Vintage Babes (7 page)

Tina smiled into his eyes. ‘I will,’ she assured him. ‘I will.’

Beryl scowled, then gestured towards two boys, aged around eight and ten, who were making their way along the buffet table, picking up a vol-au-vent, sniffing it and putting it down, then picking up another. The words ‘poo’, ‘gross’ and ‘fart’ could be heard.

‘At least you have your grandchildren to cheer you up,’ she said.

‘
Step
grandchildren,’ Tina corrected, as if horrified by the thought of being mistaken for a grandmother.

I don’t know why. For me, being a gran is one of the best things in my life and, if it’s the age stamp which offends, you can be a grandmother when you’re in your thirties. Of course, my granddaughter, Beth, is a little gem with good manners, whereas the boys looked thuggish, spawn of the devil types, and were in drastic need of discipline, which could be why Tina had rejected the connection.

‘Managing on your own won’t be easy,’ Beryl continued. ‘At your age.’

Tina’s lips thinned. ‘I’ll survive.’

All of a sudden, heads swivelled, there was a whispering and a flurry of attention. A tall, well-dressed man had entered the room and was cutting an energetic path through the mourners, heading for the widow. I stared, blinked, did a double-take. It was Joe Fernandez, the household-name comedian. What was he doing here?

Joe Fernandez has had his own television show, off and on, for years, and, in his sixties, continues to be popular. He has an easy humour, can tap dance a little, play the piano, sing a little, and is a clever mimic. An all-round entertainer of the old school who has secured his place in the nation’s affections. Seen in the flesh, he had aged well. He was still slim, with a thatch of dark hair, which must be dyed, but didn’t look dyed, a perma-tan and a winning smile. Still the Latino heart-throb for women of a certain age. Not me. I’ve always found him too suave, too smooth, a little slippery.

When Tina saw him, she gave a squeal of delight. ‘Joe!’ she cried.

Then I remembered. Joe Fernandez had been the compère on the Seventies game show where Tina had acted as hostess. How kind, I thought, that after all those years, a big name and busy man like him would take the trouble to come here today and give her his support. A moment later, my cynical side kicked in. Perhaps it was a public relations exercise to show how caring slippery Joe really was. Perhaps the next person to enter the room would be a press photographer, trailed by a TV crew.

‘Got delayed, so I couldn’t make it to the church,’ he said, as he reached his target. ‘But I was determined to be with my favourite girl at her time of need.’

Wrapping her arms around him and lifting one high-heeled foot in a decidedly theatrical pose, Tina hugged him close. ‘Thanks, Joe, thanks.’

Watching them, I was struck by their glamour and how they were both in such good shape. As if they worked out daily. That jogged my memory. Cripes, the health club presentation. It was the first job Steve Lingard had allotted me and I hadn’t even showed up.

‘All our equipment – bikes, treadmills, rowers – is linked to a computerised training programme that stores individual work-outs and recalls performance details. These can be accessed from anyplace in the world, which is a big bonus for those of our clients who travel.’

I had slunk into the pale wood lobby with its cantilevered glass roof to discover a small group massed and listening intently to the manageress of the health club who was in full flow. A swarthy well-built guy in a glued-on T-shirt and short shorts had emerged from behind a curved counter to hand me a glass.

‘Thanks,’ I’d whispered.

This time it was carrot juice. Ugh.

‘We have three exercise studios, including one for t’ai chi, another dedicated to capoeira, a speciality, and the third for holistic classes such as Pilates. There’s a sauna and steam room, a flotation tank, hot stone therapy –’

‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘What’s capoeira?’

The manageress, a young blonde with a choppy bob, all mousse and highlights, flung an impatient look. She hadn’t been pleased when I’d tiptoed in late, pink-faced from hurrying and hoping there wasn’t the whiff of alcohol on my breath, and she was not pleased to be interrupted now.

‘Capoeira –’ She condescendingly spelled the word, which was just as well because I hadn’t a clue. ‘– is the Brazilian martial art and dance form. Our practitioner comes from Brazil.’ She smiled at Big Boy Testosterone who had provided the carrot juice. ‘We’re authentic here.’

‘Is capoeira popular?’ I asked. ‘Do many people do it?’

Her smile narrowed. ‘We’re still establishing the nature of the requirement.’

As she rattled on; about how the health club would be taking the fitness-on-delivery concept to a new level, about them running classes for several different versions of yoga, about the café bar which would serve organic salads, I took notes. There was no real need – the glossy brochure provided adequate information – but note-taking not only made
me
look authentic, it would also prove to my new boss, should proof be needed, that I was trying hard. Though the thought of needing to prove anything to him rankled.

‘If they wish to remain fit and healthy, exercise is essential for those in their later years,’ the manageress announced, and I realised she was spearing her words in my direction.

Why? Could she have spotted my chin hairs? The smug cow. But her turn would come. No, it was because a quick glance around showed that I was the oldest person in the lobby. The rest were women in their thirties or early forties, at most, with a smattering of young men; presumably all dedicated to the naked narcissism of ‘making it burn’.

But I am fit and healthy, and slim. I’ve always been slim. I can eat KitKats, crisps, toffee cheesecake, all the high cal stuff, yet never put on weight. Which irritates the hell out of Jenny. She says I’m so lucky and I suppose I am in that I must be blessed with the right genes – all my family tend to be slim. But nerves play a part, too. If I start to worry my appetite goes and I can worry about most anything: dictatorial editors, my father revealing a raffish side, the wellbeing of squirrels. When I divorced, the weight fell off and I became positively skeletal.

‘People can lose more than a pound of muscle a year as they age, unless they exercise. That’s regular exercise, under tuition,’ the manageress added. ‘Develop a keep-fit regime and, as the years progress, you’ll be firmer and trimmer. You’ll benefit.’

She had a point. Even though I am slim, of late I’ve noticed a tendency towards flab in the form of a blancmange belly and – horror of horrors – the dreaded kimono arms. My mother had them, though her term was ‘bat wings’, so it must be a family failing.

‘Any questions?’ the manageress enquired, reaching the end of her spiel.

A young woman asked about a crèche for kids. Yes, there was one, which allowed mothers to enjoy quality time unencumbered, though you needed to book in advance. Another queried the views of the instructors on deep stretching, breathing technique and muscle balance. Both question and answer were delivered in solemn quasi-holy tones and sounded like double-Dutch.

‘How much is it to join the club?’ I asked, thinking that maybe I should enrol.

Garth House is less than ten minutes from home and surely Steve Lingard wouldn’t mind if I took an hour off twice a week? Not if I told him of all the unpaid overtime I’ve worked over the years, and still do. On second thoughts, he may well kick up.
Would
kick up. In which case I could come in the evenings, then treat myself to a plate of rabbit food for dinner.

‘There’s an initial joining fee of one thousand pounds, then the membership fee is two thousand pounds a year.’

What! Mercifully I didn’t shriek my horror out loud. I may only have myself to support and be comfortable, but there was no way I could justify spending forty pounds a week on knees bend, arms stretch, ra-ra-ra. Yet, by now, embarking on some form of exercise was beginning to seem essential.

‘And,’ the manageress added, as though this could swing it, ‘those who enrol within the next ten days will receive a free Feng Shui C.D.’

Big deal.

Five minutes later when I left the hotel, I was happy to note I felt absolutely no desire to micturate.

I travelled the same route back to the office. The road was clear. The squirrel had gone. Could it have picked itself up, dusted itself down and scampered blissfully off into the bushes? Or, the nightmare scenario, had that Tesco lorry appeared, the still-woozy squirrel becoming stuck to a tyre, meeting a torturous death revolving endlessly round and round?

CHAPTER
FOUR

‘We should do an
obituary on Duncan Kincaid,’ Steve Lingard decreed. ‘Alias Lord High and Mighty. Alias self-styled royalty. Alias pompous old git.’

‘You knew him?’ I asked.

‘Several years ago, he put money into an art gallery in Ringley and hosted a grand opening where he lengthily pontificated, the champagne flowed and to which I was invited. We did a piece about it in
The Bugle
and he came in afterwards to thank me. And to tell me what a splendid chap he was and how his beautiful, much younger, wife – who adored him and couldn’t leave him alone in bed – had been unable to attend the opening because she was at a health farm. ‘Being made even more beautiful.’ The art gallery didn’t last long. It’s one of those tanning studios now.’

‘Duncan did have his good points,’ I defended him, recalling how he had bragged of Tina ‘never leaving him alone’ to me, too. ‘For years he was chairman of the fête committee –’

‘This is Dursleigh’s annual summer fête?’

‘Right – and he worked hard to make it a success. He was also a master at distributing largesse. Gave generously to all kinds of groups, all kinds of people.’

‘I believe he used to flash around wads of notes?’

‘He did, which I thought was asking for trouble.’

‘Perhaps you’d go along and speak to his widow?’

It was Friday afternoon, three days later, and the editor had summoned me into his office. I hadn’t told him about gate-crashing the wake and swigging buckshee wine. Dingbat was not about to confess to faults to him. However, sod’s law said that, sooner or later, someone would be sure to reveal my presence and then I’d need to come up with a snappy explanation. Like I’d been shadowing Councillor Vetch?

‘You want me to write the obit?’ I said.

It must have been because I was in his office, and the association of place with activity, but I was desperate for a smoke. In dire need. I looked around, hoping that a new, small ashtray might have been provided as a courtesy for visitors, but in vain. The office, which had previously been a cluttered mess, was tidier. The wobbly stacks of files had gone from the floor, the books which Eric had left lying around ‘for easy reference’ were back on the shelves, the desk top was orderly. ‘Em of Bridgemont’ perfection may not yet have been attained, but it was within striking distance.

The new editor was also far tidier in his personal appearance than the old. Eric had frequently sported food stains down the front of his open-necked shirt and had worn ancient corduroys which were thin at the knees, whereas his replacement arrived each morning in a clean shirt, tie and well-pressed trousers.

Steve Lingard nodded. ‘The OAP brigade love them. We’re short of space and I’d like to include a photo of Kincaid, so no more than four hundred.’

‘You wouldn’t prefer to send Melanie?’

It wasn’t that I objected to doing an obituary – Duncan Kincaid had been a leading light – my objection was to being given instructions, down to the number of words.

‘No thanks. She may have a B.A. in Medieval Literature and 38D boobs –’

I gave a silent groan. ‘That right?’