Monday morning. As I was making my useless canapés, Wilma rang. "Have you got any wine? I really need a glass of wine. I've got the DTs." It was a quarter past nine. I had a bottle of red, intended for Wendy. "Well, I'm cooking for Wendy at the moment." The hint flew over her head. "It's just I'm really shaking."
I crooked the phone and opened the fridge: half a bottle of the lodger's Pinot Grigio. I suppose that's replaceable, so I said she could pop round. "Wilma, don't piss on that chair will you? Wendy's coming round in a bit." She drank the wine, continently, then got in her car, because even a five-minute walk is beyond her.
Wendy arrived. We got stoned, drank Prosecco, ate my useless canapés. She said that her ex was vile towards her after she'd got back from her being out with me -- and, as he was lied to -- Kitty -- slinging insults at her in front of his daughter. In another scheme to isolate her from me, he told her that he is not allowing his daughter to be around anyone (me) who takes drugs. "OK then, well, you'll have to have The Little Dictator more often." He agreed, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Male jealousy and possessiveness were also rampant in County Durham last weekend. Kim rang and told me she'd ended it with her boyfriend. In the latest of several incidents of its kind, he'd gone on and on at her at an outdoor rave when a bloke started talking to her, pulling faces behind his back and not letting it drop when she was trying to brush it off.
Whilst he was away for a few minutes she rang her brother asking him to meet her when they got back, the ripples of a former boyfriend turning violent when she left him extending even unto now. All these insecure men, wrecking relationships with intelligent, gorgeous, well-dressed, witty, sparky, younger women none of whom are interested in me.
Kirsty said the other day, "surely, one of your friends must be able to put you up for a while if you're stuck. What about Kitty?"
Kitty said the other day, "surely, with all the people you know, you're not going to end up homeless?"
Wendy said the other day, "in extremis, couldn't you stay with Kirsty for a while? It is your family after all." No-one in my coterie is in a position to help me. They all think someone else will.
However, I have had two offers. Wilma said that I could live in her spare room for free. I imagine a urine-soaked immiseration, piss and bleach fighting against each other for supremacy. The other was from Helen in Norway, which I will decline for the reasons I set out in a letter I sent today to the newly-single Kim.
Hello pet
I would like to make you a decent proposal (for once). I can't remember how much I've told you about the house, but I have to be out by 4th June. I'm in a bit of a pickle and it's thickening every day. My friend Helen suggested I go and live with her in [---] in Norway, which is a much more attractive prospect than staying with my mother in Middlesbrough, but a pauper like me might struggle a bit in the world's most expensive country.
Then, Kirsty made a suggestion the other day about something called the Advanced Learners Loan, which has the great advantage of not depending on any credit checks. I could use this to do the modern version of the TEFL certificate. I did my TEFL cert twenty years ago and anyway it's been superseded by the new CELTA qualification.
At the moment I'm applying for minimum wage jobs, and recently attained a new nadir in being rejected for a job in a pie shop. It does seem a bit of a waste for someone with a degree, an MA, a PGCE, and a Tufty Club certificate in crossing the road right.
So here we go -- the CELTA is offered at [a college in] Newcastle and the next course runs full-time from 5 - 30 June. I wondered if you fancied having a well-trained, domesticated house guest for a month. It's quite a demanding course so I wouldn't be under your feet, although I'd be very happy prancing about your kitchen in my fetching Orla Kiely pinny.
I thought I'd put this in writing so that you could consider it at your leisure. Whatever happens, I hope we can meet up soon. I'm sorry it didn't work out with...but men like that only get worse over time. Nil desperandum! X
There was rejoicing in the House of Kirsty on Friday. My middle daughter, the actress, has been accepted onto the BA in Professional Acting, at Bristol Old Vic. Three interviews and auditions, a thousand applicants chasing thirty places. It all started when she was one year old, when she painfully winded me and Kirsty by bouncing onto our stomachs at 5am, arms akimbo, announcing "I, awake! I, awake!"
