Me, Wendy and the dog take a bottle of Prosecco into the sylvan edge of our city. There were no litter bins for a long time and I felt a bit self-conscious walking along with an empty bottle of Prosecco at midday, meeting all the other dog-walkers and their constant smiling efforts to maintain the bonhomie of their collective.
On Saturday me and Trina had planned to go to the house night I introduced her to a couple of years ago, but my punishment for the misdirected text in which I told Wendy that I loved her, was to have the offer of a lift and a hotel withdrawn.
I managed to get to St Annes on the train for nothing, then found a place to stay for 18 pounds. It was liberating not being with her, dancing and chatting with who I liked, and having conversations which push the friendship gently forward. Trina, meanwhile, in a pointless attempt to make me jealous, had arranged a date with a retired journalist. I offered to make the rescuing phone call if she needed it, so we agreed the code by which she could notify me.
At half past nine she texted to say that she didn't need rescuing, that he was "nice, but too nice." I keep my phone on but put it to silent and took to the dance floor.
I got in at about 3am. My host's BMW had had its back window put through. In St Annes, The Opal of the West, of all places.
Went through my phone before I went to bed.
2330: Let me down as usual. Luckily didn't need you. [A DJ] is playing. Probably not as good as St Annes but it's here.
0011: You are a total waste of space. If you want to come to Morecambe tomorrow [as we had arranged] you can make your own way there if you can be bothered. I'm really not bothered.
0024: You really are a complete bastard. Why say you'd be there for me tonight when you had no fucking intention of doing it. Grow up!!!
0036: It's half past midnight and you obviously didn't bother to check your phone as you promised. I'm going to sleep now and when you read this I have a message for you. Fuck off looby. I don't need people like you in my life to let me down and piss me off. Selfish, self obsessed bastard that you are. Fuck off.
0657: I rather over reacted last night to what was really something and nothing. I apologise for swearing at you and I hope you got home okay.
Further abject apologies followed through the morning. I didn't really want to miss our stay at the Midland Hotel in Morecambe, where rooms go up to over £200, so I told her that a couple of expensive cocktails would get her out of the mess.
We went to Morecambe, where, in a pub, I found an example of the altruism that we associate with cokeheads: someone had left a small line of coke on the top of the loo. I mixed it in with our bag of sparkledust, and got the credit card a-chopping. I gave the rest -- which was intended to last us both at least a couple of days -- to Trina. She came back from the loos saying how strong it was. No wonder. She'd done the entire lot.
I keep underestimating what a hopeless drinker she is, and on cue, after a bottle of white and two double Zubrowkas, I was informed that I am in denial about being an alcoholic and how I have been "damaged" by my childhood.
We got back to the Midland. It being Morecambe, even a £200 a night hotel doesn't get things quite right. The Prosecco is served in white wine glasses, not flutes, and at breakfast the fat-arsed staff stand with their polyester-clad buttocks inches away from the back of your head moaning about colleagues; canned music.
But it's a skilful restoration. They decided early on that a full-scale re-creation of a 30s hotel is both impossibly expensive and impractical, what with modern disabled legislation and fire and health and safety rules, so have preserved what they can and done the rest in a contemporary style. It's got this marvellous circular staircase which is a wonder of cantilevered engineering which must put an immense strain on the hidden steel skin of the hotel into which it is attached. It is made for silk dresses with trains.
We danced to the pianist in the foyer and shared a bottle of Prosecco with an entertainingly dodgy Glaswegian man. We got into our respective beds. She climbed into mine. "No, no Trina, I want to go to sleep." I got out and climbed into hers.
I slept well and woke up at 8am, to find she'd gone. She'd left a note thanking me for a "mostly" great time, and saying that she'd see me at wine club. I had a leisurely solo breakfast on the terrace, looking across Morecambe Bay, a gorgeous vista of greys and browns. Under the sands are dozens of skeletons of people and horses, drowned whilst trying to take the short cut to Furness at low tide.
I think Trina's going a bit mad. Looking after her demented mother is becoming such a burden for her that she overdoes it on the compensatory days that she spends with me.