What's Next? - Part 3 - Story

This is the third part in an ongoing long story / novel development. If you haven't already, please read part 1 and 2 first - if you have already read them, thanks! :)

Part 1: What's Next? - Part 1
Part 2: What's Next? - Part 2

 ‘Come on Beth, time to go,’ Caroline called from the front door.

  ‘Okay okay, just got to feed the cat,’ I rushed Dilbert’s morning feeding ritual and reduced it to dumping a load of meat from a can into his bowl. ‘Sorry Dilly, love you,’ and I grabbed my bag and toast. Caroline’s passenger seat door was open and the engine roared impatiently. I threw my bag on the back seat and ate my toast.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she asked as we stopped at the first set of traffic lights, I nodded my assent and asked her the same. ‘Yeah, don’t want to go to work though,’ and silently I agreed as we listened to the latest song on the radio.

  ‘Do you think Sandy will bring her Mum’s cakes in?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t know Beth,’ Caroline said irritably, ‘Do you always think about your stomach?’

  ‘No… just most of the time,’ I said and bit into my toast. I stayed quiet, Caroline wasn’t good in the mornings and besides a half decent tune came on.

...

  ‘Did you watch it last night, Beth?’ Sandy asked.

I looked up from my computer, ‘Sorry... what?’

  ‘That programme with the fat people in,’ Sandy said. ‘There was this lady on who was about 25 stone or something and when they saw her a year later she had become an anorexic who wouldn’t leave the house. It was horrible.’ Sandy bit into her lemon cake, ‘She was so bony it was disgusting.’

  ‘No I didn’t see it, I went to a Buddhist centre last night,’ I said, tapping my delete key repeatedly.

Sandy’s eyes looked bemused, ‘You are not turning into a hippy on us are you?’

  ‘A hippy?’

  ‘Yeah… I don’t know Beth, whatever next, no drinking, strange teas, Buddhists, what’s going on with you?’ Sandy turned to me.

  ‘Just trying out new things, Sands, gotta keep learning,’ I smiled sweetly and I buried my head back into my work, hoping she wouldn’t say anything further.

  ‘Actually I saw a programme on TV about a girl like you, all quiet and innocent on the outside and then this reporter found out that she was a part of this cult who would steal children and sacrifice them, it was real creepy.’

  ‘Well I can assure you there were no children there,’ I said trying to portray an air of working and not getting involved in this rather odd conversation.

  ‘Don’t be joining these weirdo cults, Beth, it wouldn’t look good when you finally get a boy to like you. I can just imagine it. Hi, I am Beth, I am in a cult and am looking for small children.’ Sandy laughed a mock evil, ‘Ha ha haaaa.’

Eager to get in on the act, Chris started to giggle, he put his hands in a prayer position, ‘Take me to your master oh Bethine.’

Sandy retorted, ‘Come to my evil cult place.’

I tried to laugh at their antics. I looked over and saw Caroline smiling but I noticed that she was keeping her head down. She knew better than to say anything because kissing a granddad could easily be brought into the Sandy and Chris act. They would probably make it a rule that you have to kiss a granddad to join and before she knew it she would be the queen of the cult.

  ‘I think you would be a good cult leader Sandy,’ I said. ‘They are always looking for people who laugh like that.’

  ‘And how would you know unless..... you really are in a cult!’ Mock gasps from her and Chris.

I rolled my eyes, ‘Sands, are you that bored?’ I said.

  ‘No, I know I am not bored because the other day I saw a television programme telling me the top 50 ways to find out if you are bored and I only had 49 of the symptoms so it’s not official yet. Once David has gone to play football or is off to the pub and the kids are in bed, to me sitting in the lounge is one of my greatest pleasures in life. I get myself a nice cuppa, put the telly on and watch my programmes…bliss.’ She sat back, drank her tea and smiled to herself as if she were already there. 

  ‘Oh the joys of family life,’ Chris’ sarcastic tones disturbed Sands’ revelry. ‘I’m so glad I won’t have to go through that. The family I’ve got are enough for me.’ Chris entered into another tirade about his homophobic mother and his younger sister who kept crashing at his place. ‘I mean, what if I wanted to bring someone home and my sister is sprawled on the couch in a right state. It would definitely cramp my style.’

Sandy looked up from her computer screen, ‘Chris when was the last time you went out to bring someone home?’

Chris stuttered, ‘Well, er, one day I might just surprise you all.’

  ‘Yeah right and Caroline will snog a man under the age of 60,’ Sandy started to laugh, saw the boss coming our way and pretended to work. I couldn’t see Caroline’s face.

An envelope appeared at the bottom right corner of my screen, I clicked into my email and a message from Caroline appeared. I opened it.

  ‘Do u want to go to the pub after work? Sands is doing my head in. Cxx’ I pressed reply and typed,   ‘Ok c u then. Xx’ I munched on some cake and pressed my delete button some more.         

...

Caroline slipped her arm into mine, we interlinked and walked in step all the way towards the canal, we found a table outside the pub. The swans were out and a couple were feeding them some bread. Caroline put her coat down, instructed me to wait and disappeared into the pub. I looked around and noticed how gorgeous Bristol can look in the Spring, when it is not raining. People around me were laughing and chatting, glad to be out of the office and enjoying some daylight. I raised my face to the sun and felt the warmth on my face.

Caroline walked back to the table, she is very tall and slim with dark hair and blue eyes - she is very pretty. She looked towards me and smiled, ‘I need this.’ She sat down, gave me my coke and took a deep swig of her beer. ‘Work is so shit, I can’t believe how harsh Sandy can be sometimes.’

  ‘Caz, she has always been like that,’ I replied.

  ‘I know, normally I can take it and sometimes I think she is funny, but sometimes she goes too far,’ she downed half a pint quickly.

  ‘Why don’t you say something to her?’

  ‘Nah that will only add more fuel to the fire. I think I just have to wait this one out.’

  ‘How long do you think that will take?’

  ‘Probably up to when I retire,’ Caroline smiled.

  ‘Or up to the point you get married,’ I said.

  ‘Married?’ Caroline snorted. ‘No way, got much better things to be doing with my life than end up being a prisoner to some bloke.’

  ‘Like what? Don’t you want kids and stuff?’ I asked.

In a mock teacher tone Caroline said, ‘Bethany, I don’t know how to tell you this but you don’t need to be married to have kids. There isn’t the same kind of stigma attached to that nowadays.’

I smiled, ‘I know that but it does make having the whole having kids thing a lot easier.’

  ‘Well at this stage in my life I couldn’t think of anything worse,’ Caroline grimaced. ‘Having to clean up shitty pants and be continually exhausted. I will leave that up to my sister. I am gonna do my exams and stuff and maybe see where that takes me.’

We paused in our conversation and Caroline looked around.

Caroline leaned forward, ‘Which blokes here do you think are the best to pull?’ I pretended to look around and then whispered in a conspiratorial tone, ‘Well, it’s between the gays behind us, the marrieds next to us or...’ I looked around, ‘The wife beaters that have just gone into the pub.’

Caroline laughed, ‘Good one Beth.’ She toasted her beer to my answer as if it were the truest statement anyone could have said. She then leaned in and said, ‘What about the dark haired one over there? He and his mate keep looking over.’ I flicked my gaze over to two guys who also look like they have escaped from a nondescript office by the train station. One had dark hair and was quite cute, and his mate had slightly lighter hair that was starting to lose its thickness, though it was not quite receding.

  ‘Alright, maybe...’ I turned around, ‘I am not interested.’ Automatically I cut myself off from any further speculation.

  ‘Why aren’t you interested Beth? He’s alright... Isn’t it about time? I mean I have never seen you with a bloke since Callum and that was ages ago.’

  ‘I just don’t want to have to go through that again,’ I said, uncomfortable to be talking about something so personal with Caroline. I preferred it when we kept things general.

  ‘Whatever happened to him?’

  ‘Well you know how things go, people change,’ forcing my voice to sound casual whilst images of Cal run through my head. Just as fast Melissa’s image rose before me. My body became tense.

I got up. ‘Sorry Caz, I’ve just remembered. I’ve got to go, got to be somewhere else,’ I rushed to gather my stuff.

  ‘What? Beth? Are you alright?’ Caroline looked confused, stood up and tried to take my arm.

  ‘Yeah, I am cool. I’ll see you at work tomorrow,’ I tried to smile, turned and walked away. I walked past the centre, past St. Nicholas’ market and onwards to College Green. I sat and looked at the canal. My body still, my brain on overtime. Clouds passed. 

...

  ‘Hey Beth, what are you up to?’ I looked around and saw Shoobs walking up to me, ‘I have been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked him, my voice wobbling.

  ‘Because Caroline called and said you were upset. Are you okay?’

I looked at Shoobs, his dark concerned eyes look down upon me and soon the previously threatened tears were washing my face. I am not okay. He took me in his arms and I started to sob.

  ‘It’s alright Beth, really it is,’ he held me and allowed me to cry, mindless of the passers by who commented on the scene. After a while, he held me back and looked at me. ‘You don’t look your best,’ he smiled. ‘Let’s get you home,’ Shoobs put his hands on my shoulders and ushered me to his car door and I slumped in the passenger’s side. He turned his key and drove the car out of the car park. ‘You want to talk about it?’

  ‘There isn’t much to talk about.’

  ‘Beth, I know you, you don’t cry like this. Did Caroline upset you?’

  ‘No... not on purpose.’

  ‘Come on Betts...’

After a while I asked Shoobs, ‘Do you think we are friends?’

Shoobs started, ‘What kind of question is that? Of course we are.’

  ‘No, Shoobs, I mean, do you think men and women can be friends, without sex getting in the way?’

  ‘Of course Beth, there are loads of different types of men and women.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Beth, what are you saying?’

  ‘Are we a non sexual friendship?’

  ‘Beth, you know I am getting married to Anita. There couldn’t possibly be anything between us. You are one of my best friends.’

  ‘I am sorry, you don’t understand Shoobs, I am not saying I want to have sex with you. I am just asking if men can have a friendship with a woman without sex getting in the way?’

  ‘Of course men can, we are not totally barbaric you know.’ We stopped at a red light. ‘What brought this on?’

  ‘Well it’s something Melissa said...’

  ‘Melissa? The girl from uni?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s something she said about friendships between girls and boys...’

Shooby interjected, ‘Beth, there are some people in this world you should never listen to and it sounds like Melissa is one of them.’

  ‘Shoobs, I thought she was my friend...’

  ‘Who needs enemies when you have friends like her?’

We fell into an uneasy silence. I stared outside the window and watched the shops pass by, which changed into big houses with bay windows. I stared harder at the houses. I saw mums struggling with baby paraphernalia beside clusters of students walking, next to beggars who sat in their usual spots. I saw the beggar I normally give money to sipping from a polystyrene cup. My eyes filled up again.  

   ‘I think you are doing better now than when she was in your life’ Shoobs said quietly. 

We said nothing more as Shoobs parked in his spot. We walked into our flat. Dilbert was nowhere to be seen but his food bowl was empty and automatically I picked it up and cleared the debris and stray biscuits, whilst Shoobs puts the kettle on. I washed the plate and found some more food, filled it up and soon I heard the usual padded footsteps make its way into the kitchen. Dilbert stopped and gave a big stretch and yawn. He made it known we have disturbed him from the best cat nap of the day, he looked at the place where his food usually lay and walked up to me with an expectant look. I returned his look with his food and he started munching away.

  ‘Beth, these emotions will fade away one day,’ and I looked at Shoobs in his jeans and white shirt, his glasses planted firmly on his nose, standing by the cooker.

  ‘You think so?’ I said, feeling very unsure at the truth of those words.

  ‘Yeah, people get together and split up every day. It’s a part of life. Everything is impermanent and to believe that things won’t change seems like folly to me.’

  ‘Shoobs, you have never been heartbroken. I don’t think you know how I feel.’

  ‘I have,’ Shoobs said.

  ‘Really?’ I asked him, surprised that I had never been told about this moment in his life.

  ‘Mrs Wetherington in class four, my heart still twinges even now when I think of her,’ Shoobs’ sad face made me want to laugh even though I still felt awful.

  

Buddhist man’s voice entered my head, ‘...When you stop blaming yourself and others for the events that happen to you, suddenly you will find you will become a great deal more peaceful. You will become more of a human BE-ing.’ 

I stopped and took a breath. I sat at the table and sipped the tea Callum made for me. It was a normal tea and I extracted every last bit of the caffeine and tannin in it as if they were allies.

Shoobs started to talk, ‘Look Beth, this might sound strange but hear me out. You have been trying to sort this out by yourself for too long. Maybe you need to put some space between you and the situation. What if you were to go travelling for a bit? Maybe you might figure out what you want to do with your life?’

  ‘Travelling?’ I repeat the main words that sounded appealing.

  ‘Yeah’

  ‘I have never been travelling before’

  ‘Well... my wedding is after finals, in about six month’s time.’

  ‘India?’

  ‘Why not? You can stay with us, attend the wedding and see what happens.


Continued...What's Next? - Part 4

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