Treated myself to a low fat muffin and tea at Costa’s in Cambridge recently and sat back to flick through C J Sansom’s Heartstone, but only got as far as the dustcover when a couple approached and sat at the table to my left. The tall woman in jeans and cropped black hair was plainly anorexic, her friend reminded me of Fern Britton before the weight loss. The anorexic friend must have been a comic genius because with every deadpan whisper, I could barely make out her words, Fern Britton broke out into hysterical laughter. I slammed C J Sansom down, gripped my temples, and waited for the migraine, the cackle continued.
After a while Fern Britton stood, rubbed the crumbs off her blouse and announced to everyone in Costa’s that she was off for a pee. She returned several minutes later, flushed. Their subsequent exchange cauterised my migraine.
‘Cath, You OK? You’ve gone red.’
‘That’s nothing, it’s my period (Cath chuckled, at what I had no idea), I’m all mucky right now (I spat out a mouthful of muffin into my hand, I could eat no more for the rest of the day). I just keep on getting these hot flushes.’
‘You should go and see Dr Kumber, maybe he can give you something.’
‘Maybe a good seeing to (Cath found this hysterical and was reduced to tears, I felt like vomiting).’
‘You can forget that, Asian men tend to be pretty loyal.’
‘I could always use my charm (charm? Jesus you are gross, woman), anyway this place is goin’ down hill, they’ve even run out of soddin’ paper in the loo (I waited, gripped, for the punchline, because there had to be a punchline).’
‘Well?’
‘So I stood there like, looking around, saw my belly in the mirror and thought you have to shift some weight love then I looked in my purse (I was intrigued to say the least).’
‘What for?’
‘I pulled out a Tesco till receipt, did over £100 worth of shopping last week, so wiped myself with that, bloody handy I thought (and I thought ‘bloody’ being the operative word. I was thoroughly repulsed).’
‘God Cath, that’s gross!’
‘Maybe (fucking definitely I’d say), but I also came out with no pads so I had to whip the used one back on me under carriage (Cath chuckled, she found this last statement amusing, I shared her friend’s disgust).’
‘Anyway you know I’ve got an overactive bladder and I have to go whenever I get the urge (I had uncomfortable images of Cath pissing in the middle of supermarkets, in cinema foyers, up against a tree in parks and by shop windows on high streets), so I never chuck out till receipts, you never know when they’ll come in handy (Jesus, what a gross creature, couldn’t she just carry tissues around with her, like normal people?).’
‘Well you need to get yourself checked out (if I was Dr Kumber I would insist on Cath being hosed down after being defumigated first before any examination).’
There conversation drifted off into how best to cook a leek and potato soup and I just lost interest, to be honest I felt faint. I had also lost interest in eating the remainder of the muffin, and ate little for the next few days. I left as Cath asked her friend whether a leek could be eaten raw like a spring onion, says it all really.
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