Page 5 of The Dolce Vita Divas
‘I can now I’ve had my knee replacement,’ I said. ‘Modern medicine is marvellous.’
Susie held out her phone to show us a picture.
‘Anyway, back to our mini break. This place. It’s only twenty minutes away from my flat, holiday breaks for over 55s.’ I went over there to take a quick look.
‘There are no kids dive bombing the pool, no toddler tantrums at the next table, and the chicken nuggets are called goujons. There’s a spa where we can have treatments, and most importantly they don’t use paper robes that tear down the back when you sit down. I phoned them up to check. Remember last time we got a weekend away? My fiftieth when I flashed the whole spa.’
‘It was probably the best thing some of them had seen for years,’ I murmured, and she laughed.
She pushed her wild, curly hair back behind her ears. I’d never known anyone with as much hair as she had. When she was younger it was sort of strawberry blonde; now at sixty-four, it was a silvery grey. She looked like a tiny Viking.
‘I don’t seem to have a bottom any more,’ I said. ‘It’s more like one of the cushion pads for garden chairs I bought off Amazon. Flat. Perhaps I should get implants.’
Susie looked worried. ‘I’ve often wondered what happens if you sit down too hard on them. Wouldn’t they burst?’
‘Or they might make you spring up again unexpectedly, like sitting on a space hopper,’ I suggested.
We thought about this for a moment and then we both laughed.
‘I’m not going to, so don’t worry,’ I said.
We both peered at her phone, and I squinted a little.
‘What does that say? I haven’t got my reading glasses. Alma Cogan? Wasn’t she a singer?’
Susie giggled. ‘It’s Alma Court. You take a look at the website and then I’ll make the reservations and sort out two adjacent rooms. It will be like being back in halls of residence again.’
‘Except no smoking, pot plants on the windowsill or throwing up in the sink,’ I said.
‘As if we would,’ she said. ‘We’re grown-ups now.’
‘What a bore,’ I replied, shaking my head, ‘I’ve been thinking about it and I’m beginning to wonder if all my best years are behind me.’
‘Rubbish,’ Susie said firmly. ‘The best is yet to come.’
* * *
‘Oh, of course you must go,’ Juliette said a couple of days later when I mentioned the proposed trip. ‘There’s nothing better than a little mini break. I was talking to Matthew only the other day about us having a couple of days somewhere. I said Ibiza and he said Scotland. I said my piece about blackflies and the rain, which are all I remember about our trip to the Trossachs, and he went on about Maurice not liking it in kennels. I swear that dog holds more sway than I do sometimes. So in the end we didn’t book anything. I’ll have to work on him.’
She was sitting in her usual place at my kitchen table that afternoon, sparkling in a bright fuchsia top and blue trousers. I was in a rather dull but comfortable dress which I had taken to wearing rather too often. Both of us were enjoying some of her experimental ginger, rhubarb and cranberry traybake. I munched away for a moment, my teeth stuck together and then washed it down with a second mug of tea. When Juliette said she was ‘just popping in’, it was never five minutes. But then she was such good company that I didn’t mind. It certainly beat doing the ironing.
‘But sixty-five,’ I said in a mournful tone.
Juliette flapped a hand at me. ‘Is nothing, don’t come crying to me. I’m nearly seventy and I’ve never been happier. I used to think life had passed me by and then I realised it hadn’t and I’d better get stuck in. Take every chance you get, that’s my motto. This cake is very odd, isn’t it? Perhaps less ginger next time. And less rhubarb. And come to think of it, fewer cranberries. Still, it was a good try. Matthew will eat it regardless. He seems to think everything I make is wonderful. How is Alex getting on?’
‘He’s okay,’ I said, ‘although he does seem to think my fridge is his. I’m never quite sure what I will find in there these days when he has one of his raids.’
‘Don’t let him settle,’ Juliette said wisely. ‘I have a friend who has been trying to get both her kids permanently out for over three years. The boomerang generation, I think they call it. No sooner does one find a new person to flat share with than the other one breaks up with someone and scurries back to Kim.’
Yes, she was probably right. Even after such a short time in residence, Alex had snaffled up my best towels, made requests for certain grocery items to be added to my supermarket shop and claimed his washing machine wasn’t working properly, so could he use mine.
‘You go,’ Juliette said, ‘and report back. I might even persuade Matthew to come away with me for a few days, if we can find someone to look after Maurice.’
‘I don’t know anything about dogs,’ I said, ‘but I would if you can’t find someone else. He’s only little. He can’t be much trouble, can he?’
Juliette gave me a look. ‘You would think. I never owned a pair of wellingtons before I met Matthew. That dog has gnawed through three pairs of mine since we got married. And don’t talk to me about chew toys. There isn’t one made he can’t demolish. And heaven knows how many dog beds we have bought him. He just steals a tea towel from the Aga rail every evening, brings it upstairs and sleeps on that at the end of our bed. For such a small dog he takes up a lot of room. And he’s very hot. Now then, I must be off. Matthew has been at a parish council meeting, so he will be in a bad mood. I will have to sweeten him up, but I don’t think it will be with this cake.’
* * *
