‘But then, I’ll admit, we got to Florence and it was all worthwhile,’ Harriet said with a sigh. ‘It was so gorgeous there, I always wanted to go back.’
She topped up our wine glasses and we sat and watched her, all of us lost in our own thoughts for a moment.
They might have been remembering the glories of Florence that summer, but I was back in the dusty back room of the bank while Bob Collyer explained the filing system and I flinched back from his halitosis.
‘But why not?’ I said at last.
‘Why not what?’ Harriet frowned.
‘Why didn’t you go back to Florence? You could have afforded it.’
Harriet sighed and ruffled her spiky grey hair. It had always been a bit wild at school, and now it was cropped, pixie-ish and rather elegant. I’d always wanted to try something similar, but it didn’t suit me. I think I had the wrong sort of hair or the wrong shaped head.
She sighed. ‘After Bruce and I divorced, I lost a lot of self confidence, and I didn’t want to go on my own. And all the girls wanted to do when they were younger was go to Centre Parcs or Alcudia with their friends and have foam parties, they certainly didn’t want to drag around Florence with their mother looking at palazzos and galleries, even if I was paying.’
‘No, I s’pose not. Rupert and I had a gorgeous couple of weeks in a villa overlooking Florence,’ Anna agreed, taking a sip of her wine. ‘This is getting warm. I think I need an ice cube in the glass.’
She heaved herself out of her chair and wandered into the kitchen. We could hear the thump of the freezer door and then she returned with a bowl of ice cubes.
‘I know you’re not supposed to do this. Rupert would be incandescent if he could see me,’ she said.
‘It’s supermarket wine,’ I said, ‘not some rare vintage. Does it really matter?’
Anna shrugged. ‘Rupert is very particular. He believes in tablecloths at every meal and he’s never eaten his food off the coffee table in his life. Sometimes I yearn for one of those crazy picnics we used to go on when we were young. Do you remember? In the park? Beaten-up sandwiches in a paper Union Jack tote bag with string handles from Smiths, and some terrible fizzy wine. We thought we were so sophisticated.’
She sat back down and took a sip of her drink with her eyes closed.
‘I have an idea,’ she said a few minutes later.
She then became so enthusiastic that she put her glass down and slapped her hands on the table so all the glasses and plates rattled.
‘No, I have brilliant idea!’
Harriet sat up on her sunbed, threw aside the towel and swung her legs onto the ground, wincing a little with her sore knee so that she could look at the two of us.
‘What are you planning now?’
Anna beamed at us, her eyes wide with mischief. ‘Let’s do it again.’
‘Do what again?’ I said, swirling the ice cubes in my wine with a finger.
‘Let’s go Interrailing again. Let’s recreate that journey. Perhaps not exactly because I wouldn’t want to go on that sleeper train; the beds were only two feet wide and the pillow was like half a Weetabix in a bag. I don’t think my back would stand it. And just for a week or so, not a month this time. Let’s buy our tickets, get our backpacks and our passports. We don’t even need a ferry, we can get the Eurostar direct to Paris, then go on a sleeper to the south of France, and then perhaps go east to somewhere. Spain or something.’
‘Spain is west from the south of France,’ I said.
Harriet flapped a hand at me. ‘Listen to Mrs Mercator.’
‘Mercator?’ Anna said.
‘Map expert, he had a famous projection,’ Harriet said.
‘Did he indeed? Dirty boy. Listen, listen,’ Anna said, ‘let’s pretend we are eighteen again, let’s do it. Let’s get on a train in Worcester and get off in Paris.’
I know I gulped at that point. For a moment I felt quite faint.
‘I don’t think so,’ Harriet said doubtfully. ‘I mean, aren’t we a bit old for that? Couldn’t we just get a package holiday last minute? We could get a terrific bargain.’
Harriet might have been a bit uncertain but I felt a positive zing of excitement with what Anna had said. All of a sudden I was catapulted back to that Sunday in June, all those decades ago, when I had vowed to do just that.
