Losing Me by Sue Margolis

Author:Sue Margolis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Pam had posted a new status update. Oh-em-gee . . . Susan Boyle in concert last night at the Apollo. Voice of an angel. Such an inspiration. *fills up.*

“Gawd . . . Aunty Pam’s been to see Subo.”

“Thank you, Ben,” Barbara said. “I can read. And FYI, my Facebook newsfeed is private. Would you mind not peering over my shoulder? And how come you’re up so early on a Saturday morning?”

“My day at the food bank.”

Her son ambled over to the fridge.

“Of course, you know why women your age are into Subo,” he said, taking out a carton of milk. “Because she gives them hope. I mean there they are, sad and middle-aged, their lives practically over, and she’s telling them not to give up. So why haven’t you and Aunty Jean been to one of her gigs? You’re totally her demographic.” He began pouring milk over a bowl of Honey Shreddies.

She knew he was taking the piss, but it didn’t stop her picking up a tea towel lying on the back of a chair and throwing it at him. It fell onto the floor, a foot or two short.

“Arrogant little sod. How dare you suggest my life is practically over?”

He was grinning as he bent down to pick up the tea towel. “It was a joke. Of course your life isn’t over.”

“Thank you. And Susan Boyle happens to put a smile on people’s faces. What’s wrong with that?. . . Oh, and if you’re planning on taking cereal up to your room, don’t get milk over the duvet. I only changed the cover yesterday.”

He picked up the bowl and turned to go.

“Mark my words,” Barbara said. “One day you’ll be fat and middle-aged with bushy eyebrows and an enlarged prostate. Wait until your kids call you sad and pathetic. Then you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.”

Ben turned round and grinned. “Not gonna happen.”

“You reckon?. . . Oh, and FYI, when I die, I want ‘Bat Out of Hell’ played at my funeral.”

“Really? But Subo’s got the voice of an angel. Surely you’d prefer her.”

“I want ‘Bat Out of Hell’ and ‘Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.’”

“Mum, I don’t quite know how to break this to you, but ‘Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven’ isn’t actually a Meat Loaf song.”

“Duh.”

“God, you’re weird.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Barbara dutifully “liked” Pam’s status update and went to take a shower. She’d promised to do an afternoon shift at the deli. Before that she planned to do a supermarket shop for Rose and drop it round. She had her coat on and was hunting for her keys when the phone rang. It was Sally Fergusson. She sounded tense, and there was a certain amount of throat clearing.

“I just wanted to call and say thank you for seeing Freddie, but we won’t be needing you anymore.”

She knew that Sally had form, sacking tutors, but she hadn’t been expecting to get her marching orders quite so soon.

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