‘Well, I’ve never had that happen,’ Anna said, picking up a succulent-looking prawn, ‘but I’ll be honest, recently I have been wondering who I’m doing all this primping and tweaking for. Is it for me?’
‘Or is it for other women’s approval?’ Harriet said.
Anna snorted and took another piece of bread rather defiantly.
‘Because it’s definitely not for Rupert’s benefit. Do you know the other day I came in from the garden and I had been weeding and messing about all morning while he had been doing his sudoku, and I was wearing a pair of horrible cord trousers, a disgusting old sweatshirt and I was covered in mud, because I had fallen over in the greenhouse and knocked a Gro-bag off the shelf all over myself. And he just looked up and said, “Ah, there’s my beautiful girl, is it time for elevenses?” I mean, explain that?’
We laughed and commiserated with her, but both of us could sympathise.
‘I remember a time when Fred and I were going to his works Christmas party and I’d bought a new dress to wear that was really festive – it was silvery grey and it had little silver sequins all over it – and he looked me up and down and said, “Oven-ready are we?”’
There was a great deal of tutting at that, and many harsh words and suggestions of bodily harm directed at my ex-husband. This in itself made me feel better. There is, after all, nothing better than the sympathetic outrage of friends on one’s behalf.
Anna came to one of her definitive suggestions.
‘We are categorically going to find you a new dress for this holiday. We are going on a cruise, remember, and I’m not saying it’s going to be tiaras and evening dress every evening, but you deserve something. Particularly after that nasty Fred insult. We never did like him, did we, Harriet, and we always said you were too good for him. He was lucky to have you. Everyone said so.’
‘He was, wasn’t he?’ I said. ‘You’re absolutely right.’
Anna patted my hand in solidarity. ‘Now then, I’m just going inside to find the loo and I’ll ask our waitress if she knows anywhere near here that we could go and find something glamorous for you. Actually, for all three of us. We deserve it too. All those trains and walking and stuff.’
‘It was your idea,’ Harriet said.
‘Yes, well, the road to disappointment is paved with good ideas,’ Anna fired back rather confusingly.
Harriet’s mouth tightened a bit.
With that, Anna disappeared into the hotel behind us, leaving me and Harriet still enjoying the lovely view and the icy Pinot Grigio wine we had ordered.
‘I wonder what it’s like being married to Rupert?’ Harriet said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, I’ve met him a couple of times and he’s a lovely chap and obviously very intelligent, but Anna says he can’t change a lightbulb without trying to put the wrong one in or falling off the stepladder. And the one time he put the recycling out they refused to take the wheelie bin because he’d filled it with bits of a broken barbeque. Apparently he knocked it over when he was watering the hanging baskets.’
‘He’s very kind, and he thinks the world of Anna though,’ I said, ‘and maybe that’s enough?’
‘Could be.’ Harriet nodded. ‘I’m just glad I don’t have a man around any more.’
‘Are you?’
She pulled a face. ‘Most of the time. Some of the time. No, not really. But it’s what people say, isn’t it. I liked being married. I just didn’t like the man I was married to. And I was good at it; at least I thought I was. But how could I compete with a load of thirty-something executive assistants at the office, slavering over Bruce and making him feel like George Clooney? One of them was bound to get him in the end.’
‘Poor thing,’ I said. ‘I mean he’s, what, sixty-five? Perhaps the one that got him thought she had caught herself a big fish.’
‘Oh, Cheryl moved on to better things and threw him back in the end, and now he’s gone back to live with his mother in Esher. Do you miss having a man around?’
‘Yes and no,’ I admitted. ‘No to the restrictions, and with Fred there were a lot. He didn’t like any sort of change, he insisted on the same meals when we went out, and he always tried to order for me, he didn’t like any of my relations coming to visit. The year my mother came for Christmas he pretended to have a migraine and sulked until the New Year. But yes I suppose in a way I miss having company and sharing things. That’s the nice part of doing this, isn’t it? I wish I had someone to share new experiences. Find things to laugh about together, I’ve missed that for years. But duvet-hogging and bristles in the bathroom sink. Not so much.’
Harriet nodded. ‘And the never-ending battle with the loo seat.’
It was true though; I didn’t miss Fred but I did miss the companionship, of having someone to share my life. I didn’t want to discuss my personal worries and concerns with my son, but it would have been nice to share ideas with someone and make joint decisions. I didn’t want another boss, but I would have liked a partner. But at my age where did I find such a person, someone who wasn’t also stuck in their ways?
Four bright young people came to sit at the adjacent table. Two blonde girls in capri pants and silk shirts casually knotted over their tiny waists who could have been on aVoguecover, and two chaps dressed in understated but expensive casual wear. The four of them really were glorious.
Were today’s young men different from the ones we had known back in the day? Did they expect the same things from women as our generation had, or were they kinder, more understanding of the female psyche? I hoped so, and yet at the same time I still liked to believe that there were differences to be celebrated.
I wondered what it would be like to be those four, at the start of their lives, blessed with so many things. Beauty, probably wealth and good health too. I hoped they appreciated it. Had I appreciated myself at that age? No, probably not. What a shame.
I watched as one of the girls pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head and even her hair was cooperating. She looked cool and beautiful. When I did that, I tended to look like a rockhopper penguin, with strands of hair sticking out at all angles. Perhaps girls like her were taught these things at their exclusive schools. How to get out of a sports car elegantly, how to ice cakes and ski. How to wear linen when they were travelling and not look as though they had slept in a ditch. How to pout like that at the slightest problem so that their young men fidgeted and fretted, trying to please them.
‘Where’s Anna got to?’ Harriet wondered. ‘I’d like to know where the loo is. Ever since she said she was going I’ve needed to as well. Never mind Pavlov’s dogs, I swear I have Pavlov’s bladder.’
