KEEP THE FAITH
Laura
Niamh has tried her best to give Laura a pep talk about seeing Becca. She has tried to reassure her that everything will be fine. Of course, Laura has nodded and agreed but she hasn’t felt it in her heart.
Of course it turns out that while Laura had traipsed over to Becca’s the previous night to try and chat to her friend, Becca had in fact gone to Niamh’s where they had fought over beautiful baby Clara, had tea and chocolate biscuits and a bit of a laugh.
Laura wishes she wasn’t the kind of person who felt a sting of rejection when she hears of her friends meeting up without her. She feels like an absolute eejit that this is still able to get under her skin. She wants to tell herself to wise up – she’s forty-seven for the love of God, not some adolescent, insecure little girl obsessed with making friends and being popular.
The logical part of her brain knows that Niamh and Becca are not wilfully excluding her, yet, but in her increasingly fragileemotional state, she can’t help but feel excluded. Since baby Clara was born, the two grannies have had an extra bond with each other – one that Laura can’t compete with.
And now when things feel a little messy, the two of them were in cahoots while she was walking the streets feeling like The Littlest Hobo. The iconic theme tune from the eighties children’s show had been stuck in her head all day. She’d even found herself humming it while queueing at the sandwich bar with Abby earlier.
‘What’s that song?’ her young friend had asked.
Laura had started to sing it, only to be met with a blank face. When she tried to explain it was from a TV show in the eighties about a poor, wandering homeless dog who always seemed to go where he was needed and make a positive change, Abby had simply said, ‘Ah, cool. My mum was born in the eighties, 1987. She doesn’t remember much of it.’
‘Well, to be honest, I don’t remember much of it myself,’ Laura had joked. ‘It was so long ago.’ But the truth is that she does remember it. She could sing the whole theme tune toThe Littlest Hobo, orFraggle Rock, orButton Moon, without thinking twice. She remembers the big hair, and the neon-coloured make-up, the Cabbage Patch doll frenzy, what it was like to be a Brosette and the phone number for the Saturday morning TV showGoing Live(081 8118181 – if you wondered). There was no way she was admitting all that to Abby though. As lovely and friendly as Abby is, Laura still worries that their friendship won’t last and as soon as Abby settles in and makes friends with more people her own age, Laura will become the class loner.
She has to do her very best to shake those self-doubting thoughts out of her head as she crosses the room with Niamh to where Becca is standing with Deirdre. If Laura is not mistaken, Becca looks worn out.
‘You look like shite,’ Niamh says, pulling absolutely no punches.
‘Cheers,’ Becca replies.
‘You look tired,’ Laura offers, trying her best to sound kind but aware her voice sounds smaller than normal.
‘Yeah. I am tired,’ Becca says, and there’s a beat in which a whole lot isn’t said, but hangs heavy in the air all the same. Laura doesn’t feel brave enough to get into it. ‘But what about you? Tell me about uni! Is it class? Are there any sexy teachers? If there are, what does Aidan think of it all?’
Laura opens her mouth to answer – to say that she’s not actually sure Aidan would give a shiny shite if Pedro Pascal himself walked to the front of the lecture hall to speak on the feminist gaze, but she is stopped by the small man in the black shirt shouting, ‘Okay, everyone. It’s time to Just Sing!’
There’s a cheer from the people Laura assumes are the regulars, and a look of terror on the faces of the folk who aren’t.
‘Quick, let’s grab a seat in the back row,’ she says.
‘Oh no,’ Becca says with a grimace. ‘That’s against the rules. All new starts must sit in the first row under fear of death.’
‘Really?’ She doesn’t like the sound of that at all. Not one teeny tiny bit.
‘Absolutely really,’ Deirdre says, ‘unfortunately.’
‘Ladies! Please, grab a seat!’ the small man shouts again.
‘That’s Karl,’ Deirdre says. ‘The choirmaster. He has the best eyebrows I have ever seen on a man and I’m pretty sure he has his fingernails painted royal blue. Either that or he trapped his hand in a car door.’
With that, Laura feels herself relax enough to laugh. She’s here and she might as well enjoy it as much as she can. Sure it’s better than being at home with Aidan continuing in his grumpy huff at her for not making his dinner last night. When she hadgot home he was acting as if she had intentionally starved him and not at all as if he could’ve just gone to the kitchen and made himself a bloody sandwich.
Shaking her head, ridding it of thoughts of her husband, she smiles. ‘I think we better sit down. After all, it’s time to Just Sing!’ She adopts Karl’s sing-song voice and over-the-top cheeriness. It’s true though, all she has to do for the next hour is just sing. She can block everything else out, especially the awkward atmosphere between her and Becca, and her sensitivity of feeling like the third wheel. Again.
‘Welcome, everyone,’ Karl says, brightly. ‘Great to see so many of our members here tonight, and also really lovely to see a few new faces here for a trial session. Let’s all be on our best behaviour so they like us enough to stay!’
His words are met with laughter, but Laura is willing to bet that Karl uses this line every week. He looks like the sort who would have a few catchphrases hidden up his perfectly pressed sleeves.
‘Tonight, we have members of the Fabulous Forties Club with us – so we are going back in time a bit and choosing a song that I think they will really love. There might be some dancing required…’
Laura freezes. Dancing? No one mentioned dancing. This is called Just Sing! not Just Sing and Dance a Bit Too. She wonders if it’s too late to run for the hills. As if reading her mind, Karl smiles.
‘Don’t worry, everyone. By dancing I just mean a little swaying if the mood takes you, and you might be surprised by just how much the mood takes you, especially as we give it our best Whitney Houston energy. We all love “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, don’t we?’
