Page 26 of A Midlife Gamble

Anthony Larson. Helen blinked. The name rang bells more distant than those at her wedding.

‘FromDallas?’ Kay said.

Helen stared at him. It wasn’tDallas.Definitely notDallas.

Again Tony smiled. ‘Knots Landing,a littleCagney and Lacey.’ He shrugged. ‘Days of Your Lives,General Hospitaland of course,Odysseus Returns.’ He turned to gaze down at Marianne. ‘Which is where I met this exquisite creature.’

At which, Marianne contracted with pleasure, like a crunched sweet wrapper.

And Helen actually felt herself tip forward onto the balls of her feet with sheer surprise. Marianne was all sorts of things, butexquisitehadn't been on her list. She wanted to turn to Kay, or Caro, to gauge their reactions, but she couldn’t, and she sensed they couldn’t either. In fact the only person capable of movement was Marianne, who’d leaned into Tony, her blush spreading from the top of her head, down her neck and across her crêpey décolletage. ‘Knots Landing?’ Helen managed. ‘Now I remember!’ And she did, vague memories of lying on her tummy watching the TV, a keyhole-shaped road with enormous houses and people living in perpetual sunshine. No wonder he reminded her of a distant relative. ‘So.’ Astonishment had scraped all the filling from her voice. ‘How umm… how did you two meet?’

’I know!’ Kay laughed. ‘In Athens? When you were working there?’ She looked from Tony to Marianne. ‘Is this the actor you told me about?’

‘Yes,’ Marianne said, laughing as she nudged Kay’s arm.

Helen watched. It was clear they had a rapport, Kay and Marianne. She sneaked a glance at Caro, whom she felt sure had also noticed. How could she not? In Marianne, it was obvious Kay had found the kind of easy companionship the three of them had once shared. An ease in each other’s company she couldn’t help but feel was gone forever. The evidence of it, there in front of her, shrank her a little.

Marianne raised the sunhat she was holding and held it against her stomach, as if to hide herself. ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘I was very young then. I—’

And with a manly sweep of his arm around her back, Tony cut Marianne off. ‘Marianne,’ he gushed, ‘was working the front desk at the hotel the production company had put us in.'

'The Four Seasons,' Marianne interjected. 'Such a beautiful hotel.'

'She was the most exotic creature I’d ever seen in my life.'

‘Oh!’ Marianne put her palm against his chest. ‘This was in my prime.’

‘This,’ Tony smiled, ‘is your prime.’

His teeth, Helen noted, were extraordinarily white. She pressed her own lips together. Under Tony’s honey words, Marianne was melting faster than candle wax.

‘Is this the time your…’ Kay hesitated.

‘My wife turned up?’ Tony finished.

‘What?’ Helen snapped her head from Tony, to Kay, to Marianne. ‘What?’

‘It’s true. I'm not proud of it, but…' And here, Tony paused (a little dramatically Helen thought) to gaze down at Marianne. ‘No one was more suitably named. She made me forget everything.'

'Including the fact you were married,' Caro said, lightly.

Helen snatched a glance at her. She'd been about to say the exact same thing.

Tony dropped his chin. ‘Like I said, I’m not proud of it.' He nodded. 'My wife arrived a day earlier than expected and we… we were a little engaged, weren’t we?’

Marianne blushed. ‘I had to pretend to be room service. Do you remember?’

‘Everything,’ Tony purred. ‘I remember everything.’

‘And I was wearing your Nirvana t-shirt. I had to throw my uniform on over the top.’

Helen’s eyes went to the paunch of Tony’s stomach, swelling out Kurt Cobain’s face.

He leaned in and kissed the top of Marianne’s head. ‘So kind of you to return it, my dear.’

And no one spoke. And even though they were standing in a busy foyer, of a busy hotel, in a busy city, seas of incredulity seemed to have parted to leave them stranded. Helen nodded. She was trying desperately to think of something to say, but her mind was blank with astonishment.

And then Caro smiled, and in a smoothly pleasant voice, said, ‘Goodness, how amazing.’

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