‘We have the whole day free, we can have breakfast in the hotel and then we can take a leisurely stroll down to see the Promenade des Anglais,’ Anna said, ‘without any of our luggage, and we can look at the rich people and their cars.’
‘And drink coffee, and eat cake?’ I said.
‘Multitasking at its finest,’ Harriet agreed.
‘And we still need to find somewhere else to stay for just one night that won’t cost us an arm and a leg, until it’s time to get the train to Venice.’
‘Sorry,’ Anna said yet again. ‘I can’t understand how that happened. There must have been a glitch in the website.’
‘It will be fine,’ I said, wondering if she was ever going to own up to her mistake, ‘there must be lots of places we can try. Now then, let’s get the bill and go and have a lovely sleep.’
On the walk back to Hotel Gloria, the little alley was fuller than it had been earlier. People were mingling around open doorways and cafés, and there was a drift of cigarette smoke and the occasional herbal overtone, although with all the various different clouds of vape exhaust it was hard to tell.
‘I wonder why people want to smoke mango?’ Harriet said. ‘And strawberry. Why not ratatouille or garlic flavour? That would be very Mediterranean.’
‘Not quite,’ I said, spluttering with laughter.
Anna held up one finger as an idea struck her.
‘Maybe that’s what I’ll claim is the secret of my good health when I am ninety, that I used a prawn vape every day.’
‘Oh Anna! Don’t be ridiculous!’
We all laughed then and had a group hug, and it felt marvellous.
I had other friends of course, but those two had been a part of my life for so long; our friendship was different. And that moment made it seem so special.
8
The following day I awoke to yet another bright sunny morning, and whether it was just because I was tired from travelling or the fact that the bed was so comfortable, I had slept well.
I had been briefly woken by a rumbling noise at five o’clock, and I thought for a moment that I was back on the train, but when I looked out of my window I could see it was just workers in the alley collecting the refuse.
There were three men walking behind a lorry that looked too wide to get through past the many balconies and window boxes. Its slow progress was accompanied by some urgent shouting and whistling from the workers and the crash of the rubbish as it landed in the back of the lorry. The vehicle itself sounded as though it had been fitted with a jumbo jet engine and for a while I might have regretted the location of my room, however picturesque it was.
Still, it did afford me a few pleasant moments after they had gone, when I leaned my elbows on the sill and looked out at the pearly grey dawn. I was in the South of France. I had a new day ahead of me. This was what I had wanted.
I sighed with pleasure, closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the cool morning air, which was a mistake as the pungent whiff of last night’s seafood and garlic extravaganza floating up from the alley below caught in the back of my throat and made me cough. I went back to bed and checked my phone.
Ben
The cat has just got up on the worktop and eaten half my bacon sandwich.
Me
You’d better give her the other half then *smiley face emoji*
You could always ring the vet? They will be able to check if the cat’s microchipped.
* * *
A hotel breakfast in the South of France. Surely there could be no finer start to our day?
There was the usual buffet of juices, coffee and teas. Plus displays of fruit, ham and various cheeses. It all looked marvellous and it made me wonder why I didn’t have such things for myself back home.
My usual five-minute grab was toast and Marmite and two cups of tea. But then perhaps I wouldn’t have had the patience to artfully arrange my ham slices into little rosettes or my cheese onto convenient wedges on marble platters with some elegantly placed grapes. And I didn’t have a cunning machine which squeezed fresh oranges in front of me to yield glorious, golden juice into a crystal jug. Mine came in cartons from the supermarket, and the sell by date was probably sometime next year.
There were different pastries too, which were nothing like the ones I occasionally bought – usually from the freezer section – in my local supermarket. Should I have a croissant, pain au chocolate or pain aux raisins? Or perhaps one of the many different and tantalising breads and rolls laid out in wicker baskets lined with embroidered linen cloths. If I did all that at home it would be lunch time before I got around to eating anything and then there was no way I would lose the extra weight around my middle I had been battling for twenty years.
