Page 10 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘Have you been told about the problem with the desserts?’ he murmured, looking anxiously at the couple at the next table who had just caused a lot of fuss. ‘The bread and?—’
‘It’s fine. We wouldn’t want it anyway,’ Susie said loudly.
His worried little face cleared, and he started stacking out empty plates.
‘That’s a relief. After all, it’s not my fault the Walsall Waltzers got to it first. You’d think there was a world shortage. Have you finished your wine? Would you like another bottle?’
‘Better not, Kyle,’ Susie said kindly, ‘we’re going to the show afterwards.’
‘Nice, you’ll enjoy that, and my advice is don’t sit next to the dancefloor or you’ll get trodden on. Once these couples get going they don’t stop for anything. Go at least three rows back. And then St Vincent won’t pull you up on the stage and sing ‘What’s New, Pussycat’to you. I’m just saying. I’ve seen it happen more than once.’
By the time we had finished it was only seven o’clock. Evidently the clientele didn’t like waiting for their meals and the clearing away was incredibly efficient. Or perhaps Kyle needed to get home to do some school coursework, so we went back to our rooms to ‘get a bit of sparkle on’, as Susie described it.
Sitting on my bed, I eased my shoes off and wondered what I would be doing if I was back home. Probably putting on my dressing gown and hoping no one would ring the doorbell and make me lie that I’d been about to have a bath. Or wondering where Alex had got to. Certainly, I would not be thinking about changing into a sequinned blouse and evening trousers. Good. It made a nice change. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
I rummaged through my makeup bag to find a lipstick which would suit my pink top, and as I went into the brightly lit bathroom to apply it, I paused for a moment to look at myself.
Did I look sixty-five? What did that look like anyway?
I could remember my own grandmother in her sixties, probably the same age as I was now. She had been a small, white-haired woman in hand-knitted cardigans who looked ancient and seemed elderly. She had always been old to me. And yet had she felt that way?
Perhaps in her head she had still been a laughing girl, with tumbling curls and a ready smile as she had been in the formal portrait of her that my mother had kept in a special frame on the sideboard.
And my own mother at the same age had seemed much the same to my careless gaze, but she had been young in the fifties and sixties, the decades when teenagers had been invented, of miniskirts, the sexual revolution and The Beatles. At my christening she had worn a Mary Quant mini dress, with navy blue polka dots and sheer sleeves that my grandmother hadn’t approved of in a church. My father had kept up a running joke for years that the headmaster of my school was in love with her, but perhaps he had been?
Was that why I hardly recognised myself when I caught a sudden glimpse reflected in a shop window or in a family photograph? Who was that nondescript, grey-haired woman who stood beside her little granddaughters? What age was I inside my head? Thirty or perhaps thirty-five on a bad day. So what had happened to the thirty years in between when I had been ageing and changing? A wife, then a mother, then a grandmother. Where had that time gone? Why had such a large part of my life blurred into insignificance?
* * *
By the time we reached the Lady Mary ballroom, the seats surrounding the dancefloor were all taken, and the place was full of pensioners doing the foxtrot. We found a table, the recommended three rows back, and watched, fascinated. Couples who it seemed could hardly walk unaided sprang into new vigour on the dancefloor. Heads lifted, arms raised, feet positively twinkling. The magic of dance, we supposed. It was rather inspiring. No wonder groups of them went around the countryside on coach tours, if this was the effect it had on them.
Susie, looking rather splendid in a patterned wrap dress with her hair bundled away into a thick plait, nudged me, raised her voice above ‘You Make Me Feel So Young’. ‘That’s the man who made all the fuss at dinner about his roast potatoes being soggy. He looked like he wanted some cocoa and an early night. Now look at him.’
The man in question was out there in the thick of it, dressed in beige slacks and a shiny blue blazer, with his partner, a rigid-looking lady decked out in green sequins. Like the others in their group, they knew exactly what they were doing. It was terrifically inspiring, and I wished I could join in. Perhaps I would learn.
There was a young woman with a cackling laugh and a name badge – Poppy – who we guessed was the entertainments manager. She moved around the tables and seemed to know all the names of the elderly dancers, calling out to them with encouragement.
‘That’s it, Sidney, it’s going to be a tango next, and you know you like those. Just a warning to those of you who’ve had hip replacements, no need to stamp too hard. You want to be careful with that titanium. We don’t want anything falling off, do we? Hahahah! Lovely to see you again, Denise.’
‘How do they know all these different dances?’ Susie wondered.
‘Years of practice, I suppose,’ I said. ‘They are certainly enjoying themselves.’
The pre-recorded music stopped, and Poppy sprang up to the microphone.
‘The moment you’ve all been waiting for. We love them, don’t we, ladies? Take a breather, all you dancers, and sit back and enjoy the fabulous, the foxy – St Vincent and the Grenadines!’
The velvet curtains behind her swished open to reveal a chap with carefully coiffed hair and a nod to Elvis in his sparkling stage outfit and glittery sunglasses. He raised his hands to acknowledge the polite applause, and behind him three more soberly dressed musicians took up their instruments. Two guitars and a drummer.
‘I know what’s coming,’ I said, ‘I can feel it.’
‘What?’ Susie said.
‘“Hound Dog”.I bet you a fiver.’
‘Thank you very much, thank you very much for that great welcome,’ St Vincent said with an unexpected Memphis twang. He flashed his bridgework at the audience. ‘We’re thrilled to be back here again; I think I can see some familiar faces too. Now then, more about us later, let’s get the party started with that great old favourite. “Hound Dog”!’
‘Told you,’ I said.
