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He legged it to the black car. There were some cases in the boot, but he didn’t have time to look through them now and confirm that they had only clothes in as she’d said.Sorry, lady.He started the car up and rejoined the road, concentrating on nothing but presenting his spoils to Billy the Donk. It was dog eat dog in his world. Even if he was a scruffy mongrel serving the Pedigrees.
The heavens opened five minutes later and twenty-five minutes after that, a very sex-satisfied Uncle Benny of ‘Benny’s Burgers’ walked jauntily back to his van to find a sodden unconscious woman on the grass. She looked as if she’d had a bash to her face. If he’d seen someone attacking her, they’d have been lying at the bottom of the cliff now. He checked for a pulse in her neck and thankfully found a strong one throbbing. Then he took out his phone and called an ambulance.
Part Two
It is never too late to be who you might have been
GEORGE ELIOT
TheDaily Trumpetwould like to apologise to artiste Alison Baker for reporting in last Tuesday’s edition that ‘so many people said that she looked and sounded like Maradona that she made it into a career’. Alison wishes us to point out that this should have read that she looked and sounded likeMadonna.
Alison has released a cover of Madonna’s hit single ‘Beautiful Strangler’ to raise funds for charity, available for download from all major streaming services.
Chapter 17
‘I’ll have to go,’ said Diana, putting her cup and saucer down on the coffee table with a sigh of regret. ‘Doug’s not a hundred per cent at the moment and I feel I should be with him.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked Jackie, snatching another custard cream bun from a plate on the same table. Homemade with Bird’s custard powder. Lethal for the waistline, she’d have to do half an hour on the treadmill when she got home to burn off just one and she’d had five.
‘Irregular stools,’ said Diana with a wince. ‘They’re of concern. He likes them to be consistent.’
‘Ikea,’ said Bev, walking in on the conversation from the loo. ‘If he wants consistency, there’s no place better. We got six for our island and they’re solid as a rock. Just how a stool should be.’
She didn’t understand why her comment was greeted by an uproar of laughter. ‘What?’ she asked, her eyes flitting from one friend to another.
‘Not that sort of stool,’ replied Marielle.
‘What other sort of—’ The penny dropped then and Bev chuckled. ‘Oh, I see. Then Ikea might not be able to help.’
Diana thought,thank god for these women. She always felt so much better after meeting up with them, putting their various worlds to rights in their safe space. She looked forward to their ‘Mad Cows’ get-togethers so much. It was Jackie who had conjured up the name. A group of menopausal friends who had gravitated together, like planets.
They’d all said it at some point:How did I ever cope without us?
‘Look at us sitting around talking about men’s stools,’ said Sylvie. ‘Was this ever on our list of aspirations as sweet young things?’ At sixty-eight she was the oldest in the group, not that anyone from the outside could have guessed that. Her life had been revolutionised by HRT over a decade ago. She’d only been on it a couple of months when she turned her humdrum existence on its head, left her useless lump of a husband and found a hot lover twelve years her junior. Hormone replacement hadn’t just made her life more liveable, it’dgivenher a life, she said. And she was riding it – and him – like a horse in the Grand National.
She took one of the last custard creams and nibbled on it like a duchess might have nibbled on a cucumber sandwich.
Jackie took out her phone and snapped a photo of the bun on her plate. ‘For Instagram,’ she explained. ‘I’m going to make your custard creams an internet sensation, Marielle.’
‘I love to look at food on Insta,’ replied Bev, who was on yet another diet she wouldn’t stick to. She knew she ate too much comfort food.
Diana stood up. ‘I’d best be going. I want to make us something nice for tea tonight and take his mind off things. Doctor’s first thing Monday morning.’
‘I hope he gets on all right,’ said Marielle, and the others nodded or made noises intimating the same.
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine, but best to check these things, eh?’ Diana smiled but she knew her matter-of-factness wasn’t fooling anyone. Doug was twenty years her senior and after a life of perfect health, things were starting to go wrong with him. He wasn’t a man that made a fuss and the fact that he was worried enough to tell his wife that he had concerns said a lot.
‘Put it in the WhatsApp group chat when you know,’ said Jackie.
‘I’m sure Doug would love that the details of his bowels are in everyone’s phones, Jackie.’
‘Course he will. He’s a bloke, he’ll love that women are talking about him.’ Bev nabbed the last custard cream and sighed. ‘I really shouldn’t be eating these. I’ll end up driving around on one of those mobility scooters because I’m too fat to stand up.’ It didn’t stop her stuffing it down in one though. Bev always said she wondered why she wasn’t featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the woman who had gone on the most unsuccessful diets.
Jackie rose from the sofa. ‘I’d better go as well. I’m on nana duty tonight. Scott andherare off to the theatre and then they’re staying in the Hilton.’ She snarled at the mention of the daughter-in-law who wasn’t good enough for her son by half in her opinion.
‘What are they going to see?’ asked Marielle.
‘An opera.’ Jackie’s nose wrinkled up. ‘She’ll only be going because she thinks it makes her cultured. Our Scott’s idea of a night out is darts and curry. He’ll be asleep as soon as the orchestra starts up.’
