The Girls' Get-together
‘It’s great to
have these girls’ get-togethers, don’t
you think?’ said Janice as she topped-up the
wine glasses of the other four wives.
‘It certainly is,’
responded Susan. ‘It gives us a chance to
talk about what we’re really thinking about
- the sorts of things that we can’t discuss
with our husbands.’
‘Didn’t I see you
in Winchester on Friday?’ said Alison to
Julie, changing the subject.
‘Yes, I was looking at
some of those small terraced houses in Colebrook
Street. If my husband, Alex, died, I think I’d
move there. It would be so convenient for the
shops and the theatres. What were you doing in
Winchester?’
‘Just shopping,’
replied Alison. ‘I bought a very nice dark
red dress. I was thinking that, if George died,
it would be ideal for me, as his widow, to wear
at his funeral.’
‘I often think about
that when I buy clothes,’ commented Celia.
‘Of course a lot would depend on how Robert,
my husband, passed on. Dark red would be perfect
if he died peacefully in his sleep, but suppose
he’d been run over by a combine harvester
and torn limb from limb, or had been hacked apart
by a deranged, machete wielding psychopath. If
either happened, I think I might go for a darker
shade of green, as the red would be a bit
reminiscent of the blood and gore.’
‘I agree totally,’
said Janice. ‘That was the very reason I
didn’t want to have a red car. It would have
seemed so unsuitable if my other half, Henry, had
been mashed to a pulp in an horrific motorway
pile-up - particularly if he’d survived in
agony until he had been cut from the wreckage.
Mind you, I’ve had second thoughts about
having now chosen a yellow one.’
‘Why was that?’
questioned Janice.
‘Well, if he was dying
of terminal liver cancer, he might turn yellow.
If that happened, I think I’d have to sell
the car, and then I’d loose a fortune as it’s
less than two years old.’
‘It’s definitely
wise to plan ahead for these things,’
ventured Susan. ‘I liked the location of our
house because you have to walk past the cemetery
on the way to town. I thought that when my hubby,
Chris, passed away, visiting his grave wouldn’t
take too much time out of the day.
‘All five of our
husbands will be going on the Village Men’s
Group outing on Saturday,’ Julie reminded
them. ‘I’d been thinking we should make
a few provisional contingency plans in case the
minibus is struck by lightning and then plummets
from a motorway bridge into the path of a high
speed train pulling tanks of aviation fuel.’
‘What plans were you
thinking of?’ enquired Alison.
‘Well, it occurred to
me that the funerals would probably happen about
this time next week, so we would have to postpone
our weekly get-together.’
‘Perhaps if we
provisionally put the funerals in our diaries for
Thursday and change our get-together to
Wednesday?’ suggested Susan.
‘I’ve got a
better idea,’ proposed Celia. ‘Why don’t
we postpone our get-together until Friday. We
wouldn’t have to worry about what time we
got back then, as the men wouldn’t be there?
‘Good plan,’ they
all agreed.
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