Читать книгу Dancing Over the Hill: The new feel good comedy from the author of The Kicking the Bucket List - Cathy Hopkins, Cathy Hopkins - Страница 15

Things to do:

 Unfriend Tom Lewis before he notices I’ve accepted his request.

 Be more understanding and nicer to Matt.

 Take Lorna’s advice and work on saving marriage.

 Research ways to seduce husband and revive our love life. (Talk to Lorna and Debs about how to keep a relationship alive?)

 Think about how to be more sensual, sexual.

 Buy corn plasters.

Spent the morning filling in applications for three jobs I don’t really want. Receptionist at a dentist’s surgery. Receptionist in a firm of architects. Telesales.

Would it be a waste of time to send them off? I have a degree. Would they say – you’re overqualified? You’re too old. Move on.

I could go back to teaching, but I don’t want to go back to a career. I just want some extra money coming in to support what we might make on the Airbnb and my writing, if that ever happens.

Added to the list: look to see if I could go back into teaching.

From: Debs23@g.org.com

To: Cait@grmail.com

Help. Any chance you’re free to come over?

D X

I looked at my watch. It was Saturday and I was supposed to be going for my weekly walk with the group. Fitness is important, and a session with Debs usually involved a bottle of wine and I am trying to cut down my units. However, this might be the perfect time to have an honest chat with Debs about how things were with Matt and see if she had any advice about how to move forward.

I emailed back:

From: Cait@grmail.com

To: Debs23@g.org.com

Be there around 2.

C X

I’d met Debs at a yoga retreat a year after I’d become friends with Lorna, back in the days when I could still do the Downward Dog without straining my wrists. She was in her twenties then, just back from Kerala in India, and was teaching the class. We’d bonded over sneaking out to smoke in the breaks, not that I smoked now. There were so many holier-than-thou people on the course who frowned at her roll-ups but she didn’t care a hoot. I liked her for that, and for her energy, enthusiasm and slightly askew view of the world. She was from an upper-crust family, not that anyone would ever guess. Her family had lived in Holland Park and she’d gone to the best private schools but became a wild child in her teens. She was expelled for smoking dope, then decided she needed to find God. She travelled to India to find a guru, join an ashram and live a simple life. That was what first got us talking, because we’d both tried different teachers out there, the first being the Bhagwan Rajneesh. His group wasn’t for me, though. I gave it a few months but I didn’t feel I’d found my tribe with them, though it might have had something to do with the fact that all the followers were known as sannyasins and were given a new name. I was given the name Shital. Even though it meant ‘cool’, for obvious reasons I never felt comfortable with it. ‘Shital, come and get your lentils and rice,’ fellow followers would call, and some thought it was hilarious to abbreviate the name to Shit.

Debs had led a colourful life. As well as her travels in the East, she’d lived in a yurt in Wales, in a commune in Cornwall, then on a canal boat outside Bath. Everything changed for her when her parents died in a car crash ten years ago and suddenly, as their only child, she became wealthy with a capital W. She moved out of her canal boat and into her fabulous flat in the Circus, one of the most prestigious addresses in Bath.

Debs, Lorna and I had shared everything, the rollercoaster ride of bringing up our children – my two sons, Sam and Jed, Lorna’s three daughters Alice, Jess and Rachel, and Debs’s boy Orlando, known as Ollie. We’d been through triumphs and woes and seen each other through some tough times, including their recent personal losses, which is why I’d been reticent about moaning on about my perfectly nice husband.

Debs had been devastated when Fabio left after five years together. She’d genuinely thought she was loved, but apparently not enough. After he’d first gone, she’d hidden away, smoked dope and drank to oblivion, then emerged one day and told us she was going to reinvent herself. She’d had dark hair extensions put in and wore it all piled on top of her head. She’d got a tattoo on her shoulder saying ‘Carpe Diem’, and had every treatment under the sun to keep looking young, not that she needed them. In the last weeks, she’d been looking into Internet dating, out to prove she was still desirable. So far, she’d had three dates and had reported back after each one, sometimes during. So far, all disasters – too old, too boring and, apparently, the last one had halitosis.

I felt for her. She was a strong woman and some men were intimidated by that. She’d used some of her inheritance to buy a run-down two-storey house on the north side of town, then spent a fortune renovating and turning it into The Lotus Health Centre, a light and elegant spa that was a heavenly place to visit.

I’d never been keen on Fabio. She’d met him on holiday in Italy and he’d swept her off her feet with his charm, plus he was great eye candy, lean and good looking with a mane of dark hair. Fabulous Fabio. They’d made a handsome pair while they were together, but I had always thought that he was an opportunist, not that I ever said that. She deserved a man to share her success who was financially independent and not after her money. Nate, her first long-term partner and Ollie’s father hadn’t been a good bet either. She’d met him on her travels in America, a restless artist who’d returned to the UK with her but never settled. He was last heard of running a rehab centre somewhere in the Hollywood Hills, a centre Debs had contributed to financially. She was always a sucker for a good cause. There’d been a few men in between Nate and Fabio, but no one lasting.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked when I arrived at Debs’s flat to find piles of black bin bags filling up the hall.

Her apartment was on the ground floor in a Georgian terrace, and I always felt I was entering a bohemian art gallery when I went there. The place had high ceilings, fabulous tall windows at the back looking out over a walled garden, and lovely old marble fireplaces. It was decorated in rich reds and aubergines, and she had paintings and artefacts from her Eastern travels in every room, with plush purple velvet Chesterfields in the sitting room. Even her cloakroom was an experience, with a lime green and turquoise interior, antique Victorian glass chandelier and a life-sized poster of Kali watching from the wall opposite the loo. It could be unnerving sometimes, as the Indian goddess looked fierce, her tongue out and her many arms ready to do battle.

‘Fabio sent me a text yesterday,’ she replied, and showed me the message left on her phone. I’ll b over 2 collect my stuff at the weekend. Can let myself in if u leave it in hall. ‘So I’ve been clearing out Il Bastardo’s things. Should have done it months ago. You can help if you like.’

‘Sure, I’d be glad to,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what I can do.’

‘Clear him out, like in that song in South Pacific.’ She began to sing, ‘“I’m gonna wash that man right outta my hair.” I’ve been going round the flat and I realized that Fabio’s presence is everywhere – a photo in one room, an ashtray in another, a painting he’d liked in the study. Every room holds some reminder of him, and it’s time to get rid.’ She began to sing again. ‘I’m gonna feng shui that rat right out of my lair.’

‘Hasn’t he been back for some of it?’

‘Only to collect a small case when we first broke up. He probably doesn’t need much if he’s sitting bollock-naked with his legs wrapped behind his ears in a state of sexual ecstasy every day. I’ve gathered some of his things – shoes, books, one of his precious laptops, hairbrushes, CDs, and most are in the bin bags, but first I have some small adjustments to make to his clothes. You crack open a bottle of wine and I’ll get started.’

I did as instructed, and when I took a bottle and glasses through to the sitting room, I saw that Debs was sitting on the sofa with a pair of scissors and was cutting out the crotch from Fabio’s trousers. When she’d finished with those, she started on his underwear. ‘Come and get these then, you arse,’ she said as she made a mound of clothes near the front door.

‘Seriously, Debs?’ I asked. ‘Is this the way? I thought you believed in letting go and moving on.’

‘That’s what I’m doing. I’ve also Super Glued all his books shut and put them in a neat pile by the door.’

I couldn’t help chuckling to myself when I thought about Fabio’s expression when he reached for a pair of pants. I wasn’t sorry he had gone. ‘Lorna still hasn’t cleared out Alistair’s things,’ I said as I sipped wine and watched her as she went through Fabio’s CDs, squeezing out a dollop of glue onto each surface then placing the CD back in its cover.

‘And why should she?’ said Debs. ‘He was part of that house and I feel for her. Theirs was a very different relationship to mine and Fabio’s. Alistair was her soul mate. She was lucky to have found him; not everyone does. I never felt that way about Fabio. I fancied him in the beginning but never thought he was my soul mate.’

‘Do you really believe in soul mates?’

‘Oh yes. I have no doubt that everyone has one, maybe people who have known each other in past lives; they might be back in this life somewhere, but it doesn’t always work out that you meet. What if you live in Shepton Mallet and he lives in Katmandu? Bummer. Or if he was born in another time? He’s in the twentieth century and you’re in the twenty-first? A case of oops, bad timing. That’s when the compromise has to happen and you have to make do, like I did with Fabio.’

I’d believed Tom was my soul mate when we were together. Had I compromised with Matt, knowing that Tom had gone? I wondered, as Debs collected more of Fabio’s things. Is Matt the love of my life? I used to feel that he was once but I know I’m not happy in the way that Lorna was with Alistair. Their love was constant and anyone could see that she respected him and admired him as well. Matt’s a lovely man, was attractive when he was younger – he still is when he makes an effort. It’s probably me that’s the problem, restless as ever. If I can let go of that, I’m sure we can work things out. Now would be the perfect time to mention Tom. Maybe Debs could tell me how to get him out of my system.

‘But what if you meet your soul mate but you’re already married to someone else?’

Debs stopped what she was doing. ‘Why do you ask? Has that happened to you? Surely Matt’s your soul mate?’

I panicked. I wasn’t ready to open up to her about Tom, not yet. What would I say? I still didn’t know myself how I felt about him getting in touch with me. ‘I was just thinking about what you said about bad timing.’

Time to change the subject. Debs’s cats, Yin and Yang, sat on the windowsill, watching with interest as she collected more of Fabio’s items, including his laptop. ‘Was it because of their colouring that you called your cats Yin and Yang?’ I asked. Yin was a white Abyssinian and had cost Debs a fortune, Yang, a black long-haired rescue cat that’d cost a donation to the animal centre.

‘Yes, because I believe in balance: two sides to everything and everyone, the light and the dark, yin and yang. Lorna says it’s just a fancy excuse for having a split personality, but everyone has different facets to their personalities – apart from Fabio, he’s just a plain bastard. I really tried everything to please that man. The Tantric workshop, phone sex—’

‘Phone sex?’

‘Yes. Don’t tell me you’ve never called Matt when he was away on business?’

‘I …’

‘Oh, Cait, you should try it. It’s liberating. You don’t have to think about how you look, if your wobbly bits are showing. You’re a sex goddess on the other end of the phone and your weapon of seduction is your voice. Men love it.’

‘Facetime?’

‘No, it’s hard to get the right angles. Just keep it to audio.’

‘I wouldn’t know what to say.’

‘Course you would.’

‘What then?’

‘What you’d like to do to him.’

‘Slap him with a wet fish?’

Debs ignored me. ‘What you’d like him to do to you.’ Stop following me round the house and questioning my every move, I thought. ‘Try it,’ Debs continued. ‘Men like an accent sometimes too.’

‘Yorkshire or Scouser?’

‘You are not taking this seriously. No, something sexy – Russian or French or Italian.’

I laughed, grateful that she hadn’t pursued the soul mate conversation. ‘What’s next on the goodbye Fabio task?’

Debs chuckled and pointed at the laptop. ‘Fabio’s,’ she said. ‘I know all his passwords so I’m going to go to his Facebook page and change his profile photo.’ I went to sit next to her and watched as she opened the MacBook Air, found Facebook, then deleted Fabio’s smiling face from his page and replaced it with a photo of Jabba the Hutt.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘Creative. He’ll kill you.’

‘I haven’t finished yet,’ she said as she pulled a leather jacket from a pile by the door, laid it on the floor then painted the word ‘Slimeball’ on the back in white paint from a small tester pot. ‘That should do it,’ she said as she gathered up his things, put them in a couple of bin bags, tied them with red ribbon and put them with the others by the front door. She came back in with a couple of bundles of dried plants.

‘God, Debs, what now?’

‘You can help me cleanse the atmosphere of him next.’

‘And how do we do that?’

‘White sage sticks,’ she explained. ‘I bought them last week in Glastonbury.’

‘What do they do?’

‘Clear the house of toxins and bad spirits – at least that’s what the witchy-looking girl in the shop informed me. She said they can change your environment from your current one to a mystical one. We light them, then take them from room to room waving the scent into all the corners.’

‘OK, let’s do it,’ I said.

An afternoon spent with Debs was never normal and always made a refreshing change, but her antics reminded me that she probably wasn’t the one to ask for marriage-guidance advice. I followed her instructions, lit my bundles of herbs, then went from room to room waving the sage sticks in the air, into corners, above the doorways and windows. It had a strong herbal scent that was pleasantly pungent.

‘The process is called smudging,’ Debs called from the corridor where she was waving her bundle with great enthusiasm. ‘Goodbye Fabio, goodbye bad vibes, goodbye misery. Air, fire, water, earth, dismiss, dispel, disperse. Witchy woman told me to bury the embers of the sage once finished so, when your bundle’s gone out, we’ll do that.’

‘Righto,’ I called and went back to my task.

Ten minutes later, the bundles had burned down, so we went outside, found a spade and buried them under a lilac tree. Yin and Yang followed us out and watched as if we were mad.

‘I guess they burn frankincense and myrrh for healing and to raise the spirits in churches,’ I said, ‘so maybe it’s not so barmy to use white sage to dispel negative vibes.’

‘Exactly,’ said Debs. ‘Though I’m glad Lorna’s not with us. I don’t think she’d have joined in with the same open-mindedness as you. I’m not finished yet, though. I have one last thing to do, and that’s to call the locksmith to come and change the locks and then I’ll be done. Fabio will have been exorcized and I have to say it’s made me feel a darn sight better. OK. How about a change of scenery next? How about I put on my Bollywood movie soundtrack CD and we dance around the living room? We can pretend we’re in India.’

‘Excellent. I like your thinking. Lead the way, Debs,’ I said, and followed her back inside the flat. When the going gets tough, the tough act like mad old hippies, I thought as Debs put on the music and I put my hands on my waist and began to bang the floor with my feet and bounce around the room. Debs may be many things, I thought when I left an hour later – opinionated, eccentric, outspoken – but she’s never boring and she can always distract me from my problems with her peculiar view on life.