They were finishing off their second coffees when a tall youth with long hair, baby-fluff stubble and a denim jacket walked past the table on his way out. It stirred a memory for Jo, who asked, ‘Wonder what happened to Danny Belfont.’
Vicky gave her a look of horror. ‘Don’t you dare mention his name.’
‘Haven’t you ever been tempted to look him up on the internet, Lara?’ asked Pip. ‘I’ve wondered a few times over the years if he ever became the big rock star that he wanted to be.’
‘He was a brilliant guitarist, I have to say,’ added Jo.
Of course, Lara had looked him up a few times over the years, but should she admit it? She’d never found a mention of him on Google.
‘Once or twice.’ Lara decided she would admit it. She didn’t like lying to her friends. ‘No trace. He might have changed his name.’
‘What to? Brian May?’ said Vicky with a sarcastic tut.
‘There aren’t many people who don’t show up on the internet at all are there?’ Jo said. ‘That really is the opposite of fame.’
‘So we can safely assume he didn’t become a household name in the music world,’ said Vicky. ‘Then again, without you, Lara, it was hardly likely he would.’
‘Without me?’ Lara laughed. ‘What do you mean, without me?’
‘Look, let’s face it, Lara. He might have had the talent, but he had no drive at all.’
‘This trip down memory lane is all well and good, ladies, but we do have a date with Anne Frank and her house. Can we please talk about this later?’ cut in Pip, calling over the waiter so they could pay him.
‘It’s quicker to walk, and then from there we’ll catch the hop-on hop-off bus to the Van Gogh Museum,’ advised Vicky as they left the Happy Pancake. ‘Come on, we’ll burn off our pancakes with a stiff stroll.’
‘I think I like Amsterdam very much,’ said Jo as they followed Vicky through the sunny streets. ‘I didn’t think there would be that much to do here. Couple of museums and loads of Edam cheese and not much else, but I was totally wrong. It’s amazing.’
There was a long queue of people waiting to go into the Anne Frank museum.
‘Thank goodness we booked ahead,’ said Jo.
‘Jed always books ahead,’ said Pip. ‘Queues bring out the worst in him. He can’t wait for anything.’
‘Imagine having to sit and wait two and a half years in this house for the war to be over then,’ said Lara. ‘It must have been terrible for them all. Terrible and scary.’
‘They waited all that time and the next year the war would be over. Whoever told the Germans where they were hiding was a proper rotten git,’ added Vicky.
They’d all studied Anne Frank’s Diary at school, and now they were standing in the actual place where it was written. The large building had been a working factory, so the eight hidden people had to stay deadly silent in the secret annex during the day.
The four hens marvelled at the bookcase that opened like a door and led to the annex. It separated not only two parts of the house, but two complete worlds, one living in a lot more fear than the other. Vicky had to borrow some tissues from Lara when they came to a cabinet with Anne Frank’s real red-checked diary in a glass case. She couldn’t stop tears leaking out of her eyes.
‘Poor girl,’ she said. ‘I’m going to read that book again with a totally different view now that I’ve been here and seen where it all happened.’
The living space was larger than they had imagined, but it couldn’t have been much fun staying there. They couldn’t open the windows or go outside ever, and young Anne had to share her bedroom with a middle-aged man. It must have been like living in a cage, because the annex was no better than a prison. When the four women left the museum and walked out onto the sunny Dutch streets, they were all in serious need of cheering up.
‘Makes you think that we should grab life by the balls and live it now, while we can, doesn’t it?’ said Jo, as they stood waiting for the hop-on hop-off bus to scoop them up and take them to the Van Gogh Museum.
Vicky’s fifteen-year-old daughter was the same age as Anne Frank was when she died. ‘I think when I get home, I’m going to keep Nia in her bedroom where she will always be safe,’ she said.
‘Then she might as well be Anne Frank,’ replied Pip. ‘You have to let her live and enjoy. And hope that she is sensible. You and Adonis have brought her up to be wise about taking stupid risks. We all had a good time and are still here to tell the tale, aren’t we?’
‘That’s what worries me,’ said Vicky. ‘Remember that week in Benidorm – jet-skis, motorbikes, riding big bananas on the sea? We were mad.’
Pip hooted with laughter. ‘Remember the waxwork museum?’
The others burst into laughter then too. That week had been fun, from the moment Jo’s dad dropped them off at the airport to the moment he picked them all up again.
‘Oh, the waxworks!’ said Lara, bending over with a fit of the giggles. ‘Wasn’t that the funniest place ever?’
‘The waxwork of the queen was taller than John Wayne, and looked as if she’d been pulled through a hedge backwards,’ added Vicky.
‘How many pina coladas had we drunk before we went in?’ asked Jo. ‘Everything inside that museum seemed so funny.’
‘Oh stop, my sides hurt,’ said Pip.
‘What do you mean, stop – it was you who brought it up. What about David Beckham?’ Vicky could hardly get her words out as the memory came rushing to her. ‘He looked as if he’d been hit in the face with a frying pan.’
The four of them were bent double as they remembered the flat-faced model of the footballer. The sight of the hop-on hop-off bus coming towards them brought them to their senses. They climbed on, wiping tears of laughter from their faces.
‘Next time I come here, I’m going to stay a couple of days and walk everywhere,’ said Lara.
‘You should come with Freddie,’ said Pip. ‘I came here with Jed before the kids arrived, and we had a lovely romantic weekend break. We sailed on the canals and had a stroll around the diamond factory and the red light district—’
‘Oh, very romantic,’ cut in Vicky, making a mental note to try and get some time off to come back here with Adonis. They were so overdue a break for two. Much as she loved her kids, time alone with her Greek hunk was time very well spent.