Chapter 3 #2
Intending to post her butterfly photos to Instagram, she reaches for her phone and is relieved to see that she has messages: one from Jill asking if she can come and stay on the fifth of November and others from Fiona and Harry asking her if she’s OK.
Neither of them have exactly gone to town, but at least they’ve remembered she exists.
Sorry Jill, she types. That’s way too soon. I’ve barely got settled in
Her typing is interrupted by another text from Jill: I booked it. It was so cheap I decided it doesn’t matter. Didn’t want to miss out on a good deal…
‘No!’ she says out loud. ‘That woman!’ She gives a dismayed shake of the head, then sends her reply anyway. Let Jill deal with it, she thinks.
Her phone rings immediately.
‘Hello, Jill. I think our messages crossed over. I hope that ticket’s reimbursable.’ She always feels terrible when she has to say ‘no’ to people, but it really is too soon. Plus she’s been promising herself for ages that she’ll stand up more to Jill’s pushiness. Now seems as good a time as any.
‘Really?’ Jill says. ‘You’re going to make me bin these flights?’
‘It’s too soon, honey,’ Wendy says, weaving a little laughter into her voice in the hope that it will underline how unreasonable Jill’s idea is. ‘It’s way too early. I’ve only just got here.’
‘Aw, Wendy!’ Jill whines. ‘I mean, they were only a hundred and thirty quid, but all the same.’
‘I’m sure you can get the money back, can’t you? Or at least some of it.’ Even before Jill replies she realises she has probably made a strategic error by asking.
‘No, it’s not refundable. That’s why they were so cheap. But hey, what’s ￡130 between friends. Assuming we are still friends? Seeing as you don’t want to see me anymore.’
‘I’m just saying come later,’ Wendy says. So she has made another error by verbally accepting the idea of Jill coming. This is how Jill works, she thinks. This is how she corners you.
‘Damn. A hundred and thirty quid down the drain. Oh well.’
Wendy licks her lips as she prepares to tell Jill she shouldn’t have bought the flights – that she should have waited for her to say it was OK, but Jill gets there first.
‘I shouldn’t have confirmed them,’ she says. ‘I know, it’s my own silly fault.’
‘Well…’
‘But all the later flights were so expensive, hon. I can’t come at all otherwise. And I miss you. I assumed – stupidly – that you miss me, too. You said you did last night.’
Wendy doesn’t remember saying this, but then she doesn’t remember much of the conversation. Anything’s possible.
‘Of course I miss you. I’m missing everyone. It’s just—’
‘Then let me come! Come on! It’ll be fun. It’s only three nights.’
‘It’s really tiny here,’ Wendy protests.
‘Well, I wouldn’t know. You still haven’t sent me those photos you promised.’
‘It’s a studio. A one-room studio.’
‘Then we’ll go somewhere else. I’ll have a hunt online and find somewhere nice.’
‘I don’t want to go somewhere else, Jill. I’ve only just got here.’
‘Then it’ll be fine,’ Jill says. ‘Don’t worry. It has a bed, right? And a sofa?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘The sofa will do me fine, don’t worry. It’ll be such fun. We’ll have a hoot exploring the local nightlife. All those French men!’
‘May I remind you that you’re married?’
‘So are you.’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Yes… I am. And there is no local nightlife.’
‘Oh, there will be once I get there,’ Jill says. ‘Oh, talking of husbands, gotta go. Bern’s standing in the doorway waving his keys at me. Talk later.’
‘OK,’ Wendy says.
‘And see you on the fifth!’
The line goes dead and Wendy chucks her phone onto the sofa. ‘A bulldozer,’ she mutters. ‘She’s an absolute bloody bulldozer.’
She takes a glass of wine and a bowl of nuts outside and lights a cigarette.
The first puff tastes superb – a reality that’s impossible to explain to a non-smoker, or even, in fact, to herself.
There’s nothing to like about smoking, even she can admit that.
But sometimes that first drag of a cigarette can really seem quite magical.
She blows the smoke through pursed lips and watches the sun as it slips behind the hills, turning the sky a deep, purply red.
She thinks about Jill and feels annoyed at herself for not being more assertive.
Back in her nursing school days she’d had an American friend called Carrie who’d been a living lesson in assertiveness.
Carrie could smile at people and say, without a hint of anger or annoyance, ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t think I want to do that,’ and people would shrug, give in, and smile back.
Even the doctors struggled to boss Carrie around.
Wendy has tried over the years to be more like Carrie but she suspects that once you’re born British, it’s a bit of a lost cause.
We’re brought up to feel bad about saying no, in fact we’re brought up to feel bad about most things.
Maybe it’s not even our upbringing that does it, maybe it’s genetics – a biological desire to please.
She pops a nut into her mouth and notes the sudden chill in the air. It’s amazing the way the temperature drops here the second the sun’s out of sight.
She hasn’t replied to Fiona or Harry yet.
Is she trying to punish them for not getting in touch earlier?
Probably. But she admits to herself that it’s a lost cause.
You can’t really punish someone’s lack of interest in you.
Specifically, you can’t starve people into missing you.
She picks up her phone and types a message to Fiona.
Hello darling. Yes, I’m fine. It’s gorgeous here.
I’m watching the sunset and sipping some lovely cheap Chardonnay.
She starts to ask how things are back home, but then backspaces – she’s been bitten by that one before.
Love Mum xxx, she adds, clicking send before she has to change her mind about the number of kisses, too.
She then takes a snap from where she’s sitting and sends that to her daughter.
Pretty! Fiona replies instantly. But go easy on the Chardonnay.
How did my kids get to be so puritanical? Wendy wonders.
Jill, whose bank clerk son, Michael, is also surprisingly restrained for a youngster, claims it’s a generational thing.
Jill says alternate generations are boring, but her son’s kids will drive him crazy by becoming rebels.
And Jill may well be right about that. Wendy doubts that it has even crossed Fiona or Todd’s minds to pop an E and dance till sunrise.
Oh, the summer nights she and Harry used to spend dancing.
Truly some of the highlights of her life.
And Harry? She sighs. What to say to Harry?
I still love you/I still miss you/I still hate you?
I don’t understand what went wrong. We used to be so good together?
Hi Harry, I’m fine, she types. But thanks a lot for asking. xx