It’s hard to know what goes on inside her head, but there must be something happening in there. I knew her fifteen years ago, and now when I see her, she looks the same, or possibly younger. Her hair is a little drier, because she hasn’t stopped dyeing it blonde. That’s the hairdresser’s curse.
She tells me several times that it’s nice to see me, and that she wishes she wasn’t too drunk to talk to me properly. I ask after her son, the elder one, and she says he has a new girlfriend, and they’re spending a year in New Zealand. I’m happy for him, and want to point out that she was wrong about him never loving again, after I broke his heart.
She tells me that the younger son is married, but that she wasn’t invited to the wedding. I don’t need to ask why. This is a small town, and everyone knows someone who heard it from a friend. I feel partly responsible for the fact that she left her husband after 25 years; it would never have occurred to her, before I split up with her son.
In her fairly mindless, inarticulate way, she always seemed to be unhappy. She had all the usual things: a solvent man, two nearly grown-up sons, a modern semi and a golden retriever. Her extensive family approved of all that, without asking too many questions about what she really wanted out of life. I don’t think she questioned it herself, either, but I was always aware of the fact that something was missing.
I left town, forgot about her, didn’t really care much what went on: they were places and people I was happy to forget. One day my dad told me that she had moved in with the bloke from the antique shop down the road.
Her eyes are still vacant, and she still looks unhappy.