Page 21 of A Midlife Gamble

Marianne.

Folding the note in two, Kay looked around. Marianne was right about the chairs! The foyer of the huge hotel they were staying in was a massive space under a dramatic dome boasting a frescoed ceiling. It was packed with a constant flow of people, faces grey with exhaustion, wheeling cases between rows of giant rope that looped between ostentatious gold posts. Exactly like the post office, Kay noted. Or Ryanair. With a marbled floor and a marbled desk, noise ricocheted relentlessly. It was like being stuck on a squash court in the middle of a particularly energetic game, she thought, though she didn’t really know because she didn’t actually play squash. And although the scenery was spectacular, with cascading boughs of delicate pastel flowers, a waterfall that flowed upwards and, most impressive of all, a great globe thingy, which, according to the plaque beside it, was a replica of a Renaissance instrument designed to watch the stars… the only thing that Kay saw now was, yes, Marianne was right, there were NO SEATS. Not a single one! Not even a flip out pad to lean against!

Settling for the edge of the massive check-in desk, she frowned as she opened the note and read it again. Who on earth did Marianne know in Vegas? And how strange that she hadn’t mentioned anything when, as casually as a chef might drop egg into a consommé, Kay had first dropped the idea of Marianne joining the trip into their WhatsApp chat. Which wasn’t quite true. A chef would have had a much better idea of what was going to happen to his soup than Kay had when she’d typed.

Fancy joining us?

I’d love to!

Marianne’s response had been instant, throwing Kay into a flurry of doubt. This was Caro’s idea, for the three of them. And although Marianne was paying her own way, that wasn’t the point. Turning the square of paper over in her hands, she stood amongst the jostle and noise. What she had to remember was why she had asked Marianne in the first place. Helen’s stony silence when Caro had presented the tickets hadn’t gone unnoticed. Something had happened at Helen’s house. Something between Helen and Caro.Again.And this time, Kay had come to the almost instant decision that she wasn’t going to let it affect her. She wasn’t going to play piggy-in-the-middle for a moment longer. Her time was limited, precious beyond description, and once she had come to terms with the fact that she would be leaving Alex (It’s just a week,as he kept saying. But a whole week, when weeks were rationed now?), she had been determined to enjoy every moment of the trip, which meant steadfastly ignoring any drama between Caro and Helen. Marianne, she knew, would provide a much needed buffer.

And she sensed that somehow Helen and Caro knew that her listening skills had dried up. In the short time between Caro presenting the tickets and them boarding the plane, neither of them had been in touch, not beyond practical arrangements. They hadn’t responded either when she’d texted to say she was thinking of asking Marianne to join them. Expressions of surprise of course that the friendship had developed to this degree, but aside from that they had both kept their counsel, texting back encouragement.

Of course.

The more the merrier.

Something was going on, and so remembering the scene from Cyprus last year, when Helen and Caro had had a public row, she had gone ahead and dropped that egg, never really thinking that Marianne would grab the opportunity, wrap arms and legs and body around it like a drowning man to a life-raft. Text after text had pinged through.

Flight booked. What hotel?

Bought a bikini!

Been cooking all day. Six home-made moussakas in freezer for my son.

Why am I doing this? There’s a McDonald’s ten minutes away.

Took bikini back.

Every one of them producing a quiet chuckle as Kay read. She was bemused and pleased that Marianne was here, because although she hadn’t been looking, it was true, Marianne had become a friend. Radiotherapy had been tiring. Caro had been tied up with her mother and Helen’s new role as a grandmother encroached on her time more than Kay suspected Helen was entirely happy with. During long restful afternoons, laptop on knees, ‘chatting’ to Marianne had become easy and natural. And it was, Kay knew, the same for Marianne, because she’d reciprocated with emails full of woes and worries of her own. Hard for Kay to believe at first, living in the paradise of Cyprus as Marianne did. Then again not hard at all. Scratch the skin of any middle-aged woman, she knew, and what is revealed is a tapestry of joy and regret, happiness and grief. And it really wasn’t too much of a stretch to say that this blossoming friendship with Marianne had been akin to falling in love again and just as unlikely. Ships tended to sail, and friends were like hair, plentiful at the beginning, prone to sparser patches later in life. At fifty there were things she’d thought she’d never experience again. Making a new friend had been one of them. She looked down at the note in her hands. Still, who on earth did Marianne know over here?

‘Excuse me madam, would you mind?’

Startled, Kay looked up to see how she’d become surrounded by suitcases and sweaty, exhausted arrivals. Hard as it was to believe, given the enormous size of it, she’d been blocking access to the main desk. She moved across the foyer to an equally enormous side table where dozens of red roses had been arranged in a round vase, every flower head so similar in size and shade that, studying them, she became convinced they were fake. She put her nose to a petal and inhaled, but there was no scent. Which didn’t mean there was no scent. In fact, as she put a fingertip to a petal, she could tell instantly that its cushioned softness was so perfect it could only have been formed through that unhurried and ancient alchemy of photosynthesis. The lack of scent simply meant that her sense of smell hadn’t yet fully returned. It would. Everyone said so. The doctors and the nurses and all her fellow cancer warriors. It had her thinking about the scratchy Roxette wig Craig had bought her, which along with her jacket was upstairs in her hotel room… although hell, she was sure, would freeze over before she dared to wear it. She was still thinking this, wondering if she could or would dare, when a few feet away, the ping of the elevator doors broke the thread of thought. She turned to see first Helen step out, followed by Caro, who immediately twisted away and started sneezing.

‘Every time she leaves the room,’ Helen muttered.

Holding the back of her hand at her nose, Caro joined them. ‘It’s that scent,’ she gasped before another sneeze swept her words away.

‘I can’t smell anything,’ Kay said.

Helen wrinkled her nose. ‘You’re joking? I have to agree. It’s really strong. Reminds me of my first school disco.’

‘Really?’

‘Brut. Can’t remember the boy’s name, but I do remember the aftershave.’

‘Why on earth is it so strong?’ Caro said.

‘Every casino has its own scent,’ Kay smiled. ‘They do it to keep people gambling. To cover more unpleasant smells. I read it in my guidebook.’

‘Like when smoking got banned in pubs?’ Helen grimaced. ‘And all you could smell was farts?’

‘You mean it’s even stronger in the casino?’ Caro had her hand back at her nose. ‘I’m not going to last five minutes.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Kay said. ‘One of the very few benefits of my treatment, I suppose.’

The joke fell flat. Caro went pale and Helen took a deep breath in, her lips pursed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

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