Page 30 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘Nor have you,’ I said, and just in that moment I realised it was true.
Of course I could see the change in him, but at the same time, very oddly, he was exactly as I remembered him. Tall, broad shouldered, dark haired, and handsome. Yes, he had filled out and his hair had gone grey – he wasn’t a young man, after all – but his kindness and his humour were still there behind his dark eyes.
For a moment I felt quite emotional.
I had never felt the same way about any other man as I had about him. Had it just been because we had been so young and unsophisticated? But as I got to know him, I had really liked him; that was the thing. He was a decent person, funny and thoughtful. I had been too immature to realise it at the time, but there weren’t many like him.
* * *
At last, the evening drew to a close and we all made moves to go to bed. And then on the way out into the hallway, Raimondo appeared and made a subtle but definite beeline for Susie. They exchanged a few words, and he kissed her hand very elegantly before inviting us both back to the bar for a nightcap.
I might have been in my sixties and unable to remember to put the bins out on the right day, but I still knew how not to be a gooseberry.
I made my excuses and made my way to the staircase, watching over the edge of the bannisters as Susie hauled herself up onto a cream leather barstool and Raimondo presented her with the drinks menu.
‘Goodness me, I think your friend has an admirer,’ Raleigh said cheerfully from behind me.
‘Well, let’s hope he’s not like her last one. That man was so bad for her.’
‘And I know you and my father-in-law are old friends?’ she added. ‘I could see you were having a lovely chat.’
‘Nothing particular,’ I said. ‘We were just talking about Ellen.’
And I think it would be very bad form to make any attempts to flirt with the widower just before an event to remember his wife.
‘I’m sad to say I didn’t get to know her very well. I only found out I was expecting Eric a few weeks before she died. She was so excited at the thought of being a grandmother. But then she was ill and died before Eric was born. Such a tragedy. Paulo said she wanted this event to be a celebration, not a memorial,’ Raleigh said, ‘but if you and my father-in-law are old friends, I hope you have photographs of the old days you can show us?’
Old days?
‘Oh, not with me, maybe there are a few somewhere,’ I said, trying to sound disinterested.
There had been photographs, of course there had, lots of them, but eventually I had thrown them away. Actual printed pictures from a roll of camera film, collected from a shop, showing moments when we had been in the same group, when our smiles had mirrored each other’s.
These days pictures could be taken in an instant and deleted with the swipe of a finger. Perhaps most of them were never looked at again. Not like the time when we had stored photographs in albums and actually studied them, showed them to other people. Searched for a face, an instant, an expression, a meaning.
It had been a significant moment when, a couple of years after I had married and we had been moving house, I had thrown those photographs onto a garden bonfire, the broadness of Paulo’s smile the last thing to disappear as the flames curled around the picture, and I’d supressed a moment of panic, wanting just one last regretful look. If only I could remove my memories quite so easily.
* * *
When I got back upstairs, panting slightly because I was quite full from the meal, and let’s be honest, not used to quite so many stairs, my room was a haven of cream and gold, lit then by tastefully placed lamps. The bed had been turned down and there were bottles of spring water and a golden box of Gianduiotto chocolates on the bedside table. I felt quite the film star as I pulled on my M&S nightie. Maybe I should have brought something rather more glamorous? And some feathered mules, although the one time I had tried them I had fallen off them and hit my head on the bedside table.
I was tired but I didn’t want to miss anything of this wonderful place, so I got back out of bed and padded barefoot out onto the balcony. Susie’s room was still in darkness so I assumed she was still downstairs with Raimondo, flirting and being charming as only she knew how.
Outside, the night was dark, just a few lights showing from further along the coast and the ships out at sea. There was hardly a sound. It was very unlike life at home, where the buses passed the end of my road, car horns sounded at odd hours and the village schoolchildren stuffed empty crisp packets into my hedge on their way home. What must it be like to live here?
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. There was a certain undeniable magic there. No wonder it had been a favourite of some of the Roman emperors, although from what I knew, they hadn’t exactly covered themselves in glory with their behaviour. Hadn’t one of them pushed his enemies and some of his unsatisfactory slaves over the soaring cliffs? I really should find out.
I got back into bed and sent some photos and an email to Alex, Jessie and Kat so they could see what a lovely place this was. And then I sent Juliette a photo of Paulo, taken when he was laughing at something Leo had said, and then I turned off the lamp.
Much to my surprise, because he wasn’t the sort to be communicative, Alex replied almost immediately with a text, asking if there was any washing up liquid in my kitchen as he had run out. And did I mind if he had a friend over to stay the night as they’d both had a few drinks. As it was by then past ten o’clock in England, I thought it might be a bit late to ask. I replied telling him where to find my cleaning supplies and repeating my insistence that no one use my bedroom. I had a smiley face emoji by return which didn’t exactly reassure me.
At first it was completely dark. Then my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light from the lights from the garden below. And I wondered again what Susie was up to.
She always had been a bit of a flirt, bright and interesting, and had attracted a lot of male attention over the years until more recently when Simon had gradually squashed her spirits and made her doubt herself. Perhaps this was a new beginning for her, now that she had finally got rid of him.
She hadn’t had the same assault on her figure that most women have from pregnancy and childrearing. She was as trim as ever, a striking woman, intelligent and well-travelled. Why wouldn’t any man find her attractive?
Women of our age might not have the suppleness and taut skin of women like Raleigh, but we… what was it? We knewthings. Important things about life and other people. We might not be young any more, but we still had value. I liked the thought of that. But did the broadness of our experiences count as much these days as a size six figure and thousands of followers on social media?
