Becks
First of all, thanks girls. You are very good. Second of all @Laura – what do you mean you have no kitchen at the moment? You have a very lovely kitchen! I am jealous of it. You have an island and everything!
I hit send and will her to reply immediately as I get out of bed and start pulling together everything I need to get dressed after my shower. It’s quite comforting actually to know that even when I am in full-blown crisis mode, my innate nosiness and thirst for gossip can still triumph.
My phone screen illuminates but it is not Laura. It’s an email from Karl – one filled with such an exceptional overuse of exclamation marks that it feels as if it is actually screaming at me.
Hey everyone!
I hope you enjoyed your first session with Just Sing! We loved having you as part of our Just Sing! family!
We believe that every voice is a voice worth hearing! As long as you are enjoying yourself you will be welcome at Just Sing!
I have attached a breakdown of our fees and conditions and I really hope we will see you again! We have more Whitney to learn and we really hope that the somebody you want to dance with is us!
In singing,
Karl!
I can imagine his boundless enthusiasm, his raised eyebrows and his slightly camp over-the-top manner, which reminds me of Dale Winton, the former presenter ofSupermarket Sweep. And much like Dale Winton, I can’t decide whether Karl is exactly the kind of person I want on my team or if he could well fall into the category of the most annoying man in the entire universe.
I think it might be the former, but I am well aware I am acutely sleep deprived and emotionally wrung out right now.
I don’t have the time or energy to run through a full Karl pros and cons list; I only have the time and energy to get myself ready to go back to the hospital, and to see Laura’s explanation for her no-kitchen bombshell.
My screen stays dark and I get in the shower, revelling in washing off the smell of the hospital and the stink of the dried-in sweat from my hours in the Room of Doom. I dread to think how badly I smelled before this.
Fragrant and feeling a little rejuvenated, I get out of the shower, dry off, throw on some clothes and then practicallybreak my ankle trying to get to my phone when it lights up again and I see Laura’s name flash on the screen.
Nothing that has happened, or that could happen, could prepare me for what I see on the screen.
Laura
I’ve walked out. Told them I quit. Am holed up in the Waterfoot Hotel but that information is confidential and you better not tell anyone, especially not Aidan.
I see three dots on the screen indicating that Niamh is writing a reply. My own fingers are flying over the screen typing my own message. Well, I say fingers, but really I mean my pointer finger on my right hand. I have yet to migrate to using my thumbs like the young ones, much to Adam and Saul’s amusement.
But regardless, I tap.
Becks
What? Why? When? Are you okay? Are they okay?
My message only just appears before Niamh’s does.
Niamh
Well, girl. I for one bloody LOVE IT! It’s about time you stood your ground!
I want to ask what ground. I didn’t really think there was ground to be stood. I mean, Aidan and Laura are like most couples – they have their ups and downs, and the last year since Kitty died has been difficult. But she has walked out? And she wrote ‘them’, which implies she walked out on Robyn too. I wonder if my mother might not be the only one to have a stroke.Either I have – and it has wiped some pretty epic-level knowledge of a marriage in free fall – or Laura has and she was walked out on her family for no reason. Or maybe there is a reason – after all, Niamh and I have both had our midlife crises over the past year. Maybe it was only ever a matter of time before Laura did. And maybe it’s a bloody wonder she hasn’t before now, given what she has been through with Kitty’s illness and death. Haven’t I wanted to run away from it all over the last twenty-four hours? I knew I couldn’t though – and I didn’t really want to leave my mother – I just wanted to dissociate from the whole experience.
Laura
I’m fine. And I assume they’re fine. I’ve just been thinking a lot lately – and thinking of what I want to put up with and what I don’t. But never mind my drama. Becca, how is your mum really? How are you? I’m just heading into another lecture but let me know. And I mean it – takeaways can be on me!
I am floored. And a little impressed. And a lot guilty. Laura really has been thinking a lot of things through this past week. She’s been thinking about her friendships and what we mean to her, and what she means to us. And her marriage… I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems I’ve never sat down and talked to her about this. Has Niamh known, I wonder. She seemed a bit more clued in with her ‘bloody love its’ than I was.
God, maybe I’m just a very shit friend. And a shit daughter. And a shit girlfriend.
