Vintage Babes (10 page)

‘So you read an instruction manual or you ask someone to do it for you. People are very kind,’ I said, trying to quell her rising panic.

While I can’t claim to be a whizz at ‘blokey’ things which require a drill or mechanical know-how – to my shame, after Tom and I split, I had had endless trouble opening the bonnet of my car – I am semi-proficient in most areas. And if there is something I can’t manage, my dad will always help.

‘Really?’ she said uncertainly.

‘Really. And if you have family living within shouting distance –’

‘I don’t. My father died when I was a child and my mother –’ Tina broke off. She looked wistful. ‘I’m all on my own.’

‘Then you’ll just have to grit your teeth and get on with it. It isn’t that bad.’

She pouted, as if teeth gritting did not appeal. ‘Are you on your own?’

I nodded. ‘Divorced. Simon mentioned the love god. Who’s he?’

‘Max, my personal trainer. He comes twice a week and his personal services are work-outs, that’s all. But he’s a handsome guy with muscles to die for and –’ she giggled ‘– he shocks the neighbours. I’m sure they think we spend our time smoking dope or getting up to other kinds of naughties.’ Her expression sobered. ‘Max costs twenty pounds a throw. He usually charges fifty, he’s qualified and it’s the going rate, but Duncan gave him money to buy mats and dumb-bells and a couple of exercise bikes, so he reduced the price for me.’

‘Your husband and Max were friends?’

‘Sort of. They met when Max was giving a fitness demo to the golf club ladies to try to drum up customers. He’s an actor, but decided to do personal training in between jobs and was starting up. Max went into the bar afterwards, got talking to Duncan, explained he needed a sponsor and Duncan offered to help. Forty pounds a week seems a lot now,’ she said, returning to her money problems, ‘but I need to keep in shape. Extra weight adds years and –’ She changed tack. ‘Max also gives nutrition advice and lifestyle advice and, well, the guy just makes me feel so fantastic.’

‘And if the Brothers Gruesome have suggested you get rid, that sounds all the more reason to keep him. Couldn’t you get a couple of friends to join in the work-outs and so cut the cost?’ I suggested.

‘I guess Max’d go along with that. Would you be interested?’

‘Me?’ I said, in surprise.

I was a stranger and if she needed to ask a stranger to join her in the classes, then she couldn’t have any close female friends. How odd. How sad. I have a cosy social circle. Some of the girls – these are fifty-something girls, you understand – I went to school with, others are chums I’ve made over the years.

‘With one of your friends,’ she said.

I thought fast; thought of how I would like to exercise and thought of Jenny who was forever fretting over her desire to lose some weight. I also thought of Steve Lingard, and how I would need to ask him if I could have the time off. Life had been so much simpler when there had only been Eric to deal with.

‘Yes, though I’ll need to check with her. And with my boss.’

‘Do that, and I’ll check with Max to see if he’s agreeable. He comes Tuesday and Thursday mornings, nine to ten.’

‘Sounds fine. I’ll be in touch,’ I said, and took out my tape recorder. ‘Now about the obituary.’

My food shopping done, I waited in the checkout queue. Listening to Tina Kincaid talk about her husband, it had become clear how much she had depended upon him. He may have been a ‘crazy old twit’, yet now there was a gaping hole in her life. She seemed destined to seriously miss the cash and practical day-by-day support he had provided, but how much would she miss the actual man? Had she adored him, as Duncan had claimed, or was it his pampering which had appealed? Did it matter? If she had married Duncan because he was Old Man Moneybags, he had wed his ‘child bride’ because she was glamorous and made his friends pea-green with envy. It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement.

And where did sex come into things?
Had
it come into things? Duncan may have been quick to imply a vigorous lovelife, but Tina’s reference to him being ‘like a father’ gave a different impression.

Whatever her feelings for her husband, one thing Tina genuinely did care about was getting old. But if you’re a head-turner in your youth, it must be grim when your looks start to fade. Every line which appears will seem like graffiti. And if you believe your looks are your only asset, then your self-esteem is doomed to dwindle.

Age doesn’t bother me. Not too much. Okay, I would’ve done a deal with Beelzebub to stick at twenty-nine, but I certainly don’t intend to ‘rage, rage against the dying of the light’ for the rest of my life. What’s the point when we all grow old and snuff it anyway? Funny thing is, while the face I see in the mirror is no spring chicken and my body’s starting to succumb to the law of gravity, inside I don’t feel any different to how I felt at forty. Or thirty. Granted, I don’t care so much about people’s opinions – I’ve realised that not everyone is going to like me and I won’t like everyone – but basically I feel the same. There’s no sense of approaching blue-rinsed oblivion or disappearing into a black hole when I reach sixty.

On the contrary, I reckon there’s all to play for in my next decade. When I retire, I plan to write a book. A best-seller which will cover me in literary glory and earn vast royalties. And be made into a film starring either Richard Gere or Clive Owen or Johnny Depp – I haven’t decided which yet – who will be knocked sideways by my talent and become a close and admiring friend.

Mind you, I rather fancy myself as a wacky old dame; telling smutty jokes in a loud voice, doddering around in white stilettoes and tight skirts, flirting outrageously with young men. When do you start bragging about your age? I wonder. And stop thinking about sex? In which decade does the libido decrease? Or doesn’t it? I could ask my dad, but did I really want to hear his answer?

I focussed on the basket of the man ahead of me. We were in an ‘eight items only’ line, but he had ten. Should I point it out and object? The older I get, the bolshier I seem to become.

Jenny wouldn’t complain. If some oaf barged through the ‘eight items only’ with a trolley piled high, she would stay silent. With Jen it’s anything for a quiet life. She doesn’t like conflict or confrontation. Also she always thinks the best of people and is forgiving, whereas I can nit-pick and criticise like crazy
.
I need to see her to ask if she’s interested in the work-outs. There isn’t time now – Bruce will be due home and won’t welcome an unscheduled visitor – and Jenny is busy with her family at weekends.

She has two sons and a daughter. Victoria, the youngest, is on her gap year and is currently backpacking through Australia, but William and Patrick will be around. Although both work and neither lives at home any longer, at weekends they bring back their washing for ‘good old Mum’ to attend to, and expect her to cook them meals. Which she does. Full-scale meat or fish and two fresh veg meals, with a home-made dessert to follow. Jenny makes a wicked treacle tart, then spends the next few days eating up the left-overs and the double cream. Despite continually chastising herself.

I remember us as young wives together, in Sale, south of Manchester, where we first met, as neighbours. We used to push our pushchairs, talking nineteen to the dozen, and get whistled at by builders. I felt a pang. When was the last time I got whistled at? It was years ago. But wolf whistles are now politically incorrect. If women receive one, they’re supposed to suffer panic attacks, loss of confidence, then take the perpetrator to court. Personally, I’d love to be whistled at again. I’d even settle for a bloke with defective vision.

Though I do still get eyed up by the opposite sex. Men will give me the once-over and smile, or sometimes make a flattering comment. Regrettably, the men who do this tend to be of the short, rotund and bald variety. And over fifty.

I would speak to Jenny on Monday, but if she was in favour of the work-outs I would not, I decided, ask Steve Lingard for his permission to take time off. I could fabricate a reason to be out of the office at the required times and the work-outs may be short-lived. The trainer could turn out to be a no-no or we could soon get fed up. Exercise is notorious for being deadly boring.

All of a sudden, the tinny strains of Grand Valse sounded, sending me rooting in my shoulder bag for my mobile. Around me, the more elderly shoppers cast impatient glances.

‘Carol Webb here,’ I said, wondering if Steve could be phoning, either to send me off on some new assignment or check up on progress with the Kincaid obituary. But I did not need checking up on. I had been producing the journalistic goods for long enough and could be trusted.

‘It’s me.’

‘Hello, my love. How’s it going?’ Lynn, my daughter, was calling.

‘Badly.’ The word fell like a slab of lead.

‘Why? What’s happened? Is Beth alright?’ I demanded, suddenly worried my little granddaughter might be ill.

There was no reason why she should be, but, you know how it is, you always think the worst. As Lynn is my only child – my only living child – so Beth is my only grandchild, and both are precious. Beth is the reason I carry a supply of chocolate lollies, in case I should come across her and Lynn in the village, by chance.

‘She’s fine. It’s Justin. He rushed through dinner last night just so he could watch the stupid football on TV. Then he sat there for hours, swigging beer and shushing me if I dared say a word. And because the side he was supporting lost, he was in a foul mood afterwards. He stomped around –’

As I removed my goods from basket to conveyor belt, had them priced, packed them in a plastic bag and paid the bill, Lynn complained about her partner. She was still complaining as I returned to my car in the car park.

‘Men can be like that sometimes,’ I said, when she eventually paused for breath. ‘You just have to accept it and think how good Justin is with –’

‘You want me to be a doormat? Never. I’ve told him that that kind of behaviour isn’t on.’

‘Are you perfect?’ I enquired. ‘Don’t you do things which annoy him? Of course you do.’

‘I thought you’d be on my side,’ Lynn said, and the line went dead.

I put the mobile back into my bag. I hadn’t meant to hurt my daughter and I didn’t want to fall out. Should I call her back? No, I’d let her calm down, see sense and ring later.

Ring and discover the crisis was over and she had forgiven him.

CHAPTER
FIVE

Monday lunchtime, I went
to see Jenny. She also lives on one of Dursleigh’s gated estates. With grass verges planted with trees it is attractive, but because the plots are smaller it doesn’t possess quite the cachet of Thyme Park. Even so, soaring property prices mean houses there are rocketing in value. Bruce told me recently that their four-bedroom mock Tudor detached is worth more than twice what they paid for it seven years ago. And it was insanely Surrey expensive then.

‘So, thanks,’ he’d said, the pound signs virtually revolving in his eyes.

Jenny and Bruce came to Dursleigh due to me. When my marriage ended, I packed in my London job and moved back here. It was a comfort thing – even in my forties, I needed the unconditional, all-surrounding love of my mum and dad – but also a coward’s retreat. I couldn’t face the prospect of continuing to operate in the same journalistic circles as Tom, which would’ve meant hearing about him, if not actually seeing him. Divorce may have become commonplace, but I found it hard. I refused to mope when Lynn, who was away at university, was around, but alone in the house I used to sit with tears trickling down my face, hiding behind my hands. I wanted to kick things. Viciously. And howl in protest at the moon.
This was not supposed to happen to me.
Call me naïve, but I had believed that, like puppies, marriage was for life and not just for Christmas – or, in my case, not just for twenty-plus years.

Mind you, in public I acted upbeat and perfectly together. ‘It’s the way things go,’ I used to say, and give a philosophical shrug. Others could be the broken-winged victim wife, not me. I’m sure most of my associates believed I was a cool cookie who had taken everything in her stride. It was only my parents and close friends like Jenny who knew the truth.