Same Time Next Week

Chapter 12

Mel rolled up to Maltstone Garden Centre at the allotted hour, parking next to a very smart Porsche with a personalised number plate that unmistakeably belonged to Joss. She’d always been one of the golden girls who was destined to float through life on an equally golden slide, but she was too nice for anyone to begrudge her that.

She’d thought quite a bit about Joss since the phone call, pulled some old memories out of boxes. She really hoped that Joss hadn’t changed too much from the fun person she’d been. Her family were minted, but she’d never lorded it over the other girls and had cringed when her dad picked her up from school in his Rolls Royce. She used to tell him to park around the corner if he was going to do that, so as not to show her up. She had a brilliant singing voice too, a strong vibrato, terrific range and she could hold a note forever. Mel was sure the music teacher, Miss East, was jealous of Joss because she never gave her solos in the choir, which was criminal. Her best mate, Sue Fletcher, had been a drummer and she’d got into the school band, but Miss East had criticised her so much that she left. Mel had applied to join it too but Miss East said there were no places for guitars in her precious band. Joss and Sue wrote songs together and were going to start up their own group and asked Mel if she fancied it; then Sue got pregnant at seventeen and that kind of brought things to a halt.

Mel walked into the café and looked around. A woman stood up and waved and Mel recognised her immediately: the adult version of the spirited schoolgirl she used to be. She looked fabulous, Her hair was all choppy and rock-chicky, fairer than Mel remembered it, but she’d aged like a fine wine – compared to Mel, who sometimes felt she was ageing like an old cheese, complete with veins and crumbling edges.

Joss opened up her arms and then closed them around Mel, who breathed in the scent of Flower by Kenzo; Mel recognised it because she’d once had it bought for her as a present but it didn’t smell right on her. It did on Joss though. Mel felt as if she were being embraced by a magnificent bouquet.

‘Now, it’s on me, no arguments,’ said Joss, sitting down and putting a menu in Mel’s hands. ‘Pick first and then we can talk.’

They both chose the same: quiche and salad and chips to share, a glass of white wine.

‘I wish I weren’t driving,’ said Joss when the waitress had gone. ‘I could just stay here and talk and get pissed with you. We’ll have to do that another day and I don’t mean waiting another thirty-odd years. Mel, it is so good to see you, you look great. How are you?’

‘I’m okay, apart from an old fart memory and a dodgy knee. I daren’t go to the docs because he’ll just tell me to lose weight and I can’t bear the shame.’

‘Mel, you just look the same to me as you did at school.’

‘Plus five chins.’

‘Stop. There’s enough people out there to put us down, we shouldn’t do it to ourselves. Don’t say no to HRT. Honestly, it is fabulous. I can’t have it any more, alas, as I’ve had… well, you don’t want to know. I’m okay now though.’ She touched the wooden table with a flat palm. Mel could guess what she meant and her face creased in sympathy. Maybe she hadn’t had quite the smooth ride then that Mel had imagined for her.

‘Well, you look really amazing, Joss,’ Mel said, because she did.

‘All bought and paid for,’ said Joss, poking herself in the forehead. ‘If I hadn’t had a bit of help I’d have had jowls down to my knees. And hair extensions. My hair’s gone so thin since I went into the menopause. Yours hasn’t, look at it…’ She reached over the table and cupped a handful of it. ‘It’s like a fire.’

It was too; Mel was very proud of her red hair, which hadn’t always been the case at school where gingers weren’t de rigueur .

They caught up on some history and Mel was quite astounded to hear how much Joss had gone through in her life. On the upside, she’d built up a fabulously successful toiletries business and had all the trappings of wealth. On the downside, she regretted working too hard to have children, and a dysfunctional, controlling relationship had driven her to the edge of a nervous breakdown, and that had made her mind up for her that it was time to change things before it got any later. Mel’s own story felt very banal alongside all that drama.

‘Do you remember when Sue Fletcher and I were going to start up a band?’ said Joss, laughing as she ate a chip.

‘I do, then she got pregnant and left school.’

Joss’s smile closed down a little, like a cloud passing over the face of the sun.

‘She loved that boy. He died young and her life went into a tailspin. She’s had it rough. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of her over the past few months.’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ said Mel. She couldn’t imagine having the gift of a child only for it to be taken away from her. Was it worse than never being able to have one? She didn’t even want to think about it.

‘Mum and Dad aren’t getting any younger, so I thought sod it, I’ll just move all my operations up here. Traz is in Australia and one of us needed to be around, though they’re pretty independent, in fact it’s been them looking after me over the past couple of years, if I’m honest. I’m staying with them for a while. It’s so weird being back in the childhood home.’

‘But at least it’s that home. You’ve plenty of space. I could never imagine having to go back to my mam and dad’s. There wasn’t enough room to swing a mouse, never mind a cat.’ She sipped her wine; it was only house wine but it tasted sweeter for the company.

‘Mel…’ Joss took a meaningful pause before carrying on. ‘Sue and I are finally putting that band together. We have a bass guitarist, a vocalist – me – Sue on drums and we’d like you to join us.’

Mel waited for Joss to crack the joke but she just sat there with her two perfect arches of eyebrows raised, waiting for a response.

‘For real?’ Mel answered eventually.

‘Yes. Call it a mid-life crisis, call it whatever you want to call it but it is finally going to happen. We can rehearse in my parents’ barn. It’s just a bit of fun and I don’t know if you’ve let your skills slide but if Status Quo can get away with three major triad chords and the occasional seventh, then so can we. It’s just a bit of jamming, see where we go. Not sure we’d end up on Top of the Pops if they ever revived it, but who cares. What do you think?’

I think you’re barmy, Mel didn’t say.

‘I never let them slide. I do some teaching,’ she did say. Also, ‘Aren’t we a bit old for that?’

Joss hooted. ‘Old for what? Getting together and playing some tunes. I need to get it out of my system. Jamie stripped all my self-confidence away. I feel so angry with myself that I wasted so many years being unhappy. I thought my depression and anxiety was down to being perimenopausal, probably because he used to tell me my hormones were sending me loopy, but they weren’t – it was down to me being married to a control freak. So I feel as if I have been let out of a cage and yes, it might be mad but I really want to do this. Sue needs it, and can you remember Gina Adamczyk – Titch? She was the year below us at school and Miss East couldn’t stand her either and wouldn’t let her in the school band. She wouldn’t let anyone in unless they were good on a sodding recorder. What a bloody awful sound they made. Like nails down a blackboard.’

Mel did remember Titch Adamczyk, a fellow guitar player, and the violin as well if her memory served her correctly.

‘There’s no pressure, but you were the first person I thought of when I decided to do this, even before I thought of asking Sue. I know you really wanted it back then. My dad’s been waiting for this moment for well over thirty years. As soon as I told him he rushed off and started clearing the barn out ready. Promise me you’ll think about it.’

And Mel said she would think about it, even if she wouldn’t because she could just imagine what Steve would say if she announced she was off to band practice. But what she would think about more was having people around her who thought that dreams should be lived, and not shelved. That’s what she would have encouraged in her child, if ever she’d been lucky enough to have one.