by Georgie Hall
‘There’s Eliza!’ Mum points out in surprise.
‘Is that Paddy with you?’ whispers Jules.
I mop my sweaty brow with my napkin. My mouth is dry. I knock back the wine in one, feeling like I’ve been kissed on a mountain top.
All the family – especially Miles – think this is hilarious. ‘He didn’t really think you were Emma Thompson, did he?’
I watch Paddy, who is laughing too. He was livid when he thought I’d tried to sell Matteo The Tempest that day, but we’ve put that misunderstanding to bed (twice) and he has no fear or suspicion of Matteo. Why should he? There’s nothing to fear. The road-raging man who crossed his arms and watched when I tried to save a life on a hard shoulder was hardly somebody I could ever feel attracted to. Could I?
The slideshow has moved onto the photos Matteo took when handed the camera. They’re artfully composed, and even though I can see I’m sweaty and embarrassed, I’m sharing the joke with the camera.
‘Very flattering.’ Jules sounds surprised.
‘You look gorgeous, Mum!’ Summer whoops. ‘When was this?’
And it’s now I realise that my tourist friend isn’t in any of the frames. Just me. The me I remember from years ago. This woman has none of my affectations. If I gave these to the Agent-Who-Never-Calls, she might call.
I’m acutely aware that Matteo is across the table from me now, filling Dad’s glass and telling him about the riverside apartment and the offer he’s put in. I don’t look at his face, but I catch the cornicello twisting and glinting.
That necklace got caught on my sleeve when we kissed, and I later picked it up from the boat’s galley and put it in a drawer. Why isn’t it still there? Has he got a replacement? I can just make out two engraved Ms.
There’s a lot of sniggering with Summer and Ed, phones and games consoles out. A moment later the screens are all hijacked by live video of their faces filtered with bunny ears, noses and whiskers and weird anime eyes.
‘Your children have hacked my media wall!’ Matteo wails.
‘Actually the screen mirroring link is right there.’ Ed points to the discreet sign inviting private dining guests to share their images. A moment later we witness Sonic the Hedgehog power flexing. Next it switches again to a group of boys doing a Carpool Karaoke mash up of TV theme tunes on their way to school, their new driver joining in. She’s called Manpreet and is boundlessly cheerful, although Ed’s already complained that she uses third gear too much and has a poor understanding of box junctions.
‘This is even funnier!’ he announces. ‘This is Mum being super embarrassing!’
(Please don’t let it be my Mr Vella confession again, now at 10,000 likes, not that I’m checking more than once a day.)
But the picture onscreen is of me in a baseball cap. I’m looking over dark glasses and in through The Tempest’s porthole to give Ed a double thumbs up and a goofy smile at Luddington Lock when he was trapped in the bathroom. He caught me at a bad moment – one eye half-closed, the other seemingly missing an iris, my mouth hanging open – yet it’s still so very me, I rather like it.
‘That picture is hilarious, Mum!’ Summer snorts from the end of the table. ‘What is the filter on that, Ed? Is it fishbowl? It makes her head look super weird.’
‘There is no filter.’ Ed is looking at me anxiously.
Everyone else in the cellar is chuckling, including Paddy.
I don’t care if I look super weird; I still like it. When younger, I would have wanted it destroyed but I’m now wise enough to recognise a photograph I’ll look back at in twenty years’ time and be grateful for. Because that day on The Tempest changed me. Just a few hours escaping downriver transformed the way I see everything, the way I view my marriage, my strengths, my womanhood, its invisibility, the Change itself. Those who travel, live twice. It turns out, you don’t have to go very far at all, just out of your comfort zone.
This photograph is special. Through the round window…
Then the screens all abruptly switch to luscious shots of authentic Puglian ingredients bearing Russo logos. The kids groan, realising the game is up and Big Brother has intervened, but the gelato has arrived at their end so they hardly care.
Matteo swoops round the table as we all get busy with a taster menu of desserts, and this time when he dips beside me, I look at him.
Bugger.
He can still hold a gaze.
‘Everything OK?’ he asks, lowering his voice. ‘I make ugly photo go away.’
‘Was it ugly?’
He laughs, drinks in my eyes a moment longer, then helps Jules and me to dessert wine ‘that is like kissing in a Tuscan peach orchard’.
My family are talking boats, theatre, business, music, holidays, sport and law. Dad’s voice is loudest as always, Reece in competition, Miles in descant. I push my untouched pudding plate towards Paddy who lifts his fork in thanks, rapt as Dad discusses this year’s Ashes. Mum looks at me and winks, then digs around in her teeth with a nail.
Is that me in twenty-eight years’ time?
I’m hot and anxious and a bit tearful. I can feel myself start to vanish again. I hurry upstairs to visit the Ladies, passing invisibly through the tables of lovely young things and the ghostly old in the main restaurant.
My familiar cubicle sanctuary is a small safe-zone of comfort.
I take out my phone and send Lou a GIF of shark-infested waters. Family lunch!
She responds with a sticker of a life raft that inflates to reveal her Bitmoji in a bikini, speech-bubble popping up to say You Float My Boat (I can guarantee Lou didn’t watch it through to the full bikini message before sending, which is why I love her).
Bladder emptied, thin hair tousled and lipstick reapplied, I regard my reflection steadily. Here is Older Me with her younger eyes staring out, still in here; I blink slowly, feeling the two unite again. Together we pull the porthole face, one eye half-closed, thumbs up. It’s so immensely cheering, I do it again. Twice. Me, myself and I.
I say ‘carpe diem!’ and ‘fuck them!’ into the mirror and feel a lot better. I now believe Mum when she says how heavenly life gets after menopause, and I’m holding that thought.
When I come out, Matteo’s waiting in the corridor, lounging against the wall, all louche creased linen. He steps in front of me, a smile stop sign. ‘You are ignoring me, I think?’
‘How did you get your charm back?’ I point at it.
‘I have never lost my charm, bellissima, it’s my looks and hip joints that have gone to the dogs.’
I’d forgotten all the fun in his eyes; their cleverness; their challenge.
‘I won’t give up on you, crazy lady,’ he says quietly. ‘This feels like the beginning.’
‘It isn’t,’ I tell him. And I want to add something profound like: This is my life, my midlife, and I may be more than halfway through but that’s not half the story.
But I don’t think of anything remotely clever like that. Instead, I pull the porthole face and give him a double thumbs up, and his bark of delighted laughter is reward enough. I feel strong. Incredibly strong, and cheerful, and defiant as I march back through the restaurant, chin high, sensing all eyes on me, Eliza Finch: wife, mother of three, jobbing actor, cake-baker, wine-drinker and a changed woman.
About the Author
GEORGIE HALL is the alter ego of the rebellious author and woman of a certain age, Fiona Walker. A theatre-loving, dog-walking, Eurythmics-lip-syncing fifty-something, she lives in Warwickshire with her partner and their teenage daughters.
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