Page 3 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘Joanna, but call me Jo. And it was excellent,’ I said, smiling.
Eccelente. That was how Paulo said it.
Suddenly I didn’t want to talk about him to her or to anyone. I wanted to keep him to myself just a little longer.
‘How about you?’
Susie leaned her elbows on the windowsill and fluffed out her hair, which was curly, slightly wild and past her shoulders.
‘Okay, I’ve been unpacking. I couldn’t be bothered to go out, this damp weather does terrible things to my hair. These rooms are tiny, aren’t they? I’m planning to move out next year into a shared house. My cousin just graduated. She knows a great place, down by the railway line, and it’s much cheaper than here. You ought to think about it too.’
I wasn’t really listening, I was still remembering Paulo, the way he had looked, how he had kissed me. What a fantastic start to my grown-up life.
Fidgeting, Susie sat down in the only armchair and then stood up again and went back to smoke out of the window, looking out into the dark night.
‘Have you been eating garlic? I can smell it from here. My cousin says if you want to meet boys you should join societies. Rugby or squash. Not to play them, obviously. I mean, me with a squash racquet in my hand would be asking for trouble.’
‘I’ve met someone actually,’ I said, unable to keep quiet any longer. ‘He’s really lovely. He could be… you know… the one.’
Susie looked at me with astonishment, eyebrows raised.
‘Blimey! That was quick work. You’ve only been here five minutes. Where does he live? What does he do?’
I fished in my coat pocket for the scrap of paper, and then in the other pocket. And then in my bag, which I tipped out on the bed. And then I searched again. Panicking, I even went out into the hallway and the stairwell to see if I had dropped it there.
‘He gave me his number and his address, and I’ve lost it!’ I said.
The disappointment was hideous. I felt almost as though I might throw up. Should I retrace my steps outside in the drizzle to the bus stop? Should I ring the bus company?
‘Never mind, I expect you’ll bump into him again,’ Susie said reassuringly. ‘What’s he studying?’
‘I don’t know, he did tell me but I didn’t hear. Something about roads,’ I said miserably.
‘That makes it more difficult. If he’s doing engineering, they study at that place out of town, don’t they. Near Ashwood? Or is it Ashton? Ash something anyway. Has he got a car?’
Back then, hardly any student I knew had a car so I thought this was unlikely.
I was busy searching my bag again and wasn’t listening.
How could I be so stupid?
‘You’ll see him again in the union bar I bet,’ Susie said, stubbing her cigarette out on the wall outside the window. ‘No harm done.’
‘But I was supposed to ring him and now I can’t,’ I said, the full reality of this fact dropping into my brain.
‘It’s always good to keep them waiting in my opinion,’ she said, ‘and anyway, you are too young to start having thoughts of anything other than fun. And certainly far too young to be talking about meeting “the one”. I mean, really! Are you mad? There are four times as many boys here than girls. That’s one of the reasons I applied.’
I supposed she was right. If only I had known how long I would have to wait.
1
When I was a child, birthdays always seemed to take forever to come round. But as the years passed, time appeared to gain pace. Then one year, about five minutes after my last birthday, another one was hovering into view and this time it was a really big one. Sixty-five.
I knew people usually talked about the big 5-0 or 6-0 as being significant, but at my age every milestone had begun to count. Being sixty-four had enjoyed some slightly comical connotations thanks to The Beatles.Will you still need me?Well, at sixty-five it felt like no one actually did. And it didn’t really feel funny at all.
I hadn’t really minded the previous significant birthdays. Forty just proved I really was an adult. At fifty I was still working, fit and active, had grown-up children forging their futures and their relationships but still coming home for Mum’s cooking, and I still had Greg. As I looked into the face of turning sixty-five, a lot of things were different.
Everything that was important in my life had changed and none of it had really been in my plan, such as it was. It made me realise that a lot of the things I had done in my life hadn’t really been my idea either, and that really annoyed me.
