Five Go Glamping (2 page)

‘Fiona, does that clock say twenty to two or twenty to three?’ She moved her glasses up and down, blinked a few times and widened her eyes – which made her forehead wrinkle – then squinted. ‘Only, I can never tell. You’d think the least they could do was buy us girls in the corner a clock that told the time properly.’

‘It’s twenty to two, Doris.’ I said, for the sixth time that week. I sighed. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be really hungover like Ayesha. Or I wanted to be spending the day with the girls, or Connor if I wasn’t so cross with him.

‘You can always check the clock on your computer.’

‘We didn’t have computers in my day.’

‘Do you want tea or coffee, Doris?’ I asked, with my mouth full of Jaffa cakes. I was desperate to get away from her, even for five minutes.

‘Coffee. And not too much milk like last time.’

I took our mugs to the kitchen and half-heartedly rinsed them. There were crumbs in the bottom of Doris’s mug, even though she hadn’t brought her own biscuits in since 1987. Out of habit I reached for a third mug for Ayesha when something dawned on me. Ayesha doesn’t have her own mug. Doris has her own mug. And I have my own mug. And both mugs have got cats on. Doris has got three cats on her mug.

There are four on mine.

I have gone full mad cat lady like Doris without even realising it, stuck in this ridiculous job, being sensible and saving all my money instead of having fun. Right there, at that moment, I was prepared to fully abandon my savings plans and spend at least a tenner on a ‘buy two glasses, get the bottle free’ deal down the pub.

‘Doris, I’m going home now. Now.’ I plonked her extra milky coffee in front of her and struggled into my coat. ‘I don’t need to be here on Saturdays, it’s voluntary, so I’m going. Now. I am going to be spontaneous’.

‘Spontaneous? You?’ said Doris.

‘Yes,’ I said.

I could tell by the way Doris was looking at me that she didn’t think it was possible for me to be spontaneous. I planned everything. I always knew exactly what I was going to be doing and when. I had started it several years back when I began My Five Year Plan – a series of goals I was going to achieve, all designed to make me happy.

My main goal was to buy my own place, so lots of the sub goals involved how to save money. Doris’s job was also in my target as a career goal, not because I particularly wanted to do Doris’s job, but because it would take me a step closer to my own home. The bigger the deposit I had, the less my mortgage would be, and then I would finally have the freedom to do whatever I wanted with my life. Perhaps going back to college to get the qualifications I needed to change my career. And it also meant that Connor and I could save to get married. Not that he had asked me yet, but it was all in my plan.

My Five Year Plan was divided up into each year, then month, then week, and detailed exactly how much I needed to save each week to reach my goal. It had started off in an old battered notebook, but now I used apps and calendar reminders which bleeped at me to let me know what I should be doing and when. My social life, working life and even my meals for the week were planned with military precision. As long as I was working towards my goals, I was happy, but it did mean there was little time for spontaneity, which is why Doris was looking at me as though I had gone mad.

I was taking the immensely significant step of leaving work early on a Saturday and I hadn’t planned for it. Maybe I could even go shopping and buy something new to wear which I hadn’t budgeted for. I was going to call Sinead and Steph and tell them we were going out early to sit in the beer garden.

‘We’d all like to say “hello to spontaneity” and go and enjoy the sunshine but I’m afraid you aren’t going anywhere at the moment – you’ve taken your lunch and you can’t take a lunch if you have only worked for four hours. Sit down, Fiona’. She motioned me to sit. ‘You will simply have to work the half hour you have taken for lunch and then you can go. That is, unless you want to leave me to do everything myself.’

Half a bloody hour. She might as well have said ‘until the end of time.’ I slumped in my seat and sulked, a few minutes afterwards I realised I still had my coat on – my gorgeous, yellow, coat. Yes, it was the hottest day of the year, but it was a size twelve Topshop coat so therefore practically a size zero and I hadn’t got into a size twelve Topshop anything for two years – this is because size twelve clothes don’t fit you if you are a size fourteen, like me. I tried to take it off while still sitting down as if that was a normal thing to do, but I got my arm stuck in a sleeve and had to stand up which somehow made me even more stuck, so I left one arm in my coat and sat down. This was exactly the sort of thing that happened when you didn’t plan for it. I spent the next twenty-five minutes looking at the screen answering queries while trying to shrug the coat sleeve off while Doris tutted and complained about her coffee.

When I’d finally worked off my lunch hour, all enthusiasm had left me. I’d talked myself out of my Great Escape. There didn’t seem any point going early now.

After I’d freed myself of my coat, I made myself a hot chocolate in my four cat mug. Then I made Doris another cup of coffee and dunked a tea bag in it for a few seconds. I don’t know why, I just felt like it. She said it was lovely and I was disappointed she liked it but also rather pleased that at least someone had appreciated one of my inventive creations.

What seemed like decades later, it was finally five o’clock. I left work feeling troubled and upset and decided I definitely wasn’t working next Saturday as it was a bank holiday weekend and I would definitely be having some fun!

I made my way down New Street and took a right at the end to head towards the Bullring markets to pick up some ingredients for tea. The carrier bags laden with vegetables cut into my hands as I walked towards Selfridges to catch the bus.

On the way home, I planned what to do with all the vegetables for the week and wondered if Connor would be joining me to eat them or if would I be Instagram-ing them with the world without having anyone to actually share them with. As I was wondering what kind of meals I could cook for a cat, Connor sent a text with an apology, saying he ‘might’ be around later. I muttered ‘tosser’ under my breath, but not as quietly as I thought and an old lady in front of me turned round, glared at me and tutted. ‘Well he is,’ I said.

A year or so ago, Connor absolutely fitted in with my Five Year Plan perfectly. He was successful, focused, with big plans for his business, and knew exactly what he wanted. But now, Connor was so busy he barely had time to see me. Part of me wondered if he wasn’t committed to me, let alone the plan, but he would always reassure me that he was doing this for us and our future.

But today I was troubled by it all. Now I had seen my future as a mad cat lady and with Doris retiring, and the realisation I had already been working there for fifteen years, I was frightened that if I didn’t do something drastic, I’d spend the next thirty years at that same desk. I was worried my five year plan wasn’t working.

Chapter Two

Steph arrived as I was ordering at the bar. She had persuaded me to come out after I called her on the way home. She said I simply had to come and I was not allowed to waste perfectly good beer garden weather.

‘Steph, do you think I am going to be a mad cat lady?’

Her eyes darted around as she looked for a table out in the beer garden. All I wanted her to say was ‘No, this will never ever happen to you. Ever. And I will do all in my power to prevent it.’ But she didn’t. She was too focused on bagging us a seat, probably motivated by her need to escape the pain of her ridiculously high shoes. Steph always looked effortlessly glamorous. She had wavy long blonde hair and although it wasn’t natural, she never ever had roots. She was the only person I knew to have highlights which actually looked natural.

My hair had always been a challenge until the invention of Frizz Ease. Remarkably, even though I’d stood all the way home from town on a packed, sweaty number 50 bus, it was holding up okay today. It was stifling on that bloody bus, but I couldn’t take my coat off as there wasn’t enough room. I’d thought about it, but there were women and children around and there may have been flailing arms as I tried to escape the coat.

Steph shrugged ‘I don’t know.’ She was so focused on her mission. ‘Do you like cats? Is this something to do with your plan? Quick! Table!’

Steph swiped up the bottle of wine and two glasses from the bar and made a dash for the doors, shouting behind her ‘Get another glass for Sinead.’

As we settled ourselves at the table I continued my cat lady chat. ‘I mean, cats are okay. I do like them. But I don’t want loads or anything. And I do want to come out on Saturday nights but I have to save. ‘I took a long drink of the chilled white wine. It was still really hot outside, even at seven o’clock. I took my shoes off and felt the grass under my feet.

‘How many cats do you need to be a mad cat lady then?’ Steph pushed her sunglasses on to the top of her head, more attentive now she’d grabbed us a table.

‘Four.’ I said this confidently, now knowing it to be fact.

‘Get three then. Or maybe only two. Why are you getting a cat, again? Does Connor like cats?’

‘I don’t know, actually,’ I said realising it was strange that after a couple of years together I didn’t know if he liked cats or not. I worried that it should be something I absolutely knew. ‘I don’t really want a cat at all but I’m worried that I will end up like Doris if I don’t leave my stupid job. Where’s Sinead?’ Sinead was great at giving thoughtful advice and words of wisdom, whereas Steph was more practical – apart from when it came to heel height.

‘Doing some of her hippy bollocks, she’s having her chakras cleared with Tibetan bowls or Himalayan bells or something,’ Steph rolled her eyes. ‘It’s supposed to make you feel calm. I told her the only bells that actually makes you feel calm is the whisky. But wine is much nicer. Cheers. Hey, you know what? Stroking cats is supposed to make you calm and happy.’

‘Well, Doris at work isn’t calm and happy. Quite the opposite in fact. She’s always miserable. She only has three so she’s not full mad cat lady. It’s definitely four for that. And I have four on my mug and Doris only has three on hers and I barely see Connor so I might as well be single.’

‘It’s not that bad, is it? Have you two been arguing again?’ said Steph with her eyebrows raised, looking concerned.

‘Oh I don’t know, Steph. I haven’t really seen him to have an argument with him!’ I said and slumped down. ‘It all seems like such hard work, you know?’

‘I know,’ said Steph. ‘Maybe it’s time to change your plan then?’

Even though I had considered it earlier, I now bristled at the thought of it.

‘Hmm,’ I said ‘I’m not sure.’ I had spent so long saving, and all those Saturdays at work would be for nothing. I didn’t want to give up on my dreams now. I’d only have to do Doris’s job for a few years. I could still leave long before I became a cat lady.

Steph rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the point in having a plan if it doesn’t make you happy? And what’s the point of a boyfriend you never see? Honestly Fi, he ought to be making a bit of an effort.’

‘He said he won’t be so busy once summer is over. There won’t be so many festivals and events and I’ll see him more.’ This was one of things I was hanging onto; once the festivals and the summer parties were over, he’d be back to working less brutal hours, and things would be back to normal. This is what I hoped for anyway.

‘It kind of is the end of summer,’ said Steph, delivering a crushing blow as I realised it was almost September and I had spent barely any time with Connor. No summer picnics, no strolls in the park, no weekends away, holidays or days out on the beach. No time to stop all the planning and to just
be
for a little while.

‘I feel like I’ve missed it,’ I said.

‘I know what you mean, I am so tired. I could do with a holiday,’ said Steph, sighing. Steph had not taken any holiday since Christmas, she’d been working so hard trying to win accounts which would get her a promotion. She worked ten-hour days but at least she was doing what she wanted and was successful. But it was taking its toll on her – she looked a little dark around the eyes, as though she’d not slept for weeks.

With both of us now feeling really miserable, we did the only thing to do in this situations; we checked in with Facebook, tagged each other and uploaded smiling selfies of ourselves ‘feeling happy’ while we waited for Sinead to arrive.

‘Seriously though, Fi, are you happy?’

I thought about her question for a moment, and was relieved when Sinead arrived so I didn’t have to answer.

Steph sniffed her to check for patchouli in case she’d gone full hippy.

‘Good, no patchouli, you may still be my friend,’ she teased while pouring her a glass of wine.

‘Clear off, Steph.’ Sinead gave her a gentle shove. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Connor let Fiona down again last night and now Fiona is getting a cat. Four cats, actually.’

‘Oh, no, again? Very calming, and pets are also good for moving the energy around. Very good feng shui,’ said Sinead. ‘Plus, nice company, you know, if you’re lonely?’

‘I’m not getting a sodding cat! And I am not lonely. I don’t think.’ I winced.

Sinead had managed to hit a nerve while simultaneously hitting the nail on the head.

‘She doesn’t need her feng shui sorting out,’ Steph started to laugh. ‘What she needs is to
be
sorted out. What she needs is a good sh-’

‘Steph!’ Sinead and I shouted at her.

‘What? I was going to say Chardonnay! Ha. Christ knows I do. I haven’t been on a date in years. Don’t have the time.’ Steph winked and topped up my glass and laughed the dirtiest laugh. I found it hard to believe Steph would be struggling to meet anyone.

‘What about that bloke from Fiona’s work who you went for a balti with on Ladypool Road last month? That was a date wasn’t it?’ asked Sinead, smiling encouragingly.

‘That doesn’t count. I have erased it from my memory.’ she said. ‘His favourite film was Jurassic Park Two. And he said he liked the smell of bleach. Seriously, who likes the smell of bleach? A mad axe murderer or a serial killer, that’s who. Therefore, it does not count as a date. It was more like a sociological investigation into the mind of a psychopath. Or a prison visit.’ She shuddered.