Spin Cycle by Ilsa Evans Page B

that time she had found out that her dentist husband had been practising his drilling out of surgery hours ever since their first wedding anniversary, and she had performed a non-anaesthetised extraction of her own. I have only met Dennis once or twice and the only thing we shared was an instantaneous and mutually intense dislike. But then I’m sure he doesn’t need admirers – he seems fond enough of himself. As far as looks go, Terry and I are opposites. She is a six-foot tall, statuesque blonde with great teeth, who more closely resembles one of the Valkyries from a German opera than a suburban librarian. She liveswith her twenty-year-old daughter, Bronte, who coincidentally is also a six-foot tall, statuesque blonde with great teeth. They make me look like a neglected garden gnome.
    I park in the car park behind the library and am halfway to the back door before it registers that my car is looking extremely lonely all by itself. Usually at this time the car park is almost full with all those dedicated types who get here before nine o’clock on a regular basis and consider this feat par for the course and not a matter for intense self-congratulation and a celebratory drink that evening.
    I would like to think that they all slept in, but I doubt it.
    I walk slowly around the side of the building and up to the double doors at the front of the library, hoping that the extremely large cardboard sign I can now see sticky-taped there will give me a clue as to what is going on. It does.
THE STAFF OF THIS LIBRARY ARE ON STRIKE TODAY
WE ARE MARCHING IN PROTEST
BECAUSE THE GOVT HAS CUT OUR FUNDING
YET AGAIN!
WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE TO OUR PATRONS

    Well, if that isn’t typical! Don’t apologise to me, don’t let me know what’s going on! I could have slept in or something. Actually, maybe I am supposed to be doing something like marching in protestmyself. Now that I think of it, I feel like marching in protest today – in fact, that’s exactly what I feel like. Maybe I could be nonconformist and make up my own sign, something with flair like ‘MOTHERS & EX-HUSBANDS SUCK’ … or perhaps not.
    I’m sure I could come up with a less suggestive slogan given a bit of leisure time, but then I’m sure I could come up with a lot of things given a bit of leisure time – like a tidy house, ironed clothes, well-mannered children, a best-selling novel. Never mind, one thing I did decide during the night (at 2.13 am, to be more precise) was that there is no point worrying myself sick about anything while I am working (or striking, as it turns out). Apart from talking with Terry, and enjoying a wee bit of commiseration, I have put everything on hold until I am able to make a few phone calls tonight to see if I can put things into some sort of perspective.
    However, I can’t believe that nobody rang me last night to let me know what was going on today. I have an absolute horror of being kept in the dark and not being told what’s going on – which I think dates back to my childhood, and the year I started school. At that time, Diane had already been at school for two years and I was terribly excited about becoming a ‘big schoolgirl’ myself (escaping my mother for six-and-a-half hours a day no doubt contributed to the appeal).
    As the big day slowly approached, I became aware of a lot of whispering going on around me. If my mother had some friends around they would stop talking as soon as I entered the room and whenever Iquestioned her, she would look mysterious and tell me to just be patient, a surprise was on its way. As well as this, suddenly there was a lot of activity in the spare room and for the first time that I could remember, my father cooked meals and took us for long walks – when we asked after our mother, he would just say that she was rather busy.
    Well, Diane and I mulled over the goings-on and deduced that, obviously, to celebrate my