LITMIR.BIZ

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– Cher

      I pour another coffee and attack a box of Marks & Spencer’s chocolate eclairs. I’m having trouble eating them because of the huge smile that’s still on my face. Nick Russo. I haven’t thought about him for years.

      It’s strange too, to think about the person that I was then: fearless, full of energy, embarking on every day like it was a great new adventure. But then, everyone is indestructible when they’re seventeen, aren’t they?

      Sure, I was sad when I returned from holiday. I spent two weeks mooning around, listening to Commodores records and crying on the shoulders of anyone who would listen. Thank God for the eighties shoulder pads.

      Then I decided that I was bored of being boring and set off in pursuit of another drama. Over the next couple of years, I would think about Nick periodically, but that soon faded as he was replaced by the next love. And the next. And the next.

      I think about calling Kate back, but I doubt she’ll have finished with Hot N Spicy yet. I briefly consider phoning Carol instead, but she’s a nightmare to get hold of and never answers her phone.

      These days, Carol is still single, still beautiful and is the figurehead of the Elegante fashion house, spearheading all their advertising campaigns: ‘Elegante – The Nineties label for the Thirties Woman!’ Despite the more than healthy financial rewards, she’s pissed off because now everyone knows she’s circling thirty and she reckons that her appeal to rich, shallow men seeking a trophy girlfriend to lavish with copious amounts of expensive gifts, has decreased by 25 per cent.

      In saying that, it doesn’t seem to have deterred her current beau, who does something in finance and has just awarded her a Harrods charge card. She’s probably there now, sipping champagne in Chanel, while I’m drinking tea and dipping my dressing gown sleeve in dishwater. It would be so easy to be bitter.

      I decide to call Jess instead, but I get someone else in her office and I don’t want to admit that I’m just a pal calling for a chat, so I blatantly lie.

      ‘Could you please give her a message for me? This is her mother here. Could you tell her that my new hip replacement has fallen off and I need her to call me back immediately?’

      ‘Oh, you poor dear,’ she coos. ‘I’ll pass it on immediately.’

      Ten minutes later, Jess calls back. Her job as researcher for the Right Honourable Basil Asquith, MP, keeps her really busy, especially as it involves extracurricular activities that go WAY above the normal duties involved in serving your country. More of that later.

      ‘How’s your hip, Mum?’ she chortles.

      ‘It’s facing the wrong way, dear, I just keep going around in circles,’ I reply.

      She laughs. ‘Are you phoning about tonight?’

      God, I’d forgotten all about it – our monthly night out. Kate normally reminds me, but I clearly distracted her with my woes earlier. ‘What’s the plan? Can Carol and Kate make it?’

      ‘Eight o’clock at Paco’s and, yes, they’re both coming.’

      Fantastic! I haven’t seen Carol for weeks. ‘I’ll be there, but that’s not why I called. I’ve just been thinking…’

      ‘Don’t do that, you know it gives you a migraine.’

      ‘Sad but true. But anyway – guess who I was thinking about, and it involves sex.’

      ‘Brad Pitt. Patrick Swayze. Tony Blair.’ A pause. ‘Actually, that last one might have been me,’ she admits.

      ‘I thought you came down on the other side of the political divide?’ I tease her.

      ‘I do, but it doesn’t mean I’m not human.’

      ‘Nope, you just have really disturbing taste in men. Anyway, back to me,’ I chuckle. ‘I was thinking about Nick Russo.’

      ‘Nick who?’

      Typical. One of the most important events in my life and one of my best mates has no recollection of it.

      ‘Nick Bloody Russo,’ I reply. ‘Remember, Benidorm, the Invaded Vagina?’

      ‘Good God, Cooper, you need to get out more. What made you think of him after all this time?’

      ‘I’m having a midlife millennium crisis and it’s making me reminisce about past glories.’

      ‘You really do need to get out more. Listen, I’m just heading into a meeting but you can tell us all about it tonight, presuming that your phantom hip loss hasn’t affected your ability to get to Paco’s.’

      My reply was half words, half giggle. ‘It’ll be a struggle, but I’m sure I’ll manage.’

      ‘Excellent. And, mother, remember to wrap up warm – a chill at your age could be life-threatening.’

      I hang up and make another coffee, suddenly cheered by the prospect of a night out where the conversation will revolve as always around men, sex and gossip, with the latest tale of premenstrual trauma thrown in for good measure.

      It’s amazing that we’ve stayed so close all these years, even though we’re all so different. Even more amazing is that we all ended up living in London, a few hundred miles from where we grew up. Our friendships have lasted longer than most marriages. From stilettos in Benidorm to facials in Belgravia (courtesy of one of Carol’s boyfriends, who was richer than most oil states), we somehow manage to alternate our dramas and disasters, so that the other three are always there to pick up the pieces. And, of course, every small cause for a celebration gets treated like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened on the face of the earth – new jobs (all), salary increases (mostly Jess), new men (mostly Carol and me), negative pregnancy tests (Carol), marriage and births (Kate).

      That thought rewinds in my head as something jars with me. ‘The other three.’ There used to be five of us in our teenage gang. It suddenly strikes me that the difference between then and now, apart from a few wrinkles and the need for Wonderbras, is Sarah. We lost touch just a couple of years after that Benidorm holiday. I must remember to ask the others about her tonight. Maybe one of them has heard something through the Glasgow – London grapevine.

      I put my feet up and flick through the copy of Metro I picked up on the tube the other night. I stop at page sixteen where there’s a poignant article about a guy called Joe Brown from Maidenhead. Joe, it seems, discovered he only had a year to live. He embarked on a kamikaze mission and in those twelve months ran up £20,000 worth of debt, doing everything he’d always wanted to do. The Monte Carlo Grand Prix. The carnival in Brazil. Jazz cafés in New Orleans. He did it all. The poor guy died in the end, but despite the sad ending, I know he’s a man after my own heart. It starts the brain cells ticking again. Life really is too short. What if I died tomorrow? There’s so much I still want to do. I want to travel. To meet my soulmate. To find a job I don’t hate and a home that I love.

      A realisation hits me. To achieve any of that, I need a cunning and devious plan to change my life. I’m never going to love my job. And Mr Wonderful, successful but not a workaholic, sensitive but strong, gorgeous but not vain, rich but not flash, is not going to find me sitting in my kitchen eating her second stale croissant of the morning.

      A smile overtakes my lips as an idea starts to form. Joe Brown did it the right way. He lived on his own terms and it’s time I started doing the same. There is less than a year until the new millennium and if I want to get my life sorted out by then, I have to get a move on.

      Within moments, I’ve made my mind up. Sod it. What have I got to lose? I frantically search for my bills box, source of many a tear, and empty it out, searching for my bank statements.

      I know what I’m going to do. I just need the nerve to see it through.

      But first, I need to tell the girls.

      4

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