One of the Girls

‘Well, let’s try and deconstruct it and I promise I’ll listen this time. But before we do, did you have a late night coffee? Or some cheese before it happened?’

‘No. No coffee, or cheese.’

Not since the very vivid Morrissey dream, have I shared such details with Maude.

‘So, every time I put my can of Coke on the ‘table’ it slides off. The others’ cans stay on. They all laugh. It's horrible.’

‘The ‘others’ being the poorer mothers who gather together and use a wheelie bin as a table after they’ve dropped their kids off.’

‘Yes. They chat and smoke. It looks like one of those high pub tables, only..’

‘Only outside. Yes, I get the picture. Anything else?’

‘Yes. Each time my can slides off…’

‘Yes, to peals of laughter…’

‘Yes. Each time, I bow down to pick it up I can feel big earrings bouncing on the side of my head and I can see the cigarette protruding from my lips. My voice is high-pitched, but I’m not saying anything I can remember. They’re all calling me something like ‘Cindy’ or ‘Shelley’. And I can feel my clothes.’

‘What do you mean exactly, you can feel your clothes?’

‘I mean that I can feel that I am wearing something tight and unusual. Then I look down to check.’

‘Let me guess, jodhpurs?’

‘No.’

‘Stone-washed jeans. Could be a flashback.’

‘No, not stone-washed jeans.’   

Maude was still chuckling at her ‘joke’.

‘I don’t think you’re taking this seriously – it really was quite a distressing window on my state of mind.’

‘Sorry, what were you wearing in the dream that appears to have you all in a dither?’

‘Jeggings’