Chapter 9
Anna’s announcement had quite an effect on us and it wasn’t a good one.
I had never done karaoke in my life and I had never wanted to.
Harriet admitted she had once tried to sing ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window’ in a bar in Leamington Spa and been booed off the stage.
But Anna insisted she knew what she was doing because she had once won a karaoke competition on a cross-channel ferry with her rendition of ‘I am Sailing’.
As suitability for the job in hand went, it didn’t go far.
‘We were all in the choir at school,’ Anna said, trying to be persuasive, ‘we know we can sing perfectly well. Miss Townsend told my mother I had a perfect pitch.’
‘So does Manchester United,’ I said, ‘but you’re not thinking of playing for them, are you?’
‘And what song could we possibly sing?’ Harriet said.
‘Without the music or time to practise? Unless you want us to sing the school hymn, and I don’t think “Praise my Soul the King of Heaven” will go down at all well.
People take these things very seriously.
We don’t have costumes or – well, anything. ’
‘Leave everything to me,’ Anna said, ‘I have a really good idea.’
‘I’m beginning to hate it when you say that,’ Harriet said. ‘My poor knee still hasn’t fully recovered from your last really good idea.’
Not at all comforted by Anna’s optimism, particularly as she was treating the whole things as fun, which, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t, we finished our late lunch and then went off to browse in the local shops.
Some of them were so exclusive that they were locked and had burly doormen standing inside, glaring.
Others were filled with the usual tourist things.
T-shirts, fake designer sunglasses and bags, snow globes with models of the Eiffel tower or the pyramids inside, fridge magnets and garish pottery bowls.
But eventually we did find some establishments that sold reasonable-looking dresses, even if they were a bit more flouncy and glitterier that I was used to.
I wasn’t very receptive at first, but then Harriet reminded me of Fred’s nasty comment about my Christmas party dress and a kind of madness took over and I bought two.
One was floor length and yellow, with a sort of handkerchief hem and spaghetti straps which no woman over forty should wear in my opinion, except it came with a matching shrug to cover my upper arms; the other was pale green and white and was uncrushable and very comfortable so I was convinced.
If nothing else it would be a good dress to travel in.
They were nothing like the sort of thing I would normally have chosen, but in my defence this was nothing like the sort of holiday I normally went on.
I was entitled to a bit of random excitement, surely?
We decided it was time to go back to our hotel and decide where to have dinner, thus proving my theory that holiday brain was different from normal, everyday brain.
Considering the breakfast we had enjoyed, plus the lunch, an ice cream, coffee, wine and bread, there was no way we should have been thinking about yet more food.
And yet somehow we were, and none of us actually said, Hold on a minute…
We returned to H?tel Gloria just before five o’clock and went thankfully to our rooms for a little rest and the agreement that we would meet up downstairs in a couple of hours and – yes – go out for dinner.
I kicked off my shoes, which almost felt as though they had welded to the soles of my feet what with all the walking and the heat, and flopped down onto my bed. Should I send off a couple of photos to my friends to reassure them I was still okay?
Perhaps I would do that later. After all, no one had messaged me to tell me whether it was still raining or not in Worcestershire, and my son hadn’t responded at all to my text asking him about the recycling bin.
Ben
I phoned the vet and the receptionist said I could take the cat + kittens to the rescue place.
But I don’t like to move them. They might be upset.
There are two tabbies and a black one. I’ve called the mum Mrs Fluffy.
The kittens are Buster (Keaton) Buzz (Lightyear) and Darth (Vader).
Fluffy doesn’t seem to like cat food, so I gave her some chicken I found in the freezer.
And one of the old cot blankets I found in the airing cupboard in case they get cold. *sad face emoji*
Me
You’re getting a bit attached aren’t you? I warned you not to.
Anna has entered us for a karaoke competition.
Ben
*smiley face emoji* Hilarious.
Aha! So Ben could deal with things without my interference after all, that was a very positive sign.
* * *
I’d done a lot of traipsing about over the last few days, and annoyingly I had forgotten to bring my Fitbit, otherwise I was sure it would have buzzed approvingly at my daily step count.
I would have liked that, I thought regretfully.
It would almost have been like a little reward for it, for the many days when it had shyly flashed a little light to suggest I should move more or reminded me of what I could be doing rather than sitting on the sofa watching repeats of The Repair Shop.
On at least two occasions recently, when I had been reaching for the biscuit tin, it had buzzed on my wrist and reminded me I still needed over four thousand steps to reach my daily target.
It was as though there was a tiny human inside it with a camera, watching me, shaking its head and criticising.
Just holding its breath, waiting for me to put some salt and vinegar crisps in my trolley at the supermarket, or fire some squirty cream into my mouth by the open fridge door, which had been known.
On one occasion I had actually apologised to my Fitbit for my slothful ways, but after the squirty cream incident I had shouted ‘Mind your own damn business’ at it. Perhaps that was why I had left it behind.
Outside, the early evening air was warm and the noise from the alley below a muted hum of people wandering about, occasionally laughing and generally having a pleasant time. We would be joining them soon, to go out for another evening eating unfamiliar food and drinking local wine.
I gave a huge sigh, and having tried and failed to remember the words to ‘I Will Survive’, I was asleep in minutes.
* * *
The following day, Harriet woke up with a painful and swollen knee. It was obvious that there was no way she could be out and about again, wandering around the streets and clocking up the miles as we had done over the last few days.
‘I did tell you,’ she said, understandably grumpy. ‘I’m okay usually, but I think we have overdone it this week. I need a day’s holiday from this holiday.’
She had taken the last of her anti-inflammatories, put on one of her support bandages and taken painkillers, and having hobbled down to breakfast, she made it perfectly clear that she intended having a day of rest. The problem was we had to leave our rooms by midday, and our new room at H?tel Mer Bleue wouldn’t be available until four o’clock.
We lingered as long as possible over breakfast, but even we couldn’t spin it out more than a couple of hours. Then after a slow walk along the alley and past a church and a few tourist shops selling luminous sweets and numerous sorts of nougat, we had to go back to our rooms and pack our bags.
Following more complaints from Harriet about her sore knee, Anna volunteered rather eagerly to go back out to find a pharmacie, to discover what potions, creams and rubs they might have to ease the situation.
She returned after an hour with several shopping bags full of things.
Perhaps I should have gone with her instead of just giving her a phrase book.
She had bought a tube of something that smelled like a gym changing room, so in a way that was positive, but also some aloe vera moisturiser which she said she would use if Harriet didn’t want it, a tub of children’s vapour rub and some anti-inflammatories which were so massive that Harriet doubted any human could ever swallow them and asked if they were they meant for horses.
I read the leaflet and explained that the French sometimes like to take their medication by an alternative route rather than just swallowing them.
We stared at the capsules in wonder for a while, and then Anna did a vague explanatory pantomime at which point Harriet voiced a full-on refusal to contemplate such a procedure.
There was also a tube of haemorrhoid cream.
Neither Harriet nor I could understand why on earth Anna had bought it, and neither could she.
‘I thought it was something like Voltarol. The tube looks the same. And it was in the bargain basket, 50 per cent off. But I’ve heard it’s supposed to be very good for wrinkles,’ she said at last.
‘I bow to your superior wisdom,’ Harriet said, ‘butt face.’
Anna looked annoyed. ‘I was only trying to help, and the pharmacist spoke so quickly I didn’t really understand what she was saying. I did my best.’
‘I think this one expired three months ago,’ I said, reading the end of the tube in question.
‘Gosh, I wonder what would happen if anyone used it? Anywhere?’ Harriet wondered.
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ I said, dropping it into the wastepaper bin. ‘Let’s not risk it.’
Eventually we strapped up Harriet’s knee and made her comfortable in a chair in the reception hall, while we finished clearing our rooms and brought all our luggage downstairs. By then it was nearly midday.
‘We’re going to get a taxi,’ I said firmly, seeing Harriet wince as she stood up.
Anna drew breath to say something about how they hadn’t had a taxi last time and it wasn’t far, but I gave her a meaningful look and happily she didn’t.
We settled our bill, the taxi arrived and we made our way outside into the warm afternoon.
‘I’m quite sad to be leaving Hotel Gloria,’ I said, looking back up at the attractive facade and the colourful window boxes while the driver loaded our cases into the boot of his car. ‘It was a great choice, Anna.’
‘More luck than judgement I think,’ Harriet murmured. ‘It wasn’t nearly this nice years ago.’
‘But it is now, and when anyone asks us if we know anywhere to stay in Nice, we can tell them all about it,’ I said. ‘And then we can appear glamorous and well-travelled.’
‘Such positivity,’ Anna said with approval, sending Harriet a hard look. ‘And yes we can.’
We got into the taxi, Harriet in the front because there was more leg room for her sore knee.
The driver grumbled under his breath all the way, negotiated the narrow alleyway, avoiding all the pavement tables and chairs, the many pedestrians and a couple of scraggy-looking dogs sleeping on some doorsteps.
Ten minutes later we were getting out again and looking up at the white walls and blue window shutters of H?tel de Mer Bleue.
Anna paid the taxi driver as she said she felt guilty at having inflicted too much on her friend and admitted at last that perhaps the mess up with our booking might have been her fault after all, and we went in.
I gathered all my French knowledge and went to throw myself on the mercy of the hotel receptionist, who was a tall, thin man in a shiny suit with a name badge identifying him as Arturo.
Yes, we were too early, but was there any way we could leave our bags with him, and perhaps sit and have a drink while we waited for our room to be ready? Or was there any possibility it might be ready early? Which would be even better. Formidable. Merveilleux.
I gathered up some of my best French pleading to try and convince him.
‘Nous vous serions éternellement reconnaissants. Nous vous aimerions pour toujours.’
Arturo flinched a bit at the thought that we would be eternally grateful and we would love him forever. So I explained about our predicament, a friend with a painful knee. What were the other words I needed? Opération du genou, knee surgery, which was extremely painful – extrêmement douloureux.
I gave Harriet a meaningful nod and she staggered a little and looked up at Arturo in the same way that an abandoned puppy might have viewed a new dog bed.
‘And she is agée et fragile – elderly and very frail,’ I added for good measure.
Harriet’s head jerked round at this point and she looked at me with outrage but then remembered she was hoping to play the sympathy card and returned to her pitiful look. I even thought her lower lip was trembling.
‘Imaginez que c’était votre mère. What if this was your mother?’
Arturo gave a sigh and then, able to get a word in edgeways, at last said, in an accent that spoke of New Orleans, not Orleans, France, ‘Gee, ladies, I think my mother is in Atlantic City with her girlfriends feeding the slot machines, but I take your point.’
Anna snorted with laughter at this point but managed to convert it to a tragic sob.
‘Sapristi – good grief, I’ll see what I can do,’ Arturo said wearily, and he did some efficient-sounding typing on his computer, and a lot of fidgeting with a giant stapler, while Harriet sneaked a handful of mints from the glass bowl on the desk in front of him.
‘My blood sugar is very low,’ she said in a quavery voice. ‘I wouldn’t want to faint and cause you any trouble.’
‘Yes,’ Arturo said rather knowingly, the corner of his mouth twitching, ‘y’all do sound like my mother.’
‘You’re not from round here, are you?’ Anna said, trying a bit of eyelash fluttering, which under the circumstances was both inappropriate and unnecessary.
‘Gonzales, Louisiana, ma’am,’ Arturo replied.
Anna beamed. ‘Oh, how wonderful! Like Speedy. I used to love him. And we are taking part in the karaoke evening later. So, make sure you vote for us.’
Arturo edged back a little and I nudged Anna out of the way.
A few minutes later Arturo pinged the bell on the counter with the flat of his hand, and a bell boy who was probably older than any of us appeared, loaded our cases onto a trolley and trundled our bags off towards the lift.
Meekly we followed.
How lovely to stay in hotels which were so glamorous.
The only times Fred and I had stayed anywhere it had been in a dreary budget chain, which he got at a discount through work.
There everything was beige and over co-ordinated, and each one was identical to any other. Here things were very different.
Our room was on the first floor at the front of the building, and doors opened onto a little balcony which gave a fabulous view of the sea over the road. It was brilliant.