“Forty?!” I was incredulous. Jane, one of my new colleagues looked no more than a couple of years older than me. “Gosh, I hope I look as fabulous when I’m forty.” Jane smiled at the compliment. “Well, they say life begins at forty, so you’d better let me know, though I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait that long.”
“God, I hope you’re right. Thirty-nine has been an annus horribilis,” Jane confided.
“Can’t say I’ve ever tried it,” I replied with a smile, “it must be awful if you’ve got piles.” Jane laughed. She was an easy person to get on with and in the two days I had been in my new job, Jane and I had become friends, although we hadn’t yet shared our stories or secrets. There hadn’t been time.
“But you will come to the party, won’t you?” I didn’t have anything else planned for Friday night, so I accepted.
It had taken me a while to decide what to wear. Jane had told me dress code was casual. Should I wear jeans and a top or something a bit more ‘dressy’? In the end, a short red dress won, but only because the only other dress I could wear was a little black number that I considered too posh for the party. As it turned out, several guests also wore cocktail dresses and I was glad I had decided against jeans.
There were about twenty five people at the party, but no one was counting. Not knowing anyone, and still feeling tender after recent events, I wandered into the kitchen and undertook the role of bar-person and washer-up. At least I felt useful. Jane had realised I wasn’t in the room and dragged me back into the living room where most people were congregated. She introduced me to several friends, telling them that I was unexpectedly single again. They were keen to include me in their group.
And it appeared I was proving popular with many of the men. Whilst it was boosting my ego being propositioned again, I gracefully declined two invitations to depart the party early. I made it a principle never to go to bed with a man on our first date, and I hadn’t even been on a date with either of them.
When people began to drift away, I again escaped to the kitchen to begin clearing up. This time, in addition to clearing up the dirty glasses and dishes, I was clearing up the remains of the drinks. I had already consumed far more than normal and when Jane suggested I slept in her spare room, I didn’t argue.
The next day we exchanged more of our histories. Jane was going through a bitter divorce, the main reason for her annus horobilis. As with my own experience, her husband had been having numerous affairs. For a while, Jane had ignored them and forgiven him each time he returned to her, but eventually, the accumulated hurt became too big to ignore; too big to forgive. He hadn’t really offered any objections when she told him she wanted a divorce. It was only after she had started proceedings that the situation began to turn bitter. He withdrew money from the joint account; he brought women home with him, some of whom were no more than prostitutes, and he still expected her to do his washing and keep the house clean. She couldn’t wait to sell the house and be totally rid of him.
I shared with her my experience. Jane hadn't reached the depressive stage as her marriage failure was gradual and she became accustomed to feeling hurt, but she knew of people who had been through similar experiences to me, so she understood how I must have felt. Having someone who understood and sympathised was the best tonic I could have had at the time. Jane was becoming my new Neeta. I could tell her anything and she would support me. And, what helped me as much as her support, was that I could support her when she hit bad patches.
Two months later, Jane became my lodger. Her divorce had progressed quickly and the sale of the house had taken far less time than anticipated. Jane hadn’t asked a proper price, I told her, but Jane was just glad to get the house off her hands; get the divorce settled and start to rebuild her life. She didn’t want to plunge into the housing market immediately. It seemed as though things were beginning to work out again. It would be great to have someone to share the evenings with and the rent money would be more than welcome.
But the first few weeks were far from incident free. On the Friday night after she moved in, we heard a veritable din across the road. People were screaming. A man – he looked to be in his thirties – was wielding a piece of wood and hammering it against the door of the people at number eight. He was swearing and shouting; something about the man in the house and the wife of the man outside. This was hard to believe as Mr Jones lived there and he was well into his sixties. The man then started to smash windows with his piece of wood. A few minutes later, the police arrived. It took six of them to arrest the man, who continued to swear as he was forced into the police van. “Nice quiet neighbourhood you live in,” joked Jane. I had never experienced anything like it.
Once again I was interviewed by the police as a witness. The policeman who conducted the interview was, as Jane put it, hot, sexy and utterly desirable. Unfortunately for her, he was wearing a wedding ring. “After what I’ve been through,” Jane said as soon as he’d left, “I wouldn’t want to put another woman through the same experience. I wouldn’t dream of chasing after a married man. And if he chased me, he’d quickly regret it.”
Mr and Mrs Jones were traumatised and it was a few days before we heard what the fuss was all about. The man was angry that someone had been having an affair with his wife. That man apparently lived at 8 Homer Way. Our road was Homer Close. He had been confused by the street names and thought that was where he was. It was sad. The Joneses were a lovely couple, but they couldn’t live in the house after that. The house went on the market and was quickly sold.
I had known the Jones’s for many years, since I used to visit my grandmother, Granny Wise, quite often. We weren’t bosom buddies, or anything like that, but we were all friendly. I was saddened that they had been forced out of their house by circumstances they couldn’t have avoided. They moved to a bungalow on the other side of town. I always meant to visit them, but apart from Christmas cards, I hardly had any contact with them again.
Less than two weeks later, Jane was sitting in her car waiting at traffic lights just a couple of streets away. A lorry ploughed into the back of her car, which was shunted into the car in front. Jane was hospitalised for nearly a fortnight with chest injuries. The car was a write off. Again Jane joked about the class of neighbourhood I lived in. “These things seem to go in threes,” she quipped. “I wonder what’ll happen next?”