Page 59 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

Alex is standing in the kitchen doorway, her wine in one hand and her phone in the other.

‘Do you fancy a takeaway?’ I ask her. I think I need to get some food inside her before she drinks too much. She may very well have filled her glass, but it’s half empty again now. She puts it down on the table with her phone and walks towards me. Her eyes are bright and for a moment I think she could be furious, but it’s gone in a flash.

‘I fancy you,’ she says, boldly, her face inches from mine. Her warm breath blows against my skin. And here it is, my now-or-never moment, just like it was fifty-two years ago in her uncle’s boat on the loch. Alex used the same words then. Words I’d been desperate to hear for weeks. I’d felt like a yo-yo, being drawn close to her and then spun away. But, that day on the boat, she’d finally told me what I wanted to hear and then she’d kissed me, fiercely, and I wanted to disappear into her and never resurface.

I slide her hand into mine. My mind is whirring with the what and the where and the how. Maybe I should get us to the bedroom; perhaps we can sink down onto the sofa. Not the floor, she’d never get up again. While I’m thinking, though, Alex is acting and she slides her other hand up my arm and to my face where she cups my chin and brings her lips to mine. And then I’m not thinking at all.

30

The sound of a supermarket delivery van wakes me. Its continued beeping as it reverses into the parking bay cuts through my sleep. My head is thick and my mouth is dry. As I come to, the previous evening appears in flashes. My mother in hospital, Alex here in my flat, no food, but wine – God, lots of wine. And as my surroundings come more into focus, I remember that kiss, that deeply delicious kiss and then what came next.

I’m lying on my back with my arms by my sides, palms turned up, relaxed. I usually sleep on my side in a foetal position, my hands tucked into my chest, which, at eighteen, my mother told me was a mistake. You’ll prematurely wrinkle your décolletage, she’d said. Always worried about the least important things, my mother.

I turn my head slowly to my left, not wanting to move too much and wake Alex. I’m going to make us coffee and a huge breakfast. We will walk down to the seafront and sit on the stones. We can stroll through the Pavilion Gardens hand in hand, declare ourselves to the world at last. I’ll tell Simon when he gets back, and I think he’ll be okay about it. He wants me to be settled and happy. I’ll show him how happy I actually am. And then I remember my mother again in her hospital bed, possibly taking her last breaths.

Beside me my bed is empty, I realise, the covers pulled up to the pillow and I have to reorganise my thoughts, make sure I haven’t made the whole thing up. But, no, what we experienced last night cannot be made up. It’s as real as the ticking of my bedside clock. Eight-thirty it reads. Perhaps Alex has beaten me to it and is making coffee.

I push back the covers, exposing my naked body. Stretching out my arms and legs I shiver as more memories of last night appear. I can’t seem to wipe the smug smile off my face. I pull my dressing gown from the hook on the back of the door and tie it around myself, then walk through to the kitchen. Alex isn’t there; Bardo isn’t curled up in the chair. Could she have gone out to get coffee, to walk the dog? She might well have, as she likes a coffee with all the works: sugar, syrup, froth, and if nothing else, Bardo will need a wee.

Desperate for some caffeine myself, I fill the kettle anyway. I’ll make a quick espresso and still have whatever she brings back. I rinse out the glasses we used last night and that reminds me that my head is hurting, so I swallow a couple of paracetamol.

Eight-forty-five my microwave tells me and I feel the first twitch of unease. She won’t have got lost will she? My phone is on the table still and I snatch it up to check. Nothing from Simon and nothing from Alex either. I send a message to her. Tell her that if she’s buying coffee to make mine a large. The kettle clicks off in the kitchen and I turn, sliding my phone into my pocket. The kitchen door is open and I can see straight through to the living room. It takes me a second to see what is wrong. Something glaring is missing. The painting isn’t hanging on the wall.

I pace the flat like a mad dog, sniffing the air, checking all the places that Alex has been. No cardigan over the kitchen chair, no bag dropped onto the floor by the sofa, no sign of her using the bathroom and most obvious of all signs, if needed, is the enormous gaping space on the wall. My bloody painting. I fish out my phone again and call her, but it goes straight to voicemail, so I cut it off, take a few deep breaths and try again. I need to give her the benefit of the doubt. Anything could have happened. There could be any number of easy, obvious and acceptable explanations.

I can’t think of one.

‘Hi, Alex, it’s me. Just wondering where you are. Call me back, please.’

I imagine her listening to this, my voice sounding needy, pathetic and a bit desperate. I’m back in the bedroom, pulling on clothes and running a brush through my hair. Then I’m in the bathroom, cleaning my teeth and using the loo. I pull on a pair of trainers so I can comfortably walk the streets to look for her, although I can’t imagine she’d get far with a giant painting under her arm. She’ll be at the railway station; she has no other transport. I glance out of the window with the sudden thought that she’s taken the van, but it’s still there in the car park below. I’m starting to feel sick and I gulp down some water before heading for the front door.

That’s when I see it, on the table in the hallway. The place I keep takeaway menus and keys, a scented candle and now there’s a photo of me and Leo and a note attached to it. In the photo, he’s holding my hand and grinning at the engagement ring on my finger. Where did she find this? It wasn’t as if it was pinned to the fridge. But, I remember now, sliding it into the paperback I was reading when I lost my bookmark. I’m pretty sure it was on the kitchen windowsill. It must have looked to her like a treasured possession. I turn it over to read the date I remember him writing on the back. His sloping handwriting is tucked neatly in the bottom left-hand corner.

May 2022 when you made me the happiest man alive

The note simply says, Connie, you haven’t changed a bit!

I grab my keys and lock up the flat behind me.

*

I don’t walk, but jump in the van and head straight for the station, looking out at everyone I pass for a flame-haired woman with a painting under her arm and an obedient dog trotting at her heels. What time did she leave? How far has she got? Maybe it wouldn’t matter to Alex that Leo and I are no longer together, I didn’t tell her about him. I didn’t want to give her any other reason to think badly of me and yet I’ve managed that perfectly. How foolish of me to think I could jump from one person to the next without repercussions. Did I really think that because we are older that the rules don’t apply?

I get to the station and pull up outside, then phone her again while I lock up the van. I’m on a double yellow line, but I’m going to have to chance it.

She’s not on the platform, she’s not in the loo, she’s not in the shop and the last train to London left twenty minutes ago. I’ve lost her.

I walk slowly back to the van and a traffic warden is walking away. There’s a ticket stuck firmly to Ruby’s windscreen.

‘Well, that’s just bloody marvellous,’ I say, and the traffic warden shrugs.

I pull the ticket from the screen and get back in the van, sit with my hands on the steering wheel. I’m going to have to let her go, I realise. I can hardly chase her to London and intercept her train; I’d never make it anyway. I can’t believe she took the painting. I have nothing of her now, do I? I check the back pocket of the passenger seat and then the back of the van, but she’s taken everything with her. The last painting has gone too. It really is as if she was never here. This must have been what it was like for her when I left Scotland. Quite the payback, if that’s what she was going for.

Starting the engine I pull away from the kerb and am about to turn onto the main road when my phone rings from the passenger seat. I stamp on the brake and grab it, sliding my finger across the screen to answer.

‘Alex,’ I say. ‘Where are you?’ But, it isn’t Alex, it’s Diana.

‘Connie? It’s Diana,’ she says in the smallest voice I’ve ever heard her use. ‘Can you come and get me?’