Without a toilet, she’d wet herself, which was the worst thing you could do. Last night, she’d had to pee in the street, and an old man had stood and watched, although he hadn’t told her off. But she couldn’t pee in the street now, because she’d been indoors so long she had forgotten where the streets were. Then, just when she was bursting, she saw another door and dashed through it to another room, and found seven toilets, side by side. She raced into the first one, only stopping when she saw the seat, which was made of shiny, polished wood, like the table in the first room. You were forbidden to sit on seats like that, so she squatted over the top and managed not to splash it with even one small drop.
When she came out, she washed her hands, because germs were everywhere: on your skin, in toilets and even in your bed. There were six basins, with gold taps, so she washed her hands six times, because she liked using posh gold taps. There was also a pile of fluffy towels – small, like flannels, although very thick and soft. But she was careful to use only one, because Edna said you had to save on washing.
Then she went back to the first room and sat down on the sofa. There were still no other ladies. In fact, she hadn’t seen a single lady anywhere – not in the dining-room, or library, or in the big, grand hall. Perhaps ladies weren’t allowed in the club, and this room was just a place for storing sofas. Which meant nobody could find her and send her back to the library, or back to Sunnyhill.
She looked slowly round the room. If no one ever came here, she could stay as long as she liked. And she would have everything she needed: toilets to pee in; basins to wash in; flowers to smell; a comb to comb her hair, and four lamps, with frilly lampshades, so she could see to read the magazines. She wasn’t good at reading, but she liked looking at the pictures: photos of beautiful ladies and plates of fancy food. There wasn’t any real food, but it didn’t matter because she didn’t want to eat. She just wanted to be quiet.
She sat listening to the silence, which was thick and soft and comfy, like the towels. This was the quietest place in London, because the traffic and the sirens and the buses and the aeroplanes had all been moved away to another far-off country, like the ones the man had talked about. Which meant she could sleep each night on the sofa and wouldn’t be disturbed. She’d have a cushion for her pillow, and hangers for her clothes, so she could take them off before lying down and stop them getting creased.
She was even safe from the man, because men weren’t allowed in ladies’ rooms. But, if she was very lucky, her mother would come, instead. Miss Batsby said she lived in London, so she couldn’t be that far away. London was a big place, yet the two of them might find each other, because her mother would keep on looking. Mothers always did.
In fact, if she waited long enough, it was bound to happen – one day. And she would start the waiting now, then the time would go much quicker. So she closed her eyes and sat very good and still, like Miss Batsby always told them. And, after quite a short while, she saw her mother, behind her lids, blurred and faint, but real. She was just coming through the door, wearing a white dress, like an angel, and walking right towards her. And she sat down on the sofa – kind and sweet and smiling – and whispered very softly, ‘Josephine, I love you. And, I promise, this time, I shan’t ever let you go.’
BAGGAGE
‘This is completely ridiculous!’ she said out loud, to no one.
Would any sane person pack so much for a mere seven days in Cannes? Some women took clothes by the ton-weight, of course, but clothes were different – normal rather than shameful. If anyone saw what she was packing, they would label her either a raging hypochondriac or a chronic invalid.
OK, she’d unpack, starting with the herbal medicines. The bottles were too bulky and, anyway, the evil blackish mixture might spill all over the case. She removed them with a sense of triumph – lamentably short-lived: in less than twenty seconds, they were back. How could she control her hot flushes without that vital concoction of black cohosh and agnus castus, made up by her herbalist?
Damn the menopause, she thought, slumping onto the bed. It seemed to have turned her from a reasonably normal female to a mass of aches and pains, chills and sweats, moodiness and misery. Which is why she had packed her Litepod, a so-called compact light-box that took up half the case. Surely a further sign of madness to be lugging such an object to a Mediterranean country bathed in natural sunlight for fourteen hours each day. Although not, unfortunately, at 3 a.m., when the night-sweats usually woke her and she would switch on the consoling machine, to counteract the gloom. But surely she could manage for a week without it; soak up the sun all day, instead.
Her hand hovered over the case. Should it go or should it stay? Her former decisiveness had disappeared, along with her sense of humour and her once valuable ability to sleep through an alarm clock. And there were weightier decisions than the transportation of Litepods. Should she resign from her job, for instance, and strike out in a new direction, or settle for the old, safe routine and endure the tedium? Even more important, should she remain on her own in her neat but lonely flat, or move in with Richard and put up with his distinctly sluttish habits, in return for company? Admittedly, her libido was at an all-time low, but that didn’t appear to bother him. Sex for Richard had always been low-key: more sluggish push-bike than high-speed Porsche.
Not that it was sensible to dwell either on the office, or on Richard’s sexual deficiencies, until she had finished packing. Or should that be unpacking? Did she really need a travel-iron and a set of travel-scales? Her gut instinct answered ‘yes’. Creased clothes were hardly likely to attract a Richard-substitute and, since she’d hit the ‘change’, the pounds were piling on alarmingly. If she gorged in Cannes on cassoulets and croissants, brioches and bouillabaisse, she would return a good stone heavier, unless she kept a strict check on her weight.
Nor could she ditch the laxatives, as she had proved in Greece, last year. Any departure from her usual breakfast of All-Bran and stewed prunes resulted in a major stoppage. Perhaps the Eliminease could go, though, in favour of the Sennakot and Regulan? No. The stress of being away always seemed to necessitate a three-pronged remedy.
‘Look, why not ditch the holiday instead?’ she muttered, irritably. Not a bad idea, in fact. It would save both hassle and expense, and she would be freed from the chore of returning home to a pile of post, a tide of unanswered emails and a laundry-basket full of dirty clothes.
A little late for that, though. She had already paid in full, including travel insurance and airport-tax, and had even booked the taxi to Heathrow. Besides, what would Lesley have to say if she turned up for work tomorrow, having spent half of yesterday briefing the infuriating woman on how to deal with any problems in her absence?
‘So Cannes, here I come!’ she said, with determined cheerfulness, suddenly wondering whether Richard might break off the relationship if he realized quite how often she was talking to herself. If she did decide to move in with him, perhaps she could talk to his cat, instead – at least when he was out. Yet there was something about Tabitha’s lofty disregard for any merely human problems that made the snooty feline decidedly unsuitable as confidante.
Having tucked the jar of Eliminease into a corner of the case, she tried to find room for the large box of Regulan. The main problem with a holiday was that you took yourself along – that self with all the ailments. Couldn’t the Thomson Company introduce an innovative type of trip, in which, instead of going somewhere new and different, you became someone new and different – in her case, a radiantly healthy self, who could eat – and do – anything she liked.
‘Concentrate!’ she urged, returning to the task in hand. One thing she didn’t need was her Dreamsack – the lightweight, pure silk sleeping-bag that allowed fastidious travellers to bypass hotel sheets and included a built-in pocket for the pillow, thus germ-proofing its occupant, head to toe. She always took it with her now, after her disastrous experience with bed-bugs, in Provence.
That was years ago,
she reminded herself, and, anyway, she’d been staying in a small, antiquated guesthouse, where the very concept of hygiene was considered a modernity too far. A four-star hotel in Cannes was hardly likely to be bug-infested. She yanked the Dreamsack out, only to return it, as she recalled a recent report about even top-notch hotels re-using dirty sheets, to save on laundry costs. Suppose a guest with psoriasis had slept in those same sheets, or – worse – somebody with AIDS?
But, if the Dreamsack stayed, then the neck-pillow and back-support must go. Admittedly, her Back-Friend could transform a standard hotel-bedroom chair into something markedly kinder to her arthritis. Yet, if she wasn’t careful, it would become her only friend. Why should anyone want an ailing, aching, constipated, indecisive, overweight depressive as their first-choice bosom pal?
Nonetheless, in another twenty seconds, both items were back in the suitcase. Pointless to spend her precious holiday in pain – although, all things considered, it might be better to change her destination and go to Dignitas, instead of Cannes. She was already past her sell-by date, so why not bow out gracefully at the age of forty-nine, rather than linger on for another three increasingly decrepit decades? Not that she could count on making it to seventy-nine, since both her parents had died in their early sixties, having suffered countless disorders throughout their unhappy lives. In fact, she could blame her mother for some of her own ailments, including the clearly genetic milk-allergy. If either of them imbibed a drop of cow’s milk, by mistake, they would manifest exactly the same symptoms: itchy rashes, vomiting and stomach-cramps, and spectacular attacks of sneezing, snorting and wheezing. And her father, for his part, had bequeathed to her his early-onset arthritis, his migraines and his eczema. Indeed, considering their deleterious genetic legacy, perhaps they should have decided not to procreate.
Which reminded her – had she remembered to pack her Ibuprofen, her Migraleve and the new herbal ointment for eczema? On her way to fetch the latter from the bathroom, she paused to look at her parents’ photo on the bureau. Both of them were smiling – a rare occurrence in reality. Although, to give them credit, at least they had stopped at one child. The fact she’d been born with jaundice and had suffered childhood eczema (her constant itching and scratching keeping them up most nights), had probably dulled their desire for any further offspring. She personally would have welcomed a sibling, so that the pair of them could have scratched and wheezed together, in mutual sympathy.
Returning to the bedroom, she sat contemplating the large, bulky carton of powdered soya milk, already sitting in the case. It would be even harder in France than at home to keep off milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, ice-cream. No Camembert or Brie, no vichyssoise or quiche Lorraine, no luscious creamy gateaux. Just as well she hadn’t had any children of her own and passed on, once again, those distinctly dodgy genes. Not that she had avoided giving birth from any such noble motive, but because she had never met a man who wanted to start a family – and now it was too late.
‘Cut out the self-pity!’ she snapped, wishing she possessed a cat, so at least there would be the occasional answering mew. Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she should be counting her blessings: her well-paid job and comfortable flat, her circle of good friends – not to mention Richard, of course. OK, he might not be her ideal choice as partner, but if she disregarded his habit of peeing in the watering-can because he was too lazy to walk the few yards to the lavatory, they could probably reach some sort of compromise. She had to recognize the fact that relationships, for her, were very much a matter of balancing inadequacies: her allergies, depression, migraines and insomnia, set against Richard’s untidiness and squalor, coupled with his own particular health problems. In short, each of them was forced to accept the other, because no one else was ever likely to do so.
Suddenly, decisively, she sprang to her feet, opened the case and threw in all the remaining clutter on the bed: the acupuncture-bands for headaches along with the Migralene and Ibuprofen, even the travel-kettle and its multi-voltage adaptor. French hotels rarely provided a kettle in one’s room, but, with her handy little Easy-Boil, she could make hot drinks, even in the early hours. It didn’t actually matter what she took or didn’t take. She had booked a single room, so no one would see the kettle – or, indeed, the whole embarrassing cache of life-supports and health-aids.
Having closed the case with a bang, she strode into the kitchen to celebrate the miraculous fact that the packing was finished, at last. Booze aggravated hot flushes, but at least she could toast herself in a cup of innocuous tea – made with soya milk, of course.
‘I’m sorry, Gillian, but the airline appears to have lost your case.’
She stared in horror at the Thompson rep: a big, strapping guy, bursting with youth and health and sporting a name-tag that declared, ‘I’M SCOTT. I’M HERE TO HELP.’
And help he was valiantly offering – solicitous concern etched across his well-tanned face.
‘Don’t worry – we’ll sort it out. You just need to fill in a form, describing the case and its contents. So if you could come with me to the Baggage Dispute desk….’
The very word ‘dispute’ made her spirits plummet further still. Would there be arguments, unpleasantness, even a suspicion that she had failed to check in her luggage in the first place? She was already tired and tense, due partly to the flight’s three-hour delay, and partly to the less-than-sparkling company of her fellow-travellers: a motley crew of mostly over-sixties, all booked into the same hotel, on the self-same package tour. Admittedly, Dora’s moans about sub-standard airline catering and Trevor’s rambling reminiscences about growing up in the War now faded into total insignificance compared with the trauma of being parted from her case. Scott’s cheery smile was proof enough that he didn’t – couldn’t – comprehend how vulnerable she felt. And it wasn’t just a matter of being prey to a myriad ailments without her drugs and prophylactics. Only now did she realize that those very things had become a sort of security-blanket and, deprived of its sheltering cocoon, she seemed fatally adrift.
Wretchedly, she followed Scott to the desk. The stylish female behind it looked every bit as hard as her varnished nails and stiffly lacquered hair – a female unlikely to waste sympathy on some neurotic traveller. Thank God for Scott, who was taking charge; even switching from English to impressively fluent French. In her present disorientated state, she could barely utter a word in either tongue, and merely stood dumbly, looking on.
Eventually, the woman passed a form across the desk, which Scott explained in simple words, as if addressing a retarded child – not far off the mark, in fact.
‘Right, Gillian, see these pictures of cases? You just tick the one that most resembles yours. Then describe the make and colour in this column on the left. D’you understand?’
She nodded, still appalled by her own mental state. How could the loss of a mere suitcase induce such choking panic?
‘Add any distinguishing features, like a special strap or luggage labels. Then list the contents in this large space here. Are you with me, Gillian?’
She was ‘with him’ in the sense of being one of his party, but he might have been a different species for all he was able to fathom the depth of her distress.
‘OK, if you’d like to make a start….’
Nervously, she picked up the pen. Describing make and colour was easy enough, but the contents posed a problem. That supercilious female, waiting impatiently for the completed form, might raise her well-groomed eyebrows in derision once she saw the sorry list. Of course, many ailments were comic – so long as they were someone else’s affliction. The menopause was hilarious; food-fads a total hoot.
The pen wavered to a halt. It might actually be feasible to catch the next flight back. Once safely home, she could order more herbal medicines; she wouldn’t need the laxatives, and even the lost Back-Friend would be no inconvenience, since she would have her special orthopaedic chair.
Yet, one part of her was shamefully aware that she
was overreacting to a ridiculous degree. Her case would probably turn up tomorrow and, if she couldn’t cope without it for just a single night, then she was in need of professional help.
Watched by kindly Scott, she listed a heavily censored version of the contents and handed over the form.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, soothingly. ‘I can lend you a comb and a toothbrush and a nice long t-shirt, to sleep in. I always carry a few spares, in case of emergencies like this.’
A comb, a toothbrush and something to sleep in were probably all most normal people needed overnight. For her they were so achingly inadequate, she all but howled aloud. Of course, if it was a matter of necessity, she could put up with sweats and flushes, migraines, back-pain, sluggish bowels and all the tedious rest of it. But what Scott had signally failed to grasp was that, without her crucial safety-nets, it was if she had lost her very skin and was now exposed to every savage wind.
‘Right, that’s all sorted,’ Scott declared, giving her a thumbs-up sign.
If only, she thought, still disgusted by the way she was getting things so absurdly out of proportion. With soldiers dying in Afghanistan and children starving in Ethiopia, how could she possibly make such a ludicrous palaver about the loss of a few paltry items?
As Scott ushered her back to the group, all standing smugly by their un-lost, unscathed cases, she made a supreme effort to control herself; even forcing a nonchalant smile. Yet she knew deep down that the next seven days would be pretty much disastrous.
‘Isn’t this a fabulous beach?’ Fiona remarked, leaning back on her recliner, with a sigh of satisfaction.
Gillian nodded in agreement, still surprised by the fact that the place actually resembled the pictures in the brochures, rather than being a pale approximation. Shading her eyes, she gazed out at the far horizon. Both sky and sea were so emphatically blue, one merged into the other; the only difference between them the latter’s shimmer and sparkle, as if it were made of ground-up sapphires. And the beach itself more than surpassed her expectations; not a speck of litter in sight, and the sand so fine and smooth it might have been primped and preened in the local beauty-salon. This particular stretch was owned privately by their hotel, and was dotted with colour-matched recliners and umbrellas, all in stylish olive-green and bearing the hotel crest. She herself had spurned a recliner, preferring to stretch her limbs luxuriously on that well-groomed, sun-warmed sand. The traffic on the boulevard had faded to a lazy drone and she was aware only of holiday sounds: the slap of a speedboat as it skimmed across the waves; the enticing clink of glasses from the hotel’s own beach-café, a few yards up the strand. And foodie smells were wafting in the air: sizzling butter, garlicky fish-soup….
I'm on the train! Page 4