‘Lazy, idle, unreconstructed encumbrance,’ she remarked to the air. ‘Useless git!’ she added with satisfaction. Alice was peering down from the upstairs window at her sagging husband cocooned in his sagging lounger out on the patio.
‘If I’m lucky, I’ll make sixty; if not, it’ll be sixty-five, ha ha!’ was Frank’s standard response to any cajoling about getting fit or ditching the booze. Then he would eye the bottle on the table by his chair and reel it in with a practiced digit. Plenty of time for a snifter before supper.
Alice’s mobile rumbled in her pocket – a text from Dorrie wanting some company at the fitness centre. She glanced down at the moderate sized bum-bag that used to be her toned abdomen. She should go, work up a sweat, spruce up the muscles that once underpinned the taut torso of her youthful body. But her eye wandered over to the tiny alcove that passed for their domestic office and a biscuit tin slunk into view. Bugger it.
She headed for the computer, flicked some switches, and waited for it to dredge up the couple of bits of office software its previous owner had blessed it with. A chocolate chip brownie made its way into her hand and offered little resistance as she bit into it…