The Granny-Okes

Patty has chosen Valentine’s Day for our night out arguing that the married men will be in restaurants so anyone we find in a karaoke bar is fair game; here was I thinking we were going for a singalong.

I wonder what Alan is getting his new woman today. He always used to get me ‘one red rose for my one English rose’. I used to find it romantic but when I think about it now, he was probably just too cheapskate to buy me a dozen. Still, I’d have been ecstatic if either the postman or the flower store had knocked on my door this morning. I wonder if they can tell from the flower selections which bouquet is for a wife and which for a mistress?

I have a flick through the local paper smiling at all the romantic messages in the classifieds; it’s a strange place to declare your love.

My jaw drops.

I’ve always known he could be pretty thoughtless but does he not have an original idea in his head? Is it any wonder middle-aged women are turning to alcohol in droves? Our husbands and ex-husbands are practically pouring it down our necks with their thoughtlessness.

Furious, I call Patty. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. I was demure and wife-like for years – look where it got me.

‘Can we leave now?’ I ask her.

Come the early evening, we’re in the karaoke bar having already enjoyed a glass or two en route. Despite the fact that I know I’m tone deaf, I start to feel the bravery that comes free with every bottle of wine.

‘Let’s do it,’ I whisper much to Patty’s delight.

‘True Colours’ follows ‘Material Girl’, which follows ‘Hey Mickey’. We have to be forced off the stage in the end.

A century of womanhood being thoroughly shameless and we feel not a shred of embarrassment about any of it. It is a truly wonderful night.

The morning after...

Patty came back here last night but I can’t remember much more and I think we went to bed pretty quickly after a bloody good night out. I’m still smiling as I put the kettle on and my phone beeps to tell me that I have lots of texts and emails.

I flick through the messages. Some people lament that texting is very impersonal, but let’s face it – it saves conversations you don’t want. Anyway lots of people are telling me I was hilarious last night, not sure how they know that. One from Charlie says: WAY TO GO CYNDI!!;) How bizarre.

I pop the phone in my dressing gown pocket then fill two cups and take them up to Patty.

‘Wakey, wakey,’ I call.

Patty is already awake, staring at her phone with her mouth wide open.

‘What’s up?’ I ask.

‘We’re only bloody trending.’

I know this means there are lots of people talking about us on the internet, but why would people want to talk about us?

I sit down beside Patty and look at all the comments. It’s not just us they’re talking about; after all, there are two other members of the new singing sensations – the Granny-Okes.

The finer details of last night start coming back to me, and with each memory, I die a little; Zoe will surely disown me. The karaoke bar turned out to be quite sophisticated and hi-tech with a live YouTube stream (and to think a stream used to be a lovely babbling brook not a source of live humiliation).

So I know for sure that we did blast out our favourite tunes and now it appears that we did this with two other fifty-somethings, Sheila and Kath (who were actually rather good), according to their morning messages. YouTube is a wonderful invention: not only can people watch us plastered but they can comment on our efforts too – hence the new band name.

Our bleeding hearts followed ‘Don’t You Want Me’ (which I do remember) with ‘Tainted Love’, which involved lots of slurring and a big chorus. The crescendo of the night was no less than that female anthem, ‘I will Survive’ or ‘Sh-ur-vive’ as we sang it.

Well having seen this I’m not sure that I will survive.

I don’t go outdoors or take any calls over Sunday and manage to avoid speaking to anyone. I have a very long bath to try to wash my embarrassment away. I eat salad and drink herbal tea as penance for any humiliation I may have caused and when I go to bed unscathed, I pray that my daughter hasn’t had time to watch YouTube.

Monday unfortunately arrives and I can hide no more; I have to go into work knowing that Charlie and Josie have already viewed my performance because they’ve commented. I’m dreading it, really dreading it.

I walk in and smile as if nothing has happened.

‘Morning – lovely day,’ I call out and for those first five minutes, I think I might have got away with it as they just politely nod back.

I’m about to sit down when Charlie beckons me over.

‘Could you just take a look at this?’ he asks as he hunches over the PC with Josie, their backs to me.

I walk up to them and they spin around, whipping off their jackets to reveal T-shirts printed with downloaded photographs of the Granny-Okes stage performance. Oh Lord, can something be horrifying and hilarious at the same time?

‘You were so funny, I’ve told everyone that I know you,’ gushes Josie.

‘Why didn’t you do any Culture Club?’ asks Charlie doing his best Boy George sway.

‘That’s not about heartache,’ explains Josie earnestly. ‘We felt your pain you know.’

‘Her pain? What about mine? My bloody eardrums were bleeding.’

I bash Charlie over the head with a brochure. He ribs me all day long, but then he always does. Everything is back to normal and I did survive.

I guess the song was right after all.

Well almost.

‘Video this time, Mum, video the whole world can see. What were you thinking?’ Zoe is fuming. ‘I begged you not to do something like this. I mean four old women trying to recapture their youth. Why not go the whole hog, get four old bald blokes and form a boy band too? No wonder he left you.’

I go from sorry to angry with this last remark. I don’t get angry very often; I think most wives and mothers learn to grit their teeth at an early stage otherwise we’d explode on a daily basis.

What I want to say is: ‘I did this BECAUSE he left me. I’m hurting too you know. And I’m not old; I’m only fifty-three. Hell, we lived through some of the most hedonistic years ever. None of this austerity for us; we were punks, new romantics, glam rockers and ska-kids. We brought the banking system down way before you did. We had yuppies, huge mobile phones, political protests AND the boys wore more make-up than the women. We knew how to party.’

But what I actually say is, ‘Oh come on Zoe, it was only a bit of fun; it’ll be forgotten about by tomorrow. Anyway, I bet The Bangles look like us now.’