‘I’ve been divorced for nearly eight years; I have an adult son. I use the term adult advisedly. He’s back with me at the moment while he recovers from his own breakup, although I have a feeling there is something of a romantic nature going on with the local vet. I worked for the civil service for many years and now I am retired. I’m on a trip with some old school friends. This is the first time I have been somewhere new in decades.’
That sounded desperately sad, to be able to sum up my life in a few short sentences. And almost everything I had said referred to someone else. I had hardly mentioned myself, as though I was just a support act for other people.
‘You made a good choice,’ he said. ‘Have you seen those glorious hotels further along? They have their own beaches and even roped-off areas of the sea solely for their guests to use. What a cheek!’
I laughed. ‘I don’t think one could do that in the UK. I can just imagine swimmers getting tangled up in them.’
‘Probably, but then the sea here is so calm, and so much warmer. Do you like to swim? I’ve seen there’s a lovely pool on the top deck.’
I did love to swim; in fact, last year I had joined a local health club and went two or three times a week. Then I imagined myself in my chain store tankini, unsure of my levels of cellulite, worried about my back view as I tried to haul myself up the ladder back onto the deck afterwards. And I suddenly lost the little nugget of confidence I had been enjoying.
‘Oh, I’m not sure, I’ll see how I feel,’ I said vaguely. I looked at my watch and started fidgeting. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you have a lot to do. I mustn’t monopolise you.’
He gave a funny little smile. ‘Trust me, Lizzie, I’m enjoying your company. If I didn’t want to spend time with you I wouldn’t.’
‘Oh. Okay,’ I said.
Fancy that. I wasn’t used to such comments. It made me decidedly happy.
The last few years with Fred had gradually made me feel I must be very disappointing company. My cakes weren’t as good as his mothers, I didn’t seem to iron his shirts properly, I didn’t understand about the trade deficit or why the council tax kept rising and the potholes in our road only got worse. Perhaps I wasn’t as daft as he implied after all. And maybe there were more important things in life.
‘In fact, I think we should go back along the pathway to that hotel with all the tables outside, overlooking the sea. And have a coffee and an ice cream. What do you say?’
I looked at my watch again. It was only ten o’clock.
‘Is it a bit early for ice cream?’
I don’t know why I said that. I loved ice cream and Fred had always sneered at it, saying it was just fat, air and chemicals. For another man to be actively encouraging me…
‘It’s never too early,’ he said, ‘not in my opinion anyway.’
We walked back the way I had come and sat at one of the tables he had mentioned. At a nearby table, an impossibly attractive woman dressed in white with a huge gold watch on her brown wrist was sitting with a companion. They were drinking espresso out of tiny china cups and smoking thin cigarettes. She lowered her huge sunglasses, flicked a glance at me and took a long sweeping look at Jack. I leaned back in my chair with a smile and thought about Audrey Hepburn again.
I could be chic and sophisticated too, even though I was wearing clothes from a chain store and an unremarkable watch which I had bought from a shop in the high street. I’d long ago accepted that there was no point having an expensive one as I usually lost them and had once left one in my dressing gown pocket when I washed it.
And then there was the time when I…
‘So what would you like?’ Jack said, handing me a menu.
‘A large double shot latte and a coffee and walnut ice cream,’ I said after a moment.
‘Very decisive,’ he said, ‘I’ll have an americano and astriacello.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Vanilla with chocolate shards. I have a terrible sweet tooth which is one of the things you will find out.’
Well, that was interesting. I was going to find out more stuff? What sort of things?
The woman with the flashy watch finished her coffee and lit another cigarette while her companion messed about with his mobile phone.
How long had that couple been together, I wondered. Did they still love each other? Did they know everything there was to know, so much so that they no longer needed to talk?
In the later years of my marriage to Fred we had hardly talked much either, and yet there were still many things I hadn’t known about him, even after thirty years together. So, was not talking, not laughing together, a sign of failure or success? I considered it a failure.
The waiter, a hunky-looking young man in a smart black shirt and trousers, brought our order a few minutes later, my coffee in a tall glass, Jack’s americano in a china cup decorated with the hotel logo. He stirred sugar into it with an apologetic grin.
‘I told you I had a sweet tooth.’
