‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ she mouthed to Connie.
‘Don’t forget the “grandson” bit,’ Connie reminded her.
At midnight a cheer went up, more drinks were dispensed, and everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ or some translation of it, after which Gill sat down on a chair and promptly passed out.
‘I only just dozed off,’ was how she put it later.
Nineteen
IL COMPLEANNO
Gill, in her shocking-pink swimsuit and awash with Alka-Seltzer, didn’t begin to feel human until around midday. Connie and Maggie regarded her with amusement as they stretched out on their sunbeds on the crowded beach.
‘I didn’t pass out,’ Gill snapped at them. ‘I just dozed off.’ She donned the sunhat and her dark glasses and slapped on vast quantities of suntan lotion. Then she picked up her phone to tackle the mountain of emails and e-cards in her inbox. ‘God!’ she groaned. ‘I didn’t know I had so many offspring!’
Connie and Maggie were taking her shopping later when they left the beach, because she’d seen some fantastic leather handbags on her way from Il Paradiso. They weren’t exactly cheap but they were in the most mouth-watering colours. She’d never be able to choose just one, she’d said, to which the reply was, ‘Well, we’ll each buy you one! After all, it is a special birthday!’
She’d been told by Connie that it was her compleanno and she was settanta years old. It sounded much more musical than ‘seventieth birthday’, but then everything over here did. Now Connie was waving the prosecco bottle at her and Gill felt her stomach give a tiny heave.
‘Later, perhaps,’ she mumbled, swigging from her bottle of water.
And Maggie had opened up some little cartons of olives and mini-pizzas.
‘Not just yet,’ sighed Gill, ignoring their giggles.
‘Go on! It’s your big day!’
Gill felt her stomach give another little lurch. ‘No thanks,’ she muttered, trying to avoid looking at the pots which Maggie was holding out in her direction.
It was uncomfortably hot and noisy; their neighbours yelling lustily for children to come back as they dispensed drinks and snacks and suntan lotion.
‘I’m not used to having loads of kids around,’ Maggie said. ‘Alistair had his kids in Australia and I hardly ever saw them when they were wee.’
‘Lucky old you,’ Gill murmured. ‘It’s just like being at home, but at least I can understand what my lot are talking about.’ She declined Connie’s further offers of panini, salami and cheese. ‘Are you trying to get me to throw up?’ she asked crossly.
‘So, when are you going for this swim of yours?’ Maggie asked.
‘When it cools down a bit,’ Gill replied. ‘And after I get a chance of some shut-eye.’
A few minutes later, Gill’s snores could just about be heard above the screaming of children, the yelling of the mammas, and the blare of pop music from some youngsters a couple of rows in front.
Maggie groaned. Connie dreamed of a secluded little cove.
‘Let’s go for a swim,’ Connie suggested.
They pushed their bags under Gill’s sunbed and raced, the sand blisteringly hot beneath their feet, towards the blissful cool of the water.
* * *
Gill woke up as they were drying themselves. She felt much better.
‘You should have waited for me,’ she yawned as she eased herself off the sunbed.
‘We weren’t sure how long old bats of seventy would need for their afternoon nap,’ Maggie said.
‘Well, you should know!’ Gill was adjusting the heavily laden bra top of her swimsuit. ‘Can’t have these falling out, can I?’
The hot sand beneath her feet had Gill emitting little squeals as she ran towards the sea and blissful relief. Mediterranean or not, the water still felt unexpectedly cool as she waded in with caution. Then, aware that the other two might be watching and having a giggle at her expense, she plunged in. When she regained her breath, she commenced a careful breaststroke, concentrating on keeping her hair as dry as possible, and keeping within her depth. She’d never yet had the courage to brave the deep end of a swimming pool, but now the buoyancy of the sea was boosting her self-confidence. If only she lived by the sea, Gill was convinced she’d be a good swimmer. A confident swimmer. Now she fancied a little float, although it would doubtless wreck her hair. Aw, what the hell! Nobody knew her here, or cared, and she could always pay a visit to the hairdresser on her way back to Il Paradiso. And, after all, it is my birthday!
Gill gazed up at the sky as she bobbed up and down on her back on the gentle waves, thinking about her family and their emails and e-cards, all full of good wishes. She loved them all dearly and she missed them – but only a little. And she certainly wasn’t sorry to be missing the bloody party they’d planned. In fact, she had to admit it, she was enjoying herself more than she had in years! She was enjoying the company, even Maggie’s caustic sense of humour. And, more and more, she wished this journey would never end; one beautiful place after another, endless sunshine, delicious food and, even better, Maggie footing the bill for everything!
Come to think of it, where was this journey going to end? Rome? Amalfi? Gill just wanted to keep going on and on but of course they couldn’t. They’d have to go home eventually, but she wasn’t going to think about that just yet. She was going to enjoy every hour, every day.
Gill realised she’d been daydreaming for some time, and she really should be getting back. As she turned over to swim, she realised she’d drifted a fair way out from the beach, and she was most definitely very much out of her depth.
Stay calm, Gill, she told herself. Just do your breaststroke and keep going; it’s not that far. There were a few other swimmers around. Strong swimmers, diving under the waves like bleedin’ fishes, she thought. Knowing what they’re doing. Well, I mustn’t panic because I can do this. I must do this. She was swimming and swimming but the shore didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. Oh, please, God, she prayed. I know I’ve said I don’t believe in you, but I do really! Now the salt was stinging her eyes and she couldn’t make out if she was any closer to the beach or not.
Keep going, keep going! But I’m out of condition and I’m getting tired. And I don’t want to drown! Should I call out? Would any of these swimmers hear me?
How long would it be before Connie or Maggie got concerned? After all, they knew she wasn’t much of a swimmer.
Don’t cry, you silly cow! That’ll do no good at all!
‘Signora! Va bene?’
Gill was aware of a masculine voice alongside and felt relief flooding through her veins. She gave a strangled sob. ‘I think I need help!’
‘Ah, Inglese!’ he said, as if that explained everything. He encircled her with one hairy arm. ‘Relax, Signora!’ And he swam powerfully towards the beach with Gill hanging on. They had reached the shallow water before Gill was able to have a good look at her hero: stocky, grey-haired and balding on top, but covered with hair everywhere else.
Almost sobbing with relief, Gill found her feet and waded alongside him. He wasn’t a lot taller than her and sported a pair of very fetching emerald green trunks.
‘Thank you so much!’ She tried to control the trembling of her lips as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘No problem!’ He regarded her gravely with his velvety brown eyes. ‘No go so far next time, no?’
‘No,’ Gill agreed. ‘I won’t.’
God, she thought, what must I look like? Why the hell did I put mascara on today? It will have run all down my face, and my hair’s wrecked. She looked down in horror to see both boobs bouncing towards escape, and frantically she attempted to push them back into their stowage.
‘Where is your husband?’
‘My husband?’ Gill wiped her eyes again. ‘I don’t have a husband. I’m here with a couple of friends.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So maybe you like a drink?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I think I would. But I
must buy you a drink because you saved my life.’
‘No, no, no!’ he protested modestly. ‘You just needed a little help. Come with me up to the bar and we get nice drink.’
Gill could see him clearly now. Rather nice, if abnormally hairy.
‘I’ll just pop across to tell my friends where I’m going,’ she said, scanning the rows of bronzing bodies before spotting Maggie, who was standing up adjusting her sunshade.
‘So, I wait here.’ The drops of water glistened like tiny crystals on his chest hair.
* * *
‘We were beginning to worry about you,’ Connie said. ‘You’ve been gone for ages.’
‘Yes, well.’ Gill towelled herself dry. She wasn’t going to admit to having to be rescued. ‘I’m going for a drink with this guy I met in the sea.’
‘A guy?’ They both regarded her with astonishment.
‘Yeah, we’re going up to the beach bar.’
‘You don’t waste any time,’ Maggie remarked. ‘Chatting up blokes in the water!’
Gill donned her dark glasses and hoisted her bag over her shoulder.
‘Honestly, Gill,’ Connie said, ‘we can’t trust you on your own for more than five minutes!’
* * *
He was waiting at the entrance to the beach bar, now clad in a pair of white shorts. ‘Ah!’ he said, smiling.
He had nice teeth. Gill hoped they were his own.
‘You need a little brandy!’
‘No, no!’ Gill said hastily. ‘Coffee’s fine. Really.’
‘I Alfonso,’ he said solemnly, holding out his hand.
‘Gill,’ she said. ‘An Americano, please.’
They shook hands and then he pulled out a chair for her. ‘I go to bar.’ He returned a few minutes later with one Americano and one espresso.
‘Thank you, Alfonso. You’re very kind.’
‘I call you Geelee,’ he said. ‘Like the singer.’
She looked at him blankly. ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘And I’m sorry I caused you so much trouble. I’d been floating, you see, and hadn’t realised how far I’d drifted out. And I’m not a very good swimmer.’
‘I give you lessons,’ he said. ‘How long you are here for, Geelee?’
‘I think they want to move on tomorrow,’ Gill said gloomily.
‘“They”?’ Alfonso raised his still dark eyebrows. ‘Who is “they”?’
Gill took a sip of her coffee and began to give him brief details of the trip.
‘All the way from England? Three ladies? Dio mio! Where you here?’
She told him.
‘Il Paradiso.’ He gave a disdainful grunt. ‘You stay more long. I find you better place.’
He was gazing at her with such intensity that Gill felt some unfamiliar stirrings deep within, quite different from her normal responses. He had nice hands, square and capable looking with neatly cut, clean nails. You could tell a lot about a man from his hands, even if the backs were hairy. And shoes. In the absence of these, Gill cast a look at his feet, surprised to see that even the tops of his feet were hairy. She didn’t think she’d seen such hairy feet before; there wasn’t a lot of it about at home.
‘How far you go?’ he asked, downing his espresso in one gulp.
‘How far?’ Gill pondered anew their probable destination. ‘I think we end up in Amalfi – near Naples, you know?’
‘Si, I know where is Amalfi.’ He winked at her. ‘So, why stop in Amalfi? You go to Sicilia too?’
She wanted to tell him that she’d be more than happy to carry on to Sicily, Greece or anywhere else with cloudless skies, blue seas and hairy Mediterranean men. Instead she told him about Connie’s grandmother and how she and Maggie had ‘just come along for the ride’.
He was bound to be married.
‘My wife,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts, ‘come from Sicilia. Palermo.’
I knew it!
‘She gone, so I no go often now,’ he said sadly.
Gill cleared her throat. ‘Has she passed on then?’
‘Passed on? No, she dead.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ No, I’m not.
‘Five years.’ He held up his fingers. ‘You have husband in England?’
‘No, he’s dead too.’ For a moment she fondly visualised Peter with his buns and his bagels.
‘Ah.’ He paused. ‘What you do in evening?’
‘This evening? Oh, we’re going out somewhere for a nice meal. It’s my birthday.’
‘Il compleanno!’ he exclaimed. ‘How many years?’
No Englishman would dare ask such a question. For a brief moment she wondered if she should try for sixty again, but then thought, what the hell!
‘Today I’m seventy,’ she admitted reluctantly, wondering if she’d wrecked her chances with this lovely, hirsute man.
‘Settanta! Mamma mia, you no look it!’
‘Thank you!’ she said graciously.
‘I seventy-three. But you want to eat dinner with ladies, and no with me?’
‘Oh no!’ she said quickly, hoping she didn’t sound too eager. ‘It’s just that we sort of arranged…’
‘You can un-arrange?’
‘Yes, I can un-arrange.’ Certainly I can, she thought. Not half.
* * *
‘What?’ Connie stared at Gill in disbelief. ‘You want to go out tonight with some old lothario who’s been chatting you up in the water?’
Gill had decided against mentioning the rescue. ‘He’s nice. And, for your information, he’s a widower.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Maggie.
‘Yes, he is!’
Connie laughed. ‘Well, it is your birthday!’
‘You don’t mind, do you? Because I really want to go. He’s meeting me at the gates of Il Paradiso at seven.’
‘No, of course we don’t mind,’ Connie replied. ‘Just make sure he doesn’t whip your knickers off up some dark alley or other.’
‘Connie, he’s seventy-three!’
‘But he’s Italian,’ Maggie reminded her. ‘Full of geriatric lust.’
I do hope so, Gill thought. ‘And tomorrow,’ Gill added, ‘he’s going to take us somewhere else where we can park Bella.’
‘We sort of thought of heading towards Pisa and Lucca tomorrow,’ Connie said.
‘Couldn’t we have just one more day?’ Gill pleaded.
* * *
‘She certainly sounds happy but I hope she knows what she’s doing,’ Connie remarked later as she listened to Gill singing in the shower.
Maggie was chopping onions. ‘I doubt it,’ she said.
‘I mean, he could be anybody!’ Connie went on. ‘She knows nothing about him.’
Maggie snorted. ‘Well, he’s hardly likely to have got her lined up for the white slave trade!’
‘No, but she strikes me as being quite gullible. I don’t like the idea of her being molested down some dark alley.’
‘He’s the one in danger of being molested, if you ask me.’ Maggie wiped her eyes. ‘These onions are really strong.’
‘Seriously, Maggie, I think we should keep an eye on her. Just to make sure. You know?’
Maggie turned to stare at Connie. ‘And how do you propose we do that?’
Connie thought for a moment. ‘We could follow them. At a distance, of course.’
‘You’ve been reading too much cloak-and-dagger stuff, Connie. I should think Gill is well able to take care of herself.’
‘Well, I’m going to follow them anyway.’
‘OK, OK, I’ll come with you. If only to make sure he doesn’t bundle her into a truck full of other desperate old biddies. For auction in some dodgy country.’
They both giggled.
There followed an hour of Gill trying to decide which dress to wear, which shoes, which bag, and which perfume, before she was finally ready to meet her date at the gate to Il Paradiso.
‘It really is the gateway to paradise!’ she said gleefully before setting off.
�
��What if he’s got a car?’ Maggie said a few minutes later, as she and Connie locked Bella’s door and, having waited until Gill rounded the corner out of sight, prepared to follow.
‘We could at least get the registration number,’ Connie said.
As they got in sight of the gate, they saw Gill stop and look in both directions but, fortunately, not behind. And then they saw a smartly dressed, stocky man appear from nowhere and kiss her on both cheeks.
‘He doesn’t look much like a white slaver,’ Maggie muttered, as Gill and the man set off down the street towards the restaurants and shops. ‘Then again I don’t suppose they ever do.’
‘Well, at least they’re walking. Come on, let’s see where he’s taking her.’
Everyone in Viareggio appeared to be out taking their evening passeggiata and Connie hoped that, by keeping some distance behind, even if Gill turned round she wouldn’t spot them. There were tables and chairs outside each restaurant, full of people enjoying drinks and food in the evening sunshine.
‘Hey, they’ve disappeared!’ Maggie said suddenly.
‘They’ve got to have gone inside one of these restaurants,’ Connie said. ‘Come on, we’ll just have a peep through the windows to make sure.’
It was as they drew level with the third ristorante that they realised Gill and her companion were standing in a doorway right in front of them, studying the menu. It was too late to retreat.
‘Keep walking!’ Connie whispered.
But, just at that moment, Gill turned round. ‘What the…!’
‘Oh, hi Gill!’ Maggie said airily. ‘We just thought we’d have a little stroll before supper!’
Gill’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that so? Last I heard you were preparing a casserole and having a lazy evening.’
‘We changed our minds,’ said Connie.
‘Fancied a walk,’ added Maggie.
Gill’s date looked from one to the other in total confusion. He was quite good looking, Connie noted, but excessively hairy.
‘This,’ Gill said, ‘is Alfonso. Alfonso, this is Connie and Maggie, my travelling companions, who’ve suddenly decided to have an evening stroll.’
The Getaway Girls: A hilarious feel-good summer read Page 18
