Chapter 10
Still in a bit of a daze and with a rather foolish grin on my face, I got back to my room and opened the doors onto my balcony.
Looking across at Anita’s, I was not surprised to see Beryl, and Effie sitting there with her in the dusk, a bottle of wine between them and the table lit with a candle lantern.
When they saw me, Effie immediately stood up and shouted across.
‘You’re back! Did you have a nice time? What did you have to eat? Come and tell us all about it!’
From the racket she was making I would not have been surprised if other people in the street joined us, but bowing to the inevitable, I kicked off my lovely new shoes – one of which was now definitely a different colour from the other one – and put on my slippers.
By the time I opened my door, Anita was already standing in the hallway, and she beckoned me into her room with some impatient hand waving.
‘So? Tell us all about it,’ she said, pressing a mug of wine into my hand and encouraging me to sit down at the table.
There wasn’t much room because it was only meant for two people, and Anita had found two other chairs from somewhere, so it was a bit cramped and the four of us banged knees for a bit until we were all settled.
I told them all about my evening, my meal and eventually about my accident with the gravel, the zebra-print kitten heels and the utter shame of being hauled to my feet by fellow diners.
Predictably – having ascertained I wasn’t injured and nor had I crushed some other unsuspecting passer-by – they found this very amusing.
‘What did he say? Was he embarrassed too? If that had happened to me when I was with Hector, he would probably have walked off, left me to pay the bill and not spoken to me for days afterwards,’ Effie said with a kindly glance.
‘I can absolutely sympathise,’ Beryl said, shaking her head, ‘but the great thing is that by the time you get to our age, just about everybody has done things that are equally as daft or even more embarrassing. I did worse than that in Portofino back in the late seventies. I was staying with the son of a gorgeous Italian Contessa at her villa on the lake, and I was flirting up a storm with him. I went to sit on the little wall at the end of his garden with the hope that I could lean back and look sultry and sexy and also get some information out of him—’
Anita leaned forward, her eyes wide. ‘Goodness me, what sort of information?’
‘Oh, the usual things. Interdepartmental government plotting, bribes, nothing really earthshattering. Anyway, I leaned back a bit too far and down I went. Into the water. Yves St Laurent dress, cocktail glass and everything. And even though it was June, it was frightfully cold. And the thing I was most upset about was Ernesto had just poured me an absolutely divine pear martini. Such a pity. But to be fair, his staff were so efficient about the whole thing. They fished me out quick as you like. Italians are so good about that, and spit spot, I was out and dried off and had a new drink in my hand in no time.’
‘Oh my word, you had a St Laurent dress?’ Effie breathed, impressed.
‘I did,’ Beryl said dreamily. ‘Don’t you remember it?
Ernesto had bought it for my birthday. It was so beautiful.
It was black with an emerald-green sash and huge purple sleeves.
It sounds a bit odd describing it now, but I thought I was the cat’s miaou.
It was ruined, of course, which is a shame because it would be worth a fortune now.
I was very fond of Ernesto; we spent a weekend in Venice and he was the only man who ever got me out of my clothes with just words. ’
‘Wow,’ Anita said. ‘Was he very romantic?’
‘Not really. He just told me he’d seen a spider go down the back of my dress. Anyway, less about me and more about the handsome Will. So, what happened next?’
I tried to remember, drawing a little comfort from Beryl’s story, which I had to agree was far worse than mine.
‘I just emptied all the gravel out of my shoes and limped off to the loo. And when I got back, he didn’t mention it again.’
Effie sighed with pleasure. ‘How marvellous. Sometimes that’s all we need, isn’t it? For someone to do nothing. To not mention it. To ignore the daft things we might do or say.’
Anita topped up our wine glasses, emptying the bottle.
It did cross my mind that we all seemed to be drinking an awful lot.
Normally weeks could pass without me having any alcohol.
And maybe this had been the reason I’d fallen over in the first place?
I made a mental note of this and decided I would cut back from now on, otherwise I might well be going home with a tan and cirrhosis as well.
‘And?’ she said. ‘And? What then?’
‘We had coffee and Metaxa, which I have to say I am getting quite a taste for, and then he paid the bill and we walked home.’
There was a moment of silence when all three of them looked at me with meaningful glances, and I could feel myself blushing.
‘What?’ I said, trying not to laugh.
‘And?’ Beryl said.
‘He kissed you, didn’t he?’ Effie said with a sigh.
‘I can tell. I remember the first time I was kissed by someone who wasn’t my husband, and yes, before you ask, I was divorced by then.
And it was like a bomb went off in my head.
And it was a young man called Jeremy. And he wasn’t a particularly good kisser or anything.
Okay, quite nice really, but I mean he was no Warren Beatty.
It was just the thought that a nice man wanted to kiss me.
And it was sort of friendly and affectionate, which was something I’d missed. I’ll never forget it.’
Yes, I thought, I could relate to that. And I wondered then how it was that a marriage like mine, which had started with such promise and had produced a loving and much-loved daughter, a comfortable home, and a good career, had slowly crumbled.
The passion had died; the affection from Malcolm had been in an ever-dwindling supply and nearly always prompted by some other motivation.
The need for his dry-cleaning to be collected in my lunch hour, or to make up for a birthday or anniversary missed, or occasional and forgettable sex.
Was the ability to be loved or even noticed something like the sand in an egg timer, which gradually ran through and disappeared with the passing years? Had this evening been the time when fate turned the timer over again and the clogged sand of my attractiveness began to run more freely?
I focused back on my companions who were now reminiscing happily about their own dating disasters. Anita had spilled wine down Rick on their first date and then done the same thing to his mother when they were introduced.
‘Not on purpose, obviously, I was just so nervous. And she was not the sort of woman to laugh it off. The family called me “The Splasher” for years afterwards, and Rick’s father Stan, who was a big bear of a man who liked slapstick and Carry On films, used to stand in front of me and ask when it was his turn. ’
‘Another thing, I fell out of my first boyfriend’s car,’ Beryl said.
‘Luckily, we had parked up and we were getting a bit steamy at the time. It was a lovely green MG Miget. He did tell me the door catch could be a bit unreliable. I landed up on my back in a patch of nettles. Things were never the same after that.’
‘Okay, so perhaps this wasn’t as bad,’ I said, laughing, ‘but it’s different to be a bit of a klutz at my age. For one thing, it’s so undignified and it hurts more. I’m sure I must be covered in bruises. And what would the other people have thought of me?’
‘Are you ever going to meet any of those people again?’ Beryl asked.
‘Probably not,’ I said.
Beryl made a dismissive noise. ‘Well then, what’s the problem? Life is too short to worry about what strangers think of you. Have fun; if nothing else, give them something to think about.’
Yes, actually, she was right.
Effie nodded. ‘Everyone says you should listen to your body as you get older. Well, my body says has anyone got any of that chocolate we bought in duty free left?’
I began to feel a lot happier about things as we all laughed together, and when Anita brought out a huge Toblerone, life looked even better.
About an hour later we decided it was definitely bedtime, and we began to clear up the wine glasses and the shreds of silver foil.
Beryl looked at her watch. ‘Well, that’s enough excitement for one evening. I’ve found the film channel on my television. I’m going to bed now with a nice cup of tea and Matt Damon.’
‘Goodness, does Mrs Damon know?’ Anita said, her eyebrows in her fringe.
‘Not yet, but she would be furious if she did. There’s nothing like a good spy thriller and a couple of car chases to settle me,’ Beryl said cheerfully.
‘So now then, synchronise watches, breakfast at eight, and then nine o’clock tomorrow, outside the hotel.
Flat shoes, painting things, water and sunhats.
I’m looking forward to our trip to the ancient ruins.
And who knows, we might even get some painting done. ’
‘We were talking about it over dinner. Will knows a lot about the Minoans,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Effie said with a loud, wicked laugh, ‘I bet he knows lots of interesting things.’