Chapter 10
SHEENA
‘Where do you want this?’ Chanel asked Sheena, holding up a framed photo of Sheena and Gregor on their wedding day.
Damn, they’d been so young. They should have had nothing more on their minds than learning the key changes and the air grabs in every Westlife number one song, but instead, the bride and groom were on the steps of a registry office, wearing outfits they’d bought with their student loans from Debenhams. It wasn’t even as if their parents had forced them into it as some kind of redemption for getting pregnant three years earlier, because actually the opposite was true.
Both sets of parents had encouraged them to split up and go out and explore the world on their own, and that was probably why they’d gone with the rebellious route of getting married.
Her mum and dad had quickly accepted it through and they’d come to love Gregor like a son.
Now they were circling seventy and had retired to a lovely little cottage in Ayrshire.
So far, she’d managed to avoid sharing the news of her separation in their weekly phone calls and she intended to keep it that way until she was settled in her new life.
‘Erm, bottom drawer of the sideboard over there,’ she answered Chanel, while Martha clutched her heart and winced.
‘Oh the pain. I don’t mean for you, but God, look at my legs in that picture. I want to get it blown up and put on the side of every bus stop in the city.’
Sheena glanced back at the photo and saw that she was right. Nineteen-year-old Martha had been in her inappropriate dress phase, so she was wearing sequinned hot pants and a cut-out top that got its inspiration straight from the wardrobe of Destiny’s Child.
Martha was still lamenting her lost youth. ‘That was when stretchy and sequinned was my fabric of choice, as opposed to warm and fleecy. I’m away for a biscuit to comfort-eat myself back to happiness.’
Off she went, leaving Chanel and Sheena to continue unpacking her worldly goods. Sheena was sitting on the floor, placing her jewellery and knick-knacks into one of the four drawers in the bedside chest. She paused, and exhaled as she smiled.
‘You know, there’s just something about this place that makes me happy. And I don’t just mean the fact that it’s all mine and no one else will be dropping their pants on the bathroom floor.’
Chanel was deadpan as ever. ‘I’ll cancel the Chippendales booking for tonight then. That was going to be my house-warming present.’
Sheena laughed until she groaned. ‘Are you wearing Poison perfume?’
Chanel nodded. ‘Well spotted. How did you know?’
‘Because it used to make me feel nauseous and I’ve just realised that it still does. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yep, this place makes my heart happy. I’m forty-four years old and this is the first home that I’ve ever been able to call my own. I love it.’
‘I can see why,’ Martha agreed, coming back into the living room clutching a Wagon Wheel. ‘It’s just… sunny.’
The flat had been the first one that she’d looked at, the day after she’d told Gregor that she was moving out.
It was still in the West End, only about ten minutes’ drive from her marital home, but instead of a fourteen hundred square foot three-bedroom, three-bathroom conversion, it was a little one-bedroom garden flat in a curved Victorian terrace, with French doors leading into the private garden from both the open-plan kitchen/lounge and the bedroom.
It was just gorgeous, and Sheena felt her heart flutter every time she walked through the door.
Best of all, it had been newly furnished, so she hadn’t had to worry about buying sofas or a bed.
She’d pitched up with her clothes, her personal belongings, a few things Gregor had put in a box for her (the wedding picture being one of those items) and enough cutlery, crockery and glasses to get her by.
Everything else, she’d left behind.
‘How was Gregor when you said goodbye yesterday?’ Martha asked, opening a suitcase of folded sweaters and beginning to hang them up.
‘He was okay, I think. Sad. We both were. Although, I’m pretty sure he thinks there’s a possibility that I’ll change my mind and beg to come back, and that’s why I’ve walked out with just this stuff. He thinks I’ve lost my perimenopausal mind, and that I’ll come to my senses at any minute.’
Chanel was stacking bras in the top drawer of the old antique armoire in the corner of the room. ‘Is that a possibility?’
Sheena shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Although he did say if I left there was no turning back, but I think that was an idle threat. Who knows? Maybe he’ll discover that he loves single life and this will be the best thing that ever happened for both of us.’
‘Okay, I have more questions, but first…’ Chanel abandoned the bras, and made her way over to the beautiful little burr walnut table that sat in front of a huge cream armchair to the side of the French doors.
‘My house-warming present should be cold by now,’ she said, pulling a bottle of Moet from the ice bucket she’d left on a mirrored tray on top of the table, next to champagne flutes from a set that made up the second part of her Welcome To Your House gift.
She poured three glasses of fizz, handed one to Martha, and Sheena reached up for the one that came her way.
Sheena raised her glass. ‘Well, cheers, and thank you both so much for helping me today. I wouldn’t have been able to find a bra or a jumper for the next fortnight if you weren’t here.’
The toast was reciprocated, with a loud, ‘Cheers, Happy new home!’ but when she went to take a sip, the smell of Chanel’s perfume must have been lingering because another wave of nausea made her put the glass down on the wooden floor. She’d get to it later.
‘Okay, so I have more questions,’ Chanel declared.
That didn’t surprise Sheena at all. Chanel had always been the most detail-oriented one of them. That’s why she was in charge of arranging all social activities, weekend jaunts and spa breaks.
‘How do you feel about Gregor dating? Does the thought of him with someone else not spark even a twinge of jealousy?’
Still sitting on the floor, Sheena leaned her back against the side of the bed. She’d already put a fresh, crisp white cotton duvet and matching pillows on there and it had brightened up the pale cream room even more.
‘Honestly, no. And I know that just says everything about why I needed to leave. We had that discussion last night actually. I can’t stand the thought of him sitting in the house being sad, so I told him to go out and date.
He’s probably already on Tinder and lined up back-to-back coffee chats for the next week.
’ She stopped, a thought dawning. ‘Oh shit. I told him about that sugar daddy website that my client, Jeremy, was on. I really fricking hope he doesn’t want a twenty-five-year-old gold-digger.
There’s an Only Fans model on there who has recently become available. ’
Martha wasn’t impressed. ‘Oh, I couldn’t. Could you imagine dating someone twenty years younger? I’d have to hold my stomach muscles in for so long I’d be at risk of passing out. If they didn’t watch the first ten series of Taggart, then we’ve got nothing in common.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind when I’m setting up my Tinder profile,’ Sheena teased, mostly for the reaction.
‘Tell me you’re not. That’s a Netflix documentary waiting to happen.’
Sheena was chuckling now. ‘I’m kidding. But I do want to get back out there at some point. Maybe some me-time first, though.’
‘Okay, but you don’t go on a date without telling us,’ Martha insisted. ‘We’ll monitor the situation from behind a pot plant and be prepared to pounce if there’s a threat to your safety.’
‘Deal. I’ll wear tracking device and I’ll go no further than holding hands until we’re engaged.’
Chanel was nodding at that. ‘That’s exactly the parameters I was about to put in place.’ She took another swig of her champagne. ‘But I was thinking, we could do a Mamma Mia.’
‘Sing “Fernando” and leer over Pierce Brosnan?’ Sheena asked, unsure of where this was going.
Chanel didn’t even justify that with an answer.
‘Tilly, who works in the shop at weekends, has offered to do some extra hours while she’s on a break from uni.
I was thinking we could maybe go on a jaunt to Greece?
I’ve been wanting to go for ages and haven’t had the chance.
Nothing crazy – maybe just four or five days next month. Could you get away, Martha?’
‘Even if I have to stage my own kidnapping, I’m coming. I’ll leave the ransom note in the cleaning cupboard. Graeme and the kids will never find it.’
‘Yassss, one glass of champagne and she’s wild again,’ Sheena giggled. ‘Okay, I’m definitely in, but I need to avoid the fifteenth, because I’ve finally got an appointment with a gynaecologist to talk about getting on HRT.’
Chanel topped up her glass. ‘Well, personally, I can’t wait for menopause to kick in. I mean, I’ll still insist on condoms for health reasons, but no periods! Ah, happy days.’
Chanel had always been very set on her decision that she didn’t want children.
There was no dark reason or latent trauma behind her feelings, just the calm, absolute certainty that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body and that she was totally fulfilled by her career, her social life, her romances and her life choices.
Before Sheena could comment on her pal’s happy anticipation of a period-free future, she saw that Chanel was staring curiously at a bright pink, sparkly bra Sheena had bought for a hen party about a decade ago and hadn’t had the heart to throw out yet.
‘Tell me this isn’t a new purchase for the dating scene? ’ she teased.
Sheena snatched it off her and put it in the drawer. ‘Nope, I’m going to wear it if my new life includes belly dancing classes. Stop judging me.’
Chanel was hooting with laughter. ‘Not judging. Okay, I am. Anyway, what were you saying? HRT? I thought you were going to wait until you’re in full-blown menopause.’
‘But that’s the thing, I think I’m there now.’
‘Oh, God, she’s going to rhyme off her symptoms,’ Martha groaned. ‘I can feel my cervix tightening at the thought of it all.’
‘I thought you said your cervix fell out after the last kid?’ Sheena asked innocently, loving the exchange.
This was what she wanted to do forever. Hang out with her pals and talk nonsense.
It was so much more entertaining than yet another afternoon trying to pretend she was enjoying dry chat about bike gears over Sunday lunch with Gregor.
‘It did. But carry on, don’t let my pain stop you.’
Sheena stretched and reached for the champagne beside her, then changed her mind and had a slug from the bottle of water on the bedside table instead.
‘Well, as I may have mentioned, there’s the Saharan vagina…’
‘Once or twice,’ Chanel confirmed.
‘And then there’s the irritability, the brain fog, the internal furnace, the daily exhaustion, the hormonal swings – I nearly chased down a bloke who cut in front of me in the queue at Greggs the other day.
And now I’m gaining weight and I can’t shift it despite doing three – count them – THREE fricking spin classes a week for the last month.
But in amongst that absolute shit show of calamity, there is one little ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, because my periods have stopped.
Haven’t had one for months. I would do the Hallelujah chorus, but I want to save my vocals for Mamma Mia. ’
Chanel was on the same period page. ‘Ah, that giddy day can’t come quick enough. Right, pal, it sounds like you’ve got a plan. New house. HRT. A wee jaunt to Greece. A first date. And then a whole new life.’
Sheena sat back against the bed again and took that all in. A whole new life of freedom and independence, with no ties or restraints.
And she couldn’t wait to get started.