Hey you. Yeah, you. I mean me. We’ve got some talking to do.
Really? OK. Let me just put my latte down. What can I do for you?
You can tell me the truth, that’s what. We had such spectacular plans and I need to know whether we did them all. Did we?
I’m sorry, you’ll have to be more specific, it has been 25 years after all.
25? We still look good though, right? I mean, you didn’t let us get fat and wrinkly did you?
Well...
Aw shit! We’re fat? Wrinkled? *gulp* both?
Jesus, Me, there’s worse things to be. As it happens we were fat but now we’re back to a normal-ish size. As for wrinkles, I do what I can but I really don’t fancy Botox.
Bollox? You have to have a sex change? Wha?
No! Botox is this poison that is injected into the forehead to paralyse the muscles up there. It gives a ‘smoothed out’ appearance, but you look startled and lose the ability to express emotion facially.
Injected? Ew! Or have they invented some way of doing it without needles. If they have, then do it.
No, it’s still a regular needle and why would you suggest I inject poison into our face? Anyway we’ve still got that huge forehead so I just fix my hair so it doesn’t show. Anyway, don’t you want to know more important things about our life now? You started this conversation. I thought you had something to say.
Oh. OH! Yeah. Did we get married?
Really? 25 years and the most important thing you can think of to ask me is if we got married. Who are you? In 1986 we didn’t even want to get married. You disappoint me, Lisa.
Shutupandtellme.
Yes. We are married.
Lisa Jane Thompson! Get in!
Thompson? Oh, jesus. You mean Darren Thompson, don’t you? Our name is not Thomspon.
Double barrelled? H___-Thompson? Thompson – H___?
Neither.
...
We did not marry Darren Thompson. Actually, Johnny still sees him. He lives next door to John, so he sees him most days. Darren is married and has a son. Darren is also...dum dum der! BALD. Yes, his perfect, huge, blonde flick has marched so far backwards it is now his ear hair.
Hell no!
Actually, as much as you thought it was forever, you only went out with him for a couple of weeks.
Can you shut up now for a while. Think I need to think about this for a bit. I can’t believe...
(13 year old Me puts on Open Top Cars and Girls in T-Shirts tape, queued up to REO Speedwagon’s ‘I Can’t Fight This Feeling’. 13 year old me goes very quiet for a short while, muttering the words to the song. She then proceeds to sing the chorus at ear-splitting volume while her eyes fill with tears. I leave her to have her moment then get bored of Me.)
Right. Shut up now. You’re not married to Darren, calm down. You are married to someone even better.
Magne Furuholmen? We married Mags?
Er...no.
Jesus. Do you want to make me depressed?
You’re not depressed. You’re just upset. Depression is much worse. There are so many worse things that would happen, like when mu... Nothing. Anyway. He’s called Pete and he does have lovely curly blond-ish hair. He isn’t going bald either – he’s made the decision. You have a double barrelled name – Lisa H___-C______. Good, eh?
It’s alright. Actually it sounds like a name of a famous...are we a famous actress? Singer?
Let’s not get into that right now.
But I want to know now!
And that is tough. We’ll get to what I do soon enough.
Alright. (sniffs) So, we live in a big house where? Mallorca? Hollywood?
We live in Manchester.
YOU ARE JOKING! If there was one thing we wanted it was to leave this awful country and especially this city. You gave up on that so easily?
It isn’t giving up! Look, we lived in other places. We went to Wolverhampton University and lived there and in Valencia and Lanzarote...
And why are we still not in one of those places? Preferably not Wolverhampton though – couldn’t you think of anywhere more exotic to go to University?
It...didn’t work out. And Wolves was the bollocks. We went there because it was one of the few places that offered Spanish and Russian.
We speak Russian?
You had to ask about that one, didn’t you? You couldn’t have said ‘Oh! We speak Spanish!’ No. We failed miserably at Russian, but we do speak Spanish fluently. Russian was just too bizarre.
What about the acting?
Really? You want to talk about that now? OK, no. We are not a famous actress or singer. We did a theatre studies A-Level and then watched all of the normal kids around us turn into self obsessed arseholes after getting bit parts in the Bill. We didn’t want to be like that, so we gave it up.
So, what are we?
A teacher.
Now I know you’re kidding. School is shite, so I can’t imagine we’d choose to stay there any longer than we have to.
It was a surprise to me too. We are good though, although...
Another kick in the invisible balls?
We have just taken a year off. We are writing now.
That could work for me. So, how many books have we published?
...
None? What have you been doing?
Well, right now I’m writing a conversation between now me and me from 25 years ago. It is not going as well as I might have hoped...
Yeah, but who is going to want to read that?
Good question. I’ll post it on the internet and see.
What’s the internet?
