Free From The Heart by Sheila O'Flanagan Page B

or tense we should try to breathe slowly and concentrate on the sound and the feel of our breathing as we allowed our bodies to relax. Great in theory, hopeless in practice, because I can’t concentrate on the sound of my breath – all that happens is that I either fall asleep (if I’m doing it in a quiet place) or my mind wanders (if I’m trying to be calm under pressure). So though I tried the deep breathing now I remained conscious of the hissing music from the girl opposite.
    I opened my eyes again. I was tempted to rip the earpieces out of her ears and stomp on them. After all, I’d had a bad day, my boyfriend and I weren’t getting along as well as I wanted, I had a headache and her damn music wasn’t allowing me to find a moment of peace and serenity on the Dart.
    Then her phone rang. I have to admit that I got a kick out of the fact that her ringtone was Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’.
    She switched off her personal music system, took out her earpieces and answered the phone. Her face lit up.
    ‘Janine! How’s it going?’
    It was obviously going quite well. The girl opposite nodded as she listened to what her friend was saying even though the caller couldn’t see her. (I suppose eventually we’ll all have phones that you can wear on your wrist or something so that the people you’re talking to can actually see you. Shouldn’t take long now, I expect.)
    ‘I can’t.’ The girl didn’t sound totally sincere when she said this. ‘I’d love to but I can’t. I’m meeting Tom.’ Her voice softened when she said Tom’s name. Pretty much the same way my voice softened when I talked about Ian. So I guessed that Tom was the current boyfriend. Despite the myth of sisterhood, very few girls give up a date with their bloke to meet their mates. I wonder why that is when most men I know will happily head off with their mates instead of their girlfriends.
    ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ She sounded annoyed now. ‘I’d love to have gone, really. But we’re having dinner tonight. He’s booked it and everything.’
    More chatter from Janine, which made the girl smile.
    ‘I don’t know. I mean, Jan, I should know, shouldn’t I?’ She said this with a question in her voice but without conviction, a fact that Janine clearly picked up on.
    ‘Well, if you’re really in love with someone and they’re in love with you then the whole engagement thing shouldn’t really come as a surprise, should it? I mean, you’d have talked about it already, wouldn’t you? And we haven’t.’
    So it was kind of serious with her Tom. Serious enough from her point of view to have been thinking about solitaire diamonds and floating white dresses. She extended her left hand and gazed at her fingers as she spoke.
    ‘But I still feel bad about it,’ she continued. ‘I haven’t seen you or the others in ages.’
    They warn you about that, don’t they? About not dropping your girlfriends when you have a man in your life. I remembered, guiltily, that I hadn’t called Leanne in ages either. But that was because the last time we’d talked she’d lectured me about Ian, telling me that I was only with him because he was seriously gorgeous and seriously rich and that we had sweet FA in common. She was seriously jealous, of course.
    ‘No,’ said the girl opposite me. ‘We didn’t get to see it after all.’
    She paused and listened before replying. ‘We would have. He wanted to. He just wasn’t able to. And next thing it was too late.’
    I wondered what that was all about. I get really pissed off about people having conversations on their phones in public places but I can’t help listening and getting involved. I wanted to know what Janine was saying to make the girl opposite frown.
    ‘He sent me flowers the next day,’ she told her. ‘Roses. With a card saying, “To Cheryl with all my love”.’
    Cheryl. She looked a bit like a Cheryl, I supposed.
    ‘He’s not like that,’ said Cheryl, her voice now tinged with anger.