I get off the bus on John Finnie Street. It’s dreich and wet, the pavement glossy with rain. I’m wearing my grey coat, fair chuffed with myself as I can get into it again. It feels nice not to have work clothes on.
The restaurant's just round the corner and I’m first there. The lassie offers me a generic table in the middle of the room but I opt for a cosy corner with soft, bucket seats. I’ve just got my bum sat down when I see them come in together, smiling and talking already.
We’re here for my birthday, which was a month ago, but this was the earliest we could meet up. Beth launches a present at me, and I laugh, a hot water bottle in a fleecy cover, rock n roll. Jenny hands us a Christmas present each, even though it’s March. 'Well, we were supposed to meet up before Christmas, but never did', she laughs. I’ve come empty handed.
They are excited and blether non-stop. Jenny has lost tonnes of weight and tells us her type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure had her terrified of dying so she is on a health kick. Her mum has vascular dementia, so she also has that fear hanging over her.
They keep talking, machine gun style and I start to get a wee bit annoyed as I cannae get a word in edgeways. The lassie wants to take our order but we’ve no even looked yet. Beth asks about gluten free and Jenny for brown bread. I order the special.
We blether about this, that and the next thing. Beth’s mum is 95 and her old age pension got stopped by mistake months ago. Beth was 4 hours on the phone, getting passed from pillar to post trying to sort it out. Jenny’s mum is settling into the care home. Looking after her mum at home for the past year hasn’t helped her blood pressure much. I think of my dad with his poor feet, blue with neuropathy. His cataracts. My mum and her dizzy turns. Old age is not for the faint hearted.
The food arrives; baked tatties for me and Beth, mines loaded with steaming yellow chicken curry, hers with tuna mayo (gluten free) and a brown bread toastie for Jenny. We get tucked in. I eat mine as well as Beth’s coleslaw.
I tell them about my new job and how I’ve now got a permanent contract. We talk about when we used to work together, laugh about how bossy Beth could be. We don’t actually say how we both looked up to her when she mentored us, but the implication hangs in the air. We’re better with jokey insults than compliments.
We’re no strangers to a rant; everyone we know has chronic sinusitis and a recurring cough and the GP’s aren’t prescribing antibiotics. No-one gets to see a GP, only a nurse and only a telephone appointment. All the young ones are getting private health insurance through their work. Everyone is on a two year waiting list for something and so people who can afford it are going private and you can’t blame them for wanting fixed. We conclude that the end of the health service will be insidious rather than dramatic.
Rant over, I ask if they saw Mhairi Black being interviewed on the telly last night. They didn’t but are going to watch it on catch up. We all love Mhairi Black, she is so charismatic. I think we have a girl crush. I talk about how engaging she was on the telly. Actually I think the female presenter had a girl crush for her too. Beth asks if she was talking about her ADHD diagnosis and I said she was. I say how she used to be the councillor in Paisley and had folk’s backs. She is doing a tour, sort of spoken word, and we promise to go and see her.
Our days of riotous works nights out may be behind us but good times are still to be had; Beth is going on a hot tub break with another friend and Jenny’s family took her away for her 60th. She tells us how her daughter asked her if we wanted to join them but she didn’t think we would. I catch Beth’s eye and we burst out laughing.
Out come the phones and the photies of the granweans. Beth and I both babysit when our daughters are working and we get a bit competitive. Jenny has one beautiful granddaughter, who looks 16 but is actually much younger. She is going to her first party soon. Jenny rolls her eyes, both proud and worried. We say this is natural and she is a sensible girl, probably more sensible than we were at that age.
We order pudding, of course. A huge strawberry tart for me, a gluten free cake for Beth. Jenny just has a coffee. I don’t have a coffee as I’m scared it’ll make me ready to pee on the bus on the way home.
Our addictions are not limited to food, sugar and caffeine, we also have Rightmove and True Crime. We laugh at the new houses that are all the same, with their grey laminate. (Even though I’ve got grey laminate too.)
We are laughing hard enough for others to look.
We need this light heartedness, this escape from our worlds and the world at large.
The things we don’t say are just as important as the things we say.
This is who we are.
We live while we still can.
They both want to pay for me, for my birthday, but I insist I pay my own as we are all skint pensioners now. Jenny wants to give me a lift home, but I remind her I’ve got a return bus ticket which I don’t want to waste.