The three of them had been planning this trip for a year. Their first trip away together, well abroad at least. Or “overseas” as Martha liked to call it when she was in company. Martha and Bella had been to Blackpool with Stan and Albert but that hadn’t really counted as they had been forced to run around after their dependent husbands for almost the entire week, leaving little time for themselves.
“It’s like chasing around after a couple of small dogs with a plastic bag,”
Martha had observed with an air of weary resignation one afternoon on the seafront where they sat outside a tacky tourist shop, keeping an eye on their respective husbands. Stan was trying on a baseball cap complete with artificial patches of red hair sticking wildly out at the sides and the words “Red Head, Ginger Nuts!” on the front. She took out her cigarettes and offered one to Bella. Lighting Bella’s first and then her own, Martha propelled a jet of smoke through disappointed lips and finished her thought. “You’re always having to watch to see where they shit next.”
At first Bella had felt Martha was being a bit harsh. Stan and Albert were, after all, on holiday. But, as she continued to watch the two men from the safe distance of the bench across the road, which afforded both women an unobstructed view of the shop’s plate glass window, she was starting to feel that Martha had a point.
Not to be outdone, Albert had fished out a pair of white underpants from one of the store’s bargain bins, briefs you would call them Bella supposed, with the words “BANANA HAMMOCK” in curvy yellow banana font emblazoned over the crotch and was now holding them up to his waist as he gyrated round the front of the store in the way he had seen the male contestants do in that ballroom dancing show. He pirouetted between the “Buy One Get One Free” bins with the grace of a drunken wrestler.
“And doesn’t it make you wonder if you’ve brought enough bags to put the shit in?” Bella added wistfully.
Jane had at first seemed like an odd choice for their third wheel. Bella and Martha were forces of nature and Jane struck most people as a bit more timid. Maybe precisely because Jane seemed less able to stand up for herself, Bella and Martha had opened their arms and hearts to her without reservation and had made an unspoken pact to squash anyone who might try to take advantage of Jane’s softness.
“Maybe she’s like a new car or something,” mused Martha one morning over coffee in the kitchen at Bella’s house, not long before the trip. “You know, cautious. Where you’re scared to go too fast or get it dirty or park it in too small a space in case you get a bash or a scrape.”
“And we’re just like a couple of old bangers,” countered Bella, starting to giggle in that way that Martha knew spelled trouble. “With a saggy suspension,” she added, leaping off the kitchen stool and jumping up and down, sticking out her bottom as it wiggled and quivered with every jump.
“And dodgy headlights,” Martha roared with laughter, grabbing her boobs, like she had seen Madonna do in the Wonderbra Tour, making each momentarily head off in a different direction before stopping to wipe the tears from her eyes.
So this trip to Spain, to see Julio, the crooner from Castille, held, for each of the three friends in a different way, the promise of a new beginning.
Bella and Martha had met Jane at the gym. The gym had been the last and the most enduring of a long line of activities Bella and Martha had dreamed up to share more of their time together. Martha had suggested cooking classes but that idea had been short lived when Bella had an argument with Richard the “class mentor” (Richard didn’t like hierarchy) about what size of macaroon constituted one that was crass and an affront to the French traditions of “macaron” (Richard said it with a French accent) baking. Bella had been accused of making giant almond meringues and had responded by leaving one of her oversized creations, complete with chocolate ganache, on Richard’s seat just before he sat down. After Richard suggested they might find somewhere else to explore their creativity, Bella had signed them up for flower arranging classes. But Martha had taken exception to the cardigan and pearls brigade of women from the local church, whose attempts to convert them to chrysanthemums had offended Martha’s ideas around the separation of church and state.
They had both seen signs for the Zumba class and had watched captivated through the steamy windows of the local leisure center but, ultimately, had felt intimidated by the firm thighs and buttocks of the younger Zumba students. It did, however, get Bella thinking. Of course, as Bella liked to remind her friend at every opportunity, it had taken her some time and effort to convince Martha of the benefits of a gym membership and it had been a “hard sell” by Bella to “close the deal,” two phrases she had picked up from her nephew who was a business studies student.
“It sounds awful,” Martha groaned, making the same wrinkled-up face that she used when someone was describing sushi to her. “I mean all that sweating and grunting. It’s just not healthy, as far as I can see.”
“Unless it’s you and Albert…,” cackled Bella, poking her friend in the ribs before adding, “exercising,” a word to which she ascribed air quotes with the first two fingers of both hands the way she had seen people do on television.
“Chance would be a fine thing,” Martha rolled her eyes. “Talk about a dry spell,” she signaled towards her lap with her glass of chilled, butter-oaked Chardonnay. “More like the Sahara desert!” she giggled which, of course, set Bella off again until they two of them were knocking against each other like two jellies in a pan, filling the small alcove of their favorite wine bar on the High Street. As the aftershocks of their eruptive laughter subsided, hankies dabbing at the tears which escaped from the corners of their eyes, the pair settled back into their seats and enjoyed a moment of companionable silence.
“Sometimes I just go to catch up on my Soaps.”
“How do you mean? Go where?” Martha asked popping another deep-fried mozzarella ball into her eager mouth.
“To the gym. They have bikes and you can just sit down on that big bum of yours and watch all your TV shows. Real Housewives, Naked and Afraid, Locked Up Abroad. Anything.”
“Oooooh,” Mabel cooed, “that sounds nice,” her voice muffled as she sucked in gulps of air and flapped her hand up and down in front of her mouth, frantically trying to cool down the superheated cheesy appetizer. “Our cable’s been playing up.”
Bella sensed that Martha’s interest had been piqued. “You know what else they have? They have a spa with a sauna, massages and…,” Bella paused for dramatic effect, knowing that she had saved the best until last, “a fully stocked wine bar.” She wasn’t sure what counted as fully stocked but she knew it was the kind of thing that would appeal to Martha.
“You’re kidding!” Martha looked genuinely shocked, swilling down her glass. The same way she had looked when she had found out that Keanu Reeves played for the other team. “And it’s not organic or anything funny like that?” Bella responded by vigorously shaking her head, her brow furrowed and mouth puckering up as if she had just sucked on a lemon.
“Of course,” Bella pantomimed a straight face and adopted her best mother superior accent, “I go for the physical challenge because my body…,” she paused as she ostentatiously exhibited the fine state of her well upholstered frame with a sweep of her hand from head to waist, “my body is a temple.”
“Yeah, right. A Grecian temple, more like,” snorted Martha, reaching for the bottle to top herself up. “Ruined!” she cackled with a slap of her ski pant leg as they both hooted their way out of happy hour.
