On the bright side, though, it’s been pretty nice spending so much time with her and Joely on a regular basis. I realised the other day that’s been the thing I like least about being a grown-up: how life and work gets in the way of sitting around, all day and all night, with your best friends. It feels like we’ve been able to recapture a little bit of that, seeing each other so much. Simone’s been too busy with her latest career strategy to come to the meetings or help much with anything else. She bought a timeshare a couple of weeks ago, which will definitely work out just fine I am saying nothing it’s none of my business. But a bit of distance is probably a good thing since she was clearly so frightened of us. Joely says we’re better off without her helping because it would be like having a ‘moron on work experience’ around. She says Simone is a ‘walking ellipses’, and when I asked her what that means, she told me that Simone’s whole personality is ‘an unfinished sentence trailing off’. And I know that’s mean, but you have to admit it’s also fairly poetic.
By the time I get out of the meeting and over to the canteen, Franny is already halfway through her egg sandwich. She has a little bit of dried yolk on her cheek and I smile to myself, watching her eat for a long moment before I sit down. A rush of warm affection fills me for my messy grandma.
I’m going to tell her what happened with Will. I don’t know why I haven’t already. I usually tell her everything, but a long week has gone by and every time I opened my mouth to explain, the words wouldn’t come. I think I just wanted to pretend it wasn’t real. Because it probably wasn’t! I still don’t even know if it was a genuine proposal. He hasn’t said anything else about it since.
‘Um, Franny? Will sort of, kind of, semi... asked me to marry him,’ I say and I sit down heavily.
She swallows and looks me dead in the eye. ‘I hope you said no?’
I feel a pang in my stomach.
‘I thought you liked Will?’ I say, a bit worried. Franny’s always said the right things about my boyfriend – I thought they got on well – and it really matters to me. If Franny didn’t like the Significant Someone in my life, that would be a deal-breaker. Not only is she super smart (Mensa, don’t forget!) and a good judge of character, but she’s the most important human in my life.
She’s already waving her weathered hands dismissively, before the words are out of my mouth, bits of her egg sandwich hitting the table next to us. Three assistants on their lunch break stare over.
‘I do like him, I do,’ she says impatiently. ‘Especially when he brings me sherry. He’s a sweet boy. Very sweet. Like a puppy.’
I glance over my shoulder guiltily, like he might hear. He’s not a puppy, I promise he’s not.
She goes on. ‘But, my darling, sweet, wonderful girl, you’re not ready to get married.’
I study the crumbs on the table and say casually, ‘Everyone else is doing it.’
‘If everyone else jumped off a cliff,’ she twinkles at me, ‘you should be climbing up the rock face instead.’
I give over to the cheesy moment and smile broadly at her. Franny’s always been a fan of doing the very opposite of whatever you’re meant to.
She pauses and looks hard at me again. ‘Do you want to get married, Delilah?’
I open my mouth to reply, and instead I feel myself start to well up.
Oh God. Tears? Now? Really? I glance over at the nearby assistants but they’re caught up in their own conversation.
I shake my head, trying to dismiss the sudden emotions, feeling annoyed at my unnecessary reaction. I don’t even know why I’m crying.
Shit, I wish I had more control over myself! I’m such a stupid, stupid, stupid dickhead. I don’t cry like a normal person, I never have. The moments when crying would be a perfectly reasonable, acceptable reaction – that’s when I clam up and get all dead inside. But any level of unnecessary kindness and I lose it entirely. Last week I went to the GP to get a repeat prescription for the pill and the nurse asked me if there was anything else I wanted to talk about. I fully burst into tears. I didn’t have anything to talk about, I just couldn’t help it. It’s like a trained response. Especially when I’m hormonal and tired. I will cry over kindness, unkindness, margarine adverts, Jennifer Aniston never reuniting with Brad Pitt, the abstract concept of death, a really nice door. Anything.
Except I’m not even hormonal, so that’s not it.
‘Oh, my darling girl, what is it?’ Franny says, reaching for me and pulling me in for a cuddle. I sag into her and let the tears roll down my face for a minute.
‘I don’t know, actually. I’m sorry,’ I say a little weakly, trying to get myself together. ‘I think I’m just really tired. I was out again last night with Lauren and I’ve been working too hard lately. I have such a huge to-do list. I have so much to think about with all these weddings and hen dos – plus it’s costing me a fortune – and I’m worried I haven’t been spending enough time with Will. I keep cancelling our date plans – twice in the last couple of weeks – and he’s been so nice about it, but he wouldn’t tell me if he was annoyed anyway. And I’m scared things are weird between us because of this non-proposal. Oh, and, of course, I’ve been running about after Lauren so much...’
Franny tuts. ‘How is that bridezilla of yours?’
I try not to smile. ‘Don’t be mean, Franny. Lauren’s not that bad.’
Franny narrows her eyes and mutters, ‘Yet.’
I ignore her, sitting back up and dabbing my eyes before continuing. ‘And it’s normal that she wants everything to be so completely perfect. You only get one wedding, after all.’
Franny cackles. ‘You can have as many weddings as you bloody well want,’ she says. Franny has been divorced three times and outlived her last husband, Geoffrey. He was a farmer she met online – the one who looked like Danny Devito – and they had a long-distance relationship because he lived in Somerset. Franny said it was ‘mostly just about sex, anyway’.
I know, I know, try not to think about it too much.
When Geoffrey died two years ago, Franny and I started spending even more time together. As well as seeing her here all the time, we also have our Fuddy-Duddies United club every Thursday evening, over at the local youth club. It’s us and around fourteen hot mess old women just like my granny. Franny and I started the club a few years ago as a place to practise our pub trivia and talk about the latest sudoku app updates. We knew it was essentially a bad rip-off of the WI, and I did suggest we join the actual WI, but Franny said they’re ‘too cool’ now, because ‘the jam-making isn’t the priority it once was’. So we asked the council if we could use the space every Thursday night. They said yes, and we’ve converted it for our needs. Since then, we’ve expanded a bit and turned into something more than just a trivia club. We started being more proactive in the community. We do fundraisers and charity walks for the homeless, and visit local schools to life coach kids who hate us. It’s great fun!
It keeps everyone active, and I don’t want to sound like one ofthosepeople, but it makes me feel good on the inside. We, like,helppeople. And for a while, loads of new people wanted to join. We had women of all ages coming along on a Thursday night – even Lauren and Joely turned up to one meeting. But one of the original old-lady members – Molly – hated that. She said she didn’t want all these ‘young people’ and their ‘modern world ways’ intruding on her club. So she used her old lady powers to drive them away by being racist and – even worse – judgy. And the younger members did not like it. Old people being weird about the Chinese is one thing, but when they won’t stop calling your new unicorn jumper ‘hideous, cheap polyester shit’, that will drive anyone away. So now it’s just the old ladies and me again.
