No idea what I’d gone up there to get. Stood there like an idiot. Went back downstairs.
2) Put Savlon on my toothbrush. The tubes look so similar. Bleurgh.
Supplements taken: fish oil for dry eyes, cataract prevention, joints and brain.
Got to my job at the surgery. I was glad to have escaped Matt and the Temple of Doom.
As soon as I walked in, Mary, the pretty blonde duty nurse, called me over. ‘Susan wants to see you,’ she said as she tied her dark hair back into a knot.
Susan was the practice manager. I went and knocked on her door. She was sitting behind her desk, a mousy-looking woman with thick glasses, which magnified her eyes and gave her a permanently startled look.
‘Come in. Ah. Caitlin,’ she said.
‘You wanted to see 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. Lost my job today. Any ideas? Back to teaching? Library work? Stripper? There must be a call somewhere for wrinkly old ladies who can jiggle their bits. I could work old people’s homes on birthdays. Pop out of a cake in my Spanx stretch-mesh bodysuit 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.
5
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. Ty
pical 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 have a small job for Matt,’ said Debs. ‘I need someone to rewrite the copy for my brochures and website for the spa. He could do that, couldn’t he?’
‘I’m sure he could.’ I knew Debs was being kind and was perfectly capable of writing her own copy. She ran a successful health centre on the outskirts of Bath where all types of alternative therapists practised. Despite some of her airy-fairy beliefs, she was a very good businesswoman.
Dancing Over the Hill Page 4