Janet and I keep in touch on a fairly regular basis, by email and the occasional phone call. We’re both continuing with our day jobs; me, working in online media, Janet, building dry stone walls in and around Derbyshire. We’ve made a date to meet up before Christmas and have a good catch up over lunch, which we try to do a couple of times a year.
Janet and I have a genuine friendship and I don’t think that will ever change. Our relationship is not wholly dependent on the past and when we meet we like to concentrate on the future. It’s good to know that Janet has a regular income coming in, thanks to her expertise in the dying art of dry stone walling and I think she feels the same about me in that, she’s interested in what my current job entails. We put our professional Iives on hold while we wrote TSIML and, while we have no regrets about that, we both have to be realistic. Life goes on. And yet….
Of course, when we meet up next week I’ll express concern about the hard physical labour involved in building dry stone walls at her age, the health of her three remaining dogs and the ability of her ancient wood burner to get her through the winter. And she will ask me about my sometimes precarious freelance career, my husband and my children, but, this year, there may be one topic we will touch on that does relate to our shared past. The production company that approached us two years ago about The Stranger In My Life, asked us to sign a contract then filmed us talking to camera in Derbyshire, is back.
We are both sensible enough to know that just because we find The Stranger In My Life a riveting story – and presumably Raw Cut agrees – there are difficulties with broadcasting it to a wider audience. I have touched on the fact that we have upset Janet’s friends, Fred’s relatives and, of course, the police, in the process of writing the book and we are neither of us naive: there may be legal issues – we understand that. But we hope these issues can be overcome.
Sometimes, it’s important to be brave. Janet was brave when I suggested she receive treatment for her memory loss and, I think, she has been brave in dealing with the fall out ever since. I sincerely hope Raw Cut ends up being just as brave in deciding what to do next.
The Stranger In My Life 