Dancing Over the Hill

by Cathy Hopkins

  Managed to go to loo without Matt interrupting. Looked in mirror. Oh god! Dye must have continued working on my eyebrows, they are black. I look like Groucho Marx.

  Back to work.

  Creatures with dark eyebrows? Maybe I should ask Matt to brainstorm with me. He was a great ideas man.

  No. I could do it myself. Dinosaurs? Been done. Dinosaurs with dark eyebrows?

  Walk. I need a walk. All the creative-writing teachers say go and walk to let the unconscious mind kick in.

  Put on my jogging trousers and walking shoes. Matt appeared in the hall.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘For a walk. I need to clear my head.’

  ‘Can you get me some shaving stuff while you’re out?’

  ‘I’m not going near the shops.’

  ‘Oh. OK. Never mind.’ He seemed miffed.

  *

  I took a walk down by the canal. It felt great to be out in the fresh air, looking at trees, the sky.

  So. A new angle on fairies? Would that work? What kind of fairies are there? The tooth fairy? Christmas tree fairy? Water fairies? Tree fairy? Too safe? Kids like an edge these days. How could I make it up to date?

  What are Matt and I going to do? What’s going to happen with him? Should we move? I think we should. I don’t think he’s going to get a job. Our money might run out before either of us gets a job again, though we could do Airbnb as Lorna suggested. Best option, because we can’t really afford to move to the kind of house we’d like. Best paint the house anyway.

  What will be best for Dad? He’s got too much time on his hands now that he’s on his own and so many of his friends have died.

  Worry. Worry.

  And Jed, my lovely boy. How’s he getting on in Thailand? He’s working in a beach bar but will have to come back eventually. His degree is in graphic design and there aren’t many jobs around. No wonder he decided to take off and see the world with his partner, Alex. Is he eating OK? Is he happy with that man of his? I’m not sure. I want him to be happy, be loved. Alex doesn’t strike me as a stayer. He’d better not break Jed’s heart. Jed’s a sensitive soul.

  Worry, worry.

  And Sam. He rarely gets in touch these days, apart from to send silly messages. Boys are hopeless at staying in touch. Always were.

  How many people are living in my head? I asked myself as I turned a corner and the valley opened up to my right. Seems like a cast of thousands, and each with their own concern and opinion. Is this the first sign of madness? Deep breaths, that’s what I need to do. In, out, up, down, inhale, exhale.

  I remembered that Debs had a list of flower remedies for different types of stress. I sent her a text. Need some flower remedies for inner madness. Which ones?

  She texted back. I’ll bring my list next time I c u but try White Chestnut for a start. Tis gd for unwanted thoughts etc. What is going on? DX Had another look at Tom on Facebook. He lists London as one of the places he lives. Maybe you could message him and ask when he’s next in town.

  I texted back – Nothing going on, just anxiety about job ending, etc. Think Tom lives in LA. That much was true; no way was I going to tell her that he was currently in the UK.

  I stopped by the paint shop on the way home and got all the latest brochures. Had a laugh over the names. Salmon’s Back. Trout’s Eye. Elephant’s Fart. ‘Oh yes,’ I could say to tourists who booked a room if we did Airbnb, ‘we did the living room in Silent but Deadly. It’s a subtle shade but all the rage in Bath.’

  God, I need some excitement in my life. Tom. Do you spend your days looking at paint charts? Doubt it.

  *

  When I got home, I saw that Matt had a visitor – his brother Duncan. They didn’t look alike at all, although they sounded the same. Duncan looked like a weary walrus, overweight, balding and pasty, from the many hours he spent indoors on his computer or watching sci-fi movies.

  On the island in the middle of the kitchen were Rizlas, tobacco and a small lump of dope. Matt and Duncan were sitting on the floor, backs against the fridge, clearly stoned out of their minds. Matt was spooning what looked like ice cream into his mouth from a large plastic tub from the freezer.

  Duncan grinned when he saw me, then winked. ‘Unleashed any hounds recently, Cait?’

  ‘Fuck off, Duncan,’ I said as he and Matt started sniggering. ‘And what are you eating?’

  ‘We got the munchies,’ said Matt.

  ‘How old are you?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s all relative,’ Duncan replied. He’d always been a stoner, even more so now that he’d retired. He grew his own grass and always had a supply of either that or cannabis on him. Usually, Matt never partook so to see him getting high was very out of character. He was the grown-up of the two, even though Duncan was his elder by two years. ‘Been there, done that,’ Matt used to say.

  Matt pulled a face. ‘This ice cream tastes funny. What flavour is it?’

  I went over to him and peered into the tub. ‘Cod. It’s left over from the fish pie filling that we had at the weekend.’

  Matt and Duncan started to snigger again like naughty schoolboys.

  Duncan offered me the joint.

  ‘No thanks. Got things to do.’

  My reply set them off sniggering again. What is going on with Matt? I thought. Getting drunk, getting stoned? It’s not like him at all.

  I left them to it to go upstairs and continue work on my bestselling, award-winning, original children’s book.

  ‘Should I go to the job centre?’ I asked the photo of Mum on my bookshelf. ‘At my age, should I be retiring?’ Mum had retired at the age of fifty-five. I knew what she’d say. ‘Do what makes you happy, love.’

  *

  5 p.m. Supermarket. Here I am again, the twice-weekly Kafkaesque nightmare, where I’m trapped in an air-conditioned aisle loading washing powder, coffee, tea, cheese into my trolley over and over and over again. See, Tom, this is about the level of the adventures I have these days. Sainsbury’s on a Monday afternoon, I thought as I went out to the car and lugged my shopping into the boot.

  ‘Done,’ I said as I closed the boot. ‘And now I will escape.’

  A lady getting into the car next to mine gave me a strange look.

  ‘Er … I’m talking to my imaginary friend,’ I said. ‘I never go anywhere without her.’

  ‘Yes, I can see her. She looks very nice. Hello, dear,’ she said to an empty space to my right.

  I am not alone in my madness.

  *

  Hauled cat food out of the boot and into the hall when I got home. Unpacked it all in the kitchen.

  Matt came in and inspected the purchases. ‘Did you get my shaving stuff?’

  ‘Oh no, I forgot.’

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, and sauntered out with no offer to help put things away.

  Resisted urge to throw tin of cat food at the back of his head.

  I am a bad friend and a bad wife.

  *

  I will be a good wife.

  Went to chemist to get shaving foam for Matt. Went next to the newsagent to pay the paper bill. I spotted a copy of Mojo magazine. I bought one, took it home and gave it to my born-again teenager husband who, still bleary eyed from the dope, was now lolling on the sofa, with Yoda on his chest, watching a rerun of Star Trek with the subtitles on.

  ‘Thought you might have lost this,’ I said as I handed it to him.

  He didn’t laugh. ‘Not funny. You have no idea how painful it is for a man to lose his job.’

  ‘Oh, I do. And I do sympathize. I do. I’m sorry if that doesn’t come across. I know you’ve been used to being the man everyone wanted on their team, winning awards, brainstorming over boozy lunches, at the heart of the action. I know it must be hard.’

  ‘Mr Has Been, that’s me,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Will Be Again.’

  ‘Yeah right,’ he said as I heard the phone ring. I went to pick up in the hall.

  It was Lorna.

  ‘Hi
Lor—’

  ‘Tom Lewis, Cait. Facebook. What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What do you mean what do I think I’m doing? I told you he sent a friend request.’

  ‘And you accepted it. You told me you were going to delete it. He’s on your list of friends now.’

  ‘I know. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘He posted a love song on your page.’

  ‘I know. Sweet.’

  ‘Sweet? Are you out of your mind? He was the love of your life.’

  ‘Lorna, it was forty years ago, lot of water under the bridge, and I did get over him.’

  ‘Does Matt know?’

  ‘What’s it got to do with Matt?’

  ‘He’s your husband.’

  ‘Matt doesn’t do Facebook. I have two hundred friends. I haven’t told him about any of them. Why should I tell him about Tom?’

  ‘You know exactly why.’

  ‘He only asked me to be friends on Facebook, we’re not having an affair.’ I didn’t elaborate on the private message.

  ‘Be careful, Cait. As I said, I think you’d be playing with fire if you let him back into your life.’

  ‘I’m not going to let him back into my life. We can be friends on Facebook, that’s all. I haven’t even spoken to him yet, so there’s nothing to be careful about. Come on, long time ago.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune. Look, I don’t want to tell you how to run your life but sometimes it’s easy to fantasize about the past, put a romantic slant on it.’

  ‘I won’t. He left me, remember? That pretty well burst any romantic bubble. What’s the harm in staying in touch now that we’re older and wiser? And anyway, I’m a long-time married woman now, not a young gullible girl.’

  ‘Don’t go and see him. Where does he live?’

  ‘No idea.’ It wasn’t a complete lie. I didn’t know where exactly. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t go and see him.’

  ‘It lists London on his page.’

  ‘Lorna, I can cope. Don’t worry. What do you take me for?’

  ‘I … I’m sorry, Cait, but after our chat after supper the other week, I know you’re going through a rough time.’

  ‘We’ll get through it.’

  ‘If you need to talk, I’m here OK?’

  ‘OK, but everything’s fine. Honest.’

  After I’d put the phone down, I felt deflated. She was right, of course. It was one thing to make contact with an old school friend on Friends Reunited when that was around, but an old lover? Maybe not the best idea. It was classic. A bit of a thrill, an escape from the mundane. I also felt annoyed. Why shouldn’t I see him? He’d suggested lunch, not sharing his bed.

  I looked on Facebook to see if there was anything more from him. Nothing. Should I reply? What should I say? Lorna’s warning and Debs’s request to hook her up had made me feel rebellious. I could handle Tom Lewis and why shouldn’t I see him? Judging by the photos I’d seen of him, he had children, they had to have a mother, so the chances were that Tom was still married to her and his getting in touch with me was purely to catch up on old times. So what was all the fuss? Old mate getting in touch, nothing wrong with that. Anyway, Matt was out getting drunk then smoking dope, why shouldn’t I have some fun?

  I went to private messages and wrote: ‘Would love to see you and catch up. Am up in town next Friday, meeting a friend in the morning. Could be free afterwards around lunchtime. Does that work for you? Cait X’

  I deleted the X.

  My finger hovered over reply. Should, shouldn’t, should, shouldn’t. I pressed send. There. Done it. And what’s more I don’t care what you say, Lorna. I’m only curious, that’s all.

  *

  ‘And do you have anything to show, Cait?’ asked Fiona, my writing tutor when she got to me at the class that evening. She was a sturdy-looking lady in her late forties with long wavy hair and a smiley face.

  I shook my head. ‘It’s just not happening,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t despair, Cait. It will come,’ she said. ‘Even the greatest writers have times when it feels like they’re getting nowhere. The thing is not to give up. Keep writing. Write anything. You can always go back and change it, but you have to get started. If you don’t turn on the tap, the water can’t flow and sometimes, when it starts to flow, all the gunk that’s been blocking the taps comes out first. Don’t be put off by that, it’s part of the process. Only when the mucky water has been cleared will the pure water come through. You can edit a bad page but you can’t edit a blank one.’

  Well, that’s me told, I thought. Good advice. Spent the rest of the class writing about a creature with six heads who gets caught in blocked drainpipe. It felt strangely familiar.

  13

  Matt

  ‘Life’s a rollercoaster, Cait,’ I said as I munched on my cornflakes in the kitchen. ‘Down we go, up we go.’

  She looked at me with a puzzled expression. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘We’re due for a better phase. Something will turn up. You never really liked that job at the surgery anyway and probably won’t miss it when you’ve finished there.’

  ‘I haven’t minded it. It has paid a few bills.’

  ‘We’ll work something out. We’ve both been on a down slope, we’re due for an up phase.’

  ‘OK, Mr Positivity,’ she said, ‘and how do you propose that’s going to happen?’

  ‘Not sure yet, but it’s not over till the fat lady sings.’

  ‘What’s not over?’

  ‘Life. Work. Any of it.’

  ‘I believe you have to make life happen. Choice not chance determines destiny.’

  ‘I agree. Is that one of Debs’s quotes?’

  ‘Might be. Yes.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘That you go for interviews, make contacts.’

  ‘Right.’ I felt my hackles rise. Could she really think I hadn’t? I’d tried everyone I knew in the business, but what was the point of telling her that? I felt bad enough as it was, without admitting to her that I was a washed-up failure. And clearly my attempt at being positive wasn’t very well received either; in fact, Cait seemed permanently annoyed with me these days. I couldn’t say the right thing or be in the right place, which I suspected was out from under her feet.

  ‘Would you like me to wash that dressing gown before I go to work?’ she asked. ‘You’ve been wearing it for weeks now.’

  ‘I can do that, thank you. Is that what’s bothering you? The fact I don’t get dressed first thing?’

  ‘No. Yes. Oh I don’t know. I’m sorry. Do what you want. Or rather, maybe you could make a start on the decorating if we’re to do Airbnb.’

  ‘Oh, that’s decided, is it? I don’t remember having the conversation.’

  ‘You’re joking. I’ve mentioned it half a dozen times.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought it was just on the table as one of our options.’

  ‘We have bills to pay and limited savings. We have to do something. The sooner we get the house ready, the sooner we can take some shots, load them on the website and start taking paying guests.’

  ‘Website? What website?’

  ‘Airbnb. We have to register with the site and load some photos of the house, so people can decide if they want to come or not.’

  ‘Right. Send me the links and I’ll get on to it.’ I checked my watch.

  ‘I’ll go and buy paint tomorrow,’ said Cait.

  ‘Have you chosen colours?’

  ‘Yes. I left brochures on your desk with them marked for you to look at.’

  ‘Right. Must have missed them.’

  ‘And when are you seeing Debs about her website? I did tell her you’d look at it and help.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go. No need to remind me.’

  ‘Good. Great.’

  I got up. What happened to us? I wondered as I went upstairs to dress. When did we turn in to Mr and Mrs Grumpy? We used to like each other’s company, laugh a lot. We used to share ever
ything: books, TV shows, go for long walks together discussing future plans. Now Cait has her club for discussing books, her walking group and classes for exercise, her writing group for brainstorming ideas, her friends for talking things over with. I’ve become redundant to her too.

  Upstairs, I checked my emails on my laptop to see if, by any miracle, anyone had got in touch.

  There was one offering me a penis enlargement, another offering me a Russian bride and … one from Maria.

  From: Maria@gmail.com

  To: Matt@123.org

  Hi Matt

  Bumped into Bruce Patterson at Soho House over the weekend. He might have something for you. Here’s his number, 01623452364. He said to give him a call. Fingers crossed. Maria. X

  I felt a flicker of hope. Bruce had his own company and I’d worked with him on a travel programme a couple of years ago. We’d always got on. Thank you, Maria. No time like the present, I thought as I punched in his number.

  My luck was in. He picked up the phone.

  ‘There’s a gap in the market,’ he said after a brief catch-up. ‘We need some programme ideas.’

  ‘Gap?’

  ‘Silver surfers.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Exactly. Our generation. We’re not finished yet but so often depicted—’

  ‘As old men with walking sticks and cloth caps.’

  Bruce laughed. ‘But the older generations have money and the retired ones have time on their hands. See what you can come up with that might be of interest to them. Factual not fiction, drama’s not my department. Try and make it positive, not all heart problems, hip replacements and arthritis. We’ve no budget for the brainstorming, but if we like your ideas and can sell them in, you’ll get a fee and the job of producer is yours.’