I tell myself that just because I forgot to mute them doesn’t mean I have any responsibility to answer them. I don’t even have toreadthem. Not at the weekend. Not at 7am.
Ping.
I write down a measurement.
Ping.
I stretch out the tape.
Ping.
Oh, who am I kidding? I last four minutes before abandoning my task to pick up the phone. The PTA events committee group is lit up like a Christmas tree.
Can I confirm somebody is on top of the catering roll @lisadarling? asks Denise Dandy, Chair of the PTA. Also, we have apparently sold 94 tickets but only have payments through for 89. Can you explain @lisadarling?
I got involved in the PTA last term, largely because of my guilt at having hitherto avoided it. There was a good and very practical reason for this – namely, I have absolutely no spare time. But every time I said those words out loud I hated the sound of them. It felt like a flimsy, pathetic excuse, so I caved in and joined the ranks, as ‘Communications Secretary’, the perfect role for someone who works in TV.
In some ways, I am an ideal candidate to join the association. People who are creative, hard-working and prepared to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in are exactly what they need. Unfortunately, at the hands of the PTA, this is a lethal combination, as I discovered at the first meeting when I came up with about seven fundraising ideas that everyone enthusiastically agreed were brilliant . . . and then expected me to implement.
The latest of these is the Wine Quiz, of which I have somehow been left at the helm because Denise – aka Our Leader – will be in Paris for her 15th wedding anniversary. It’s not a complicated event. I’ve managed far bigger budgets than this, which is likely to raise less than £1,000. Yet Denise, instead of packing her La Perla negligee and booking tickets for the Moulin Rouge, thinks she needs to micromanage me from afar.
There’s another ping as one of the other mums writes: Someone bought tickets yesterday asked what time the food is served. Does this suggest that the poster might not have been clear that it is NIBBLES ONLY and not a three-course meal??
Denise doesn’t miss a beat.
Could we send out a clarification to all ticket holders ASAP @lisadarling?
I feel as if I have joined a cult. I am desperate to get out, but am chained to them for dark psychological reasons that I can’t fully explain. In fact, if you told me that Denise Dandy was not in fact the co-owner of a microblading clinic and mother of a girl in Year 5, but actually the leader of a group that made animal sacrifices and chanted in the woods, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.
Chapter 12
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask Rose later that afternoon as I place down a tray with two flat whites.
‘Truthfully? Still pretty grim,’ she says. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see the back of the radiotherapy, but I’m exhausted. Just wiped out. I’ve never felt anything like it.’
‘Did they tell you to expect that?’
She nods and picks up her coffee to take a sip. ‘I have to have this injection in my stomach called Goserelin, which has put me straight into the menopause. Overnight. So no periods for me, ever again. When I first heard that, I thought, well, that’s not a bad thing. I can get it all over with in one go. Now I’m starting to miss the cramps and Tampax.’
‘Why, what’s happening?’
‘Oh, I just feel like I’ve been hit by a ton of bricks. Anxious. Lethargic. All that fun stuff.’
‘You didn’t have to meet up today, you know. If ever it’s too much, just cancel on me. You know I won’t hold it against you.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t missing this. You’ve got to keep hold of some of the little rituals.’
As young TV execs in London in our twenties, Rose and I gravitated to one particular café on Clapham High Street every Saturday afternoon. If we were lucky enough to get a seat by the window we would never feel inclined to move and could stretch out a single coffee and cake for hours. These days it’s not just the location that’s changed – to a new favourite next to a second-hand bookshop in the centre of Roebury that’s equidistant between our two houses. It’s everything.
When someone your age, your best friend in fact, has a diagnosis like hers, it hardly feels real. Even now, more than four months later, I can’t get my head around it.
She went to see her GP initially having found a puckering of the skin under her armpit. It was subtle, she’d said, only visible in a certain light, which was one of the reasons she was convinced it would turn out to be nothing.
The other was that she’d had cysts before. None of them had amounted to anything troublesome. So when she was referred to the breast unit, she assumed she’d get the same message as a couple of years previously – that it was benign and nothing to worry about. She’d even only mentioned the appointment in passing, as if it was nothing more important than getting her roots touched up.
But an examination, then a mammogram gave a consultant cause for concern. She requested a biopsy and Rose received the news that same day: she had cancer. I got a text from her as I was about to go into a meeting on the fourth floor that she herself was due to attend.
I’m not going to make it at 3.30. Can you give my apologies to Andrea? Will explain later x
