‘Hi. Are you a former client of Fay?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m very sorry to tell you this but Fay passed away in 2015.’

I pause. ‘She’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘… How?’

‘A traffic accident, I believe.’

‘Oh. That’s so sad … Thank you for letting me know.’

I say bye and sit and stare at the washing up in the plastic rack. Poor Fay. She’d be what – mid-fifties? I call up images of her and try to process the fact she’s not here anymore. She was so reassuring. She kept my secrets, and she listened. And she’s gone. I wonder if she had children, and if they miss her the way I miss Dad.

I remember a Fay remark that was long lost in memory, until now: ‘No one else is going to fix you. The only person who can fix you, is you.’

So Coldplay lied.

Rav the counsellor you sorted me out with, Fay, she died?

Sorry yes did I not say at the time? She was a keen cyclist, came off under a lorry on the A6 in Buxton. Grim. She was from St Ives so they held the funeral there & I couldn’t get the time off. How did you find out?

Ah. I’d not thought I would be asked. I’ll mask it with a bad taste, black humour joke. It’s not like Rav is professionally trained and BACP certificated and will see right through it. I text:

Thought I’d make a ‘top-up’ sort of appointment with her and the centre told me. Rav I’m in no way making light of this or making it about me but my grief counsellor has died. That doesn’t seem like a thing that should be allowed to happen.

This is your tragedy, I see! Tell your next therapist to assess you for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (do you need another recommendation?) x

No, thanks. Wanted to catch up with Fay really x

Fay once caught me fagging it in the car park, after our session, and told me to quit.

‘Life is so short anyway, don’t make it shorter,’ she called, as she got into her racing-green Mini Cooper. ‘If I sound like your mother, that’s because I’m old enough to be your mother.’

I grinned and waved her off and ground the butt under my heel.

I’ll stop now, in her honour. I’m only a social smoker, really, I’ve stopped before and had no cravings.

And there’s something else I should do, too. Regarding another thing Fay said that resonated, long after our sessions had ended.

‘Sometimes because the people we wanted to care for us, didn’t care for us, we live with a deliberate lack of care for ourselves. A way of getting back at them, through self-neglect.’

I.e. treating yourself in exactly the way Clem says you shouldn’t.

‘You’re doing it as revenge?’ I’d asked.

‘Revenge, perhaps a buried desire to be rescued. And embracing a failure that you feel you’re marked for anyway.’

I’d had a creative idea, after the meal at Rajput, and I’d shelved it because I thought: what do I ever do that ever goes right?

I should stop living with a deliberate lack of care.

I’m going to enter that writing competition at the pub, and share my shame. AND, what’s more, I won’t go down without a fight with That’s Amore!

I’m going to email the event organiser first so I don’t have time to chicken out, then it’s on to Mr Keith, whose address I guess at from Ant’s reply.

Hello! You don’t know me, exactly, but I’m the waitress who got fired for doing as she was told during your recent meal at That’s Amore! I see the restaurant was in your paper, fighting back against claims it serves really bad food. But you’re the Star’s critic and you said your food was really bad. So I wondered why the piece didn’t benefit from your input?

Georgina Horspool

Dear Georgina, firstly, I would describe my dining experience at That’s Amore! as patchy. Secondly, the article to which you refer was in the news section, I work for the features department. I am sure I will review That’s Amore! in due course, at a time when they are not involved in staffing disputes.

Best, Alexander Keith

Well Mr Keith, I have an even better idea – why not get a feel for my former job by working a shift in their kitchen for a feature. I am sure it’d be colourful and illuminating.

I am sensing a vendetta, young lady. Your energies would be better spent looking for gainful employment elsewhere.

I type: Well as it happens I am entering a writing competition then remember: a column in the Star is the prize. Mr Keith might be one of the judges? And now he knows my name.

Urrgghhh.

I remember Esther’s words about messes, and me sitting in the middle of them, saying it’s never my fault, railing against it. Well, beloved: you’re the constant here.

I could wail at my stupidity, but the constructive thing to do is to be so brilliant he has to give me the column, despite his misgivings. God, it’s pretty much stand-up comedy isn’t it? No pressure …

20

I should’ve known something was up from the offer on Sunday afternoon of a moussaka that same night from Jo. Various rogue factors: the shortness of notice. The non-partying day. The fact that moussaka is quite calorific and Jo is very much on a healthy eating jag at the moment. After Friday night’s clusterfuck of an evening with Ragnacock, then the news about Fay, a night in with friends will always be restorative.

I know something’s definitely up when she additionally asks me to ‘Come alone at half five’ and ‘Don’t mention to Rav and Clem.’ I say, Oh sure, so they’re not invited?

They are invited but I want to talk to you first, she replies.

Oh God, is she pregnant? Am I going to be on ‘pretending the lemonade is a G&T’ wing woman duty? I don’t think Phil is solid father material but a lot’s going to have to be forgotten if she’s going ahead with it.

Jo answers her front door in a 1950s-ish shirt dress with rocket ships firing all over it, and a thin yellow belt, hair a glossy ombré helmet. I’ve tried to copy her winsome cutie pie look before and it’s not worked. I look like a superannuated Veruca Salt. I carefully keep my eyes on hers and don’t study for any signs of a bump. Her giant tabby cat, Beagle, winds protectively round her ankles, and I duck down to pet him. He was a rat-catching farm moggy before he lived with Jo, and is essentially a stripy thug.

I’m clutching a bottle of Rioja from Tesco Express, wondering if it’s now surplus to requirements. Actually no, sod that, if Jo’s expecting a tiny Shagger Phil then I’ll need a stiffener.

Jo bought her red brick semi in Walkley when her hair salon took off, and it’s as welcoming to me as being wrapped in a maternal hug. With a bittersweet edge, as I have no idea when I’m ever going to afford the same.

I too want a row of supermarket basil plants in my window, in varying states of decomposition, a framed kitsch art print saying I Don’t Want To Go To Heaven, None Of My Friends Are There and the comforting hum and rattle of second-hand kitchen appliances donated by parents.

‘If you think a tall, dark and handsome man with millions is going to appear out of nowhere, fall madly in love with you and wave his magic wand, you need to think again,’ says my mum, chief financial advisor.

‘Mmmm his magic wand,’ I said. There are no magic spells, said my counsellor, and no magic wands, said my mum. I increasingly see the appeal of paying online psychics who tell you they see great fortune in your future.

The house is full of the warm waft of meat cooking at a low heat. Jo opens a pantry cupboard, gets out two wine glasses and sets them down on the vinyl tablecloth.

Oh. Hurrah?

‘I’ve ended it with Phil,’ Jo says, and I say ‘Oh, no,’ but I know my face says something different and Jo does too, as she adds ‘Honestly, George. It’s for good this time. I’ve passed a point.’

I pull out a chair and we sit down.

‘I believe you. Tell me what happened.’

‘His sister’s getting married in the spring. He wanted me to go with him.’

I pause, waiting for the shitty condition that Phil attached. ‘And …?’

‘And that was it. At first I got excited, found the Joanie dress I wanted to wear. Then I started thinking …’

She’s canning the Rioja down so I reach over and splish her wine up two inches, the silent signal of please do go on solidarity.

‘… I know you all thought him still being a lad and seeing other people was awful. He’s twenty-eight and women fall at his feet and he needed some time to get his head round the idea of settling down. I was prepared to wait. People say timing is everything. I told myself I’d met Phil a few years before I should have, and I didn’t want to lose him to bad timing.’

This description of Phil’s allure isn’t just the ‘smitten’ talking. Phil has large, expressive, boy-child eyes, thinning dark hair and a rogue-ish grin. He looks like the personable host of a consumer affairs or DIY television show, and if it existed there would be a Facebook group dedicated to housewives fancying him. He’s nice enough looking, but that’s not where his power lies. What he’s got is the ability to fill a room with his presence, boundless enthusiasm, and a big heart (if you’re not the woman wanting answers). As a social presence, he’s like putting a Mentos in a bottle of Coke; instant froth-over explosion.