see it. I know you said you’re free that weekend, but I’ve not given you the deets. Here they are: Right, so we’re going to Brighton. Nothing cheesy! I promise! We are too old for penis straws and butlers in the buff now, I reckon. 33 is not 27! We’ve got the top floor of a nice restaurant booked for the whole evening, so we can just stay there and get wankered. MAYBE, if we’re really drunk, we’ll end up in a club. But, to be honest, there’s at least five of us either preggers or breastfeeding, so I reckon we’ll just end up going back to the Airbnb and chatting with cups of tea. Then we’ll go for brunch the next day, maybe pootle around the Lanes. Very chilled! It all comes to £150 which I hope is OK with you? Again, sorry. All of this is in the group and I totally forgot to loop you in. My bank deets are 44-52-87 and 90827536. I’ll email again about trains down. SO EXCITED TO SEE YOU! I can’t believe it’s coming up so soon. WHAT IS HAPPENING? WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
So much love and hugs,
Chrissy xxxx
I swear when I see the amount at the bottom, frantically doing some maths in my head to add in the cost of train tickets and meals and ‘of course we can’t let Chrissy pay for anything on her hen do so let’s all pitch in to cover it for her’.
Katy jolts me out of my thought-processing. ‘So?’ she asks, leaning around her computer, big smile on her face. ‘When are you going to meet Mr Mount Kilimanjaro?’
I take another sip of coffee. ‘I’m not sure if I am going to meet him. He’s not asked me out yet.’
‘Feminism remember!’ she shrills. ‘You can totally ask him out, you know?’
‘I know I can,’ I say. ‘But I’m not sure I want to.’ Plus, the books say you shouldn’t. Everyone says you shouldn’t. Men need to hunt and gather you. Plus, Gretel isn’t sure yet. She’s too busy getting her nose fucking pierced or something.
‘Oh hon,’ Katy sighs, her face sinking into sympathy I don’t need or want right now. ‘I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Simon, but I think it’s important to keep putting yourself out there, you know? You’ve got to keep the faith.’
‘Who needs Jesus when you’ve got a man who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro?’
She laughs. ‘You know what I mean. I really do have a good feeling about this one. Honestly, from the moment I saw his picture, I felt something. I get things like that sometimes.’
I glance back at my emails and a reminder jumps out to remind me I’ve got my clinical supervision this afternoon. ‘Did you have a good feeling when you met Jimmy?’ I ask, only half-interested in the answer.
‘I did actually. I remember it so clearly. After our first date, I came home and wrote in my diary, “I know this sounds dramatic, but I think I’ve just met the man I’m going to marry”.’
I smile and say ‘aww’. And think: literally every woman thinks that after a good first date. If I’d actually married all the men I thought I was going to marry then I’d be like Henry VIII combined with a sex cult-leader and multiplied to the power of Katie Price. ‘That’s cute,’ I say.
‘I know.’ I watch her soothe herself with the memory, its magic making her think fondly of her husband for a moment or two.
‘Well, we’ll see. He’s not asked me out yet.’
‘He will.’
‘Well he might not.’
‘He will. And like I said, I’ve got a feeling about him.’
‘Don’t tell me, you think maybe this one could be different?’
It’s too hot to be asked such pressing questions.
‘Have you considered, April, that it might be time to think about retiring from this particular role?’
My clinical supervisor for work is a psychologist called Carol. She’s arranged neatly in her chair, pretending to be all wise and knowing, despite the fact it’s about ten million degrees in this office and I can see sweat glistening on her top lip.
‘Why would I want to do that?’ I squiggle about in my plastic chair, wipe the sweat from the underside of my thigh and cross my legs.
‘Well, some themes are starting to repeat quite often in this supervision. Most notably, how these shifts are altering your general view of men.’
I nod. It’s true.
‘You’re coming up to two years working on the front line of this