Other People’s Diaries (11 page)

Well at least being part of this group means that for once I'm the youngest
.

I'm starting to become a little paranoid about the age of everyone around me. All right, at thirty I'm not exactly over the hill. But when you find yourself doing the same things as people ten years younger than you, you've got to stop and take a good hard look at yourself
.

Unfortunately, though, my new boyfriend is also someone else's husband. So doing grown-up public things with him is not an option. That means I can either go to sedate dinner parties and Sunday barbecues with married friends and their babies, or to bars and gigs with other, much younger friends who still have an idea about what constitutes a good time
.

T
aking a sip of her Diet Coke, Megan opened her email. Two messages from her brother who now lived in Dubai. One from a friend in Sydney.

And one from Alice Day.

God, that was quick.

The questionnaire had sat on her kitchen bench for over a week. The idea of a whole bunch of women (and a guy who was clearly just hoping to get lucky) trying to fix their lives didn't
really work for her. She had no issues with anyone else doing it – each to their own and all that. She just didn't want to be part of it.

Still, since she'd stupidly told Jane that Greg was married, her entire family had been on her back about it. Jane had of course told Jennifer, and her mother had known about it before Megan had finished her first drink.

The way they had all performed, you'd think she was the only one in the world who had ever shagged a married man. Megan's argument that as she wasn't married, she wasn't doing anything wrong, had just inflamed the situation. Telling them that it was nothing serious had been a mistake as well – Jennifer lectured Megan that she shouldn't be putting someone else's marriage in jeopardy for a whim.

Her mother had fallen on this thing with Alice Day as though it had the potential to save Megan from eternal damnation and had insisted on calling every day to find out how it was going. The first couple of days Megan had lied and said she had filled in the forms and was waiting to hear back. But it was clear her mother wasn't going to give up.

So the night before last she'd sat down to fill in the questionnaire, a glass of wine in her hand, her favourite singer, Bill Callahan, playing on the stereo. She'd surprised herself with how honest she was with her answers – maybe it was the wine, but she just couldn't be bothered making up lies.

Under the heading
What would you like to be doing in five years?
Megan had written that she would like to be a computer programmer for a gaming company, working from home and having nothing whatsoever to do with children.

She'd even written about Greg and admitted that he was married, although she'd made it quite clear that she didn't consider it to be the soul-damning crime everyone else seemed to believe it was.

Megan had also told Alice that the way she was running the diary entries on her website was the technological equivalent of using a horse and cart instead of a car and she couldn't stand not to fix it.

Now, Megan clicked on Alice's email.

Hi Megan. I'm really pleased you've decided to do this
.

Thank you for your offer to upgrade the website. As you can tell, the technology revolution has largely passed me by and my kids tell me frequently I am a dinosaur. The administrator password is currently Alice (yes, I know, not very clever). Please feel free to bring us into the twenty-first century
.

Now, to your task. I have to admit, I found your first email task one of the most difficult to come up. I'm not sure why, maybe because you live such a different life
.

That was obviously the closest that Miss Perfect Alice could come to acknowledging her having sex with a married man, Megan thought sourly.

 

It sounds to me that you are frustrated with life because you've done things others wanted you to do – like teaching. Perhaps a good place to start is to think of something you truly want to do today – for you, not anyone else
.

I am trying hard not to sound like that line of greeting cards which features birds flying into sunsets and asks you to follow your dreams. But today, I want you to do one thing just because you want to
.

Megan looked at the computer screen. After a moment she closed her email program so that the screensaver came up. It was a picture of Greg she'd taken on her mobile phone a few days ago. His dark eyes looked at her, his smile enigmatic.

What Megan had said about not being serious about Greg wasn't true. Megan liked him a lot. He was the head of some department in a mining company, used to making things happen. He was smart and confident and seemed to listen to what she said. Almost perfect actually – except for the wife and two children.

Even so, her family's reaction had made her re-think their relationship. It seemed inevitable that it was all going to end badly
and she should just finish it now. Suddenly though, she changed her mind.

Okay Alice, she thought. Something just for myself and no one else … Well, then, I choose to keep seeing Greg.

Megan pulled up Greg's number on her phone.

Need a drink. R U free?

Within seconds the answer came back.

Yep – normal place 30 mins
.

Megan hit the shutdown key on her computer.

Her immortal soul would just have to wait a little longer for redemption.

Kyla called on Sunday and I told her about the drinks and Alice's idea. She surprised me by being strongly against the concept, thinking it all sounded very weird. Which I guess it is. But I found myself trying to explain how I'd thought the same things that Alice had been talking about, but had never actually put any of it into words
.

After the MRI scan I needed something to think about that didn't involve long scientific words or ‘likely scenarios'. So I filled in the form and sent it back. I also sent Alice my first diary entry about why I decided to go to the drinks in the first place. I must admit it felt quite nice to do something of which my daughter disapproved. Perhaps I'll try a tattoo next …

T
he note from Alice had come in the mail – a small piece of bright pink notepaper in a matching envelope.

Dear Lillian

Your task is to go and buy yourself a piece of jewellery. Nothing expensive, but it must include beads and at least two different colours. And you need to wear it!

Lillian had been taken aback, almost irritated. What on earth was that supposed to achieve? Disappointed, she screwed the note up and dumped it in the bin. She didn't know what she had been hoping for, but shopping for accessories wasn't it.

She couldn't believe she'd wasted the effort of filling in the form.

Annoyed at herself, she found her big hat and gardening gloves and headed outside. After two days of rain, the garden had finally started to show some life. Lillian spent the morning pulling out weeds and cutting back unruly branches. Finished by lunchtime, she washed her hands and headed upstairs. Pulling off her hat, she tried to push her sweaty hair from her forehead.

She had nothing else planned for the remainder of the day. The pile of reading material the doctor had given her sat on the dining room table.

With sudden decision she strode into the bathroom. Thirty minutes later she was ready, hair washed and dried and make-up on. She had never understood the ability of her children to walk out the door in whatever they happened to be wearing without so much as running a brush through their hair. She'd been brought up to believe that you dressed up when you went out, and old habits died hard.

Lillian settled herself at a cafe table as a well-dressed couple in their early forties stood up to leave a neighbouring table. The man dragged a beautifully clad baby from where she had been crawling around the table legs. As he lowered her into the stroller, the baby arched her body and launched into a full-throated yell. Rattled, the man fumbled with the straps and the baby rolled sideways off the pram and toward the floor. The woman caught the child with one hand, dumping her into the pram.

‘Grab the stuff, Adam, I'll wait further down,' she instructed the child's father over her shoulder.

The man looked over at Lillian, who made a commiserating face at him. He smiled thinly. From under the table, he collected a macerated piece of toast, soft toy and an expensive-looking pair of sunglasses.

‘Makes me wonder why we do this to ourselves,' he muttered to Lillian.

‘Don't worry, they do grow up,' she replied. ‘Before you know it, you'll be pulling her out of bars.'

‘Roll on the day,' he ground out. ‘Drug addictions will be just fine if she sleeps in occasionally.' He smiled to soften his words, but it came out more like a grimace.

Lillian watched him stride down the street, blissfully unaware of the patch of mush covering his designer right buttock.

Raising children today wasn't easy. Parenting seemed to be incredibly self-conscious, people thinking and double thinking actions or decisions which in her day had been automatic. How to discipline your children, what opportunities to offer them … Thirty years ago the answer to the first had been smacking and to the second had been playing in the backyard. Now it seemed that neither of those scenarios existed.

She guessed that Kyla would be the same if she ever had a child, treating motherhood like a career. Lillian didn't envy her the task – sometimes having fewer options was a good thing.

Grandchildren … She'd thought that when they came they would bring more purpose to her life. Her mother had come to live with her soon after David's death. There'd always been someone to look after until last year. But now, perhaps she wouldn't be around when Kyla or Daniel had children. Or if she were, maybe she wouldn't be able to take them for walks, or even hold them …

The waitress interrupted her thoughts and Lillian placed her order.

She pushed thoughts of illness to the back of her mind and concentrated on enjoying the outing. There was absolutely no reason not to do this more often, but somehow she didn't. She'd never even had a coffee alone until about five years ago. A night out for dinner had been something done with the children at the local Chinese once in a blue moon.

But here she could sit back and watch the world go by. That at least was one benefit of being invisible.

Lillian sometimes felt like a modern version of a ghost. People could hear her if she spoke to them, feel her if she touched them. But otherwise she was completely invisible. Too old to draw a second glance, too young to need helping in the door or up the bus steps … It seemed that the presence of a sixty year old woman simply didn't register on the consciousness of most people. She understood now why people became eccentric. It was simply a way to maintain a place in a world that had forgotten them.

Lillian wondered briefly if that was why Alice had sent her off to buy a striking necklace. To make her noticeable. It was unlikely though that Alice understood. Alice was under forty, a successful author and had young children. It was probably just that she couldn't think of anything else to suggest to a boring old woman with a disease that could well be going to destroy her life.

Suddenly Lillian didn't care why she was here. It was a beautiful day and the food the waitress had delivered was excellent. She was about to wander through the shops with a purpose, rather than her usual aimless anxiety. There'd been enough bad buys over the years to put her off shopping altogether. Nothing terribly dramatic, just items that looked good in the shop but either looked ridiculous at home or went with nothing she owned.

Lillian finished her meal and paid the bill.

Thirty minutes later she was standing in a boutique, fingering a long string of pearl-coloured beads. It was beautiful, but only one colour and so didn't fit Alice's criteria.

‘Lillian?'

She turned to see one of the women who'd been at Alice's drinks evening.

‘Lillian? It is you. I'm sorry, you probably don't remember me, but we met the other night. I'm Claire.'

Lillian smiled and quickly took her hands off the beads. She felt as though she'd been caught doing something wrong.

‘Hello.'

She did remember Claire, although she wasn't sure she would have spoken to her if she had seen her first. After all, they hadn't exactly met under normal circumstances.

‘Doing a bit of retail therapy?' Claire held up the smart-looking paper bag she was carrying. ‘They have a great sale on at Spark. I had to use incredible willpower not to buy more.'

Lillian shook her head. ‘For me, retail is anything but therapeutic. If I could just wear my pyjamas everywhere I'd be a much happier woman.'

Claire looked as though she wasn't sure whether Lillian was joking or not. ‘You really don't like shopping?'

‘Hate it. Mostly because I always seem to get it wrong.'

Lillian hesitated. This whole project of Alice's was ridiculous. She felt stupid admitting that she was actually in the shop following Alice's instructions. But then Claire was part of it, wasn't she?

‘Alice told me to buy some beads,' she confessed. ‘Coloured ones. But I have no idea which ones to buy.' She gestured at the rack in front of her.

Claire looked at them briefly. ‘None of them,' she said. ‘To get away with beads like that, you need to be a six foot supermodel or a teenage girl. They'd make anyone else look frumpy.' She looked sideways at Lillian and hesitated before adding, ‘No offence.'

Lillian tried hard not to take any. At least she hadn't actually bought them. Frumpy – just the image she was looking for.

‘But,' Claire was saying, ‘they have some wonderful necklaces on sale at Spark. I was just looking at them but knew my husband would go ballistic if I spent more money. Come on, I'll show you.'

‘No, really, I should be going. It's not as though I need anything, I was just browsing …'

‘Please, I'd love to show you. Besides, they're half price.'

As if that settled the matter Claire headed out of the store, leaving Lillian no choice but to follow.