Chapter 17
“I’ll have to go,” said Diana, putting her cup and saucer down on the coffee table with a sigh of regret. “Doug’s not a hundred
percent at the moment and I feel I should be with him.”
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Jackie, snatching another custard cream bun from a plate on the table. Homemade with Bird’s
custard powder, lethal for the waistline. She’d have to do half an hour on the treadmill when she got home to burn off just
one, and she’d had five.
“Irregular stools,” said Diana with a wince. “They’re of concern. He likes them to be consistent.”
“Ikea,” said Bev, walking in on the conversation from the loo. “If he wants consistency, there’s no place better. We got six
for our island and they’re solid as a rock. Just how a stool should be.”
She didn’t understand why her comment was greeted by an uproar of laughter. “What?” she asked, her eyes flitting from one
friend to another.
“Not that sort of stool,” replied Marielle.
“What other sort of—” The penny dropped then, and Bev chuckled. “Oh, I see. Then Ikea might not be able to help.”
Diana thought, Thank God for these women.
She always felt so much better after meeting up with them, putting their various worlds to rights in their safe space.
She looked forward to their “Mad Cows” get-togethers so much.
It was Jackie who had conjured up the name.
A group of menopausal friends who had gravitated together, like planets.
They’d all said it at some point: How did I ever cope without us?
“Look at us sitting around talking about men’s stools,” said Sylvie. “Was this ever on our list of aspirations as sweet young
things?” At sixty-eight she was the oldest in the group, not that anyone from the outside could have guessed that. Her life
had been revolutionized by HRT over a decade ago. She’d only been on it a couple of months when she turned her humdrum existence
on its head, left her useless lump of a husband, and found a hot lover twelve years her junior. Hormone replacement hadn’t
just made her life more livable, it’d given her a life, she said. And she was riding it—and him—like a horse in the Grand
National.
She took one of the last custard creams and nibbled on it like a duchess might have nibbled on a cucumber sandwich. Jackie
took out her phone and snapped a photo of the bun on her plate. “For Instagram,” she explained. “I’m going to make your custard
creams an internet sensation, Marielle.”
“I love to look at food on Insta,” replied Bev, who was on yet another diet she wouldn’t stick to. She knew she ate too much
comfort food.
Diana stood up. “I’d best be going. I want to make us something nice for tea tonight and take his mind off things. Doctor’s
first thing Monday morning.”
“I hope he gets on all right,” said Marielle, and the others nodded or made noises intimating the same.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine, but best to check these things, eh?” Diana smiled, but she knew her matter-of-factness wasn’t fooling
anyone. Doug was twenty years her senior, and after a life of perfect health things were starting to go wrong with him. He
wasn’t a man who made a fuss, and the fact that he was worried enough to tell his wife that he had concerns said a lot.
“Put it in the WhatsApp group chat when you know,” said Jackie.
“I’m sure Doug would love that the details of his bowels are in everyone’s phones, Jackie.”
“’Course he will. He’s a bloke—he’ll love that women are talking about him.”
Bev nabbed the last custard cream and sighed. “I really shouldn’t be eating these. I’ll end up driving around on one of those
mobility scooters because I’m too fat to stand up.” It didn’t stop her stuffing it down in one, though. Bev always said she
wondered why she wasn’t featured in Guinness World Records as the woman who had gone on the most unsuccessful diets.
Jackie rose from the sofa. “I’d better go as well. I’m on nana duty tonight. Scott and her are off to the theater and then
they’re staying in the Hilton.” She snarled at the mention of the daughter-in-law who wasn’t good enough for her son by half,
in her opinion.
“What are they going to see?” asked Marielle.
“An opera.” Jackie’s nose wrinkled up. “She’ll only be going because she thinks it makes her cultured. Our Scott’s idea of
a night out is darts and curry. He’ll be asleep as soon as the orchestra starts up.”
“Look on the bright side: You’ll have Pip all night,” Bev said.
Jackie’s features melted. “I can’t wait. We’re having chicken and then we’re going to snuggle up on the sofa and watch Die Hard .”
“Bit young for that, isn’t he?” said Sylvie with a laugh.
“Five’s thirty-five in dog years,” replied Jackie.
“God knows what you’ll be like if they ever have a real child as well as a dachshund,” Diana said, opening the door. “Right,
definitely off now. Bye.”
There was a lull after she’d gone; then Marielle said what they were all thinking.
“She’s worried sick, isn’t she?”
“Doug’s immortal—she should stop worrying,” said Jackie, looping her bag around her shoulder.
“He’s not, though, is he? None of us are, and that’s why we should enjoy it while we can.”