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On the tiles
"I hope I haven't fucked it up with you already, Lesley. It's just that I'm not really into that social media stuff. Autumn's a lovely season and a repeat of that walk in better shoes would be a good idea."
What the fuck am I saying? I don't like walking.
"And let me say it was a pleasure to meet a woman who spoke her mind for a change."
"Why do you think you fucked it up? We had a larf and talked bollocks. What more could one want. A walk up the Knott or similar would be nice if you fancy it."
On Friday I had bad hayfever, and in the evening the whole of the front of my face and teeth and jaw started hurting; I didn't sleep much. Histamine reaction because of too much drink. Another opportunity for a lesson to be ignored.
Saturday, and Kitty and Wendy were sparkling with the prospect of a child-free afternoon. "Oops, I'm sorry! Wrong house. Beg your pardon," I said, to Kitty's near-neighbour, a twentysomething girl who has twice opened the door to see a stranger with a bottle of Prosecco about to walk in.
We divided the optical brighteners up between us, and waited until the head-shaking, oyster-swallowing bit had passed. The pain in my face was dissolved, then saturated into pleasure. I stroked my jawline almost not believing it.
It was our annual Music Festival, a giddy air in the streets, and a hint of Bakhtinian carnivalesque. In the Borough, a trio of young men from Leeds were playing wistfully on muted trumpet, drums, and keyboards. Lesley was sitting a couple of yards away behind a pillar, on what looked like another date. I didn't say hello. Kitty and Wendy said he looked permed and made-up. "It's OK," I thought. "I'm never in competition with any other man."
Sunday was Wendy's daughter's birthday, a flabby ceilidh at the yoghurt-knitters' cafe. Wendy's ex shakes my hand with a mistrustful, palm-avoiding concave.
"And who'd have thought," said Kitty, who had had a short game of dominoes before she left the house, "she's a drug counsellor," and moved her eyes to two o'clock. We gathered a group of fifty to seventysomething women round the table. A subculture of two ex-pub landladies, a drug counsellor, Kitty and Wendy, and me. So many stories, if only people would listen to women.
2 comments
‘and moved her eyes to two o’clock’…. I like that description.
( apparently you’re supposed to chew oysters, it’s a waste to just swallow them )
Should have really. These were quite expensive ones :)
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