Dancing Over the Hill

by Cathy Hopkins

  I was staring at the screen and suddenly realized that, although my privacy settings meant that friends only could see my page, Tom would have seen my profile picture. I groaned. It was a photograph of Debs and me, taken one evening last year at a Chinese restaurant. We’d thought it would be hilarious if we put chopsticks up our nostrils and take a selfie. Not the image I’d have wanted Tom to see after so long, but too late for that.

  I scrolled down to my photos that could be seen by friends. There were lots of me acting the fool, cross-eyed in one, dressed as a nun and flashing a leg at a friend’s birthday in another, at a bad angle in another in my baggy gardening clothes and waterproof hat in the rain. Thank God he hadn’t seen those but, looking at mine, I was more curious than ever to look at his life now, look at any photos he’d posted.

  I set about deleting the unflattering shots and downloaded a couple of me dressed up for various occasions, looking more glamorous. And why are you doing this? I asked myself. You’re going to delete his request, aren’t you? And if not, why do you even care how he sees you? Because he’d said I was one of the cool ones, that’s why, and it had made my day. I was cool once. I was romantic. I was idealistic, with a head full of plans to change the world. I hadn’t always dressed in comfortable clothes and shoes. I’d worn lace, velvet and silk. I was inventive. I bought colourful vintage clothes and scarves from market stalls and charity shops. I’d looked interesting, not unlike how Debs does now, in fact. I’d searched for meaning, tried different gurus, done yoga, smoked dope and Gauloises cigarettes, even though they tasted disgusting. I had been one of the cool ones.

  No harm in cleaning up my photos, whatever I decide, I told myself.

  Once I’d finished my new improved gallery, I went back to Facebook requests. Should I? Shouldn’t I? What had I got to lose? And since when did I begin to always take the safe option? Tom and I had believed in seeking experience. Getting back in touch with him might put me back in touch with my younger, more adventurous self. I could find the ‘me’ I’d lost. What would be the harm in a few messages passed in cyberspace? When I’d been younger, I had never been afraid to take a risk, go with the flow and see where it took me. I’ve become old, I thought, stuck in my ways.

  I glanced over at my bookshelf and my eyes went to the spine of a book given to me by Debs last year for my birthday. Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Exactly the sort of thing Tom would have said. Exactly the way I’d tried to live my life when I was younger.

  I went back to the screen, found Tom’s request and pressed Confirm.

  There. Done it. Felt the fear and done it anyway.

  A moment later, I had access to his page. His last posting had been a few days ago. He had put Majorca, LA and London as his homes. There was a shot on his timeline outside Harrods in Knightsbridge. I looked at the date on it: 23 May. Ah. So he was in the country, or had been recently. I wondered who’d taken the photo. I scrolled to his photo area where there were a few pictures of him with people I didn’t recognize. He’d aged, of course he had, but he looked in good shape and still wore his hair longish, though it was mainly white now, a mane of it and swept back from his face, which was craggy and lined like a man who spent time outdoors. A silver fox. He’d weathered well, as Lorna would say, only she wouldn’t say that if she saw his photo on my page. She’d say: what the hell do you think you’re doing?

  Sorry. Too late, Lorna.

  In one photo, he was in a tropical garden, looking very chilled, wearing shades, in a casual shirt and shorts. In another with an attractive woman on a beach. Not Chloe Posh Girl Porter. What happened to her? I wondered. Another photo showed him with his arm around a young man who looked like him. His son? Another at a birthday party with a young woman. His daughter? Should I leave a message? Hi. Hello. Long time, no see. God. No. What should I say?

  I took a deep breath. What was I thinking of? Madness. Tom was in the past. Matt was my present. We’d get by. We’d ridden hard times before. OK, so this was a bad patch. We’d get through. It wasn’t too late. Having satisfied my curiosity, I could always unfriend Tom and that would be the end of it. Yes, I’d do that, just not quite yet …

  7

  Matt

  Cholesterol: 5.8

  Blood pressure: 155/95

  Hangover: 5 star.

  Woke up on the hall floor with a blanket over me and what felt like a troupe of Irish dancers giving it the full clog-stomp in my head. No idea how I got home. Glanced at my watch. Six a.m. Crawled into the sitting room, onto the sofa and slept for another hour.

  Put clothes from last night in the washing machine. As the cycle started up, I realized my mobile was still in the pocket of my trousers.

  Went out to get some air, clear the cobwebs and post a letter. Only when I got home and tried to open the door with the letter did I realize that I’d posted my keys. Luckily Cait was in, though not impressed.

  ‘Cholesterol’s higher than we like. Blood pressure’s a bit up as well,’ said my doctor later the same morning. ‘No fry-ups. Take more exercise, cut down on alcohol and eat more greens.’

  Lose the will to live, said a voice in my head, which was still pounding after last night. A big fry-up was what I needed. It was too early to return home and Cait would be around. She’d given me the silent treatment and the fish eye before I’d left for the surgery this morning, but then she’d never been good first thing. I learnt in the early years of our marriage to be quiet and avoid eye contact until at least after 10 a.m. Clearly I am in the dog house; I don’t think I saw Cait last night when I got home, but it must have been her who put the blanket over me at some point. I can’t remember much. My brother Duncan had called round early evening and insisted that we go for a drink to ‘cheer me up’, and one glass had turned into a bottle, then another, and a few shots of whisky, I don’t remember how many. Not something I do normally. Never again, I thought as a fresh wave of nausea hit me.

  After seeing the doctor, for lack of anything else to do, I walked to the newsagent’s and bought a paper.

  Had tea in the builder’s café. The aroma of fried bacon filled the air, so I ordered the full English and made a resolution to follow the doctor’s advice another day. Checked watch. Told myself that I must stop looking at my watch. Read paper. A headline on page four caught my eye. Divorce rates for the over-60s reaches 40 per cent year high. Great.

  What happens to drive people to separation? I wondered. One huge disagreement, or the culmination of many small ones that have built up over time? A mutual decision or one unhappy party? An old mate, Richard’s wife, left him last year. He didn’t see it coming. ‘Men divorce when there’s another woman,’ he told me, ‘women do so when they’re unhappy.’ He hadn’t had a clue his wife had been planning her escape for well over a year.

  Would Cait ever leave me? I asked myself. No, never, surely not, though things have been rocky lately. We don’t talk like we used to. We sleep turned away from each other. We have drifted apart. Take note, Matt Langham, I told myself, and don’t let things go further. Though I’m not sure what to do. Get away somewhere nice? But no, with our finances at the moment, sadly a romantic weekend away is out of the question. In the early days of our relationship, and many years after, we hadn’t stopped talking: books, plans, theatre, politics, religion, our boys – there was always something to say about them and we enjoyed each other’s company and opinions, which were often different. It didn’t matter, it was us against the world: we were solid.

  There had been rough patches before – I could see Cait in my mind just after Jed was born, staggering out of bed at 2 a.m., then again at three and four, before finally giving up and sleeping on a make-do bed on the floor beside his cot. A little bugger he was. Another night, she just lay there on her side of the bed when the crying started, each of us hoping the other would get up. She’d gently worked her feet up onto my bum and pushed until I was falling out of the bed. ‘Your turn,’ she said as I hit the floor, then she’d laughed, turned over an
d gone to sleep. We’d argued a lot too at that time; or rather bickered, we were both so tired. Sex was the last thing on our minds, sleep was all we sought, but we were open about it. I remembered suggesting it one night and Cait had replied. ‘No thanks. Am already shagged out,’ before conking out. It wasn’t an issue, and things soon picked up again once Jed finally started sleeping.

  Sam had been an easy baby; he’d slept through the night from the day we brought him home from the hospital. Jed was the opposite. A baby bouncing off the walls at 3 a.m. isn’t a good recipe for any marriage, but we got through it. Later, we’d argued about how to discipline the boys, what time they should go to bed, how to punish them or not if they’d been cheeky or misbehaved – but we’d always talked things through.

  If I was honest, when I was working, once I reached the office, work was all consuming and I let it be so. If there were problems in the home, or even in the world, they were soon forgotten as I got pulled into whatever the latest TV series proposal was and lost myself in research, timings, production costings. Back at home, I was sure of my role, and that Cait would always be there. I was pretty certain that I’d know if she was thinking about leaving. She’d never been good at keeping things in. I’d probably get a list, like that movie – Ten Things I Hate about You. It would be there on a piece of paper in her neat handwriting on the island in the kitchen. I almost think I’d prefer that to this atmosphere back at the house now. This is different to previous standoffs. We’re not shouting at each other, taking out our mutual irritation or lack of sleep on each other. It feels quieter, more ominous, with silences that are loaded with the unspoken. Is it me? Am I the problem? Taking out my frustration on her in a passive-aggressive way, not giving her the benefit of a good air-clearing row. Maybe I should make more of an effort, starting by having a shave seeing as that seems to bother her so much.

  I stared out of the window at rain splashing on the pavement. I’d been gone an hour. How much space would Cait need? Longer than this, I decided as I got up to order another mug of tea.

  *

  Home. Cait’s gone out. Phew. Got out my list of my contacts. Emailed the few left that I haven’t been in touch with, not that I hold out much hope. I’ve been emailing and phoning every day since I was let go and no one’s got back to me so far. Can they smell the scent of need in cyberspace? Has word got around? Matt Langham’s out of the game. They must know I’m out of work, been cut loose. I’d never emailed any of them when I was working. Didn’t have the time. I remembered when I was headhunted, wanted, flavour of the month, the golden boy of programme ideas. Oh the fickle friend, that illusion that is success. Truth be told, my best years were back in the late 1980s, a long time ago. The industry has changed since then: more competitive, smaller budgets, a younger man’s game. I’d survived, nevertheless. In the last decade, I’d worked as a producer on some contemporary documentaries, but my niche was history. I had a reputation. My programme ‘The Women Who Made Cromwell’ had won an award in 2000. I could deliver on a brief. I had good ideas, could oversee a project from conception to completion. Surely that must count for something?

  Called Brian Fairweather.

  ‘No one’s hiring,’ he said. ‘Sorry, other phone’s going. Let’s get together for a beer next time you’re in town.’ I have said these very same lines in the past to people needing a job. It hurt being on the other end of it. Cait’s friend Debs would probably say it’s karma: what you sow, so shall you reap.

  Next was Peter Smith. We’d always got on and he, at least, sounded pleased to hear from me. ‘Matt Langham. Still in the programme-making business?’

  ‘Keeping my hand in.’

  ‘So what can I do you for?’

  How do I put it without sounding desperate? I asked myself. Deep breath, sound energized. ‘I’ve gone freelance—’

  ‘I thought you always were?’

  ‘Yes but I’ve made some changes and separated from my old company. Things have been a bit slow there so I’ve got some time on my hands and wondered if you were in the market for—’

  ‘Ah. Sorry, mate. Nothing for you here. You know how it is, full on or nothing, feast or famine. It’s a tough business, never been tougher or more competitive. If I were you, I’d enjoy the time off before the next round of deadlines hits, take up golf.’ Subtext, you’re past your sell-by date, mate.

  Tried Richard Simpson then Ronnie Nash. No joy.

  One more to try. Maria Briars. She’d tried to headhunt me once. I dialled her number.

  ‘Hey, Maria.’

  ‘Hey, Matt. How’s it going?’

  I couldn’t be bothered with the pretence. ‘Slow, to be honest. I’m looking for work.’

  ‘No. God, if you’d only called last week, I was looking for someone – but then maybe it wasn’t for you. Anyway, it was a done deal really. My boss insisted I take on his nephew. He started on Monday, only a kid, quite brilliant though. I am sorry.’

  ‘No problem.’ A kid. Ouch, I thought.

  ‘I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Top of the world.’

  ‘Chins up.’

  ‘Chins up.’

  I hung up the phone and crossed off her name. I am not putting myself through that humiliation again.

  So, to my den in the garage to listen to Radio Four. I’ll compile another list tomorrow. Or not. Have I had my day? Time to let the younger ones have their hour in the spotlight. In which case, what next? I could have a shave, but why? I’m not going anywhere. Not that I’m going to grow a beard, but after forty years of shaving every day, it’s bliss not to have to, liberating. I know Cait doesn’t like it, so I’ll do it every fifth day. In the meantime, I’m having a shaving man’s holiday. There have to be some perks to this retirement business.

  8

  Cait

  Things to do:

  Unfriend Tom Lewis before he notices I’ve accepted his request.

  Be more understanding and nicer to Matt.

  Take Lorna’s advice and work on saving marriage.

  Research ways to seduce husband and revive our love life. (Talk to Lorna and Debs about how to keep a relationship alive?)

  Think about how to be more sensual, sexual.

  Buy corn plasters.

  Spent the morning filling in applications for three jobs I don’t really want. Receptionist at a dentist’s surgery. Receptionist in a firm of architects. Telesales.

  Would it be a waste of time to send them off? I have a degree. Would they say – you’re overqualified? You’re too old. Move on.

  I could go back to teaching, but I don’t want to go back to a career. I just want some extra money coming in to support what we might make on the Airbnb and my writing, if that ever happens.

  Added to the list: look to see if I could go back into teaching.

  From: Debs23@g.org.com

  To: Cait@grmail.com

  Help. Any chance you’re free to come over?

  D X

  I looked at my watch. It was Saturday and I was supposed to be going for my weekly walk with the group. Fitness is important, and a session with Debs usually involved a bottle of wine and I am trying to cut down my units. However, this might be the perfect time to have an honest chat with Debs about how things were with Matt and see if she had any advice about how to move forward.

  I emailed back:

  From: Cait@grmail.com

  To: Debs23@g.org.com

  Be there around 2.

  C X

  I’d met Debs at a yoga retreat a year after I’d become friends with Lorna, back in the days when I could still do the Downward Dog without straining my wrists. She was in her twenties then, just back from Kerala in India, and was teaching the class. We’d bonded over sneaking out to smoke in the breaks, not that I smoked now. There were so many holier-than-thou people on the course who frowned at her roll-ups but she didn’t care a hoot. I liked her for that, and for her energy, en
thusiasm and slightly askew view of the world. She was from an upper-crust family, not that anyone would ever guess. Her family had lived in Holland Park and she’d gone to the best private schools but became a wild child in her teens. She was expelled for smoking dope, then decided she needed to find God. She travelled to India to find a guru, join an ashram and live a simple life. That was what first got us talking, because we’d both tried different teachers out there, the first being the Bhagwan Rajneesh. His group wasn’t for me, though. I gave it a few months but I didn’t feel I’d found my tribe with them, though it might have had something to do with the fact that all the followers were known as sannyasins and were given a new name. I was given the name Shital. Even though it meant ‘cool’, for obvious reasons I never felt comfortable with it. ‘Shital, come and get your lentils and rice,’ fellow followers would call, and some thought it was hilarious to abbreviate the name to Shit.

  Debs had led a colourful life. As well as her travels in the East, she’d lived in a yurt in Wales, in a commune in Cornwall, then on a canal boat outside Bath. Everything changed for her when her parents died in a car crash ten years ago and suddenly, as their only child, she became wealthy with a capital W. She moved out of her canal boat and into her fabulous flat in the Circus, one of the most prestigious addresses in Bath.

  Debs, Lorna and I had shared everything, the rollercoaster ride of bringing up our children – my two sons, Sam and Jed, Lorna’s three daughters Alice, Jess and Rachel, and Debs’s boy Orlando, known as Ollie. We’d been through triumphs and woes and seen each other through some tough times, including their recent personal losses, which is why I’d been reticent about moaning on about my perfectly nice husband.

  Debs had been devastated when Fabio left after five years together. She’d genuinely thought she was loved, but apparently not enough. After he’d first gone, she’d hidden away, smoked dope and drank to oblivion, then emerged one day and told us she was going to reinvent herself. She’d had dark hair extensions put in and wore it all piled on top of her head. She’d got a tattoo on her shoulder saying ‘Carpe Diem’, and had every treatment under the sun to keep looking young, not that she needed them. In the last weeks, she’d been looking into Internet dating, out to prove she was still desirable. So far, she’d had three dates and had reported back after each one, sometimes during. So far, all disasters – too old, too boring and, apparently, the last one had halitosis.