Page 67 of A Midlife Gamble

Bags packed, flights checked into, they were sitting at a restaurant table, ninety floors above the ground. Hundreds of feet below, Vegas unfolded like a richly embroidered tapestry of gold and silver, white and dazzling violet. The bird’s-eye view had the Paris hotel wrapping around the Eiffel tower like origami paper. Opposite, a black semi-circle of water sprouted tiny snakes of fountains. The luminescent high-roller wheel turned slowly, and almost directly below, straight as an arrow, wide as a river, ran the boulevard, with its ever-moving stream of headlights.

‘I thought you were quite taken with him,’ Caro said, watching Marianne’s hands tremble as she folded the letter in half, and then half again.

‘I was flattered, Caro,’ Marianne said quietly. She looked down at the square of paper in her hands. ‘But I was never really fooled. Even as a young man, he made too many promises, so I should have known.’ Looking up, she shrugged, her face softening. ‘Leopards, as beautiful as they are, can’t change their spots, can they?’

‘No,’ Caro answered. ‘I don’t think they can.’ She turned to Kay. ‘Are you ok?’

Next to Caro, Kay was wearing her jacket. She looked tired, her face pale and drawn, dark hollows underneath her eyes. Then again it had been a hectic day and they were all, Caro suspected, reaching their fill of Vegas.

‘I’m fine.’ Kay nodded. Her hand pressed to her chest, as if she was winded. ‘I’m just a little short of breath. She nodded at the letter. ‘He wasn’t all bad.’

‘No one,’ Marianne said flatly, ‘is all bad.’

‘True.’ A silence descended that was, momentarily, too difficult to navigate an exit from and so Kay turned to the view. ‘Isn’t it extraordinary?’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. It makes me think of that poem… ‘Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light…’

‘Yeats?’ Caro said.

‘I had to learn it at school. I can’t remember much.’

Opposite Kay, and next to Marianne, a hitherto silent Helen leaned across the table.‘The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,’ she quoted.‘Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet…’ Pausing, she turned to Kay.

‘Tread softly,’ Kay finished, ‘because you tread on my dreams.’

‘Beautiful,’ Marianne nodded.

Helen smiled. ‘Some things you never forget I suppose.’

And watching Caro nodded too. No, some things you never forget. Helen was as animated and beautiful, Caro thought, as she had ever seen her. As alive to life, and all that it offered, as she had been that very first day at university, when stunted by inadequacy and stiff with shyness, an eighteen-year-old Caroline Hardcastle had sat herself as close as she dared, hoping that some of the magic from this golden-haired girl would rub off. Remembering that long ago day, a feeling of tremendous wellbeing arose within Caro, swelling her heart. She picked up her wine glass and turned to look out at the cloth of colour that was Vegas, the fantastical city in which any dream might come true. The colour, the glitter, the bright shining possibility of it all was infectious, the beauty of that bit of poetry deeply intoxicating, the warm glow of friendship that surrounded their table, transporting. So much so that she actually felt the reins as they slipped and fell away completely… ‘I’m going to accept,’ she said, turning back to the table. ‘I’m going to accept his proposal.’

A bubble of delight rose up, wrapping the table, encasing them.

Helen gasped. ‘Oh, Caro!’ she managed, blinking back tears.

Kay’s eyes too were unnaturally bright. ‘I think he will make you happy. In fact, I know he will. Very happy indeed.’

‘I think so too,’ Caro whispered.

‘Shook?’ Marianne said.

‘Shook. Yes.’

‘A toast,’ Helen called, holding up her glass. ‘To Caro.’

‘To Caro,’ Marianne echoed.

‘To C—’ Kay started, before pressing her hand harder against her chest, digging the next breath out. ‘Caro,’ she finished.

Caro's smiled faded. ‘Are you really ok?’ she asked again.

‘Fine,’ Kay said. ‘But let’s get a taxi back?’

‘Agreed.’ Caro picked up her glass. ‘To me then.’

‘And us,’ Helen added.

‘Us!’ Marianne echoed. She knocked back a large mouthful of wine, the back of her hand at her mouth as it travelled down. ‘I almost forgot!’ she cried, when she could speak again, and, reaching for her handbag, she pulled out a large envelope. ‘Here are your copies of the photo. You can’t go home without them.’ And she handed out three copies of the same photograph.

‘Mmm.’ Helen picked up the closest.

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