Page 59 of Don't You Forget About Me

Sorry yes did I not say at the time? She was a keen cyclist, came off under a lorry on the A6 in Buxton. Grim. She was from St Ives so they held the funeral there & I couldn’t get the time off. How did you find out?

Ah. I’d not thought I would be asked. I’ll mask it with a bad taste, black humour joke. It’s not like Rav is professionally trained and BACP certificated and will see right through it. I text:

Thought I’d make a ‘top-up’ sort of appointment with her and the centre told me. Rav I’m in no way making light of this or making it about me but my grief counsellor has died. That doesn’t seem like a thing that should be allowed to happen.

This is your tragedy, I see! Tell your next therapist to assess you for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (do you need another recommendation?) x

No, thanks. Wanted to catch up with Fay really x

Fay once caught me fagging it in the car park, after our session, and told me to quit.

‘Life is so short anyway, don’t make it shorter,’ she called, as she got into her racing-green Mini Cooper. ‘If I sound like your mother, that’s because I’m old enough to be your mother.’

I grinned and waved her off and ground the butt under my heel.

I’ll stop now, in her honour. I’m only a social smoker, really, I’ve stopped before and had no cravings.

And there’s something else I should do, too. Regarding another thing Fay said that resonated, long after our sessions had ended.

‘Sometimes because the people we wanted to care for us, didn’t care for us, we live with a deliberate lack of care for ourselves. A way of getting back at them, through self-neglect.’

I.e. treating yourself in exactly the way Clem says you shouldn’t.

‘You’re doing it as revenge?’ I’d asked.

‘Revenge, perhaps a buried desire to be rescued. And embracing a failure that you feel you’re marked for anyway.’

I’d had a creative idea, after the meal at Rajput, and I’d shelved it because I thought: what do I ever do that ever goes right?

I should stop living with a deliberate lack of care.

I’m going to enter that writing competition at the pub, and share my shame. AND, what’s more, I won’t go down without a fight with That’s Amore!

I’m going to email the event organiser first so I don’t have time to chicken out, then it’s on to Mr Keith, whose address I guess at from Ant’s reply.

Hello! You don’t know me, exactly, but I’m the waitress who got fired for doing as she was told during your recent meal at That’s Amore! I see the restaurant was in your paper, fighting back against claims it serves really bad food. But you’re the Star’s critic and you said your food was really bad. So I wondered why the piece didn’t benefit from your input?

Georgina Horspool

Dear Georgina, firstly, I would describe my dining experience at That’s Amore! as patchy. Secondly, the article to which you refer was in the news section, I work for the features department. I am sure I will review That’s Amore! in due course, at a time when they are not involved in staffing disputes.

Best, Alexander Keith

Well Mr Keith, I have an even better idea – why not get a feel for my former job by working a shift in their kitchen for a feature. I am sure it’d be colourful and illuminating.

I am sensing a vendetta, young lady. Your energies would be better spent looking for gainful employment elsewhere.

I type:Well as it happens I am entering a writing competitionthen remember: a column in theStaris the prize. Mr Keith might be one of the judges? And now he knows my name.

Urrgghhh.

I remember Esther’s words about messes, and me sitting in the middle of them, saying it’s never my fault, railing against it.Well, beloved: you’re the constant here.

I could wail at my stupidity, but the constructive thing to do is to be so brilliant he has to give me the column, despite his misgivings. God, it’s pretty much stand-up comedy isn’t it? No pressure …

20

I should’ve known something was up from the offer on Sunday afternoon of a moussaka that same night from Jo. Various rogue factors: the shortness of notice. The non-partying day. The fact that moussaka is quite calorific and Jo is very much on a healthy eating jag at the moment. After Friday night’s clusterfuck of an evening with Ragnacock, then the news about Fay, a night in with friends will always be restorative.

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