Now it’s Nora’s turn to look a million miles away and I know she has the weight of the world on her shoulders but I would never dare to pry unless she wanted to open up and tell me her problems. Every dog on the street knows that she is going through hell in what should still be the honeymoon period of her marriage, but one thing I have learned in my years of serving as the city’s most well-known agony aunt is to listen first. Nora is a closed book and if that’s how she wants to keep it for now, that’s fine by me . . .
‘Well, if it isn’t two of my favourite customers in here at the same time!’
I look up to see Gloria, a festive red tea towel strewn across her shoulder and a beaming smile on her welcoming face, automatically shifting our mood and bringing a much-needed glow into the doom and gloom. Gloria, with her Caribbean roots, is a larger-than-life figure with universal maternal instincts and a charitable nature. She just looks like one big personified hug and I adore her to bits.
‘You don’t have to pretend I’m your favourite, Gloria,’ says Nora, trying her best to appear normal and not a shivering hungover shell of a human she currently is inside. ‘We all know Ruth is everyone’s favourite everywhere she goes. She just has to flash her pearly whites and the nation swoons.’
Nora says this with a smile, but there’s a slight bitterness in her tone that makes Gloria cast me a wondering glance. My face goes pink at the reminder of my reputation of ‘she who can do no wrong’, a reputation that has been carefully managed and nourished by those who hire me on the newspaper, but one that I definitely do not feel worthy of today. I should be working up to my image by replying to some of the more poignant emails in my Inbox, but instead I’m nursing my sorrow in the only place where I feel like I can escape from it all. I can’t deal with other people’s problems today, especially when I think of some of the desperate, lonely cases who have messaged me in dread of Christmas and all the pressures it can sometimes bring. I shudder at the thought, glad of Nora and this distraction of our meeting, even if it seems like venom drips off her tongue when she speaks of my popularity.
‘Ah, I just know Ruth a very, very long time,’ says Gloria, placing her hand on my shoulder. ‘We go back a long way, don’t we, darlin’? We go way, way back, when this beauty was just a little girl in here with her dear papa and her little sister. My, how time flies. Are you holding up okay, my love? It’s a hard time for you, I know it is.’
I bite my lip and hug the mug of hot chocolate. I try to speak. I can’t.
I shake my head.
‘She’s fine,’ says Nora. ‘She’s used to solving problems so I’m sure she can solve her own, can’t you, Ruth?’
I go to reply but Nora doesn’t give me a chance to.
‘Plus, she had to watch all of us getting hammered last night, so everything seems a little bit worse this morning and we need to be treated like fragile little eggs. Hungry, fragile little eggs.’
‘Well, you’re in the right place for that,’ says Gloria. ‘Now, what can I get you? You two look like you could eat a hearty breakfast.’
Nora takes over as she usually does in company and, although in most circumstances it gets on my nerves, for now I am glad of her decisiveness as I can’t seem to think straight lately.
‘Can I get some muffins and syrup and, actually, can I get some fried bacon please with that, Gloria? I need some soakage for definite.’
I manage to nod in agreement and Gloria writes down our order on her little notepad with the pen that sits permanently behind her ear.
‘I’m here if you ever need me,’ Gloria whispers to me, her eyes filling up in reflection of the agony she knows I am going through at the moment.
I look up at her and say the words that we always chant to each other when the chips are down, ‘Even an agony aunt needs an agony aunt sometimes,’ and at that she is off to cook us breakfast.
‘Do you think Gloria has ever overindulged on a night out?’ asks Nora. ‘Do you think she has even ever sinned? I bet she hasn’t. I bet she grew up with a sweet Gospel choir and the smell of home baking and wholesome Sunday worship and she’s never as much as sipped alcohol, the lucky duck.’
I shrug. ‘I’m not sure of her background or why or how she ever came to this place, but I’m glad she did,’ I tell Nora. ‘I’m not hungover at all, actually. I’m just sad, Nora. I’m really sad today. Sorry to burden you with it all. I just miss him terribly, especially at this time of year. Getting over the hurdle of that first anniversary was a toughie, I can tell you, but hopefully now I’ll be able to turn a corner.’
Nora fidgets uncomfortably, looks around her, then changes the subject entirely to talk about an article she is writing on celebrity culture and I’m reminded that, outside of work and booze-ups, Nora and I really don’t have that much in common at all. She has no idea about my sister Ally, who lives at the other end of the country, and how much I miss her being closer to home; she has no idea about how I’m killing myself to run that big empty house all on my own and how huge a decision it is for me to sell it, or how lonely I am or useless I feel now that I don’t have my dad to visit at the care home, or how much I have lately hated attending hollow events full of air kissing ass kissers which don’t fill my soul any more. I’m not sure they ever even did. She has no idea how I’m suffocating in this existence, how every day I long to run away to somewhere I don’t even know and where no one knows me, and she has no idea how much I really need to make some major changes in my life before it all becomes too much to handle. She has no idea about me at all.
In fact, none of them do. Not Gavin, not Bob, definitely not Nora. They are acquaintances through work; they are just like the thousands of social media friends who look up to me as if I live a perfect life judged on posed photos and shiny profiles.
‘Thanks for asking me to come here,’ I tell Nora when she pauses for breath during her rant about celebrity marriage compared to reality marriage, where money is tight and bills need to be paid. ‘I needed to get out of the house and it’s always nice to come here to Gloria’s and just forget the world. Sometimes I miss the office banter and the company that comes with it, but coming here helps. Isn’t this just the most magical little den? I love it here. I always have.’
Although Nora and I may not know a lot about each other under the surface, I think it’s nice to acknowledge her kindness on thinking of me this morning and inviting me here, plus my dad always taught us to see the good in people so I’m going to focus on that rather than let any negative thoughts fill my already overflowing head.
‘Margo thinks I’m meeting you here to get advice on how to sort my shit out at home as it’s affecting my work,’ she says, sniggering, stirring her drink.
‘Oh, does she?’
I sit up and Nora laughs.
‘She really does believe you can change the world, Ruth,’ she continues, looking totally unconvinced. ‘Like, why is that?’
‘Sorry?’
I have no idea how to answer her question. How am I to know why Margo insists on creating this angelic profile of me? I didn’t create it. It’s all just media hype and Nora should know that.
‘Well, it’s probably because you cared for your dad and the whole “my mother abandoned me” story that comes with your background,’ she says, in a quick summary of my life to date. ‘Then there’s the fact that men fall for you but you don’t even see it; the charitable work you’ve done through the radio station; the “overcoming obstacles” attitude that empowers women who look up to you so doe-eyed, not to mention the butter-wouldn’t-melt Italian face that has everyone going gaga. It’s a lot to live up to for the rest of us, yet in reality you’re a bag of misery.’
Nora is tearing me to pieces and I have no idea what to say. Not that I could get a word in if I wanted to. She has me very well summed up and she hasn’t finished. She bows her head