okay with it. We’ve talked about it. About you. And he understands. To be honest, we both need a break from the IVF right now, so you’ll be doing me a favour too. Getting me out and about, giving me a project to work on that doesn’t involve injections and bloody scans.’
‘A project? Is that what I am?’
‘Maybe I didn’t put that too well, but you know what I mean. Now, come on. Let’s start on this list. Number one…’
Nicci sighed. It was just another of Jilly’s silly dead-end schemes. There had been plenty of them over the years. Let’s buy a parrot and teach it how to swear… Let’s learn to water-ski… Let’s make a banner and join the protest march at the town hall… Five-minute wonders, all of them. Once she’d realised how much something cost, or how hard it was going to be, or that getting cold and wet was no fun after all, she’d move on to the next daft idea. And it was obvious why she did it. Obvious to Nicci, and just about everyone, except Jilly herself.
Poor Jilly had been trying to get pregnant for years but, despite having a husband one hundred per cent behind her and willing to pay what must have added up to a small fortune by now for treatment, it just hadn’t happened. And now here she was, four failed IVF cycles down the line and desperately trying to find something, anything, to fill the gaping great baby-shaped hole in her life.
It was hard to know what to say. But then, what could she say that would be of any use? Or any comfort? She knew nothing about the reality of trying to get pregnant, or how tricky it could be. Much as she would have loved to have a baby of her own, she and Mark hadn’t quite reached that stage. Or Mark hadn’t, to be more accurate.
Ever since she’d hit her thirtieth birthday, Nicci had to admit that the distant sound of her biological clock had been getting ever nearer, but Mark had wanted to save up for a couple more years first, and look at taking on a bigger house and a bigger mortgage while they were both still earning. But then, what did Mark know about babies, except what they cost? He’d never known any, and as far as she knew had never even held one, while she spent all day working with them and loved every minute of it. Babies grabbed at your heart and refused to let go. A bit like Mark had, all those years ago, toilet rolls and all!
Oh, she would have loved to see what sort of a baby they could have made together. A chuckling sturdy little boy, or a dainty little girl with a smile to die for? Would it have had his hazel eyes or her blue, her straight brown hair or his much lighter curls, little dimples on each side of its bottom to echo the ones she’d always loved to look at whenever Mark took off his clothes? She’d never know now, would she? And it wasn’t the kind of thought that would probably ever enter Mark’s head.
She wondered sometimes if he just saw their future children as ticks in a box, something expected to fit into the exact right slot in that daft plan of his, and not as real people at all. Didn’t he know that life doesn’t always work out that simply, or that precisely? That things can happen along the way to throw everything off course? The divorce had made that all too obvious, that was for sure.
Still, she couldn’t say she’d ever come up with a real alternative life plan of her own. It wasn’t her style. Get out and enjoy life while it’s here, that had been her motto. Let tomorrow take care of itself. What will be will be. And look where that had got her. Absolutely bloody nowhere.
‘Right!’
Nicci snapped back to the present as Jilly slammed her glass down, put on her I mean business face and chewed determinedly at the end of her pen. ‘Number one. Evening classes. All the agony aunt columns say it’s the best way to meet new people. Like-minded people, that is. Much better than hanging round pubs, or joining internet sites. Gives you the chance to chat and get to know people while picking up a new skill.’
‘Well, firstly…’ Nicci held up her right hand, tucked her thumb under, and started pointing her fingers up, one at a time, to make her points crystal clear. ‘I hope that’s the only picking up you’re talking about. Just new skills, because I am definitely not interested in picking up new men. Or old ones! And, secondly…’ another finger popped up ‘…for the record, I never had any intention of joining any internet sites. Not of the dating kind, anyway.’
‘Can you put those two fingers down? It looks rude, like you’re making a V sign!’
‘And, thirdly…’ Nicci went on, quickly sticking finger number three up to join the others, ‘I thought we were supposed to be reliving our youthful past. As far as I can remember, we have never been to an evening class in our lives.’
‘No, that’s true. I was thinking more of a grown-up version of school. We met all our real friends there, didn’t we? Friends we’ve hung on to more or less for life. People who share our history. Our memories.’
‘People like Jason Brown, you mean?’
‘No, of course not. Why did you have to bring him into it? He wasn’t even in our year, was he? No, there’s just something about school. Not school reunions, obviously. That’s a whole different thing, chucking us back together as adults, as you well know. But school, actual school, when we were kids. Still innocent, still learning, everything ahead of us like a great big mystery yet to happen. We all had something in common then, didn’t we? Sniggering about Miss Randall’s big nose, passing smutty notes around in class, trying to make things explode in the Chemistry lab… An evening class might give us some of that again. Togetherness, solidarity, whatever you want to call it. And we’d be improving ourselves at the same time. What do you think?’
‘Improving ourselves?’ Nicci laughed. ‘And what subject did you have in mind for this great self-improvement programme of yours? Brain surgery? Advanced car mechanics? Marine biology?’
‘Don’t be such a wet blanket. I’m serious. There are loads of perfectly ordinary things we could learn. Indian cookery, for instance, to save all that money we waste on takeaway curries. Beginner’s Spanish, for when we go on our hols. Self-defence classes for women, so we can feel safer when we’re out late at night. There are a lot of nutters about nowadays. I’m sure it would help to know just how to kick them where it hurts.’
‘I find straight in the balls works pretty well.’
‘Or straight in the wallet. That’s what seems to hurt my Richard the most. Tight-fisted old devil!’
‘Okay. Let’s leave evening classes on the back burner for now. And Richard’s supposed failings, ’cos you know you love him to bits really. If he’s short of the readies it’s because he’s spent it all on you! Now, what’s number two on the list?’
‘Right. Number two is…’ There was a long pause as Jilly drained her glass and drummed her fingernails on the table top.
‘You don’t actually have a number two, do you?’ Nicci reached across to stop her friend from making that irritating sound, then spotted the wedding and engagement rings still gleaming ominously on her own hand and withdrew it quickly. She knew what Jilly would say if she noticed those. Take the bloody things off, let go of the past, and move on!
‘Well, no. Not as such. I’m sort of waiting for ideas. And you’re supposed to be helping me. It’s all for your benefit, you know. That’s why we’re making the list in the first place.’
‘Here’s an idea for you. Something we used to do a lot of, so it can be number two if you like. We’ll get another bottle, and a couple of plates of something tasty to nibble, and we’ll just talk. Okay? But we won’t mention the words Mark or Richard or divorce – definitely not divorce – again tonight. Just work, clothes, shoes, who’s going out with who, all the girly gossipy fun stuff. Deal?’
‘I suppose so. I do fancy a good old-fashioned moan, as it happens. About work. Well, about Sheila, mainly. God, what a day I’ve had, having to listen to her going on and on about me being late. Anyone would think I make a habit of it. But keep thinking about the list, won’t you? It is a great idea. Honest!’
***
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