by Judy Astley
‘Mum?’ You’d think she’d been specially cued up for it, Beth thought, hearing her daughter’s virus-enfeebled little voice wafting up the stairs just as she was taking off her knickers to check if the peach striped low-back number had one final sunny fortnight in it.
‘What is it, sweetie? I’m a bit tied up.’ Pants were hurled into the landing laundry basket, swimsuit was hauled up thighs. Not a seductive sight, she thought, catching a glimpse of squeezed flesh in the full-length mirror.
‘Oh . . . nothing. I can’t find the remote . . .’ The voice trailed away, pathetically. Bloody hell, Beth thought, if the girl’s alert enough to be fretting about changing channels . . .
‘Have you looked down the back of the sofa?’ she yelled down the stairs, pulling the stripy swimsuit over her bottom. It wasn’t too much of a struggle – which might not all be due to clinging to the right side of size 12. Fabric goes flaccid as well as flesh – when she took it off she’d have a good look to see if the Lycra was starting to perish – if you weren’t careful you could end up wearing something dangerously close to see-through and emerge from the sea feeling like Ursula Andress but wondering what everyone was smirking at. She looked in the mirror and tweaked her bottom upwards a bit. ‘I’m sure it’s sort of dropped,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Why is gravity suddenly something to be reckoned with? Where will it all have plummeted to, five years from now?’
‘Muuum!’
Heavens, now what? Beth took off the swimsuit and folded it back in the drawer. It, and the others, would more or less do for this holiday, though she might run up to Selfridges and treat herself to a new black one – a low V-front would be good, possibly with a halter neck – which would be very flattering to the bustline before that, too, headed irretrievably south. She flung on just enough clothes to be decent and ran down the stairs.
Delilah’s glandular fever seemed to have taken over the entire house. It was an affliction that drained not only the sufferer of all energy but also, Beth now knew, those who had to undertake the nursing. Or at least it did in this case; it might just be that the reason the demands of the patient were excessive was that Delilah was sixteen years old and making the most of having the household running round after her with cups of camomile tea and freshly squeezed orange juice and a constantly topped-up biscuit supply.
On the old donkey-grey crackled-leather sofa in the kitchen the elongated skinny form of Delilah lay stretched out beneath a blue fleecy blanket – and a pair of dozy, overfed cats – watching daytime trash TV and alternately flinging herself about, steaming with fever, or huddled up, shivering. It was progress, Ned, Beth and Delilah’s brother Nick agreed, that she had made it down the stairs at all. As decreed by the doctor, who warned of long-term, immovable chest infection resulting from staying too long on the horizontal, they encouraged her to try to be up and about now that she was past the worst of it.
‘I can’t get up Mum! I’m still too ill!’ she’d wailed to Beth that morning, turning over and sighing and picking off another shred of wallpaper.
‘If you stay in bed much longer, this whole room will need redecorating,’ Beth had told her, feeling her sympathy being pushed to its limit as she watched a long slender paper slice (silver stars on purple background, only up two years and Delilah’s own choice) being peeled back like an old scab from skin. ‘The minute you’re better you can strip the whole lot off, seeing as you’re so keen to get rid of it.’
‘I hate you. You don’t care about me,’ Delilah grumbled into her squashed old toy panda. ‘I might relapse and then it’ll be your fault.’
‘Sounds to me like you’re definitely feeling better,’ Beth had said, recognizing the almost-welcome return of her daughter’s usual grumbly teenage nature after a couple of weeks of troubling and unfamiliar near-silence.
Beth had often wished that her mother’s favourite childhood reading hadn’t been the complete works of Louisa M. Alcott. Given that it was, she’d have preferred not to have been named after the feeble runt of the four March girls who had died in her teens. Sharing a name with clever Jo, or glamorous Amy would have been decidedly more inspiring. There had been several teachers in her schooldays who, considering diminutives overfamiliar, bordering on the vulgar, had tried to call her ‘Elizabeth’. Every single one, on being put right by Beth, had said, ‘Oh I see – Beth as in . . .’ and then faltered, recalling the drawn-out, maudlin death of the eponymous girl, a child as sickly with inner goodness as with TB.
Each February, noticing the snowdrops in flower on the bank outside the sitting-room window, Beth’s mother Helena used to look wistful and say, ‘Look Beth, new life from the old.’
‘It’s only spring, Mum.’ Beth would be dismissive, turning away from the window and from her mother, who, reminded of this fictional anniversary of the Death of Beth, would at any moment start feeling her daughter’s forehead and ask her if she was sure she was all right, just as she herself had had to do with the acutely stricken Delilah over the past weeks. Perhaps there was some sort of bizarre karma involved here.
I must have been a huge disappointment, being so robust, Beth thought now as she switched on the kettle and slid a couple of crumpets into the toaster: one for her – the pre-holiday diet could wait a bit, the dour day needed a cheer-up – one for Delilah. But just in case and to ward off the fate of her namesake, at thirteen Beth had been at the front of the queue to have her BCG vaccination. Other girls who were lined up for the school nurse and her dreaded syringe were wide-eyed and weepy with foreboding, claiming they would faint or die from terror. This, after all, was the Big One. They’d all heard horror stories from older pupils about how the vaccine made your skin bubble up into an agonizing, suppurating blister with a scab that must not be touched if you wanted to avoid half an arm’s worth of deep-scar tissue. Beth didn’t care about all that. With that one simple inoculation she was free of all her Beth March early-death-by-tuberculosis terrors. Better still, she could be sure she had cheated her mother of the chance to have her laid up for months on a daybed in the sitting room, feebly coughing blood into a lace hanky. For this was a fate that Helena considered inevitable, given that Beth spent her weekend nights watching punk rock bands and came home covered in the potentially lethal spit of a thousand strangers. Delilah, on the other hand, had caught what was known as the Kissing Disease. More attractive, surely, than something acquired via anonymous hurtled saliva, but really there were some details of your resident teenager’s life that you’d rather not have shoved, as it were, down your throat.
‘When’s Gran back from Rome?’ Delilah asked, now that Countdown had finished.
‘Some time after the weekend I think. And then she’s away again just before we go. Madeira I think. Or possibly Cyprus. I can’t remember which. I expect she’ll send us a postcard.’
‘She’s always going off somewhere,’ Delilah commented, sounding mildly offended that a woman in her seventies should want to venture further than a WI meeting at the local village hall.
‘How true,’ Beth murmured, how bloody true. She slathered a fat layer of butter onto the crumpets and handed one to Delilah.
‘She said she’ll pop in and see us for a day or so before she leaves.’
‘I wanted her to come and stay like she usually does,’ Delilah moaned, snuggling into the nearest cat. ‘She lets me have Heinz tomato soup and she makes us proper puddings every day. You never do.’
‘You don’t want to come with us then? I thought you’d come round to the idea,’ Beth said quickly, wondering, even at this late stage, if there was a magic, unthought-of other solution. It wasn’t that she and Ned didn’t enjoy holidays with their own children. They did those in summer. This year they’d rented a villa on Fuerteventura and barely seen either Nick or Delilah all fortnight. Perfect. Everybody happy.
‘ ’S not that.’ Delilah hesitated for a telling second, then came clean. ‘Well it is. There won’t be anyone my age. You and your mates are all, like . . . you know . .
.’
‘Old?’ Beth laughed. ‘Is that the word you’re groping for? Hardly! We’re not even close to ancient; Lesley is younger than me.’ Delilah made a face – Beth might as well have offered her a couple of pensioners to play with. She tried again. ‘And Gina definitely doesn’t count as old. She always travels by herself and makes friends with everyone.’ This was true. This was also something of a euphemism. Gina slept on a lounger beneath a palm tree all day, conserving her strength to go out clubbing nightly with the various fitness instructors from the Mango Experience. Like a cat successfully satiated by hunting, she slunk back in the small hours to (they assumed) her single room and yet always managed to be up in time for the Early Stretch class, down at the front, close to the mirror (and to the instructor, especially if it was the gorgeous Sam), as fresh and supple as if she’d had a reviving twelve hours of sleep. If she had a family back home in Connecticut she certainly didn’t let on about them.
Delilah gave her mother a look. It said a lot. It said that anyone over twenty, or even, to be on the generous side, twenty-five, absolutely sooo didn’t count as a person to have a conversation with, let alone spend two weeks keeping close company with.
‘Hey – don’t be so ageist! I’m sure everyone will be really thrilled to see you. You’ve met Cynthia, remember? That time she and Bradley called in on their way to Devon back in July? She’s one of those people who could be any age – you’ll get on well with her. And there are always quite a lot of younger people. It’s not just us creaking elderly folks.’
This was almost true. The hotel had an age policy of over-sixteens only, in the hope that by then they could be trusted not to go wild with the price-included alcohol or throw up in the pool in the small hours after hurling all the sun loungers into the sea. Delilah only just scraped in under the wire, plus all the world over it was termtime for schools. There really wasn’t likely to be anyone else under mid-twenties at the very least. The youngest guests tended to be in fond loved-up honeymoon couples, practically welded together in a post-coital stupor, holding hands, and, over candlelit dinners, spoon-feeding each other choice bits from their plates. Next up on the age scale were the thirty-something office women on a cheap-season break, smoking on the beach over fat bonkbuster novels or trit-trotting between the Haven Spa’s treatment rooms on wedge-heeled ankle-tied espadrilles. They were always up for a giggle, joshing with the bar staff and cackling over just-missed possibilities at the local nightclubs. But they wouldn’t want, as they poured into their night-time taxis, a teenager still in need of supervision tagging along with them.
‘Plenty of reading matter, that’s what you need. We’ll go mad at the Gatwick Waterstone’s. Or,’ Beth suggested slyly, ‘you could pack some of your A-level texts . . . get ahead a bit.’
‘Yeah, right, whatever.’ Delilah yawned and snuggled back down under her blanket. Her hair needed a wash, Beth thought, and a good cut. She would offer to pay for her up at the local Toni & Guy before they went away. Whatever it took, Beth was willing to pay to edge the girl towards a good mood and a positive outlook. Otherwise a dire time would be had by all.
No-one would ever know. Cyn had promised and she meant it. She didn’t want her own comfortable domestic boat rocked, let alone Ned’s. All the same, sometimes you just had to talk to someone, get your pain shaken out and soothed. So now she confided in her best gym-friend, a sisterly sort (she’d thought), who’d panted and giggled alongside her through their weekly Bodypump contortions for a good two years now, a woman who had very sweetly not laughed at her near-drowning efforts in the Aquasplash class and who was never likely to cross either Bradley or Ned’s paths.
It wasn’t turning out like the others, Cyn now admitted. (Ned was not, she didn’t expect to shock with this, by any means the first). Rather amazed at herself, Cyn then came out with the classic, ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with,’ to this post-Pilates companion in the coffee shop.
There was a bit of a silence and Cyn was starting to wonder if she’d been heard, when, ‘Well actually, Cynthia, you can,’ came Gym-friend’s tart and unsympathetic response. ‘You can, if you really, really try, exercise a certain amount of moral judgement, unfashionable as that might be.’ She was tapping a sharp silver-painted nail on the table, emphasizing her certainty of her words’ truth. ‘If you can manage to give up carbohydrates, Cynthia, you shouldn’t have any problem deciding that some men are no-go areas.’
Cyn looked at her, trusting she’d suddenly break into laughter, say something to let her off the hook such as, ‘Cyn! Your face! Like you thought I meant it!’
But nothing happened. Gym-friend continued looking stern. Friend? Too late, Cyn now questioned this. Surely to qualify as ‘friend’ you had at least to pretend to agree on issues like this. She had meant it – there wasn’t so much as a flicker of a smile. Perhaps Cyn should have chosen someone whose sympathies were better known to her, someone who’d be ready with the tissues and hugs if she sobbed, rather than looking down her pert little nose as if Cyn had just admitted to listing ‘picking up kerb-crawlers’ under hobbies.
‘You’re judging me!’ Cyn rallied. ‘You just wait till it happens to you!’
‘It won’t happen to me. I wouldn’t let it! And it doesn’t just “happen”. It was something you did, a route that you chose. And now it’s a not-unexpected disaster and it’s over. End of story.’
Ooh, said with such feeling. Cyn should have realized: Gym-friend, now she came to think of it, had ‘adultery victim’ written all over her; those little bitter lines at the corners of her mouth that would challenge any amount of Botox to shift, that glittery hardness in the eyes. Bet she was feeling well smug now – seeing a detested mistress-type crushed and defeated.
Cyn sighed so deeply she thought her lungs would refuse to reflate. She fiddled with the fat diamond on her engagement ring and felt her guilty (but slim, perfectly toned) bottom squirming on the burnt-orange leather banquette.
‘But, you know, I truly didn’t think it would turn out like that.’ She wasn’t used to disapproval, it was disturbing, uncomfortable. ‘I was so completely sure it was just going to be a bit of fun, nobody getting hurt, both of us able to walk away.’
‘Well one of you did get hurt, didn’t they? And surely more than one if you count his family. Not that women like you give them any thought.’
Another low shot. Come on, was she supposed to feel responsible for everybody? Don’t spare the bile, will you? Cyn thought, almost feeling sorry for her. Some people! Had they never done the love-thing? Tasted the forbidden-fruit thrill? No they hadn’t. Not if they were the sort of person who considered – and she suddenly remembered a revealing changing-room discussion – that thongs were ‘unseemly’, and had drawn up dinner-party-menu plans for their silver wedding celebrations ten years hence. What a ridiculous thing to have done, to have chosen this unlikely woman for her confiding, purely on the grounds that she was never going to run into any of the other ‘participants’. Where was the support she was pleading for? Gym-exfriend was gathering up her bag, her Daily Mail and her coat and already putting a bit of contamination-free distance between them.
‘Yes, they did get hurt,’ Cyn agreed, with unaccustomed humility. And worse than that, now that she and Bradley were going east this November, she’d probably never see either Ned or Beth again. Or Len and Lesley, or Gina, or mad old Valerie (though there had been that mishap during the archery session) and her golf-crazed husband Aubrey, or all those lovely, cheery Mango staff. She was now out of that particular comfortable little loop, thanks to Brad’s niece picking the Seychelles over St George.
Cyn felt tears of loss and self-pity pricking at the back of her perfect eyelids and hoped they wouldn’t overflow and take her mascara cascading down her cheeks. And once tears started flowing, they were so hard to stop – she could be in for a long session of it, possibly all the way to Waitrose and as far as the chilled-goods section. She took a tissue out of her bag and dabbed soft
ly at her eyes. It was horribly, regrettably true: people certainly had got hurt.
‘Well, more to the point,’ Cyn murmured in the direction of the rigid back of the departing woman who was now well out of range, ‘I got hurt.’
3
Opening Night
56 ml whisky (Canadian Club)
28 ml red vermouth
28 ml grenadine
Beth eased the Audi down the sliproad onto the M26 heading for Gatwick. She counted to ten. Counted to ten slowly while remembering to breathe. Often, these last few tense months, she’d been surprised to find she was holding her breath, unconsciously making herself weak and tense. In – hold it for a count of five, then out – all the way down to the last bit of air at the bottom of her lungs. And again, in ’til they were full enough to float her into space. That’s better. Calm. Everything was going to be fine. Delilah had recovered enough to travel, Ned had not changed his mind and left her for the slender charms (well she wasn’t going to be a lardy sort, was she?) of his springtime mistress. The tickets were in her bag, the plane would not (please God) fall out of the sky, the luggage would (fingers crossed) turn up on the baggage carousel at the other end. The car had not run over a fatal nail (and time had been allowed in case it did), nor had Ned left one of the suitcases sitting on the doorstep at home. That last one she’d checked herself, stopping the car in the gateway, getting out and opening the boot to count the carefully labelled bags.
It wasn’t as if this was a new and alarming adventure either – as this was their fourth visit to the Mango Experience, the journey should cause her no more stress than a trip on the train to Waterloo. It was only, Beth admitted to herself as she whizzed past a line of lumbering cargo trucks, that she was looking forward to this holiday the way a small child looks forward to Santa. After this tricky year – no, that was an understatement, after this close-to-disastrous year – both she and Ned needed this time away. It was to be a reviver, a renewal – although she had a suspicion that no relationship counsellor worth their fee would have advised anyone with a floundering marriage that having a reluctant sixteen-year-old tagging along was the ideal route to recovery.
