Reunited

I am not sure exactly what I was thinking about, when after our visitors left this lunchtime, I suddenly felt that it would be a nice thing to do to make myself a new skirt to wear tonight.

We have had a night out planned for ages, with my friends from my class at school.

We are all fifty this year, and after thirty five years of indifference we have rather unexpectedly rediscovered each other, which has turned out to be such a very satisfactory experience that we are now on our third reunion in the last twelve months.

Tonight was a Champagne and Curry Night, which I have been looking forward to very much. Mark was not in my class at school, which is perhaps as well, but he was coming anyway, because it is always a good idea to have somebody with a wallet, a credit card, a doorkey and their faculties along with you when you go out drinking, and long experience has taught me that this person is never, ever me.

He had asked me once or twice what I intended to wear, because he gets grumpy when at the last minute he finds me tearfully surrounded by a pile of things that I had thought that I might like, but then realised that they simply wouldn’t do at all.

I had been a bit vague, because I had somehow felt as though by the time we were going I would have had an inspiration or a fairy godmother, and have found something in the wardrobe that was beautiful, stylish and miraculously slimming.

I don’t know why I might have thought that, because I have never, ever found anything like that in my wardrobe in my life, and at half past twelve it was becoming uncomfortably obvious that today was not going to be any exception.

We weren’t going to set off until half past three, so I had got ages, nearly three hours, and so obviously a brand new skirt made exactly for me would be absolutely the thing, and I would make one.

By four o’ clock I had somehow created a pile of ragged brown corduroy and stray threads and anxiety, but there were some bits sewn together which would preserve my decency and by then it was far too late to think of anything else, so I dragged it on and tied it up with some string, and just hoped and prayed that the bit where I had got the tension in the sewing machine wrong would not suddenly unravel and reveal my underwear to the assembled gathering. Mark laughed and didn’t seem to mind the idea at all on the grounds that it would add an extra spice to the evening, but I can tell you now that had that happened I would have died on the spot.

Fortunately, it didn’t, and actually after all the dashing about and getting worried about it we had a magnificent night.

We met up before dinner in the pub across the road from the Indian restaurant, and within a few minutes I was completely absorbed in talking to some absolutely delightful old people who looked exactly like some of my old school friends.

It was a completely fantastic experience, and I was captivated.

Of course there was plenty of the usual sort of  ‘what-are-you-doing-now?’ sort of chatting, and actually that was really interesting in itself, because almost nobody had turned into something that you might easily predict, partly because nobody ever looks at a fifteen year old and sees a planning officer or a telecommunications engineer, on the whole you look and wonder if they will actually improve or whether some sort of incarceration is inevitable. Anyway, as far as I know nobody was in prison, although rather shockingly one or two turned out to have died, which is always a bit of a grim realisation. One girl who I remembered as being small and bright and lively at school, had brought me a book with the instruction that it was to be read and then must be passed on, which I thought was a marvellous idea, and I heard a bit of the book on Radio Four once, and liked it, so I shall make sure to do just that.

It is hard to explain what it felt like on the whole, although I imagine this sort of experience is very familiar to everybody who has felt themselves easing into middle, and then old age. It was the most wonderful night, with splendidly good food, and far too much wine, but neither of those things were as important as the sheer joy in being there and just looking at the people around me.

I was surrounded by faces which had been familiar to me as the smooth, untroubled faces of children, and which now wore the marks of countless joys and troubles and sorrows and triumphs.

I listened to stories of loves and deaths, and to proud accounts of children who had succeeded beyond our own expectations. I looked with fascination at faces worn into kindliness by years of struggles and adventures.

I don’t think I have ever felt so secretly proud to be a part of a group.

Also I managed to get through the whole night without my underwear being exposed to anybody. At my age this is a success rather than otherwise, which might not have been the case when I first used to socialise with this group of friends.

It is rather nice to be grown up.