Page 15 of Love from Pretty Beach

S crolling through her recent calls, Darby tapped to phone Penny.

She needed to talk to someone about what had just happened and Penny was the only person who would understand the full magnitude of the disaster or whatever it was that was happening on Darby’s newly born channel.

Love from Pretty Beach had been born in the most spectacular way.

The phone rang three times before Penny answered. Darby tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Hi.’

'Darbs? Are you okay? You sound a bit panicky.'

'Pen, have you watched the video I sent you yet?' Darby tried to keep her voice level.

'Oh, the one you sent me last night? No, sorry, I went to bed early. I’ve been feeling absolutely rotten with this cold, you know how it is. I haven't even looked at my phone properly this morning. Why? Is everything okay?'

Darby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 'You’re not going to believe this. It’s peak Darby. I, umm, something's happened and I don't quite know what to do about it.'

'What? Is it the car again? Jack can help.'

'No, not the car. The video. Well, it turns out I didn't set it to private. I put it on public by accident and now ten thousand people have watched it.'

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. ‘Sorry, what? I thought you said I was the only one who got to watch that and not to even show it to Jack. I thought you said you couldn’t work out how to do the private link thing. How can anyone have seen the video?’

‘I also uploaded it online just to see how it worked! Apparently, I put it on public, not private. I’ve said loads of things on there. I am literally talking to a wall!’

‘Nooooo!’

‘I know.’

‘Only you could do that.’

‘Right.’

'Ten thousand people?’ Penny swore. ‘What exactly is in this video?'

Darby slumped back in her chair and studied her nailbeds as if they might help her.

‘Everything. A lot of it, I ramble on feeling sorry for myself.

The self-pity is off the scale! When I first did it I just started talking; about how empty the house feels, about eating toast for dinner, about rearranging cushions because I couldn't think of anything else to do. The whole miserable truth about what my life's like now the children have gone and I feel invisible. How down I’ve been. How I’ve had nothing to lose. '

'Oh, right, blimey. Can you take it down?'

'That's the thing. I could take it down, but you should see the comments.

There are hundreds of them, all from women saying they feel exactly the same way.

Women in their forties and fifties, saying I've put words to feelings they couldn't express, that they thought they were going mad feeling so lost and lonely. A few others, too, saying they’re in their forties and have young families and feel as if they don’t have the will to get up and do the same thing day after day. '

'Really?' Penny's voice perked up with interest. 'What sort of things are they saying?'

'All sorts. There's one woman who says she's been eating cereal for dinner for weeks because she can't be bothered cooking for one. Another who says she's been pretending to her family that she's fine since her youngest left for university.'

‘Wow.'

'It’s me rambling on about my feelings for twenty minutes. I was only making it for you anyway, to try to explain why I've been so odd lately. It was meant to help me focus.'

'Don't be daft, you haven't been odd. Hang on, let me get my laptop out. Right, I'll watch it now while we're on the phone.'

‘Promise me you'll be honest about what you think. I'm starting to wonder if I've completely lost the plot.'

'When have I ever not been honest with you?' Penny asked.

Darby could hear the clicking of laptop keys in the background. ‘Ahh!’

'Right, got it. Give me a minute to watch. Actually, I’m going to make a cup of tea and watch it. I’ll call you back.'

For the next twenty minutes, Darby unloaded the dishwasher and cleaned the kitchen like a mad woman. Every few minutes, she kept tapping on the video to have another look. The comments section was active. New messages appeared every few minutes from women sharing their own stories. Her phone rang.

'Darbs! Why didn't you tell me you were feeling this bad?'

'I tried to, a bit, but I didn't want to be the miserable friend who brings everyone down.'

'You wouldn't have brought me down. I had no idea you were struggling this much. I mean, I knew you were having a hard time adjusting, but this, I don’t know what to say! Darbs, you sound so sad and so lost.'

'I was. Some days I wake up and feel like I'm disappearing, Pen. Like I forgot how to be Darby. At least, that's how it was when I filmed that, but now I feel better already. Crikey, I am finally losing the plot.'

'I wish you'd said something sooner.'

‘I’m fine. You know me.’

'The response is unbelievable. Look at those comments. Really look at them. You've started a conversation that obviously needed to happen. All these women feeling exactly the same way you do, and probably thinking they are the only ones. That's actually quite significant.'

Darby scrolled through the comments again, reading a few new ones that had appeared. ‘I guess.’

‘I can’t believe you accidentally posted it. That’s so you.’

'I know. But many people feel the same way. I thought I was just being pathetic, wallowing in self-pity because I couldn't cope with having an empty house and wondering what I do next.'

'You're not pathetic, you're honest. Do you know how rare that is? Everyone pretends everything's fine all the time, especially on social media. Here you are, showing what it actually looks like when your life changes completely and you don't know how to adjust.'

'It's so embarrassing. I'm sitting there in an orange kitchen in my dressing gown, looking like I haven't brushed my hair in a week, talking about eating toast for dinner and having conversations with the dog. I shudder to think what people around here will think.'

'So what? That's what it actually looks like when you're struggling, not some polished version where you've got perfect lighting and a script. These women are responding to you because you're being genuine.'

'What do you think I should do? Should I make another video? Try to respond to some of these comments? I don't really know how any of this works. What have I done? I have loads of bits of footage now. I could upload that and see how it goes.'

'I think you might have stumbled onto something here. There's clearly an appetite for this kind of honest content about what life looks like for women our age. Not the glossy lifestyle stuff, but the real, messy, complicated truth of it.'

'You really think so?'

'Yep. You know what else? You look better in that video than you have in months. Not because you're dressed up or anything, but because you're being yourself.'

‘I guess.’

‘Right, sorry, I’ve got to go. ‘I’ll text you later. Don’t do anything about it right away. Hold your horses. Just wait and see how you feel.’

‘Thanks. Yes, speak to you later.’

Darby watched the view counter tick up again to 10,149 and tried to imagine deliberately making another video, knowing that thousands of people might watch it. Things had gone from pie in the sky to real. She needed tiramisu.