The End of the World Read Online Free Page A

tomorrow?’
    ‘Oh, Loretta, I’m sorry, I completely forgot. I’ve made other plans.’
    I can imagine Helen’s plans. They’ll involve a cask of white and six changes of clothes before she collapses on the bed in tears and starts ringing her friends, me, asking why she can’t find a man. Is she too old, has she lost her looks? It helps to actually leave the house, I often remind her.
    ‘The grade three teacher’s coming. And Brianna’s offered to mind all the kids at her place. She must have hired a bouncer.’
    ‘He’s told you he’s coming?’
    ‘Yeah, he left a message on my machine,’ I lie.
    So Helen’s in. I herd up seven others with more lies and false promises, then I put the sausages on. Sure enough, the sulphur smell fades when they start to burn. I used to like cooking quiche and fancy fried rice and mud cake. Gourmet, like on the telly, the boyfriend boasted to his mates. Then we get married and it’s, ‘Listen, darl, I wouldn’t mind a chop for a change.’ Now the kids think gourmet is pickles on your sandwich. They won’t even look at a sun-dried tomato. Last time I tried that, Jake picked them all out of the spaghetti sauce and left them lined up like bits of red chewed meat on the side of the plate. ‘Gross,’ he said, and I had to agree, seeing them like that.
    Standing at the stove, rolling the sausages in the pan and stirring the potatoes in the boiling water, my face warms in the steam and it’s time for another fantasy moment. The pudge has magically fallen from my hips and I’m wearing a long, slinky silk dress. I’m in the function room of the golf course, tossing my newly blond-streaked hair and full of ennui or some other French feeling at these boring wealthy men crowding around me. Then there’s a draught from the doorway and I don’t even have to look–I can hear the jingle of spurs.
    The meeting’s in the small room at the Neighbourhood House because the Church of Goodwill had already booked the large room. We’re sitting pretty much on top of each other, trying to balance cups of tea and Scotch Finger biscuits on our knees, except for Maxine, who’s supposed to take the minutes.
    I thought I’d made it up, but the grade three teacher has come and Helen’s paralysed with excitement and terror. She’s wearing enough perfume to spontaneously combust and in this tiny room the smell’s so overwhelming that Maxine has to swing the door open. Then the noise from the meeting next door starts up.
    ‘Yes!’ they all shout. ‘Yes! I do, I do!’
    ‘Well, I don’t,’ Maxine says, and she swings the door half shut so that we’re dizzy with perfume but still having to shout over the frantic clapping of people being saved next door. Maxine shrugs.
    I give the list of apologies and welcome everyone who’s come, introducing the grade three teacher in case the others don’t know him. Helen’s gone pink and glistening like a baby fresh out of the bath. She’ll have a seizure if she’s not careful. I can’t see the attraction. The teacher’s five foot four, stocky, and always says ‘at the end of the day.’
    ‘At the end of the day,’ he says when I introduce him, ‘I am totally committed to this cause.’
    Just in case, I look down at his feet, but no spurs. I read out the list of agenda items. Brenda sighs loudly.
    ‘Do we have to do all this agenda crap? And the motions? I motion, you motion. My Mark’s doing motions you wouldn’t believe and I have to be home by nine in case I need to take him to Emergency.’
    ‘Yes, we do,’ I say, ‘because we’re trying to be bloody official. And as you well know, an emergency department that closes at ten in a town half an hour away is one of the reasons we’re here. Soon this town will have no services for a hundred miles.’
    ‘Oh, yes ma’am.’
    I roll my eyes. Maxine rolls her eyes. For a minute I think of us all rolling our eyes like a bunch of lunatics in the asylum and I almost cheer up.
    ‘Item one.