"Hi Shirl." Mary smiled as her travelling companion joined her at the platform edge. "Did you have a good weekend?"

Shirley grimaced. "Don't ask me about my weekend, I don't want to talk about. It was God-awful, that was what my weekend was like."

"Really? I thought you were spending the weekend with your friends."

"Yes, I did, but you don't want to know about. It was a nightmare."

"Yes?" asked her friend, in a manner that suggested she was far too polite to suggest she didn't want to hear about it.

"Well, we go way back, me and Angie, back to sixth form, but we sort of drifted apart when she got married. Not anything nasty, but she went to university, then moved over to Essex when she and Tom got together, and me, I stayed here. Anyway, I got married too, as you know, so that was that, really. But she was always too good for here, in her own mind, and when she got her claws into Tom, that was it. Whoosh, and she was off, climbing the social ladder.

"Anyway, a few weeks back she emailed me on Facebook, said she wanted to get together, talk about old times, sort of thing. Said she'd put me and Dave up in the guest bedroom."

"Dave?" asked Mary, incredulously.

"Yes, well, she wouldn't know we'd split up, would she, not after dropping all her rough friends like me twelve years ago. So, I email back, tell her 'Sure, love to sometime, only there's no Dave' like you do. Then bugger me if she only goes and lays it all on. Silly mare! I was only being polite, sort of thing, but then I was snookered, wasn't I? I had to go.

"So, her and Tom, they're still together, and didn't they bloody let me know it, too. All 'Darling' this and 'Honey' that, and those bloody pitying looks, like they were sorry I wasn't still married to that arsehole. And they've got kids. What is it about having children that destroys any intelligence in a person? Two of the little beggars. They spent the whole time running around the house screaming, never mind I was there as a guest. I just wanted to reach back and fetch them such a slap, but you can't, not these days."

"So how is she doing nowadays?"

"You don't want to hear, Mary. She and him, they both work. Got two houses, one in East Ham, and one out in some village outside Dagenham. They don't like the commute, see, so they live in East Ham during the week, then go out to their 'country retreat' at the weekend."

"Wow, they must be doing well, then."

"You wouldn't believe it, to hear them. All the time I was there they didn't shut up about how hard it was to pay the mortgage on the town house, how they had hardly any money for themselves after the pony club for the kids and three, count them, three holidays a year. And she kept telling me how hard it was raising two kids. She kept saying 'You don't understand, Shirley, you don't have kids.' Well, no, I don't, but that's her choice, isn't it? It's her choice to have two kids, and two houses, and three bloody holidays a year. She kept complaining she never had time for the kids, but if they gave up one of the houses and only had two holidays a year, then maybe she could afford to give up work and look after the little brats better. Of course, then she'd have to give up the cleaner who comes in and does for her, and God forbid she should do any housework for herself.

"Two days, I had to put up with their constant whining. Can you imagine that? Just listening to someone bang on and on with a constant tirade of complaints. Have you any idea what that's like?"

Mary looked up the track for the train. "No, Shirl. I can't imagine," she said, distantly.