183 Times a Year (4 page)

Chapter 3

GOOD FRIENDS AND CHEAP WINE

LIZZIE

‘My legs look good when I'm lying down,' Ruby says.

I look at my best friend who has dropped by for a chat and glass of wine and is now stretched out on one of our reclining garden chairs. I had asked Cassie to help me get the chairs from the shed where they'd been patiently waiting, collecting dust, amongst the other fallow garden paraphernalia, but she fled, screaming like a banshee, when a tiny spider glared at her for disturbing his web.

It's been a long winter and for the first time in a long time the sun shines with promise. It's the kind of day that catches you out though. The morning still has a sharp bite to it and lures you into dressing accordingly. The thick tights that earlier seemed like such a good idea have now left one uncomfortably moist. Such a day also (as is typical of the British) finds everyone emerging from their centrally heated cocoons to bask in its warmth. I'm convinced it's actually now a part of our DNA. An innate, built-in, obligatory need to expose our anaemic bodies at the first sign of the sun's rays, along with wild abandonment of all other garments. The reason for this evolutionary response? We only have two seasons in this country; namely July and winter. And, as we are still only stepping into June there's always the distinct possibility of snow tomorrow.

‘
What?' I reply, unsure where Ruby's conversation is leading.

‘When I'm lying down like this,' Ruby continues, ‘I don't have to worry about gravity do I?' She stretches out a milky white, slightly plump leg and looks admiringly at it. ‘Everything stays where it should, so my legs look good. It's standing up that causes the problems.' Ruby stretches out her other leg and points her toes. She wrinkles her nose, her expression one of disgust as she continues to study both legs. ‘God, look how white I am though. Need to book a spray tan I think.'

I laugh and enjoy another mouthful of wine. It's cold going in, warm going down. I look at my friend and bask in our comfortable, benign drivel. Ruby has known me only slightly less time than my parents. She's an honest friend – more like a sister really. Not the sort who'll tell you you look good on a bad hair day but always there when the chips are down.

‘It's standing up that's the problem,' Ruby continues. ‘Forces everything south you see, so my knees fall to my ankles and my tits hang around my waist. And god help me when I look up into the bathroom mirror every morning it's like my face has slid off and just hangs there, gathered and crumpled, waiting for some miracle to force it back to its rightful place.' I laugh again. ‘It's true,' she implores. ‘What is it about hitting your forties and the gravitational pull of your skin? And wrinkles? Don't even get me started on those. Wrinkles, wrinkles everywhere! Where did they all come from?'

‘Mark Twain said,
“wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been”
' I reply.

‘Yeah and isn't that a load of bollocks.'

‘Yep. More like
“Age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me in his clutch”.
Hamlet, I think.'

‘Botox and fillers, that's the way forward. Inject it, pump it, plump it all up and smooth it all out.'

I sit upright, horrified. ‘No!' Don't you dare!' I imagine
my
lovely friend like so many of the aging celebrities splashed across gossipy, coffee-table magazines. Their stretched skin pulled across faces only slightly resembling someone they used to be but more akin to a cartoon waxwork of themselves, with huge, comedic bee-stung lips.

‘Yes but look,' Ruby continues, yanking her bottom lip down. ‘Don't you think I'd suit pouty lips?' Wine dribbles from the corners of her mouth. I grimace. She lets her lip bounce back up to its rightful place and uses the back of her hand to wipe her mouth.

I sigh and use my hand to rake the hair off my face.

‘You may as well accept it my old friend, time is passing and with time we beget that terrible curse of aging.'

‘Speak for your bloody self. I'm never going to get old and if I really have no choice in the matter I'll be doing it disgracefully, right to the very end.'

I laugh at Ruby's indignation. ‘I don't doubt it for a second.' I take another swig of wine and enjoy the slight burning sensation it makes as it slides down my throat.

‘Andy still loves me though.'

‘Yes he does doesn't he, and after all these years.' Ruby shoots me a look of mock outrage. ‘No but really,' I continue, ‘he still adores you doesn't he?'

Ruby smiles. ‘Yeah, I suppose he does.'

‘Despite all your ups and downs, Andy's stuck with you hasn't he?' I pause for a moment and shrug my shoulders. ‘Wasn't enough for Scott though was it?'

‘Don't make Andy out to be such a bloody martyr; I've had to put up with him and his shit over the years. Did I tell you about his latest purchase?'

‘No, what is it this time?'

‘A snake. Called Terry. He thinks it's hilarious.'

I don't say a word but clearly my face speaks a thousand words.

‘
Yep, that's exactly what I thought,' Ruby says. ‘I told him if he ever gets it out in front of me or if it gets into the rest of the house I'll kill him.'

‘Does he keep it in the house then?'

Was my voice really as high as it just sounded?

Ruby sighs. ‘Yes, in the spare room. But don't worry it's got a huge lock on the door.'

I shudder. ‘What kind of snake is it?' I'm both intrigued and appalled at the same time.

Ruby shrugs her shoulders, derision scored into her face. ‘I don't bloody know. A snake's a snake isn't it? It could be a python, I'm not sure.'

I flinch and am reminded of Kaa from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book.

“Kaa was not a poison snake – in fact he rather despised the poison snakes as cowards – but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said”.

Thank god the only thing I have to worry about with Simon is a sweaty gym kit left in the hallway.

‘Why he couldn't get a sports car or have an affair like any normal man managing a mid-life crisis is beyond me?'

I jerk my head quickly to look at Ruby. I feel rattled and if I'm honest, slightly wounded.

Ruby looks back at me and frowns. ‘What?' she says raising both her arms. ‘Oh come on babe, don't be so sensitive, you know what I mean.' She pauses for a moment to light the cigarette now precariously balanced between her bright red, perfectly manicured fingers. Once lit, the tip of the cigarette glows bright orange as she draws heavily on the other end. ‘You really missed your calling in life you know?' she continues, squinting and exhaling smoke from the corner of her mouth. ‘You should have been a stage actress then you could have put
all
that depth and drama to good use. In fact, that's what you should encourage Cassie to do, she's so like you.'

I look at my friend in genuine disbelief.

‘She is
not
.' She's, we … Cassie's nothing like me.' A faction of emotions has quickly gathered around my thoughts. It's true Cassie looks like me. She's inherited my large nose with the same bump she detests as much as I did at her age, but at 45 years of age I've grown into mine. But our personalities couldn't be more different. ‘She's loud and dramatic,' I add. ‘And, despite being quite clever, says the most ridiculous things at times. I'm much more quiet and reflective.'

Ruby almost chokes then laughs so hard she actually snorts wine from her nose. ‘You then my old friend, have a selective memory. Your stupidity and intelligence used to floor me in equal measures. An enigma old Digby the chemistry teacher at school called you.'

‘Did he? I don't remember?'

‘Absolutely. Don't you remember when he asked you, his A star student, to explain to the class what hard water was? I swear you just said the first thing that came into your head.'

‘Really? What did I say?'

‘Ice. Hard water is ice.'

To my dismay I can hear sniggering from the back of the classroom. Zinc and hydrochloric acid fizzes in my ears infused with the ardent smell of lit Bunsen burners.

‘Then there was the time in Biology,' Ruby continues, ‘when you said a fibula was a lie.'

I flush with embarrassment. My friend has conjured up my 16-year-old self and in doing so has released an anthology of emotions that are mostly alien to my older self; opinionated and bolshie with my parents, awkward and shy with my peers, brilliant on paper, bumbling and flustered in public. Boys shouting along disinfected school corridors; “Oi Lizzie, you
want
ice with that?” or serenading me with their rendition of Foreigner's
Cold As Ice.

This excavation of my formative years brings with it waves of humiliation and insecurity that wash over me with surprising immediacy. I see my clumsy adolescent self and, much to my dismay – I see Cassie.

‘Course, if they'd been my responses, I'd have been sent to detention for being insolent but with you – well – Digby just rolled his eyes and asked someone else because he knew, like everyone else it was just you.'

‘Okay, okay,' I laugh, ‘you've made your point. You weren't much better if I remember rightly. I barely said a word whereas you always said too much. Still bloody do sometimes.'

‘Bloody cheek, but nonetheless true. Why use three words when you can use ten? I do like the sound of my own voice after all.'

By rights Ruby and I shouldn't have been friends at all really. Meeting at infant school in the small town of Great Tosson (where I'd now moved back to with the kids after Scott left us) Ruby was always loud and extrovert. She was continually curious about
everything
whereas I was more introvert and introspective. We were good for each other though – Ruby made me push the boundaries and I reined her in.

I turn to Ruby, suddenly serious. ‘They hate me you know?'

‘Who do?'

‘Cassie and Maisy. They hate me.'

Ruby shakes her head and laughs. ‘They do not.'

‘They do. Maisy can barely bring herself to talk to me, unless it's to contradict
everything
I say. And Cassie? Well, she just argues with me all the time. She blames me for Scott leaving you know?'

‘Lizzie, they're just teenage girls being teenage girls for god sake. It's quite normal for a girl to argue with her mother. Up to 183 times a year I read just recently.'

‘
Well they got that wrong then,' I snort. It's more like 183 times a day.'

Ruby laughs, emptying her glass of its contents and passing it to me for a refill. ‘The girls seem just fine to me, don't worry about them. And don't worry about that fuckwit ex of yours either. Cassie knows it's not your fault he left. She's just angry and trying to figure it all out. And she's also just a teenager just being …well … a bloody minded teenager.' She sits back taking another, final drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out.

Ruby's right of course, always the voice of reason. But she hasn't finished yet. ‘And anyway – bet you didn't know this – troublesome traits like haste and idiocy are just part of the developing teenage brain apparently.

I smirk and throw her a quizzical look. ‘How do you know that?'

Andy read it somewhere; one of those high-brow Academic Magazines I think it was?' Ruby pauses for a moment, her brow creasing into a thoughtful frown. ‘Well, anyway,' she continues, ‘the adolescent brain is a work in progress, which sort of makes sense really. Some psychologists actually call it a neural clumsiness. Sort of like the physical clumsiness most teens have, a bit like you did.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Others,' she says tapping her forehead with her finger, ‘actually question whether the developing teenage brain is akin to mental retardation.'

I think of Cassie and Maisy and laugh harder than I have all afternoon. ‘Oh. My. God.' I reply, desperately trying to catch my breath. ‘That explains so much.'

It feels good to laugh. My jaw actually aches from so much merriment. I'm grateful for good friends and cheap wine.

Quiet descends and our extreme cackling subsides. We sit back for a moment and enjoy the warmth of the sun. It's a
breezy,
cordial heat, without any strength to it as yet, but it warms the soul nonetheless.

Two white collared doves are perched on our dishevelled, weather beaten fence, cooing softly to one another and the sanguine song of a lone blackbird carries through the air. Even the birds are happier when the sun shines.

Ruby looks at me, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘And you know your problem babe,' she adds. ‘Your profundity knows no limits. You care too much Lizzie and it's just not sustainable. Don't get me wrong, that wanker Scott never deserved you – superficial, twat. Did I tell you he sent me a friend request on Facebook?'

‘No,' I try not to show the surprise in my voice. ‘Did you accept it?' I try to hide my pain when she tells me she did.

‘You know me, nosey cow. Andy's always telling me he's finding my nose…'

‘Finding your nose?'

‘Yeah, you know, in someone else's business.'

I try to force a smile but fail. ‘Humph,' is the only response I can muster.

‘Oh, don't be angry,' Ruby pouts. ‘I was intrigued.'

I can't look at my friend for a moment. My throat feels tight and I suddenly have the urge to cry. It's a stupid, childish emotion but I feel betrayed. I can't decide if I want to know what she's seen or not. The silence between us hangs heavy.

‘Well?' I say eventually, scrunching my eyes behind the sunglasses I've just put on.