Chapter 11
Jocasta ordered herself the falafel salad wrap in her customary breathy voice. She really was annoying; way too bloody cheerful for a freezing January lunchtime in Leeds. Yet she sounded for the world like she was full of the joys of spring.
We found an unoccupied table by the window and sat down. I was glad that at least I would be able to gaze out of the window and do a bit of people-watching in case our conversation dried up faster than the left-over Christmas cake I had shoved in my drawer after the work’s office party. I had a bad feeling our conversation might become stale even quicker than that.
“Don’t feel too bad about what just happened.”
She was smiling and rubbing my hand in what I can only assume she thought was a show of solidarity. I wasn’t convinced of her sincerity. I could almost feel the waves of pity rolling off her and tumbling to the floor. All I felt was regret. Regret I had ever come into this place, and regret that I had just made a complete and utter tit of myself.
“Chin up, Lila, no one would blame you for chancing your arm. He’s probably just your type…or was when you were younger. And I must say he is rather dreamy.”
She smirked unattractively again, in that way that just made me want to slap the smug right off her younger, not unattractive face.
“But you must admit it’s funny: it was only the beetroot juice he was offering you, not a taste of his delicious aubergine.”
She was wrong. It was anything but funny.
We were clearly at odds over this fact, as she exploded into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. I really wished her head would explode, leaving little splatters of Jocasta all over the interior of the deli, like the abstract paintings that were dotted randomly around the walls.
I fought off the desire to leap across the table and throttle her, rather like Homer would to Bart in TheSimpsons. To be fair, her face was that golden from all the bronzing powder she caked on it that she wouldn’t have looked out of place if we had been having lunch in The Krusty Burger rather than this fancy upmarket deli.
I sat in serene, stony-faced silence and swallowed down my prawns whilst I swallowed down my fury. If I had been out with my friends and had made the same flirting faux pas, I would have been just as embarrassed but after a few minutes the embarrassment would have ebbed away, and I would even have been able to see the funny side of things. Probably never darkened the door of Gourmet Delights ever again, but at least I’d have been able to chalk it up to a funny anecdote for future telling. Plus, I would have taken my friend’s jokey jabs firmly on the chin.
I would understand that they were good-natured and not malicious, their teasing coming from a good place, a place of love. But having Jocasta take the piss out of me was, well to be honest, it was boiling mine.
I fixed my gaze on the world outside the panes of glass of the deli window. I wished I was one of those harassed-looking workers, hurrying along in their lunch hour, things to do, people to see and looking just like a marching procession of ants streaming down the street.
The waitress with the spiky hair arrived at our table with our food and quickly passed the plates over to us.
“There you go, condiments and cutlery on the side…enjoy.”
From the tone of her voice, it was apparent she couldn’t give a flying toss whether we enjoyed our lunch or not. I slowly unfolded my paper napkin, careful not to meet her eye. I had no desire to engage in any conversation with her or to see if she was smirking at me too.
I speared a marinated prawn with my fork and chewed on it unenthusiastically. I didn’t have much of an appetite any more. Public humiliation had a way of doing that, working better for weight loss than any diet pill out there.
I decided I’d better say something; it was beginning to feel excruciatingly awkward at our little round table. Now that Jocasta had stopped laughing, the silence felt deafening.
“So, how’s your food?”
“Delicious.”
She nibbled delicately on the corner of her toasted flatbread. Even the way she ate was royally pissing me off.
“I love falafel, it’s one of my favourite foods. I absolutely adore chickpeas.”
That just proved we could never be friends. Who in this world ever said they adored chickpeas? For a second, I thought she said chicken pies. That would have made a lot more sense; but chickpeas? Nah, the woman was a wrong ’un through and through.
“I’m loving the job,”
She continued rambling on, even though I hadn’t asked.
“Everyone is just so lovely, and Mr Fluck is simply a darling man.”
Yep, that put the tin lid on it right there. The woman was a bona fide fruitcake. Fluck a darling man? Give me a sodding break.
She dabbed the corner of her mouth gracefully with her paper napkin ? a gesture so refined you would be mistaken for thinking she was taking afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.
“I’m also loving the fact that you and I are getting to know each other better. I feel like we hadn’t really got off to the best of starts, what with the unfortunate accident with my shoe straps, and then you adding the wrong milk to my coffee.”
I felt a little pang of guilt, mind you only a little one. Scrap that; in truth it was tiny bordering on the miniscule.
“Yes, Jocasta, I’m sorry about that; I forgot you only took almond milk.”
Her green eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the memory, and I could have been mistaken, but her face seemed to pale a shade or two under her layers of foundation and powder.
“You see, I just can’t tolerate cow’s milk; it makes me shi… I mean it gives me a rather runny tummy.”
I began to repeat a mantra in my head to stop the laughter that was threatening to bubble over: “Please don’t laugh…please don’t laugh…please don’t laugh.”
Fortunately, she was no longer looking at me and was scrolling through some emails on her phone, clearly trying to find something important. Her tongue was sticking out the corner of her mouth in concentration. It wasn’t her best look, and a million miles away from her normal pouty pose.
I speared another prawn from my salad. It suited me fine that she had ceased her jabbering. I was happiest when she wasn’t speaking, but alas it didn’t last long.
“Ahhhh, here it is.”
Her voice was high and triumphant.
“I was just trying to find this email, and I’ve got it.”
She pointed at her phone screen: a picture of a grand period property set back in its own palatial grounds. It looked impressive.
“It’s for a spa afternoon in Harrogate. My boyfriend got it for me as one of my Christmas presents, but now we’ve split up so I need to take someone else.”
I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realised what was coming.
“It’s for a few weeks’ time, the end of January. It’s already booked and it’s non-refundable, but my girlfriend who I was going to take has had to drop out so I wondered if you would like to come with me instead?”
Firstly, I was shocked to hear she actually had any girlfriends; secondly, that she had received a Christmas present from her boyfriend on Christmas Day and was already broken up from him barely two weeks later; and finally, how the hell was I going to think of an excuse to get me out of the whole bloody thing?
“When is it?”
“Last Thursday in January. Give me your number and I’ll text you the deets over.”
The deets indeed. How old was she, fifteen?
It was on the tip of my tongue to lie and say I was already booked for that afternoon: a family function or the like that I just couldn’t get out of; or alternatively that I was just too snowed under with work to slip away to a spa afternoon.
I opened my mouth to let the lies spew forth, but something stopped me. And that was the thought of Seb. I remembered how keen he had been for us to get on. He believed Jocasta was a nice person, since he foolishly always saw the best in people. He really was a good person, much better than me. I felt myself begin to waver. The image of Seb made my resolve weaken.
“Come on, Lila.”
Jocasta’s voice took on a whiny pleading edge.
“Say you’ll come; we’ll have such fabulous fun.”
Fabulous fun, or fodder for nightmares?
So, with Seb clearly in my mind, I relented. I told Jocasta I would be delighted to go to the spa with her. OK, scratch that, I didn’t say I would be “delighted”, but I did at least say I would go.
I finished the few remaining leaves of my virtuous salad, and I must say I was feeling quite saintly myself. I had agreed to something that quite frankly I would find about as appealing as halitosis. But I had done it for a good cause, to make my real friend happy.
I wasn’t going to enjoy it. I knew that. Firstly, the company was decidedly grim; and secondly, I had never been a fan of spas. I had always found an afternoon of alcohol and good conversation a much better way to relax than seaweed scrubs and shiatsu massage.
To me spas, even the top-end ones, always had a feel of a psychiatric ward about them: people shuffling around in their dressing gowns and slippers, carrying little glasses of orange juice. It really wasn’t my scene. But I was trying to get on with Jocasta, so I was going to suck it up, quite literally, even if the orange juice had no vodka in it.
“That’s great, Lila, I’m so pleased.”
She let out a little squeal of delight that made a chihuahua sitting on the lap of an elderly diner growl and bare its teeth.
“We’ll have the best time we really will.”
That I doubted very much. I agreed with the dog.
On the bright side, it was still a few weeks away. With any luck something would crop up in the meantime to prevent us going. Maybe Jocasta could break a limb or something. OK, that was mean, I really didn’t wish actual bodily harm on the woman. I didn’t have any desire to see Jocasta in plaster. Not when a nice crusty cold sore on her over-plumped lip would suffice instead. Yes, I would pray that she had a nice contagious cold sore that would mean we would need to cancel. If Jocasta could just be viral on the last January of the month, that would be perfection.
She was still rambling on, waxing lyrical about the spa and its many amenities, so I arranged my features into a look of concentration; well, I hoped it resembled concentration rather than constipation.
“The place is so fabulous, you’re going to love it. All the best people go, even a few footballers’ wives, so we could do a bit of celeb spotting.”
I stifled the desire to yawn. I had little to no interest in football; that had been my ex-husband’s thing. He had worshipped his beloved Leeds United, whereas I couldn’t care less about the game, and I cared even less for their wives.
Jocasta was now staring at me a little too intently. I started to worry I had a bit of lettuce stuck between my teeth, Bugs Bunny style, and ran my index finger along my incisors just to check. No, all seemed good, gnashers-wise.
“I think it will do us both good to have a pamper…I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Lila, but you’ve looked a bit tired recently…run down, so I think it may be just what you need.”
Run down? The cheeky little moo. She made me sound like a clapped-out old Vauxhall Corsa or the like. Whereas anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that Lila Glover was a Lamborghini. But she hadn’t finished. No, she was going to twist the knife a little further, hoping to hit the jugular.
“My mum loves the spa, bless her; I take her quite often. Thinking about it, she’s probably around your age and she always says it does her the world of good. The steam room really helps with her rheumatism.”
She was looking thoughtful again.
“But maybe the steam room isn’t the best place for a menopausal woman; it might trigger a hot flush for you.”
Talking of steam, I couldn’t believe it wasn’t coming out of my ears like an old tea kettle at this point. The bloody nerve of the woman. I was nowhere near old enough to be her mother. But I couldn’t deny the words had stung a bit. I should stop by House of Fraser on the way home and invest in another elixir of youth, by way of a pot of anti-ageing face cream. Or maybe I should just drown my sorrows in a deep pan pizza instead. That’s all Seb ever did, and he was looking very good for his years.
Jocasta was really starting to needle me, and I was realising with a sinking feeling that the only needle it seemed I needed was from a trained Botox practitioner.
And as for the menopause, that particular gift from the malevolent Mother Nature hadn’t made an appearance quite yet. OK, so I had missed the occasional period, and my memory could be as flaky as an apple turnover that had been left out of its tin, but that was all. Oh, and the fact that the thermostat was always turned up too high at work and I could burst into tears at the drop of a hat could all be put down to modern-day living ? central heating and stress, I was sure of it.
The fact I now had to clench my pelvic floor for dear life when I felt a sneeze coming on wasn’t down to the “change”. It was just one of those things, and of course a sensible measure was to repeat the mantra “you sneeze you pees” whenever I suffered from a head cold to remind myself to do my Kegel exercises.
I was beginning to really regret agreeing to this spa day. The thought of poolside pampering, prosecco and this perfumed pillock was less than appealing. The things I did for Seb. But he was my friend, and my friends were important to me. I didn’t think I would ever class Jocasta as one, no matter what Seb believed.
Jocasta was still prattling on, but I had long tuned her out. I just caught the end of what she was saying.
“…so we’re going to have fun, he’s such a lovely guy.”
I was confused as to who she could be talking about.
“Who’s a lovely guy?”
“Why Seb, silly. Have you not been listening? We’re going out on a date tomorrow night.”