Chapter Twenty-One
Ally
Present day
Our second stop on the trip down memory lane was St Bernadette’s on Princess Parkway. They’d had a youth club in the basement hall where every Friday night, there was a dance. We’d set off there when we were fourteen and fifteen, our first foray into the world of boys, kissing them and fighting them off, mainly fighting them off because they were a horny lot, all eager to gain experience and get into our clothes, particularly Mitch’s.
Jo laughed when we arrived in the car park. ‘There should be a blue plaque on a wall here to commemorate all the gropings in the car park in the freezing cold as the boys battled with bra straps, desperate to cop a feel and we tried to shove them off. I remember the first time I felt an erection. Some boy, Jim or Stuart, I can’t remember which, pushed my hand down his trousers and it was like, woah, what the fuck is that? I’d never seen a penis before, never mind felt one; it was like a warm firm silky rubber tube, with a life of its own, jabbing its way into my thigh. What was I supposed to do with it? I hadn’t a clue.’ She sighed. ‘I haven’t had enough sex in my life, good sex. I want that written on my gravestone. Here lies Jo. She didn’t have enough sex.’
‘But you were married for years,’ said Sara. ‘What about Doug?’
Dear Jo. She’d confided in me through the years that she hadn’t been happy with Doug but, being who she was, she’d always put a brave face on it and had never discussed their sex life in detail.
Jo pulled a face. ‘He wasn’t that into it after the flush of the first years wore off and the kids came. He was never great shakes in bed. He wasn’t the love of my life like Michael was for you, Ally, or Charles for you, Sara. And romance? He didn’t know the meaning of the word. He was tight. For birthdays, if I was lucky, he’d buy me an economy-sized bottle of bubble bath from a supermarket. He was always one for a discount or sale, but I longed to – just once – get a beautifully packaged parcel from Jo Malone or Chanel or a romantic weekend away, booked by him, a candlelit supper somewhere lovely. But no, I booked the treats. I even bought my own birthday fizz most years. It wouldn’t occur to him. He’d say, I thought you were on a diet, or something that would let him off the hook.’
‘So why did you stay with him?’ asked Sara.
‘They say you get the partner you think you deserve. I guess I didn’t believe that I deserved better. I always thought who’d want me? A great lump of lard.’
‘Now stop that,’ said Sara. ‘You’re very attractive, always have been, bigger or slimmer. You have sex appeal, how could you not know that? But I had no idea you weren’t happy with Doug. I thought you were Mother Earth with your perfect family.’
Jo gave a wry laugh. ‘Fooled ya.’
‘I wish you’d said.’
‘I always thought you were so happy too,’ said Jo, ‘with the beautiful Charles.’
‘Well, we all know what happened there. Believe me, the sex faded for us too as the years went on. Before he left, we often slept in separate bedrooms. He said it was because he snored and didn’t want to keep me awake. Now I know it was because he was plotting his escape with Ruth.’
I put my hand on her arm. ‘I am sorry about Charles, Sara. I wish I’d been there for you more over that time.’ I meant it. I’d been there for Jo when she needed someone to talk to, but had always assumed that Sara was doing fine with her job, her large circle of friends. Now I realized she’d been lonelier than I’d assumed.
I shrugged. ‘Hey, I survived, so did you, Jo.’
‘And now so must I,’ I said.
We’d all forgotten for a moment that Ajay was with us, but when I looked over, I saw that he’d taken himself off a distance, aware that we were having an intimate conversation, not one for the programme.
‘We were very green, weren’t we?’ Jo commented. ‘It might have helped if we’d had some proper sex education. I seem to remember we did something in biology about how rabbits made babies, but that was it. No wonder a real-life willie came as a shock.’
‘And it’s not over yet,’ I said. ‘Jo, I wish you more men, great sex and some monstrously expensive presents.’
‘Fat chance,’ said Jo.
After a bit of filming in the car park of the church, we moved on to locate the Top of the Town disco near the centre, only to find it was now a stationery shop. We drove on and went past Sara’s old house, Jo’s then mine. We’d lived nearby to each other so it didn’t take long. I felt a wave of sadness flood through me, those dearest to me – my parents gone, Michael gone. All of us were quiet as we stared out, lost in memories of another era when we’d been so much younger, our whole life in front of us waiting to be discovered.
‘Central library next,’ I said to Ajay as the driver took us towards town.
‘What happened there?’ he asked.
‘We’d go under the pretext of studying, but the main purpose was to eye up the students working there and see who was hanging out in the basement café,’ said Jo.
‘Mitch’s sister Fi was right when she said we were all boy-mad,’ Sara added. ‘We were. Each of us looking for our Heathcliff, our Mr Rochester, our Darcy. Sadly, most of the lads were pale, a bit spotty, and as inexperienced as we were.’
‘We may as well
