Page 23 of A Midlife Gamble

At Kay’s suggestion,they’d walked along the strip for what had felt an age, aiming for landmarks that only seemed to recede as they got closer, the sidewalk constantly diverting them through a maze of walkways, and overhead bridges, and back into casino entrances and malls. As well as a storybook, Vegas was a hall of mirrors, an illusion, and looking at it now, Helen wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to find her way back to the hotel even if she was wearing slippers. She turned to Kay standing beside her. ‘Ready to walk back?’ she said. What she really meant was,Shall we take a cab?

‘Of course.’ Kay didn’t hesitate.

‘We could,’ Caro said carefully, ‘do like the kids do.’ She was on the other side of Kay and, Helen noticed, was also shifting her weight from foot to foot. She looked down at Caro’s shoes. Heels. ‘Uber it back to the hotel?’

‘Are you serious?’ Kay turned first to Helen, and then to Caro.

‘I just thought,’ Caro said, ‘if you were tired?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Are you sure?’ Despite her initial impressions of Vegas being more positive than she had expected, Helen’s feet were now burning lumps. She’d have done almost anything to get into a cab, anything but disappoint Kay.

‘I’m not tired,’ Kay snapped. She took a deep breath and shook her head, opened her mouth as if to speak and then closed it again. ‘Shall we walk?’ she said and before anyone could answer set off across the bridge.

‘Ok.’ Over the top of Kay’s head, Helen caught Caro’s eye, before looking away. It was too difficult. The only way she was going to get through was to keep interaction to a minimum. Smooth over silences, make sure that everything Kay wanted to see and do, she got to see and do.

Stairs already beingout of the question, she took the escalator that ran from the bridge down to the sidewalk. As she stepped off, something cool swept across her toes. It was such a contrast to the solid relentless burn that Helen squealed and looked up, straight into the eyes of a tiny dark woman dressed in a neon-yellow vest and holding a dustpan and brush.

‘Sorry,’ the woman smiled, white teeth against the hewn black leather of her cheeks, then her head dropped and she was moving backwards again, sweeping.

It took Helen a long moment to understand that the tickling sensation had come from the woman’s brush, and that she was sweeping the sidewalk. Among a crowd of thousands, she was sweeping the pavement. There couldn’t be a more pointless, or thankless, job. Straining to keep sight of the woman she stretched her neck forward, but it was hopeless. Within seconds Vegas had swallowed her, only a glimpse of the yellow square of her vest visible.

‘Helen!’ Kay waved from the other side of the sidewalk.

Helen turned and as she did a Targetcarrier bag slapped her on the shoulder.

‘Ouch!’

But the woman swinging the bag didn’t break stride.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ Helen called, indignant now. It was one thing to be slapped by a plastic shopping bag, another thing to not receive an apology.

The woman turned.

She must have been six foot, wearing a sequinned bra and huge colourful wings that arched behind her like a couple of stained-glass windows. Helen stared.

‘What?’ the woman drawled. ‘Never seen an angel shopping?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I have never seen an angel shopping.’

The woman gave a derisive snort. ‘You haven’t lived, girl,’ she laughed and turned on six-inch glitter heels, her generous bottom wobbling along, encased as it was in fishnets and thong.

And still Helen stood, an island, around which the pavement crowd flowed like water from a tap. No one giving second glances to thong-wearing angels carrying shopping bags, or women sweeping pavements. How green she was. And how old she felt. She had turned up to the city-wide fancy-dress, let-it-all-hang-out vibe Vegas was, in jeans and t-shirt. The angel was right. She hadn’t lived. Not at all.

11

Eventually, although she was never sure how, there came a point on the interminable walk when Caro looked up to see the now familiar row of gothic arches and imitation Rialto bridge over bright blue water that meant they were back at the hotel.

A quick walk after breakfast, Kay had suggested. And because there wasn’t going to be a suggestion from Kay that she would disagree with, Caro had agreed. She simply hadn’t been prepared for the temperature. Whatever volume she’d managed to coax into her hair that morning had collapsed, and it hung now thin and straggly as string. Her cheeks had broken out into blotchy pinks, and she’d lost count of the number of blisters she could feel forming. She was over-heated and over-stuffed because she hadn’t been prepared for breakfast either. Neither the chaos of the moving lines of people carrying plates, like ants on sorties. Nor the stomach-churning quantities on display. Hash browns, bacon and sausage, breakfast ham and scrambled eggs. Maple syrup and waffles. Omelettes made to order, with onions and peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheddar cheese… and back to breakfast ham.Pastries, croissants, muffins, cinnibons. Cereals, granola, frosted flakes and… breakfast ham. Toasted bagels. Strawberries, whipped cream, butter balls, melon, grapes, yogurts, breakfast ham… and finally, coffee.

Her stomach churned, her shins ached and her blouse, she feared, showed dark underarm patches. She didn’t dare look. Unable to persuade Kay into a taxi, together with Helen she had been able to persuade her onto the hop-on/hop-off bus, where Kay had insisted they hop-off at Treasure Island, only to be told, by an angry woman, herding three crying kids, that the Pirate show Kay had wanted to see had ended a decade ago!You’d think they’d let folk know!she’d yelled, as if they had been personally responsible for the mix-up. Vegas, Caro feared, was fast turning into hell on earth. The trip was only seven days, but all this, along with Helen’s perplexingly hostile attitude, she was already exhausted.

Following the others onto the escalator, Caro held the rail and with immeasurable gratitude allowed the moving stairway to bear her upward to the bustling mix of chain store coffee shops, oxygen bars, tattoo parlours, boutiques selling jewellery, luxury chocolate, sunglasses, scents and socks that led eventually to the hotel foyer, and hopefully (if there was any mercy left in the world) a place they could all sit down.

From her step on the escalator Caro could see, further down, only the top of Helen’s shoulders and the back of her head, her cloud of thick blonde hair. And it seemed appropriate, this turning of Helen’s back, because she wasn’t imagining it. Ever since they had met at Heathrow, Helen had been cold and distant and, in the short spaces of time when she had thought about it, Caro could only put it down to one thing. Helen still hadn’t really forgiven her for that night back in August. On the plane she had chosen to sit across the aisle and plugged herself into the movie. In the taxi, she’d used the other door to sit on Kay’s far side. And when it had just been the two of them, in the elevator for example, the tension had been inescapable. Perhaps, she thought now, there was something else. Perhaps Helen even minded the fact that she had paid for it all, stuck as she was in the house with Lawrence. It occurred to Caro now that maybe Helen resented the financial freedom she had. The means to move her life forward. It wasn't a vibe she had ever picked up before from Helen, but then again Helen had never attempted financial independence before… She just didn't know. Here she was, doing something spontaneous, and it hadn’t gone down well at all. Kay, on the other hand, had been and still was delighted, and it was this that Caro had chosen to focus on as she’d finalised the preparations. And then of course Shook had sprung his own surprise. Which she’d had no time at all to think about.

The first couple of hours of the flight had been spent going over figures with Kay, who was still intent upon setting up a fund for Alex. Caro understood why, of course, but any balance Kay might hope to achieve in the time-scale they discussed was never going to be enough. And it had been wounding, listening to the dispassionate manner in which Kay discussed her prognosis. A manner Caro knew she would never have used with Helen. Because if Helen was the emotional heart, and Kay was the wise soul of their friendship, it was down to her to be the hard-head of it. So she’d played that role. She’d stayed dry-eyed and steady-voiced as they had discussed wills, and lasting powers of attorney, the price of caskets and funerals, and how much she should set aside. Yes, wounding and draining. So much so that when she had managed to settle Kay’s mind, and seen her ease back with a movie, Caro had ordered a bottle of wine and drunk herself to sleep.

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