I stood in front of the mirror and tried not to cry. It wasn’t just because my swimwear seemed to have mysteriously shrunk or even that a scary anniversary was looming. It was the reality I was facing in the glass. These things creep up on you. One day you’re happily prancing about in your bikini and the next everything’s rather wobbly and best-covered-up. Suddenly you find yourself putting back the T-shirt with the sparkly bits and the risqué slogan, as you’re just a bit too old for that sort of thing…
‘You are fat and forty,’ I told my bare stomach. It quivered.
I should have been feeling great. John had brought me to the most beautiful part of Spain as a birthday treat. He’d really splashed out and I was doing my best to enjoy it. It was lovely. Our villa was gorgeous, cool tiled floors, patio doors opening onto the pool, bougainvillaea splashing colour down the white walls. We spent scented evenings sitting on our terrace, the air warm and soft, lunchtimes overlooking the harbour sipping chilled white wine in the hot sun. We’d left the kids at home. It was just the two of us. It should have been perfect but I had this horrible sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because builders didn’t whistle from building sites any more.
They were putting up new villas down the road. We had to walk past them to go to the beach, bar or shops. I didn’t give them a second glance until I went down there on my own one morning to get some bread. The girl walking ahead of me was in her twenties, long blonde hair swinging, denim-skirted hips swaying, acres of long golden leg. There was a chorus of approval from the scaffolding as she sauntered by. She tossed her head, threw up a hand in a disparaging and decidedly rude gesture and strode on.
And I suddenly realised—that hadn’t happened to me for a long time.
Before it was my turn to pass, I sucked in my middle, shook back my short, freshly-coloured-to-banish-the-grey locks, thrust out my chest and adjusted my sarong into a new fetching angle that showed just a bit of thigh. The crew had all gone back to work. Most of them didn’t even look up. But I slowed down anyway, gazed boldly at the nearest workman and gave him a big smile.
He gave me a friendly nod and smiled back—like he might at his mum. Come to think of it, I was probably old enough to be his mum.
Back in our bedroom, I stared at my rounded tummy and the interesting network of lines around my eyes—and then at the dress I’d brought to wear out on my big night. The one that had looked so slinky and alluring on the matchstick person in the shop window. I held it against myself and stretched it across my front. It wasn’t unlike the dress I’d worn on my twenty-fifth—when I was still slim and glowing. Now I’d look like a celebration dumpling.
‘Forties are cool these days, Mum,’ my sixteen-year-old daughter Kelly had said comfortingly before we left. ‘Look at Madonna,’ she added, as if there might possibly be a comparison to be made. ‘She’s still sexy.’
‘I am clearly not,’ I said to John, wounded. ‘Not one of them even bothered to whistle.’
‘You used to moan when they did,’ John reminded me. ‘You used to say it was sexist.’
‘Hmm.’ I did not wish to hear anything rational. ‘Then at least I had the choice of being offended. Now I haven’t. I am old and decrepit.’
I paused for John to gallantly refute this but I raised my eyes to see him gazing in open-mouthed admiration at the pretty dark-haired waitress in the cropped white T-shirt who was sashaying her way between the tables.
‘See!’ I said. ‘Even you’d rather ogle her!’
John looked at me. ‘Actually,’ he said mildly, ‘I was just hoping Kelly doesn’t slide off and get her belly pierced like that while we’re away.’
I pulled a face. ‘With my mother in charge? I was twenty before she’d let me have my ears done. Twenty,’ I added bitterly. ‘We don’t appreciate youth at the time, do we?’
John laughed. ‘You poor old thing! Downright ancient, aren’t you?’
‘I’m glad you think it’s funny!’ I said hotly. Stupidly, I felt the tears rise in my eyes.
John frowned. ‘Perhaps you…’
I glared, daring him to even think PMT. ‘I’m not,’ I snapped. ‘Or were you going to suggest the menopause?’ I sniffed huffily.
‘What?’ He looked startled. ‘I was going to say: have another drink. It’s your birthday tomorrow.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ I said crossly, a hand over my glass.
I woke in the morning to find the other half of the bed empty. I sat up in alarm. Had I driven John away with my grouchiness? The whole evening had been awkward after that and John had eventually lost patience. ‘It’s only a number,’ he’d said irritably. ‘We all get older—you’ll just have to face it.’ We’d got into bed hardly speaking.
Now he’d gone, leaving a note on the bedside table. Gone to Beach Bar for Breakfast. No card. No kisses. I looked at it with a fresh lump in my throat as I suddenly felt ridiculous and selfish. John had tried so hard to make this lovely for me and he was right. I might as well accept I was middle-aged and start acting it instead of flouncing about like a petulant adolescent. Or—as Kelly’s words rang in my ears again—perhaps I should cut my hair, start going to the gym and get my own navel pierced. I threw on my T-shirt and shorts and ran my fingers through my hair. Whatever I did, who cared about a bunch of Spanish builders? Right now I was going to find my husband…
I was too busy framing my apology speech to be looking at the scaffolding this morning. I was almost running as I hurried down the hill towards the beach but the noise made me jump. I looked round for a local beauty but there was only me. And, high up on a plank, clutching one of the poles and looking a little green around the edges was John. He waved, wobbled, put two fingers back in his mouth and emitted another ear-splitting whistle.
Various heads in safety helmets appeared and followed suit.
I put my hands to my mouth as a rose fell at my feet. Moments later John clambered down a ladder beside it, looking grateful to be on solid ground. ‘If I were a builder, I’d always whistle,’ he said.
As he kissed me there was a cheer from above and a catcall of things that I presume were Spanish for, ‘Get in there, John.’
‘You’re still pretty gorgeous to me,’ John said, wrapping his arms round me. ‘However old you are.’
I hugged him back, feeling suddenly light and happy and Madonna-like after all. I looked at him through lowered lashes and adopted my sexiest tones. ‘Even if I get my belly-button pierced?’ John poked a finger into my midriff and ducked as I tried to thump him. But he was holding me tight as he grinned. ‘You’d have to find it first…’