Page 3 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

Ruby is the only vehicle on this open-air level of the multi-storey because I’m the only one, it seems, foolish enough to have parked here. Inside, the steering wheel is melting in the late afternoon sun and my faux leather seats are scorching to the touch. Maybe I should have closed the curtains.

I slip into the suffocating confines, turning the key in the ignition and the dial for the temperamental air con simultaneously, and even though I know that, for it to be truly effective, I’ll need to close the door, I can’t bring myself to do it. Eventually a coolish waft of air begins to register on my face, and the sweat running down my spine slows. I close the door and slump in my seat, the word redundant still ringing in my ears.

It wasn’t about the refit, or certainly not a refit that involves me or Gita. Apparently, a new and more dynamic team are being brought in to liven things up, which is shop talk for, anyone over the age of sixty is getting the boot. I’m not sure on the ethics of making a volunteer redundant, but then we hadn’t really been given much choice. Sharon had asked us if we might stay on to train up some of the new girls and I had considered it until I saw Gita’s grim stare. I recognised the look, and it was, don’t you bloody dare. Instead, I had wished Sharon and her new team well, picked up my hessian bag, pulled my plait over my shoulder, and with an air of bruised pride, walked out of the shop. Gita had told Sharon to go and do something unmentionable to herself and had slammed the door.

After pulling out of the car park I make my way to the restaurant at speed, the emerald in my engagement ring catching the light as I change gear. I glance down at it, still surprised to see it there even after three months of it decorating my ring finger. The green stone is flanked by pear-cut diamonds, art deco in style, a little old-fashioned perhaps, but I love it.

My fiancé is meeting me at the restaurant. Lovely Leo he’s referred to by most, due to his generous and good nature. He also seems to be able to charm my daughter-in-law and take the edge off her acerbic words. He’s a man who manages to soothe a heated situation, to defuse an argument, to comfort and calm. He is kind and gentle, and yet, still I have surprised myself by deciding to spend the rest of my life with him, because I’ve never been married before. I have managed to make it to my seventieth birthday with a small handful of flings, but only one significant relationship to my name. Of course, I really mean two, because now I have Leo.

I’m ten minutes late to the restaurant because of the embarrassingly long time it took me to find the place. For a person so well travelled, I have to be honest, I sometimes lack a sense of direction, and the heat has made me flustered. There’s an unpleasant stickiness across the back of my neck because of the gallant sprint from where I had to park Ruby. Actually, it was more of a huffy-puffy walk, but still, an effort all the same in this unbearable heat.

It’s the beginning of July and the heatwave has taken everyone by surprise. June was a washout, and no one seemed prepared for the blistering atmosphere that has settled over the south-east like a heavy, scratchy old blanket. Every day seems to have less air than the last and everyone moves in slow motion. An alarming amount of chalk-white flesh has been liberated from spring clothing and is on ready display. You can’t buy an oscillating fan anywhere, and suntan lotion is in short supply. It’s beginning to feel very much like the summer of my youth, which just makes me feel discombobulated.

I notice the flowers first, a huge bouquet in lilac and coral tones, and then a pair of Leo-shaped legs in navy chinos underneath, finishing in his favourite suede brogues. He has his phone in his hand and is frowning at the screen, but he pockets it when he sees me.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he says, lowering the blooms as I cross the road. ‘Happy birthday, Connie.’

‘They’re gorgeous, Leo, thank you,’ I say, taking them and hanging them upside down so I can kiss him. Something falls to the pavement from inside the flowers. I bend to pick it up, assuming it’s a card, but when I open the envelope I find theatre tickets for a courtroom drama at the Devonshire in Eastbourne. ‘What a lovely gift, that’s really thoughtful, thank you.’

‘Brenda used to love the Devonshire,’ he says, wistfully.

I kiss him again and try not to make anything of the fact that my birthday present was perhaps chosen as a favourite venue of his dead wife. He holds the door open for me and we step inside the restaurant. I desperately want to slip into the loo to freshen up, but can already see them waving from a table by the window. Well, Simon is waving, Diana looks as if she has something nasty stuck in her swan-like throat.

I rest the flowers behind my chair and Simon gets up to greet me. I envelop him in a warm and slightly sticky embrace – my terrific son. It’s ridiculous how much I love him. Despite his fifty-one years, he will always be a boy to me. I’ve always supposed it was because I was young and single when I had him, there had been an extra special bond we’d shared from the start. It probably helped that he’d been such a good baby and I was quite a laid-back mother, in defiance of my situation. Because of the unpleasant circumstances surrounding my pregnancy, I’d vowed to work that bit harder to make sure he felt loved and wanted, but despite all that had occurred, really it had come so naturally to me.

Diana clears her throat behind us and Simon peels himself away.

‘Hello, Diana.’ I lean in, intending a warm embrace, but I’m usually met with her cold and unyielding body, so I opt for an arm squeeze instead. She offers up an air kiss so far from my cheek that she may as well be greeting the woman sitting at the table next to us.

‘Is that another charity shop find?’ she asks, picking at the cream-coloured cheesecloth of my sleeve.

‘No, actually it’s vintage; I bought it in 1970. Only bring it out on the odd occasion so it doesn’t fall apart. It’s just about all I can bear to wear in this heat today.’

Diana gives it a grudging nod, but doesn’t go so far as to congratulate me on being able to fit into clothing I bought when I was eighteen.

Simon and Leo begin their usual back slapping and man hugging. They’ve known each other for a few years as they used to work together. Simon is the European sales manager for a computer software company and Leo worked in their accounts department before he retired. They have a close relationship and Leo is like the father Simon never had.

Slipping into my seat, I help myself to a glass of water from the carafe on the table and gulp it down in noisy gasps.

‘Are you okay, Connie?’ Diana asks. ‘You look like a sweaty tomato. You’re all shiny.’ She smiles, her sweet, pink lipsticked lips curved perfectly, her eyes full of malice. ‘Hello, lovely Leo,’ she purrs, before drawing him close for a hug.

I wish I liked my daughter-in-law, but I don’t. Perhaps I should have tried harder at the start, but I was disappointed when Simon divorced his first wife, Hazel. She was such a sweet girl, but for some reason, Simon treated his marriage like a bit of a fling rather than the solid institution it’s supposed to be. Then he met Nikki, his second wife. Nikki I liked very much – apparently more than Simon did, because she tired of his inability to commit much past saying, I do. I began to worry I hadn’t set a good example, having never been married myself. Third time lucky, he’d told me, but every time I look at Diana, I’m less than convinced. A woman fifteen years younger than him with, what seems to be a shard of ice in her, but Simon seems obliviously happy, now. It’s as if he was warming up for the main event. I have had to make my peace with his choice, but it hasn’t been easy.

Diana once accused me of clinging onto my son so I didn’t have to bother forming intimate relationships with others. She said that I had been selfish to drag him around on my travels when he was younger, when a father and solid foundations would have been better. I had been understandably hurt and also confused, because I had a horrible feeling that Diana was right.

Eight years on, my daughter-in-law and I are still playing a game where we pretend to like each other, but neither one of us is fooled.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I say.

‘That’s good. I do worry about you sometimes.’ She looks at me over the top of her menu, and flips a swathe of blonde hair away from her chestnut-coloured eyes. She’s wearing a pretty, off-the-shoulder dress that perfectly showcases her delicate clavicle. I catch Simon gazing at his wife in silent regard. He doesn’t seem to hear any of the snippy comments; he’s too much in love.

‘How does it feel to be seventy?’ Diana asks me with an innocent expression. ‘I can’t even imagine. I mean, it’s such a huge number.’ She says huge while moving her hands apart to better show how huge she means. She looks a little like a fisherman, over-exaggerating his catch.

‘I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t born until ten-thirty at night, so technically I’m still in my late sixties,’ I retort and earn a winning laugh from Leo.

The waiter arrives then to take our order, and I choose a chicken Caesar salad and a large Viognier; it has been quite a week. I ignore Diana’s steely gaze as she opts for a mineral water herself.

‘I think this calls for Champagne actually,’ Leo says decisively, but I notice the tiniest gulp as he turns the page on the wine list. He looks across at me, and there’s a moment where he seems to weigh up which bottle I’m worth. I hold my breath while he decides. ‘A bottle of the Dom Perignon 2008… vintage,’ he adds. ‘Oh, and the mushroom risotto please.’