Vintage Babes (4 page)

If she had a spare moment and, I suspected, whenever she was left in the office alone, Melanie scanned what seemed to be a never-ending scroll of lonely hearts ‘males eager to contact females’. When I had asked why a girl in her twenties should need to forage for dates in such a way, I had been informed that ‘everyone does it’. I’d also been informed that there are specialist sites catering for vegans, poets and herpes carriers. Wow!

Courtesy of the Net, Melanie had even gone speed-dating where, in the course of one evening and after sipping a free cocktail, the organisers had introduced her to eighteen members of the opposite sex and allotted her three minutes to talk to each. So much for romance! Whatever happened to old-fashioned courting?

Melanie had subsequently met up with two of the men and afterwards given me a detailed – too detailed – account of what had happened. While not wanting to go all the way on a first date and be viewed as ‘easy’, she had agreed to blow jobs. Crikey! In my youth, a lad would’ve considered himself fortunate if a girl had held his hand. Melananie had not, however, felt inclined to see either of the guys again. And vice versa.

‘I am a well-mannered, healthy and intelligent businessman, looking for an older solvent lady who –’

‘No!’

Melanie popped a Smint in her mouth. She sucks them continuously. ‘Wouldn’t you like to team up with a guy? There’s a lot on offer for the silver surfer market.’

I stiffened. ‘I am not a silver surfer.’

‘You are nearly.’

I disagreed. To my reckoning, you don’t rate as a silver surfer until you clock at least sixty, and more like sixty-five. I was a long way off that. A mere chick. A funky chick, too. But I wasn’t prepared to argue the point. Not with someone who regards thirty as ‘past it’.

‘What I wouldn’t like,’ I said, ‘is to fix to meet a guy over the Net and find myself lumbered with a well-mannered, healthy and intelligent serial killer. Or rapist.’

Melanie rolled her eyes skywards. ‘That is so last millennium. On-line dating is just window shopping. You chat for two or three weeks, then arrange a get-together in a public place. If you’re sensible, it’s perfectly safe. How about this one? JLFAS. Just looking for adulterous sex.’

I shuddered. I’m not saying my moral compass is superior to anyone else’s, but I would never sleep with a married man.

‘Spare me.’

CHAPTER
THREE

The small flat was
as glossy and immaculate as one of those show flats you see in colour supplement advertisements. All the polishable furniture gleamed, the carpets had been recently vacuumed and a vase of cerise carnations, which hadn’t been there on my previous visit, stood on the coffee table. Everything which could be tidied away had been tidied away and the air hung with an aerosolled fragrance which, if inhaled sharply, promised to purge the sinuses.

‘Nora’s doing a good job,’ I remarked, as I made the usual pot of Earl Grey. ‘You wouldn’t like to send her round to me?’

‘Nora?’

Poking my head out of the tiny kitchen, I spoke to my father who was sitting on the sofa. Sat between plumped-up and neatly arranged cushions. ‘Isn’t she the lady who’s doing your cleaning?’

‘She was until last week, but now Em’s taken over. Dab hand, she is. And Dilys is a dab hand in the food department. She’s started making me my dinner. Seven p.m. prompt, it’s on the table. And there’s always a pudding.’

‘I thought you preferred to get your own meals,’ I protested. ‘You said it wasn’t any bother.’

‘It isn’t and I’m still seeing to my lunch, but Dilys was… persuasive.’

I raised my brows. Whenever a man was widowed or a lone man moved into the Bridgemont Retirement flats there was, so Gillian, the chatty house manager, had told me, fierce competition amongst the solo women to grab him.

‘Forget feminism. They go crazy, offering to cook and clean and iron,’ she had said, ‘until one of them wins through. Then the winner is so damn smug, it’s like she’s landed Brad Pitt. Not some doddery old soul with National Health dentures.’

Within a few weeks of my mother’s demise around eighteen months ago, my father had had volunteers dealing with his vacuuming and his laundry. He had, however, insisted on tackling the catering side himself – until now.

I poured out cups of tea and carried them into the living room. ‘You gave Nora her marching orders?’ I asked, handing him a cup.

‘Yes, though I did it kindly. She was peeved, but Em was so eager I felt I had to give her a chance.’

‘You’re happy with her?’

‘For now. And I’m happy with Dilys doing my evening meals, for now. And with Peggy who is my ballroom dancing partner.’

I saw a sparkle in his eye. ‘You old devil,’ I said, ‘you’re just stringing them along.’

He chuckled. ‘I’m footloose and fancy-free, so why not?’

Sitting down, I tasted my tea. My mother, Muriel, had been scathing about the feminine interest which lone males inspired and had roundly condemned the women who had attempted to befriend them, calling them ‘fast’ and ‘hussies’. If she knew that her ‘darling George’ was benefiting from their attentions and relishing every minute, she would be furious.

‘You’re early today,’ my father said.

‘I have an appointment later.’

After eating a quick sandwich in the office, I had driven over to see him. I did this twice a week. Eric had known of my visits and not minded, but if Steve Lingard knew would he be as accommodating? Not a chance; even though I only stayed for around thirty minutes and made a point of working half an hour extra to compensate.

‘I see. Still it’s just as well because I need to get showered and changed soon, ready for Winnie’s bunfight.’

‘Winnie is the one who’s turning ninety?’

‘That’s right. She’s having port for the gents and cream sherry for the ladies, plus sausage rolls, quiche slices and meringues. Not fussed about meringues myself, too crumbly. Gillian’s decorating the lounge.’

I nodded. ‘I saw the balloons when I came in.’

The residents’ lounge was the scene of a multitude of events; including birthday parties, beetle drives and seminars on inheritance tax avoidance, run by a local accountant gunning for business. My father had religiously attended the latter. As a retired surveyor he may not possess millions, but he’s keen on looking after what money he has. Keen as in he never uses a first class stamp.

The lounge was also the venue for send-offs. The only way anyone ever quit the Bridgemont flats was in their box, usually followed by a ‘bites and drinkies’ send-off organised by Gillian. They were a high spot and patronised by most of the residents. Some came out of sheer relief that they were still alive and vertical, others for the free drink, but many from affection for the deceased. My dear old mum had had a wonderfully warm send-off. The memory of it still touches me.

‘Didn’t realise you could buy them with ninety printed on, did you?’ my dad said. ‘The woman at the party shop told Gillian they make them for a hundred, too, though you need to order those.’ Putting down his tea, he reached for a garment which was folded up at one end of the sofa and had obviously been placed there ready to show me. ‘What do you think about this?’

The waistcoat he held up was silky, with vertical red and white stripes and a red satin pocket containing an extravagant white satin handkerchief. It had bookmaker’s clerk written all over it. I grinned. For someone who, for years, had worn a dark brown knitted beneath his jacket, it seemed extreme.

‘Wow! You got it from Jenny’s shop?’

Jenny helps as a part-time assistant at a charity shop in the village and my father, who possesses a beady eye for value, often goes in there. He buys second-hand paperbacks and – to Jenny’s amusement and my shame – will haggle if there’s a tear in the cover or the pages are curled. Knocking the one pound price down to half delights him.

‘No, I did not,’ he said huffily. ‘It’s brand new and it cost a pretty penny. Dilys insisted on buying it for me.’

‘This is the same Dilys who’s doing your cooking?’ There seemed to be so many women floating around, I thought I had better check.

‘That’s right. Dilys Langsdon. We got the waistcoat in Oxford Street. Went up on the train.’

‘But you don’t like shopping in London. For years you’ve said it’s too busy, much too much of a hassle.’

‘No, no, pet, that was your mother.’

‘Is it wise to be accepting gifts from strange women?’ I asked.

My mother would have strongly disapproved and I wasn’t too keen on the idea myself. He was my dad, I thought protectively, and I resented outsiders smarming up to him.

‘Dilys isn’t strange and, besides, I gave her a gift, too.’ The waistcoat was being carefully refolded. ‘I bought her a nightie.’

This seemed an overly personal offering, but then I remembered the long-sleeved, high-necked tents which my mum had worn. Perhaps Dilys suffered from the cold, too.

‘Wincyette?’

‘Black chiffon with shoestring straps and a slit up the side. She looks good in it.’

I almost choked on my tea. To purchase black chiffon seemed bravura enough and uncharacteristically extravagant, but what was my seventy-eight-year-old father saying – that the woman had given him a fashion show? That they were going to bed together? It had to be a joke… didn’t it? I wanted to ask, but we’ve never talked about sex – men of his generation don’t discuss such things with their daughters – and I felt awkward now.

‘You seem to like this Dilys,’ I began cautiously.

There was no reason for him to joke nor, I supposed, any reason why they shouldn’t be making mad, passionate love morning, noon and night. So long as you are capable and feel the urge, why should age be a veto? Yet the thought of an elderly parent ‘at it’ was… uncomfortable.

‘She’s good fun. Wicked sense of humour, a snappy dresser and game for anything. Lives on the third floor, has one of the larger balconies. She’s recently had the place painted and decorated throughout. She –’

‘Which is what you should do here,’ I interrupted.

For at least a year before she died, my mother had been eager to have their flat freshly painted, but my father had insisted there was no urgency. In other words, he could not bring himself to spend the money.

‘I’ll get round to it, in due course. Dilys has a son, William, who’s same as you,’ he continued. ‘Divorced and at a loose end.’

I gritted my teeth. Maybe I should procure a blow-up Bertie and drive with him past the retirement flats at night. Whatever time I arrived, the twitch of at least one curtain indicated a perpetual look-out and a glimpse of me plus male passenger would provoke gossip which would be certain to reach my father. Gillian refers to the residents of the thirty-six flats as ‘one big family’ and they are, in so much as everyone is zealously interested in everyone else – their state of health, financial situation, the activities of their offspring. And if the news contains a whiff of scandal, so much the better. Bridgemont residents are also united in their hatred of noise after eleven p.m. and dogs which wander in off the road and relieve themselves in the landscaped gardens.

‘I am not at a loose end,’ I protested, but he wasn’t listening.

‘Which reminds me, I won’t be with you on Sunday. I’m taking Dilys out for a pub lunch. And although it’s kind of you to call round twice a week, pet, I realise it must be a nuisance and from now on once a week will be sufficient.’

I felt a spurt of anger. My mother’s death had left my dad lost and forlorn, and, initially, I had made a point of visiting every day – to try to cheer him, to see if he needed any washing or shopping done, to let him know he wasn’t alone. Again Eric had been aware of my visits and had not minded. I had also suggested my father should come and stay with me at my house for a while, but he had refused. To my secret relief, for he expects to be waited on hand and foot, turns the television sound up high and then talks over it. But I had visited out of love and willingly, though I had always come round often. As their only child who lived near – my brother has been up in Scotland for years – my parents’ welfare as they had grown older had seemed like my responsibility.