Percy seemed to draw on his cigarette and quietly agree that some differences could not be bridged, whilst George was all for having a bit of an adventure and blow it. Fate is such, that it draws you on and sooner or later you must arrive at the very place you have been diverging from all these years. It is still there. Good or bad, it will change you and move you on.
‘Be good Wonka!’ I trilled, and ‘won’t be long!’ We both knew this wasn’t quite true. The long weekend had finally shuffled up, and before I could grasp it and meet up with said friends, I had a morning’s worth of invigilating to do. The laws of the universe were operating in full force; not, as according to my beloved Linda Goodman’s observations (her book still held me captive, containing all those lost secrets of the universe, and was at hand for all my desperate moments.) – as she advocated asking for what you wanted, yes step up with those desires and watch them all boomerang back! No, the law that seemed to haunt me was the one where the minute a good time or holiday or much needed break looms up, does the previously sluggish work situation un-slug. Suddenly, and like a wrap-around text, my little getaway was surrounded by work. Work in the day I was starting the break, and work on the day it ended. Would my friends tolerate this? Should I hold off with the news that our reunion had been squeezed out by horrid work?
Without the boys to advise or Wonka to give his straight from the furry hip advice, I just had myself to chat to. And I did this for the duration of the exam I helped to invigilate, and the actual journey to the holiday cottage.
‘Is Wonka alright etc,’ I beat into the ancient mobile later on, during sips of wine and laughing with my friends. Like the skylark, my beloved car now replaced by the car with no name, this mobile was overdue the chop. The more it wanted to give up on me, the harder I clung to it. ‘Did you get a new battery for it?’ chuckled one of them, amazed it could still receive and send. It had not heard of the internet thus saving me a few precious hours checking the world for breaking news.
So far in, the holiday was going well, and being merry was helping. I had overreached myself, and booked a medium for the evening to bring our futures into sharper focus – as it stood, only me and one other friend wanted to know.
Recounting all the insights sent from heaven above, over a jug of wine saw off the first evening and we all jogged homeward merry and bright. Thanks to a good meal and a lot of liquid refreshment I had brushed aside the first chasm like difference in opinion. One friend insisted on a view about a long standing media issue that I would never agree with; ‘how can you even think that?’ I challenged and that was long before the wine stepped in to have my hidden inner shadowy and hectoring self emerge. The full blown disaster that the longed for reunion was going to be, took up two days more or less, to develop as such. Driving homewards to the waiting invigilating session had me questioning how we had ever been pals before? The answer was in the question for this wasn’t ‘before’ it was after. After my life had changed and gone off in a direction that in no way mirrored theirs.
For a long time after though, I simmered with disappointment. The famous film might have ‘let it go!’ but me being me, did not. Wonka rolled over and showed me his huge furry tummy when I returned, with stories of how Bertie did this, and Ruggles did that, oh and how the beloved cat sitter had played with him and how I didn’t.
Emails were exchanged and I sat firm. Firm and alone.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’ chirped up Wonka from the side. The boys were on my side, saying things like, ‘it was your holiday too,’ (Percy) and ‘plenty more friends to be had! (George.) It would take another year for me to even begin to see any other side to it bar my own.
The so called summer sped on and some things went right. An independent publisher, who I had whisked off the Christmas Story to, at the end of the previous year, let me know they were still waiting for the rest of the submission. My life seemed to hang on this kind of mishap – people writing to me and I get it ages later when I’ve given up; or the most famous one, when Mother’s letter arrived courtesy of redirected mail and I read it to her at her hospital bed. It could have easily have arrived after I had ticked the ‘No’ box to continue receiving rubbish mail for her. Instead, it began the chain of events to secure a lost inheritance. Ah…..
Back in the real world and Wonka warning me about pending disasters money wise (there wasn’t any) I continued placing my bets on the agency work, and they continued with the zero hours.
‘Are you famous?’ one of the young students asked me when I boasted about having a book published. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’ I went back.
The mysteries of publishing were unfurling and the difficulties of making a living out of it, never mind anyone knowing who you were, came home. I carefully explained it to Mother every time I visited, and half the nursing home who usually listened in gratefully to our conversations for want of their own.
‘Have you had any money yet?’ she would quiz me. The idea!
The boys, who were in good range when I sat upstairs typing away, always spurred me on. ‘Steady as you go…’ murmured Percy who had taken up a pipe.
‘You can do it! Same as the rest of them!’ George of the hidden smile and boyhood promise, also smoking, caught my eye as I swung on the office chair; seated at the dressing table that doubled as a kneehole desk. I smiled at both of them and carried on with the latest story.
‘Starving!’ this from Wonka, who had been slumbering nicely on my bed, and was now lined up by his trough.
And hoping my stories with their funny little illustrations would put a stop to just that situation, I went back down.
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