25

and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

once again i implore you readers to cosy yourself with a warm mug of tea, an apple cut into six slices, some comfy socks, and some good music. not just any old music, mind you- i'll get to that in a minute so i guess hold your fire with that last request. this one's a doozy! well, it probably will be. i haven't written it yet, but i'm assuming my typically excellent story telling abilities shall not desert me in my hour of authorship. 

before we get into it all i'll get the admin out of the way by giving a quick few side notices:

1. today was josh's 21st! shrinking balloons are currently hanging from my ceiling and he is happy at home on his new ps5 game i got him. happy birthday, boyfriend!
2. tomorrow bells is staying over which'll be lovely, and i'm moving the last few bits from hotwells before i say goodbye to that chapter forever.
3. i have become absolutely terrified with the idea of haemorrhoids and cannot stop thinking about it. guys i'm so scared you don't understand.

anyway

the music thing- you must and i mean MUST listen to Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl at some point while reading this piece. it is completely imperative. 

as for my effort to tuck myself in, my yankee riverside candle is burning next to my copy of the bell jar, covered over by a crocheted green mitten and my special campfire tea is brewing in the corner through a strainer into a winnie the pooh mug picked out by my father. so, if i can do it, why can't you?

to clarify: the names in this post have been altered to preserve anonymity and respect the privacy of those it touches on.

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friday morning i woke at 8:30 to the regular alarm that essentially takes the piss and decides that the sound i chose the night before of windchimes should instead be replaced by a techno beat ten times louder than my devoted siri & i would have ever agreed upon- this is a daily occurrence, and although every morning i promise myself that once i've snoozed it several times and made myself abhorrently late for work i will fix the alarm and have it be consistent and soothing, i never bloody do it. perhaps, subconsciously, i appreciate the spontaneity that this defiant piece of technology provides me. whether i like it or not.

of course, my alarm wasn't the most startling thing i awoke to, but as i was so horrendously tardy for my 10am shift, i chucked my blue striped blazer swiftly over a tank top and some smart black trousers, slid my glossy red heels on that i get at least 3 compliments out of with every wear, and trollied my dusty eyed self down to the bridal shop still barely alive (see cover photo for proof). i took with me a travel mug containing a caramel latte from the coffee machine i have taken to referring to as "Bullseye" after a truly marvellous effort from my six-months-more-youthful-self in a darts competition. the bitch who i beat actually threatened to rob me before following me up the road after my new grubby little nespresso machine, bloody cheeky shit. anyway, it still makes a mean coffee for when i'm struggling to open my eyes.

i arrived to the shop only to find the one member of staff i had yet to truly bond with sitting at the desk, with no appointments for our seven hour day & limited means of entertainment.

to explain, the girls i work with are as follows:

amy, 28- she & i went to the eras tour together last week and spent three days in london just the two of us. i text her all the time and she facetimes me whenever she needs another opinion on this week's new pair of suede knee-high boots.

sarah, 60 (ish)- chugs about twenty cups of tea per per working day and always brings in a bumper pack of biscuits to share between us. she only works saturdays, but it's just she and i for those shifts, so we've made many a sale together. we love all the same tv shows & she's a cracker for a bit of gossip.

erin, 26- she's the seamstress and also loves a cuppa & a natter, great girl. loves vivienne westwood, emma bridgewater, cath kidston, etc. always busy working on something, but so sweet and thoughtful.

miranda, 40 (ish)- as yet, undiscovered. 

of course, i have had shifts with miranda before, but mainly we just discussed the working day. this is abundantly more difficult when there is nobody scheduled to come into the shop. we began with the usual pleasantries, i asked her about her husband mark & the kids, and she asked me about the new house. i necked the rest of my coffee out of sheer awkwardness, and quickly completed my new york times sudoku, connections & wordle. 

after steaming a wedding dress for about half an hour i felt as though the coffee may not have been such a good idea on an empty stomach, and my twitching arms presented as a parkinsons patient might if they'd had the latte dripped in through an IV. perhaps it was this burst of energy that led me to actually giving a shit about conversing. perhaps i just wanted to talk anyway. but miranda and i got to chatting. 

i asked her about her time with mark, and she said that she and mark have been together for six years now, and he is her second husband. the wedding was beautiful- miranda looked gorgeous. she does still. 

she's the type of lady who doesn't see that in herself though, and can only pick out her flaws which i think is a real shame. her long fair blonde hair she recently dyed a light pink, which softens against the natural blush of her cheeks and her ever-rosy lips. she's ever so pretty when she really laughs, and i found myself trying to say funny things so that i truly grasp how much more beautiful she could be if she allowed herself to feel confident.

i made a cup of tea and began to ask her more about her life.

her first husband was the father to her three children, two boys and one girl. she began to tell me about his slowly-worsening behaviour which only began once the kids were born. they were together for the longest out of all of her relationships, and yet i didn't get the feeling that he made such a huge impression on her life. her partner before mark was a raging lunatic and she was with him for just a year, but i guess that sorta shit does stick with you a bit more than a husband who tells you what not to wear. 

i said to her i was glad that after everything she went through with him that now she's found mark, the love of her life. "oh, he's not the love of my life". eh? i asked her if she meant her first husband with this remark, and she said no. 

and then miranda told me the story of her first love.

they met when she was young, she showed me a picture. presented on her little old person samsung flip case covered phone was a slightly pixelated and sepia-tainted photograph of a much younger version of herself in a white tank cami & blue jeans with shorter blonde hair softly falling just past the shoulders. she was sat atop the lap of what i can only describe as a smiling young man with kind eyes. blonde, too, they looked quite similar facially and i understood where she was coming from when she said people often mistook them for siblings when they weren't snogging.

his name was christopher, she told me. the both of them holding the other so tightly and seemingly free of cares in the photograph, i questioned her on how it was that they came to be so close.

apparently, her friend was going on a date one evening, and the date happened to have a spare friend to make it a double in order for miranda to also be in attendance. the spare friend lined up for our miranda was the owner of a mechanic's; wealthy, handsome, he was the perfect bachelor. when the two girls arrived at the car repair place, miranda took one look at the man sweeping the floors and felt as if something cosmic had struck her. she said from the second they caught eyes they were inseparable. 

"just like me! don't fall for the bloody rich one, fall for the floor sweeping boy!"

"what was it about him that you liked?"

"it's hard to explain... the thing is, with chris, he was so charismatic... everybody loved him. he could make friends with everyone. so much so that when he randomly met my first husband in a pub, my husband came home to me and said "i see why you fell for him". he was that kind of guy... he'd go up to get a pint and suddenly they'd have him pulling them and everyone would want one just to chat to him."

"did you know he liked you, too?"

"we just had that soul connection- that twin flame thing. i think you're able to love more than one person in your life, i've always believed that, but not in the same way... he knew what i was going to say before i said it and vice versa... we could read each others minds. and he would sing to me, not in a weird way, he would just hold me in his arms and rock me gently and sing old timey songs just for me. he had such a lovely voice."

i considered this for a minute. this conversation. i had never really asked miranda anything personal as i had just done, and it felt like i had access to a small part of her that she kept hidden away for special occasions. certain people. and for me to have breached the barrier? i wasn't about to let it close over when i'd come so far already, and i wanted to get to know her. i feel that the more connections i establish with women, the more grounded i feel to the earth. so i pressed on.

"how long were you guys together?"

"i can't remember exactly, it feels like longer than it really was, but it also feels like not enough. we were on and off a lot of the time- he was the only partner who ever stood up to my parents and called out my mother for how badly she treated me. and he was always open to trying new things, i liked that about him. but he had this side to him, he was never really well. this is the thing about these beautiful good souls, these extraordinary type people, they're never quite right. but really we were together twice."

"in what sense?"

"well, we broke up for a while when things got really bad, and then one day after a few years we ran into each other in a jewellery shop. i was actually just looking at some rings and i turned around a lo-and-behold guess who was stood there! we both just looked back at each other smiling, both happy to see the other again. and it was like, you know, nothing had happened, no time had passed."

"what happened to end it? i mean, you obviously didn't marry him so what happened?"

"the day we broke up, we were in blackpool and he'd won me a big teddy from one of the stands. we came back to the hotel and he started getting bad and ended up cutting the whole thing apart. i was crying and screaming and he said "tell me you don't love me right now and you'll never see me again" and i knew that i had to protect myself because i couldn't look after him, i couldn't save him myself- not with everything with my mum- so i told him i didn't love him. and i never saw him again."

my hand had closed over my mouth in an effort to quieten my breathing, completely hanging on every word she was saying. my previously poured tea had long become cold, and the pins and needles in my crossed legs had become so numbing that i felt i could've been floating. none of this was crossing my mind though. i just needed to know more.

"what's stopped you seeing him? after all this time?"

miranda tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled, rubbed her temple while pausing to think. 

"i did see him again, but not really."

"what do you mean?"

"well there was this one night, i was with my ex-husband, you know, while we were still together, and i turned to him and i said "i've got this weird feeling that something's wrong with chris, i dont know what". and later just before bed i prayed and i tried to send some sort of telepathic signal to Chris. and i said "if you can hear me, just let me know you're okay", and honest to God like a vision he appeared at the end of my bed. and i swear to you it was like he was right there, and he smiled at me. and i smiled back. and then he was gone."

"no way", my voice completely shaking, tears pooling up in my eyes, i was practically whispering.

"and in the morning, i called my sister to tell her about my vision... and she said that chris was dead. committed suicide. he'd died pretty much to the second of when i had my vision. it was like he was saying goodbye, like he had to see me one last time."

she was crying. completely in floods. i was too. i couldn't speak for five minutes and we sat together in the little bridal shop and for just a minute, we didn't have a twenty year age gap and we didn't have different politcal views and we didn't have anything different about us at all. we were two girls crying for an angel. 

the rest of the day was spent with a heavy head of thick thoughts of miranda and her long lost lover, forever separated by the stars. i asked her later whether she regretted any of it. she said the only thing she would change was that day in blackpool. 

"i never should've said i didn't love him. that could never have been true. i always loved him. i will always love him."

❦