Dateline Drumfeld – Tuesday
Tonight’s book group was at Christine’s. A pointless and rancorous exchange about Celine’s ‘Death on Credit’ – my suggested novel – which nobody else had bothered to finish. Pauline, in fact, confessed – apparently without embarrassment – that she hadn’t even started, an admission I thought should have invalidated her presence at the meeting. The evening might have been wasted were it not for Izzie’s revelation that she went to school with Anne-Marie Osler. “We weren’t particular friends, but she was nice,” she said. “Jessica keeps up with her – she writes poetry…”
Borrowing Christine’s laptop, Izzie then located a blog entitled Memories of Frost. We might have dedicated the rest of the evening to Anne-Marie’s poetry, but Pauline, as usual, embarked on a vociferous digression about her personal circumstances. Tonight’s diatribe centred around Martin, the pot-bellied dwarf she met on a forum for lonely Trotskyites. Apparently he’s been selling Pauline’s books and cd’s on ebay, a charge that prompted an obvious witticism around the equation of property to theft. Such bluntness might have been acceptable from Steven Osler – from Hamilton Coe, unfortunately, it was not. I was banished to the kitchen where I spent the rest of the evening preparing coffee and reading my Kindle.
